Serenus and other stories of the past and present

SERENUS, AND OTHER STORIES

("'Serenus,' a little philosophical tale which may one
clay stand out in the history of the thought of the nine-
teenth century, just as to-day 'Candide' or 'Zadig'
•lands out in that of the eighteenth." — *flnatole France.)

SERENVS

fir OTHER STORIES ~

OP THE PAST& PRESENT

BY
JVLES LEMAITRB

Translated by
AW Evans

LONDON

ELKIN MATHEWS#MARROT,L™
54 BLOOMSBVKT STREET, \V. C.I

CONTENTS

PAGE

SERENUS . . . . . . .11

MYRRHA . . . . . . • 57

LILITH 91

THE BELL . . . . . . .105

SAINT JOHN AND THE DUCHESS ANNE. . 117

THE Two FLOWERS . . . . . 125

THE WHITE CHAPEL • -* . . . 165
CHARITY ....«.«. 175

HELLE . . „ , . . . . 189

NAUSICAA ....... 207

PRINCESS MIMI'S LOVERS . . . . ,221

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY .«..*. 237

MELIE . .. « 259

A CONSCIENCE 277

SERENUS

SERENUS

TWO MARTYRS

ONE morning in the month of March
in the year 90, an hour before sun-
rise, a few men were assembled at the
gate of the Mamertine prison, on the steps of
the stairs that led from the slope of the Asylum
to the street called that of the forum of Mars.
In the middle was an old man with a long, white
beard, thick veins on his forehead, and piercing
eyes. Two empty litters lay at the bottom of
the steps.

It was cold ; a drizzling rain fell ; in the
east the sky held a tinge of wan and miry yellow.
The Eternal City, which was just emerging from
darkness, displayed all round the Capitol a sort
of wave of greyish houses, like a muddy sea after
a storm. Huge monuments rose up here and
there, and their wet summits shone feebly in
the dawn.

" It is morning, Styrax," said the old man
to one of his companions.

" Yes, most holy father. My poor master,
Serenus, was able to send me word yesterday
evening, and I have done what had to be done
in order that they should give us his body.
And here is Demea who will take charge of that
of the illustrious^ex-consul, Flavius Clemens.

ii

12 SERENUS

The lictor and the triumvirs who preside over
executions are already in the prison ; but the
jailer will not allow us to enter until all is over."

" Let us pray for our brethren," murmured
the old man.

At that moment the three magistrates whose
duty it was to preside at executions went out
of the prison. Styrax presented to one of them
a document on which a seal was affixed.

" It is correct ; the jailer will give you the
bodies," said the triumvir, pointing to a fair-
haired giant, a man of Germanic race, who was
standing, with a torch in his hand, on the thres-
hold of the half-open door.

Styrax and Demea entered behind the jailer,
followed by the old man and by three men
carrying the stretchers.

A vestibule, a long dark corridor, some steps,
and then a cell. In the middle, a body covered
with a mantle, and a severed head, a long head
with hollow cheeks and grey hair.

" This is the body of Flavius Clemens," said
the jailer.

A small pool of blood shone on the ground.
One of the men dipped into it the corner of a
piece of white linen, which he carefully rolled
up and hid under his tunic.

They passed into the next cell.

The body of a young man lay in the corner.
The head had not been severed from the trunk.
The beard and hair were black, the features
delicate and proud. By a singular circumstance,
the refined lips, half-open in a slight grimace,
and the somewhat hard bend of the narrowed

SERENUS 13

eyebrows seemed to give that handsome and
enigmatic countenance an air of irony and pride
even in death.

" This," said the jailer, " is the body of Marcus
Annaeus Serenus. He was found dead this
morning, and the triumvirs said that it was not
worth while to behead a corpse. I think he
poisoned himself."

The rugged face of the old priest contracted
suddenly. It showed surprise, pain, and anger.

" You are mistaken," he said harshly ; " Mar-
cus had been ill a long time. Prison has finished
him, and it is not surprising. Is it not so,
brethren ? " he added in an imperious tone,
turning towards his companions.

Styrax was weeping. The others were busy
placing the two bodies on the stretchers, and
when this was done they kissed the feet.

On their way out they met a group of idlers
— porters, slaves, and a public crier — who fol-
lowed the procession curiously with their eyes.

" Would you all like to know," said the crier,
" who it is that you have just seen carried feet
forwards on their last journey ? Two patricians,
if you please ! Flavius Clemens, the ex-consul,
the Emperor's own cousin, and Serenus, whose
father, in byegone times, helped to recruit pretty
women for Nero's pleasures. Domitian has
condemned them to death because they con-
spired against the State, and, although they
were patricians, he has had them put in prison
and beheaded, because that was his good pleasure.
Only, as you see, he has excused their bodies
from being publicly exposed, a thing he would

14 SERENUS

not do for people who were as poor as you or me.
The ex-consul's wife and niece as well as Serenus's
sister are now on their way to the island of
Pandataria. Besides, these things were done
without the least noise. It was in the same way
that, two or three years ago, not a few senators
and great ladies disappeared one fine morning
without anybody knowing why. It teaches us
the vanity of greatness. As to those people
who are with the two dead men, they are Chris-
tians, that is to say, the scum of the Jews. They
worship an ass's head and are the enemies of the
Roman people. I am by trade a carrier of
news, being the grandson and successor of the
famous Vulteius Mena, who lived under the
divine Augustus, and of whom the poet Horace
has left an account. And now, as it is nearly
daybreak and we must get on with our work,
I am going to the tavern to drink a pot of Sabine
wine.5>

Meanwhile the little band of Christians, after
having passed along the Via Sacra and the Via
Triumphalis, passed through the Capenan Gate
and took the Appian Way. At that hour the
road was almost deserted, except for a few market-
gardeners who, with their carts, were making for
the city.

The rain had ceased, and fine weather had
come with the dawn. The tombs that bordered
both sides of the ringing causeway shone with
the recent rain, and sparkled in the light of the
sun which was now rising through the groves
that surrounded the sepulchres. Raindrops glis-
tened on the fresh leaves of the rose-laurels ;

SERENUS 15

the lilac was in flower, and on the branches of
other trees the early leaves were coming out like
a green froth. Birds were singing about the
sepulchres, and a pleasant odour hung in the
air.

The Christians, with their haggard faces
bending over the bodies of their martyrs, passed
sadly through this scene of nature's joy and
animation. One of them, however, could not
prevent himself from saying :

" What a beautiful morning ! "

The iook which the old priest turned towards
him made him understand that he had spoken
idly. Evidently the old man cared nothing for
the trees, the birds, or the sun. He was in-
different to everything except his own thoughts,
and the joy of external things was at the moment
an offence from which he turned away his
eyes.

After walking along the Appian Way for about
an hour, the Christians turned to the right, and
took the Via Ardeatina. At the end of some
few hundred paces they stopped in front of a
long, low building of brick that stood against
a little hill blooming with primroses. This was
the tomb of Flavius Clemens. They opened the
door, lighted a torch, and placed the two bodies
in a large subterranean chamber.

The priest dismissed his companions :

" Leave me with our martyrs ; to-morrow
we shall celebrate their funerals. Inform the
faithful of it."

Left alone, he placed the torch in an iron
sconce fixed in the wall. From time to time

l6 SERENUS

flickers of light shone strongly on his rugged
features, which one would have said had been
carved out of some hard wood, and played upon
the folds of the two shrouds, which then seemed
to move, whilst red reflections danced upon the
vaulted roof.

He knelt on the flagstones, between the two
corpses, and prayed for a long time. Then he
lifted up one of the shrouds and took in his
hands the severed head of Flavius Clemens. It
was as yellow as wax. The arched nose was
already growing thin, and the whites of the
reverted eyes and the glitter of the rather long
teeth between the bloodless lips gave a terrifying
appearance to this dead head. The priest
kissed its brow, attempted without success to
close the mouth and eyes, and gently placed it
back upon the stretcher.

Afterwards he uncovered the face of Serenus.
The ironical mouth had relaxed, the bend of
the eyebrows had become effaced, and the
immobile features had an impress of gentle
sweetness. The priest gazed long and piercingly
on that pleasing countenance, as if he desired
to look into the mysterious soul which no longer
dwelt in that graceful body. And as he gazed
at it, he was possessed with anger against this
Christian who seemed to have passed away without
pain, like a Gentile in his warmed bath, against
this doubtful martyr whose body showed no
mark of expiatory sufferings, against this man,
almost smiling in his last sleep, who had carried
away his secret with him.

While he was scrutinizing this corpse with a

SERENUS 17

silent and furious interrogation, one of his hands
rested on Serenus's breast. He felt beneath
the shroud something unyielding, which had
the shape of a roll of papyrus. He searched the
dead man's clothing and found in the folds of
the silken tunic, which he roughly tore open,
a little purple case, and in the case a narrow band
of parchment rolled around a little ivory stick.
He recognized the handwriting of Serenus ;
but, as the characters were very small, he could
not decipher them by the flickering light of the
torch.

Then, without even thinking of covering up
the pale face of his brother in Christ, he rushed
from the sepulchre, hastily closed the door, and
fled towards Rome with rapid steps.

The crowd was beginning to swarm in the
streets. There were bands of clients going to
seek doles, or slaves returning with provisions ;
idlers collected round a street acrobat or a
juggler ; vendors of charms and vendors of
tripe ; citizens waiting their turn under a
barber's shelter ; women of the people crowding,
with earthenware bowls in their hands, in front
of taverns where were sold fried peas, boiled
lupines, beans, and sausages made of boiled
sheep's heads ; children almost naked and as
brown as crickets, paddling in the mud of the
kennel ; a troop of asses carrying refuse in osier
paniers ; beams of wood rocking on carts ; jolts,
shouts, oaths, voices lost in an immense murmur ;
all colours, all costumes, all languages — a mingling
of all the peoples of the universe.

But the old man, wrapped in a coarse mantle

l8 SERENUS

of grey wool, elbowed and forced his way through
the crush without seeing anything or hearing
anything. He plunged into the Via Suburra and
entered a cracked and dark old house, five storeys
high, which stood between a tavern frequented
by slaves and a cobbler's stall. It was here that
he lived, because he was a very holy man who
practised poverty and treated his body harshly,
and also because he found in this miserable
district better and more numerous opportunities
for preaching the faith of Christ.

He climbed a steep and uneven staircase of
wood, built in the inner courtyard. When he
reached the fifth storey, he opened a door on
which was written in red letters the name —
Timotheus.

This was the old man's name, and the inscrip-
tion was intended to make it easier for the
faithful to find his garret. A straw mat, a stool,
a table, and some earthen vessels made up his
furniture. Through the window, where the
wind was tossing an ill-fastened curtain, there
entered the noise of Rome.

Timotheus drew Serenus's manuscript from
beneath his tunic and read it eagerly.

ii

THE MANUSCRIPT OF SERENUS

" I am very foolish to undertake this con-
fession. Either it will not be read, or it will
grieve those who will read it. But perhaps by

SERENUS 19

describing myself to myself for the last time,
I shall justify myself in my own eyes. Excellent
hearts have loved me, and none has truly known
me. Now, although I have long prided myself
on living within myself and allowing nobody
to enter there, my secret weighs upon me to-
day. A regret comes to me, almost a remorse,
for having played so well the strange part that
circumstances and my curiosity have ended by
imposing on me. I should like, so as to persuade
myself that I could not have done otherwise,
to go back over the chain of my feelings and
actions from my most distant past to this day
on which I am going to die.

" My father, L. Annaeus Serenus, was Nero's
captain of the guards. He had a noble heart,
a restless spirit, and a feeble will. He was
ambitious and yet convinced of the vanity of
all things, voluptuous and yet prompt to feel
the bitterness that lies beneath carnal pleasures,
loving life and despising it, full of desires and
void of illusions. He consented to pass for the
lover of Acte, the freedwoman, so that, under
this disguise, Nero, who was then very young
and closely watched over by Agrippina, might
be able to see his mistress freely. There was
nothing noble in this part to which my father
lent himself. His excuse was that he only half
lied, Acte not being very cruel. But he thus
ran a greater hazard than he would have done
if he had refused :he prince this delicate service.
But it was one of my father's characteristics
to take vengeance upon his own weaknesses by
dangerous caprices. Add to this that the morals

2O SERENUS

of the Eastern Courts were beginning to be
introduced into that of the Roman emperors, and
that obedience to the prince, in no matter what
circumstances, was already regarded as honourable.
Finally, my father had a sort of affection for
Nero, which was in part justified. Nero was at
that epoch a vain, violent, and crafty young
man, but he was not without artistic tastes,
and sometimes his feline and engaging manners
had the appearance of tenderness. Later, that
bad actor, infatuated with power, became one
of the worst of men. At eighteen, he was only
a handsome and capricious monster, sometimes
as attractive as a woman.

" My father was only able to give me very
little attention, and my mother did not bother
to give me any. My early education was thus
entrusted to slaves, and to witty and immoral
Greek preceptors. Happily, a certain distinction
of nature preserved me from a precocious de-
gradation. I was an intelligent child, excessively
impressionable, gentle, thoughtful, and without
gaiety.

" I was twelve years old when the great fire
destroyed half of Rome and deprived two hundred
thousand wretches of their homes. For two or
three years, in spite of the enormous distribu-
tions of bread and money ordered by the Emperor,
there was frightful misery in Rome. The spec-
tacle of so much unmerited suffering wounded
me to the heart with an incurable wound. I
realized the injustice of things and the absurdity
of human destinies. I found it unjust that my
father should have five hundred slaves when so

SERENUS 21

many poor people were dying of hunger. I
gave them all the money of which I could dis-
pose. But with the rigid logic of my years,
I thought they owed me no thanks, and I fled
from their effusions, the crudity of which,
moreover, offended my childish and aristocratic
taste.

" One day my preceptor led me to a great
feast which Nero was giving to the people in his
gardens. In order to avert the anger of the
mob, who accused him of having started the
fire, he caused several hundreds of Christians
to be arrested. Most of these had recently
been thrown to the beasts in the circus. Others,
clothed in sacks that had been smeared with
resin, were fastened to large stakes some distance
apart from one another along the broad walks. As
night fell, these were set on fire. The populace
crowded with shouts around these living torches.
The flame which enveloped the victims was
sometimes blown aside by the wind, and dis-
closed horrible faces and gaping mouths whose
cries could not be heard. An odour of burnt
flesh filled the air. ... I had an attack of nerves,
and I was carried away half-dead.

" The shock was a severe one ; and although
the most painful impressions are quickly effaced
at that age, some remnant of it remained with
me, a lassitude that seized me at certain moments,
a melancholy, a weariness of life, rare in a child.

" Meanwhile, Seneca, my father's friend, had
retired from the Court, and, in his country house,
was preparing to make a good death. He was
a strange and engaging man ; a great director

22 SERENUS

of souls, who knew how to penetrate into their
recesses and communicate to others the strength
and serenity which he himself lacked ; a fastidious
being, fond of luxury and a life of elegance, who
imposed upon himself secret privations and lived
like a Pythagorean ; the best and noblest of men
if he had not feared death. It was for this
reason that he spoke of it so often. He spent
twenty years conquering his fear ; and when
he had succeeded, it was almost too late for the
honour of his memory.

" My father often went to see him. He took
me with him, and I was present during their
interviews. I was fifteen years old ; and I
listened eagerly to their words. I soon embraced
Stoicism with a youthful fervour.

" An Intelligence is immanent in the world ;
there it creates order in all its degrees, and the
wise man is its highest expression. Virtue is
conformity with the will of the universal order.
Justice and reason tend to reign in the world.
If evil seems to us to triumph, it is because we
do not see all, and we occupy ourselves with but a
moment of duration. Let us abstain, let us
suffer. Let us seek our joy in ourselves. After
death, we shall either live a superior life in an
ethereal region, or we shall enter again into the
bosom of God. — I loved this philosophy of
detachment and pride, and I lived arrogantly
within myself, proud of feeling myself a possessor
of the secret of the sublime aims of the universe.

" On certain points I went farther than my
masters. Seneca proclaimed the equality of men :
I inferred the emancipation of slaves. My

SERENUS 23

father, with greater calmness, said : ' Let us
wait ! '

" I greatly admired Seneca's bombastic death.
His wife, Paulina, a rather simple woman who
was always on her knees before her husband,
opened one of her own veins, desiring to follow
him. Happily help came in time to save her,
and she did not reject it. I have since suspected
that there was a little acting, or at least arrange-
ment, in all this.

" Shortly afterwards came the civil war, the
soldiers of Otho and Vitellius butchering one
another in the streets of Rome, and the ignoble
populace looking on at the massacre as at the
games in the circus. The sight of so much
horror and shame revived the frightful impres-
sions of my childhood and confirmed me in my
proud sadness.

" My father, whom I loved tenderly, died in
the first year of Vespasian's reign. Towards the
end of his life he thought me too formal and
austere, and rallied me on the rigidity of my
youthful restraint. After having passed through
Stoicism, he had reached an indulgent and
amused scepticism, no longer believing in any-
thing, but finding the world curious as it is,
even though it be abominable, and valuing
above all things kindness and gentleness. I
struggled to bear this burden like a Stoic, but
before his funeral pyre I burst into tears.

" My mother died two months later, in giving
life to my beloved sister, Serena. Thus I was
left almost alone in the world, master of a very
large fortune, and free from all material cares.

24 SERENUS

Styrax, my father's old steward, managed my
property, and my little sister was under the
care of the faithful Athana, my mother's nurse,
who was devoted body and soul to our house.
I led a studious and austere life, reading the
philosophers and poets, eating nothing but
vegetables and sleeping on a mat, polite to all
who approached me, but preferring my solitude
and my meditations to the society of men, and
honestly endeavouring to realize the ideal of
the sage. But I was chaste and respected my
body. Among the fair symbolical divinities
whom we have borrowed from Greece, I chose
the proud Artemis for patron, and I had sworn,
like the Hippolytus of Euripides, never to know

women.

H

In spite of my theories, I still kept my slaves.
At least I postponed their freedom, telling myself
that they were not unhappy in my service, and
also rinding a pleasure in keeping them without
making use of their services, and in living like
a poor man in the midst of all the resources of
extreme opulence.

" This fine Stoic ardour lasted three months.
Then came lassitude, a doubt concerning the
excellence of this rule of life, a vague desire for
something else. Doubtless also the effort against
Nature that I had just made left me too fatigued
and thus more disarmed and weak against tempta-
tions.

" One spring day, I went, for the first time
since my bereavement, to one of those places of
promenade frequented by people who love
pleasure. I rubbed elbows in the temple of

SERENUS 25

Pompey with painted and perfumed women,
sparkling with jewels. Continuing to stroll at
hazard, I found myself in the Appian Way at
the fashionable hour. There was a dazzling
concourse of luxurious equipages, men of fashion
in their litters borne on the shoulders of eight
slaves, open chairs in which matrons reclined,
fanned by negresses. Two Numidian grooms
went past me like a whirlwind, and behind them
came a carriage hung with red silk, and driven
by a woman of great beauty. I gazed at her with
a rather shy and sullen air, hiding an ingenuous
admiration. She stopped her horses and made
me a sign to mount beside her. I obeyed, and
it was only the next day that I remembered the
precepts of the Porch. This woman was Lycisca,
a notorious freedwoman. What was the reason
of this caprice of hers ? Perhaps when she met
me, she knew who I was and knew that I was
rich. She pretended that she had carried me
off simply to amuse herself and because my looks,
which were like those of an astonished young
savage, had pleased her. This is not impossible,
for Lycisca was a girl of imagination and caprice.
She initiated me into fashionable life, and cost
me only two million sesterces.

" Thenceforward it was as if I were possessed
with the fury of a revenge. At first, desiring to
reconcile my life with my maxims of detachment,
I told myself that in order knowingly to despise
carnal joys, it is necessary to have experienced
them, especially in their most refined and keenest
forms. Then, after having excused myself by
this admirable philosophical scruple, I abandoned

26 SERENUS

myself to my new life with the curiosity of a
psychologist and an artist. I endeavoured to
divide myself into two, to stand outside my own
sensations in order to analyse them and enjoy
them better. But it was the reverse that hap-
pened. For if enjoyment is to be as keen as possi-
ble, an absence of introspection, an abandonment
of oneself, is doubtless necessary. I had the
lassitude and disgust of carnal pleasures without
having their intoxication. I desired to awaken
this, but precisely because I tried, it did not come.
My inexorable habit of introspection made me
nearly always unadapted to pleasure. I could
not forget myself. In the middle of the wildest
or most refined orgy, my head remained cold ;
I felt the emptiness of all things and I was filled
with dissatisfaction.

" And yet, according to all appearances, it has
been given me to live in a time when the power
and art of enjoyment have been brought to their
highest pitch. Never, I think, has there been
seen or will there again be seen so small a number
of men employing for their own profit and
absorbing for their own pleasure a greater num-
ber of human existences. Some of my friends
had as many as three thousand slaves, and riches
whose limits they did not know. And the
science of pleasure equalled the resources of which
it could dispose. Several generations of a privi-
leged class had studied the means of refining upon,
varying, and multiplying agreeable sensations.
Assuredly the men who will come after us will be
hardly able to form a notion of the life that some
among us have known and practised. For

SERENUS 27

reasons which it is useless to give here, the wealth
of private persons can only decrease in future.
And some men foresee the time when the bar-
barians will break through the barriers of the
Empire. Then will come the close of the
banquet. . . .

" But, just as the future will find it hard to
imagine the intensity of our physical pleasures,
so perhaps it will fail to understand the depth
of our satiety ; and it will wonder, as it reads
our chronicles, at the number of men of our
time who have taken their own lives.

" After fifteen years of orgies, coarse and delicate
in turn, with my body exhausted, my senses
dulled, and my heart completely empty of every
belief, even of every illusion, what was there for
me to do ? The world seemed to me an absurd
spectacle which no longer interested me. I had
retained that native gentleness which came to
me from my father, but only because it was
agreeable to me to be kind, and even this was
becoming indifferent to me. Moreover, all action
was repugnant to me ; public offices, having
become base and precarious, disgusted me in
advance. I was plunged in an immense and
incurable weariness. Having no longer any
reason to live, I resolved to die.

" Death did not frighten me : for me it was
the great liberator ; but I wished it to be without
pain.

" After freeing all those of my slaves whom I
judged to be capable of making a good use of
their liberty, I spent two days without taking
any food, and then I placed myself in a bath

28 SERENUS

into which warm water was continually poured.
I had caused the marble bath-tub to be installed
in the peristyle of my house, and while the
heat of the bath was gradually exhausting my
strength, rare flowers with strong and heady
perfumes were asphyxiating me deliciously. I
had the sensation of a voluptuous and mortal
swoon, in which little by little my whole being
was melting and dissolving. With my head
thrown backward, I gazed, without thinking of
anything, at one of the -corners of the purple
curtain of the bathroom, and round about the
curtain, some little clouds, floating on the blue
sky, assumed the forms of women I had known ;
and it seemed to me that a fragment of my soul,
detaching itself from me at each breath, was
going to rejoin them in the kindling azure. . . .

" * Do you know me, Marcus ? ' said a very
gentle voice.

" I opened my eyes. I was in my bed, and
Serena, my sister, was standing beside me.

" Styrax, seeing that I had fainted in my bath,
had taken me out of it without heeding the
consequences of his disobedience. He had carried
me to my room, and had unclenched my teeth
and given me a little soup. Brain fever soon
declared itself, and for a week I had lain between
life and death.

" When I perceived Serena bending over me,
I thought I was looking at some wondrous figure
that had come from a better and more beautiful

SERENUS 29

world than ours. She was sixteen years old,
had white skin and fair hair, and possessed an
immaterial and, so to say, transparent beauty
that displayed her whole soul, as well as an air
of innocence and gravity that I have never seen
except in her.

" My existence had hitherto been entirely
separated from hers. She lived retired in her
apartment under the care of old Athana. When
I determined to die, I did not tell Serena of my
intention, fearing a painful scene, and I had not
even wished to see her. The poor child had been
informed of what took place by Styrax, and had
passed seven days and seven nights at my bedside.
She was worn out with fatigue, and there was a
look of infinite sweetness, the look of a star, in
her big eyes.

" * Do you know me, dear Marcus ? ' she
repeated.

" I drew her towards me, kissed her brow, and
wept for a long time.

" I recovered, but my attempt at suicide left
me extremely weak for several months. I had
neither desires nor regrets, neither sadness nor
joy. Yet in this death of my being, a new senti-
ment had awakened. I began to adore my sister
Serena, to love her with an humble, timid, reli-
gious love ; and although I was twenty years
older than she, I obeyed her just as a little
child obeys his mother. It was more than
fraternal affection ; it was a particular kind of
love, nothing approaching which had I ever before
experienced. Serena was so different from all
the women I had met. It seemed to me that this

3O SERENUS

love conjured up my earliest days and brought
back whatever used to be good in me, my youthful
ardours and aspirations towards supreme purity.
Then in proportion as my intelligence recovered
its vigour, my habits of curiosity came back to
me, and little by little I brought to my passionate
affection for my sister the attention of a spectator
attracted by the spectacle of an extraordinary
soul.

" One day Serena said to me :

" * Will you do me a great pleasure ? Come
with me to-morrow morning to the place where
I will take you ? '

" ' I will go where you wish, Serena.'

" ' Then be ready early.'

" At dawn the next day, Serena was waiting
for me in the atrium with some twenty of our
slaves.

" ' Are they coming with us ? '

" < Of course.'

" On the way she asked me if I had ever heard
of the Christians, and what I knew about them.

" ' Very little,' I answered. ' They are, I
believe, a Jewish sect, or, at all events, a creed
that has corne to us from the East, like many
another now in Rome. People say that they are
half-starved creatures, mad and distracted, that
they have strange ceremonies, that they worship
an ass's head, and that they are enemies of the
Empire.'

" * Do you believe that it was they who set fire
to Rome in the time of Nero ? '

" ' My father did not think so. It was neces-
sary to attribute the guilt to somebody on

SERENUS 31

account of the people ; and it was put down to
the Christians. And, by the way, you remind
me that an idiot of a pedagogue took me to the
Emperor's gardens (I was quite a child) to see
some of the wretches burnt there '

" ' You really saw them ? ' interrupted Serena,
whose eyes suddenly flashed.

" Then, after a long silence, she asked me :

" * But you, yourself. Do you believe what
is said about them ? Is it your opinion that the
Christians are scoundrels and madmen ? '

" ' Oh, I ; my dear Serena, I have no opinion
on the subject and I don't bother myself about
it. And then, you know, I am not severe towards
unhappy people. I am not surprised that the
wretches find their lot a bad one, and I can well
understand why they should revolt. I have no
anger towards them. Rather I have some sym-
pathy, being ill myself, and disgusted with the
world as it is, for all rebels whatever be the
reason of their rebellion. But why do you ask
me all this ? '

" ' Because I am a Christian,' said Serena
calmly.

" I had long learnt to be surprised at nothing.

" ' If you are a Christian, Serena, then the
Christians are better than people say, and I am
curious to make their acquaintance.'

" l You won't have long to wait, for we are
there now.'

" And she showed me, on the Via Ardeatina,
along which we had been walking for some time,
one of the sepulchres of the Flavian family.
A man was standing in the vestibule. Serena

32 SERENUS

gave him a password and we entered the vault,
followed by our slaves. About fifty persons were
there already, most of them kneeling, others
seated on stone benches along the walls.

" The partition walls of the sepulchre were
pierced with horizontal niches, some of which
were closed with tombstones, others yawning and
awaiting their dead. Four painted garlands, one
of roses, another of thorns, the third of grapes,
and the last of laurel, were twined about the
arch. Above these garlands, a fresco represented
harvesters, with sickles in their hands, cutting
the corn. High up on the walls and in the spaces
between the niches, there were other symbolical
pictures whose meaning was revealed to me after-
wards— a shepherd carrying a lamb on his
shoulders, whom at first I took for Mercury
bearing a lamb, anchors, ships, doves, and fishes.
At the end of the hall were two pulpits hewn out
of the rock. Between the two was a stone altar
on which were placed pieces of bread, and wine
in a large cup. The hall was lit by copper lamps
engraved with the same symbols as were on the
walls.

" Other Christians entered. Since the terrible
blow with which Nero had struck the sect, they
had formed the habit of assembling outside the
city, in tombs, under the pretext of funeral
ceremonies and repasts. At the period when I
knew them, they were left undisturbed. But
the fear of persecution, a thing which was always
possible, gave to these meetings an air of mystery
that to me increased their strange novelty.

*' I perceived in the assembly the consul for

SERENUS 33

the year, Flavius Clemens. This explained why
the meeting was held in one of the tombs of his
[amily. I recognized the wife of Clemens, and
ais niece, and Pomponia Groecina, and Paulina,
Seneca's widow, still pale from having followed
her husband more than half-way towards death.
They had veils that fell down very low and
concealed their hair. Finally, in the front rank,
I saw Acte, Nero's old mistress and my father's
old friend, still beautiful in spite of her fifty
years, and, I think, a little rouged. The remainder
of those present seemed to me to consist of poor
people and slaves.

" An old priest, with an emaciated though
gentle face, who had taken his place in one of
the stone seats, stood up, and, in rather bad
Latin, made a speech, doubtless for my benefit,
which summed up the beliefs of the sect — the
first man's sin and its consequences, the redemp-
tion of the human race by Jesus, of whom until
then I knew nothing except his name and his
execution, the union of souls in Jesus signified
by the fraternal banquet, and the whole Christian
morality expressed in the Beatitudes.

" After this the priest slowly recited prayers in
which Jesus was invoked as the Son of God and
the Saviour of men. Then he stretched both
his hands over the bread and the cup filled with
wine, and called to mind that Jesus, at his last
meal with his companions, had done this, saying :
1 Eat, this is my body ; drink, this is my blood.
Do this in remembrance of me.' I have since
known that some of the priests and most of the
faithful do not understand these words as but a

34 SERENUS

singular and bold image, but believe that in truth
they eat and drink God ; and this was one of my
greatest surprises.

" Finally, the priest distributed the bread to
those present, and offered them the cup after
having first drunk himself. I did not take part
in this love feast, not being initiated as yet.

" All this seemed to me to be grave, majestic,
touching, and new. But I felt very clearly, and
at once, that for me these rites and this assembly
would never be more than a spectacle, and that
there was an abyss between those men and myself.

" ' My dear Marcus/ said Serena to me as we
were going out, * you have seen what the
Christians are. You will like them more as you
know them better. I know that you are un-
happy. We must make you a convert to Chris-
tianity. For it is truth, and it is also consolation.'

" * I will think about it, Serena.'

" I diligently attended the meetings. I found
again in the teaching of Callistus (that was the
priest's name) a number of the thoughts and
maxims of Pythagoras, Zeno, and the ancient
sages. Jesus reminded me by his life and execu-
tion of the ideal portrait of the just man which
Plato has traced. What seemed to me peculiar
to the new religion was, first, the rigorous obliga-
tion to believe certain dogmas or truths revealed
by God. And, second, that all the virtues which
philosophers had already known and preached,
seemed to me to be transformed, among the
disciples of Christus, by a new feeling — the love
of a God-man and of a crucified God, a per-
ceptible and ardent love, full of tears, confidence,

SERENUS 35

tenderness, and hope. Clearly, neither the per-
sonified forces of Nature nor the abstract God
of the Stoics have ever inspired anything similar.
And this love of God, the source and beginning
of the other Christian virtues, communicated to
them a purity, a sweetness, an unction, and, as
it were, a perfume, that I had not hitherto
experienced.

" I admired these believers with all my heart ;
but I did not believe. The sole remnant of my
philosophical education that remained with me
was the conviction that, in spite of obscurities
or apparent exceptions, everything happens in
this world in accordance with natural laws,
and that there are no special miracles. A direct
revelation of God, at a given moment in history,
the appearance of a God-man on earth, and all
the dogmas of the new religion, found in my
reason an invincible resistance, which down to
this hour has not been overcome.
. " I shall confess other repugnances that I
sometimes felt.

" The idea which my new brethren had of
this world and this life offended some natural
feeling or other within me. I recognized the
want of logic in such a contradiction ; but, in
spite of my persistent pessimism, in some degree
combated as it was by my curiosity and by my
affection for Serena, it displeased me that men
should have so great a contempt for the only
life of which, after all, we can be certain. Then
I found them far too simple, closed to artistic
impressions, circumscribed, and inelegant. More-
over, a little concern for our Roman fatherland

3*

36 SERENUS

awakening within me, I was alarmed at the
harm that might be done to the Empire if such
a conception of life continued to spread, such a
detachment from civil duties and profane occu-
pations. At other times, I was decidedly unjust.
The mental reservation which these Christians
mingled with their affections so as to purify them,
seemed to me to chill those affections by taking
from them their liberty, their grace, and their
spontaneity. To be loved in so far as I was
redeemed by Jesus and only in view of my eternal
salvation, this idea chilled me. And then I was
annoyed to find these saints so sure of so many
things, and such marvellous things, when I myself
had so much sought without finding, so much
doubted in my life, and had finally prided myself
on my scepticism.

" My habits of observation also prevented
me, in another way, from becoming a Christian.
It sometimes caused me a feeling of ill humour,
sometimes a malign pleasure, to discover among
the Christians those human weaknesses that at
other moments I reproached them for desiring
to cast off. Clemens, the consul, in this society
of brethren equal before God, was treated with
special honour, and took pleasure in it. The
slaves remained slaves, and their place was in
the last ranks. There were rivalries among the
women about the preparations for the love
feasts and the care of the sacerdotal vestments,
and still keener struggles about the priests, in
order to win their attention and captivate their
favour. Acte, whom the matrons held at a
distance, made herself noticeable by her

SERENUS 37

violent piety. She was a woman of disordered
imagination and of feeble judgment. She had
never wished to believe in Nero's crimes, attri-
buted the punishment of the Christians to
Poppsea ; and, though already a Christian when
Nero died, she had, at her own expense, built
a tomb for the abandoned corpse of her former
lover. Repelled by the Christian community,
then pardoned and readmitted, again re-
captured by the wiles of the body, and again
pardoned, calmed at last by age, she often em-
barrassed the venerable Callistus by the in-
discretion of her zeal, and by something in her
bearing or her toilet that still smacked of the
woman of easy virtue. But the gentle old man,
anxious that his poor should suffer no loss,
managed to humour this extravagant woman, for
she was rich and gave generously.

" In spite of these little weaknesses, they
were good and beautiful souls. Vainly did I
say to myself : * These saints are making a
bargain ; they expect to be given Paradise ;
they practise their sublime virtues for a reward.'
But is it not a virtue to believe in that distant
recompense, for it is to believe in the justice of
God and to conceive it such as it ought to be ?
And what virtue is entirely gratuitous ? At the
time I followed the maxims of the Stoics, had
I not for my reward the proud consciousness of
my moral superiority ?

" And what a faith animated that little band !
They no longer, as did the first Christians,
believed in the approaching end of the world,
or in the earthly Jerusalem. But they did not

38 SERENUS

doubt that the dominion of the universe was
assured to their religion. In fact, there were
already Christian communities in all the im-
portant cities of the Empire, and the ' Churches '
continually exchanged news and sent messages
of encouragement and hope to one another.
And, feeling that in their faith there was an
incalculable power, and in their dogmas some-
thing that suited the needs of most men,
especially of the suffering and the humble, I
thought that perhaps they were right, and that
the future belonged to them, that if in a century
or two the Empire should sink under the shock
of the barbarians, the religion of Jesus might
flourish on its ruins. If this is to happen, what
will the new race of men be like ? Doubtless
it will have more virtue, and consequently more
happiness, since happiness comes especially from
the soul. On the other hand, it will have less
art and elegance, less understanding of the
beautiful.

" But what matters to me the changing face
of mysterious humanity after my death ? What
I know is that I saw for the first time, in the
tomb on the Via Ardeatina, the goodness of
simple souls, the resignation of the wretched,
love of suffering, and spotless chastity.

" It was there that I saw the admirable charity
of Styrax, my freedman. When he learnt that
I frequented the assemblies of the Christians, he
begged me one day to take him to them, saying
that he could have no other religion than that
of his master. When ' the good news ' was
revealed to him, his whole heart melted. He

SERENUS 39

wept with joy at each meeting. There came to
him a great love for the poor and the sick. Not
content with the money I gave him for them, he
added his own to it, and distributed it in my
name. He succoured not only Christians, but
all unfortunates, whoever they were. And by
the unique ascendancy of his goodness, he en-
rolled troops of poor people in the religion of
the God who loves and consoles.

" It was there, above all, that I saw the more
than human grace, the sweetness and the purity
of Serena. All the virtues which in the other
Christians seemed to me sometimes to be united
with too much harshness and with too great a
degree of simplicity of mind, or sometimes to
be spoilt by a too confident anticipation of
reward, or by the intolerance that accompanies
absolute beliefs, these virtues seemed in Serena
the natural fruits of an exquisite and truly
divine soul. And my great occupation was to
feel the charm which emanated from her person,
and to see her living her beneficent life adorned
by the rarest moral beauty, the candour of a
child, and the pure attraction of a woman.

" * Would you not like to receive baptism,
Marcus ? ' she would ask me sometimes.

" I would answer :

" * Please wait until the bad memories of
what has happened no longer trouble me, and
my past life is entirely dead within me. When
I am completely a Christian at heart, I shall ask
for baptism.'

" She contented herself with this assurance,
happy, moreover, at seeing me recovering some

40 SERENUS

fondness for life and accompanying her to the
holy assemblies.

" A day came when there returned from
Syria, whither he had gone to visit the Churches,
one of the chiefs of the Roman community,
the priest Timotheus, formerly a slave and of
African origin. He was austere, disinterested,
and an ardent believer, but very ignorant,
speaking bad Greek and hardly understanding
Latin. He was capable of sudden flights of
eloquence. But his logic was narrow ; he had
a poor knowledge of hearts ; and he had no
understanding of delicate gradations of feeling
or of thought ; his imagination was sombre, and
there was something fierce and bitter in his
zeal. His example made me see clearly the
irritating sides of a too absolute and too militant
faith, and the unpleasant rigour, the lack of
intelligence and almost of humanity, which it
can engender in certain minds.

" The gentle Callistus had wisely permitted
the consul Clemens to take a formal part in
the ceremonies of the Roman religion. Timo-
theus was indignant at such tolerance, said that
one cannot serve two masters, and filled the
rather weak mind of Clemens with such terror
that the poor man suddenly resigned the
functions of consul. This was the origin of
his ruin. After some warnings, Timotheus con-
demned the innocent Acte to public penance,
because she continued to put on rouge, to wear
rings, and to dress with too much care. The

SERENUS 41

good creature told me one day, with torrents of
tears, how harshly he had treated her, and I
saw that in reality, always hungry for emotions
and drama, she took a strange pleasure in the
brutality of her pitiless director.

" I had my own turn. By arguments, which
I recognized were unanswerable, Timotheus
placed me in such a position that I had either
to receive baptism or leave the Church. It was
useless to explain my case to him ; he would
never have comprehended its subtleties. To
leave the Christian community would have been
cruelly to grieve Serena, to condemn myself to
see her less often, and to give up a spectacle
which was interesting me more and more, and,
further, to abandon a touching intercourse with
many excellent hearts, with a family I had
learnt to love. Although the hypocrisy was
repugnant to me, I resigned myself to baptism.
After all, the ceremony only joined me a little
closer to men whose virtues I admired and
venerated, if I did not share their faith. My
baptism would be only a definite pledge of my
sympathy with them. It signified that I was
at heart one of the little group who, in my eyes,
then represented the highest moral perfection
in the world. Moreover, Domitian was becom-
ing more suspicious every day, and the Church,
rightly or wrongly, expected soon to be troubled.
I was bound in honour not to desert my friends
in the hour of danger. Finally, the idea that I
would give joy to so many good souls silenced
my last scruples. I therefore allowed myself
to be baptized. And, so as to tell only half

42 SERENUS

an untruth, when reciting the Christian pro-
fession of faith, I tried to see in it but a sym-
bolical formula, and I sought to find in it a
meaning large enough for my philosophy to
accept. If this was cowardice, the joy of my
dear Serena saved me from remorse.

" But time is passing ; the executioner will
come in an hour, and I must end my confession.

" One morning, not far from the Capenan
Gate, as we were coming back from our meeting,
I nearly knocked down Parthenius, the Em-
peror's favourite, because, as he was returning
from some orgy, he had insulted my sister by
his words. I should have fled immediately, and
I thought of doing so. Yet I delayed, I hardly
know why, from apathy, from distaste for
action, not to trouble Serena, telling myself
that there was no hurry, that it would be time
enough the next day. But that very evening a
centurion came with soldiers. My sister was
condemned to banishment and had to leave
without delay. The Emperor's caprice being
above the laws, I was arrested and taken to the
Mamertine Prison. I was not even allowed the
favour of being beheaded in my own house. Our
property was confiscated ; the vengeance of
Parthenius was complete.

" My sister embraced me gravely, and said :

" * Let us bless God, my dear Marcus. We shall
see one another again soon. Do not be uneasy
about me. Good old Athana will not leave

SERENUS 43

me, and there is nothing in exile to frighten me,
for God is everywhere. I pray Him to help you
in your trial, and I envy you the honour He
does you in allowing you to die for Him. . . .'

" She said this tranquilly, in her harmonious
voice, ingenuously attributing to me a soul
equal to her own. But suddenly, turning aside
her head, she burst into sobs (blessed be thou,
Serena, for that weakness !). My heart failed
me as I said good-bye to her, and I seemed to
be already dead.

" I reached the prison just as the ex-consul
Clemens was brought there, and we were able
to exchange some words. The Imperial decree
declared both of us to be guilty * of superstition
and the Judaic life.' In reality he was con-
demned as a suspect and malcontent, because,
since he had resigned his office, he had lived in
retreat, and had taken no part in any public
ceremony. In addition, his great wealth had
tempted the Emperor. The ex-consul's wife
and niece were, like Serena, sent to the island
of Pandataria. Clemens, whom I had always
regarded as a man of very small intellect, seemed to
me admirable in his serenity ; his placid heroism
shamed me and restored my courage. The
thought that my dear sister would find friends
in her exile also brought me some tranquillity.

" The jailer is a good man. I have had writing
materials on me ; he has procured me a lamp.
He has warned me that the executioner will

44 SERENUS

come at daybreak. I have written all through
the night. I no longer have any attachment to
life ; and death, whether it be annihilation or a
passage into the unknown, does not terrify me.
I have almost returned to the state of mind in
which I was last year, when I tried to die in my
bath. . . . But at the last moment I have a
fear of a death which may defile or disfigure
me ; I have a fear of the axe which may miss
its stroke. The science of poisons has made
great progress in my time, and the hollow pearl
in my ring contains a drop of colourless liquid
which will kill me in a few minutes, almost
without pain.

" I have seen the honours which the Christians
give to the tombs that contain the bones of
Nero's victims. They will honour me also as
one of their saints. But can I undeceive them
now ? And, besides, what is the good ? I
should like them to guess at my suicide ;
I should like them to read this confession ; but I
shall do nothing to bring it about. For if
Serena knew how I am dying, and in what
unbelief, it would be too great a grief for her.
. . . Moreover, I hope that Timotheus, who
did not like me, will only allow a moderate
cult to be given to my bones. And if simple
hearts venerate me more than they should,
what does even that matter ? It is their faith
that will be counted, not the merits of the saint
they invoke. Then, after all, it is not a bad man

SERENUS 45

whose memory they will honour. I have sin-
cerely sought the truth. I have tried since I
was a young man to attain holiness as I con-
ceived it. And if I have been idle, voluptuous
and weak, if I have done little for other men, I
have always had much indulgence and pity for
them.

" I have just broken the pearl between my
teeth. Farewell, Serena, my beloved sister !
Had the world no other reason for existence
than to produce (even at long intervals) so gentle
and perfect a soul as thine, the existence of this
unintelligible world would be sufficiently
justified."

in

THE SCRUPLES OF TIMOTHEUS

Timotheus spent three hours over Serenus's
manuscript. The beginning was written clearly
enough. But Timotheus knew only the Latin of
the people ; and the meaning of the learned
language of the young patrician escaped him in
many places. The last part was not very legible,
and it even happened that the passages in which
Serenus clearly affirmed his want of belief were
almost undecipherable. It chanced that the
words, " The priest Timotheus . . . was austere
and disinterested," were easily read, and the end
of the phrase was only hieroglyphics.

46 SERENUS

The old priest was thus confined to suspicions
concerning the case of Serenus and his pagan
end. He could have entrusted the manuscript
to a more skilful reader, but, though he desired
to solve the riddle, he none the less feared the
scandal of its discovery. For if Serenus had
not died for Christ, yet it was because of Christ
that he had been condemned, and perhaps, at
the moment he expired, he might have had a
sudden illumination, an effulgence of faith.

Timotheus then thought of burning the
mysterious writing. But a scruple, a respect
for death, restrained him. He knelt down and
prayed for some time, and placing the parchment
again in its case, he went back to the tomb on the
Via Ardeatina.

He slipped the little roll under Serenus's
tunic, and said aloud :

" Let his crime or his justification remain
with him ! His writing shall judge him. God,
who triest the reins and the heart, I recommend
my brother to Thy mercy."

IV
SAINT MARK, THE ROMAN

In the year of grace 860, Angelran, Abbot of the
Benedictines of Beaugency-sur-Loire, piously
jealous of the miracles wrought in the chapel of
the Priory of Clery by the relics of Saint
Avigerne, resolved to go to Rome and seek out
the ashes of some martyr of importance, in order
with them to endow the church of his Abbey.

6ERENUS 47

Nicholas I., who then occupied the chair of
Peter, had a special devotion for the tombs of
the holy martyrs. They were, to tell the truth,
in a bad condition, having been pillaged and
half destroyed by Vitiges, king of the Goths,
and afterwards by Astolphus, king of the Lom-
bards. Several popes had caused bones to be
transported from the saints' tombs to the
Roman churches. But the treasure was far from
being exhausted. Nicholas restored some of
the most celebrated catacombs, and entrusted
their care to sacristans. He often went to
celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass in them. One
of these crypts was none other than the tomb
of Flavius Clemens.

It was there that, among many obscure names
engraved on mortuary stones, Angelran noticed
the name of Serenus. His epitaph, composed
by the faithful Styrax, was this :

MARCVM ANNAEVM SERENVM MARTVR
SPIRITA SANCTA IN MENTE HAVETE

Angelran suddenly remembered that in Nero's
palace there had been a captain of the name
of Serenus, and he believed that he was gazing
on his tomb. This Serenus had been the friend
of the philosopher Seneca, who, as the world
knows, had known the apostle Saint Paul.
Clearly Serenus, initiated by Seneca into the
Christian faith, had secretly become a convert ;
and when Nero persecuted the Christians, he
had dared to defend them before the Emperor
and to withstand him to the face, and he had

48 SERENUS

been condemned to death. Thus Angelran
promptly reconstructed in his mind the martyr's
history. He promised himself that on his return
he would write it at length, and amplify this
probable sketch in the most elegant Latin.

He easily obtained permission from the father
of the faithful to open the tomb and to carry
off the venerable remains of M. Annaeus Serenus,
to whom he had already given in thought the
name of Saint Mark the Roman.

When the stone was raised, Angelran saw
what remained of the martyr's body — a pinch of
whitish dust mingled with fragments of bones,
and, on this ashes, the little roll of parchment
which, by a strange phenomenon, remained
almost intact. He attempted to read the
ancient characters, and, being unable to decipher
them, he said to himself that perhaps some of
his monks would be more successful.

The shrine of Saint Mark the Roman was
installed in the church of the Benedictines of
Beaugency on Easter Day in the year 86 1,
in the presence of a great assembly of people.

Meanwhile Angelran had handed over the
manuscript co the monk Adalberon, the most
learned man in the Abbey.

Adalberon succeeded, by dint of toil and
patience, in deciphering the sad confession.
He thus learnt that the new saint was not, as
the Abbot believed, that Annaeus Serenus to
whom Seneca had dedicated his treatise on
The Tranquillity of the Soul, but the son of
Seneca's friend, and that this so-called martyr
had been without faith and had died a pagan.

SERENUS 49

But Saint Mark the Roman had already be-
come popular and was continually performing
miracles. Adalberon, not wishing to disturb
the conscience of the faithful or to give joy to
the monks of Clery, did not confide his discovery
to anybody.

The reputation of Saint Mark the Roman
continued to increase until the eleventh century.
About the year 1030, the learned Hariulf,
who presided over the cathedral school of
Orleans under Bishop Heriger, compiled, from
the statements of ocular and trustworthy wit-
nesses, an account of the twenty-four miracles
wrought by the power of the saint. I transcribe
some of the most remarkable.*

i . Of a man whose eyes Saint Mark restored.

" There lived at Closmoussu a wicked priest
named Gerald. This priest had in his house a
young man named Witbert, his cousin and godson.
One day Witbert went to the festival of Saint
Mark the Roman at Beaugency. As he was
returning he met Gerald on the road, accompanied
by three of his parishioners who were devoted
to him. Gerald hated his godson because he
suspected him of loving one of his penitents.
The wicked priest told his companions to seize
Witbert and hold him, and whilst the unhappy
man invoked Saint Mark with loud cries, Gerald
tore out his eyes and threw them on the ground.
A magpie, or according to others, a dove, took

* In reality these miracles are translated from the collection of
the miracles of Saint Faith, Virgin and Martyr, made by Bernardus
Scholasticus. — Migne's " Patrologia Latina," Vol. CXLI.

5O SERENUS

them in its beak and carried them off towards
Beaugency. When he saw this, the wicked
priest was seized with remorse and began to
weep ; and thenceforward he no longer dared
to celebrate holy mass.

" Gerald's mother, whose name was Arsinde,
having learnt of her son's cruelty, brought
Witbert to her house and cared for him. When
his wounds were healed, the blind man began
to wander through the country singing songs,
and he gained an excellent livelihood and was
able to be happy.

" In the following year, two days before the
festival of Saint Mark the Roman, as Witbert
slept, the saint appeared to him and said :

" ' Sleepest thou, Witbert ? '

" ' Who are thou who callest me ? '

" * I am Saint Mark the Roman.'

" ' And what desirest thou of me ? '

" ' I have a concern for thee. How farest
thou ? '

" ' Not badly.'

" * And how are thy affairs ? '

" i As good as possible.'

" ' Canst thou say that thou art content,
thou who seest not the light of day ? '

" At these words, Witbert, who in his dream
believed that he saw, remembered that he was
blind.

" The saint continued :

" ' Go to Beaugency and buy two candles ;
light one before the altar of the Saviour and the
other before my shrine. I have prayed to God
for thee because evil has been done to thee

SERENUS 51

unjustly. Go, and thou shall have thy sight
restored.'

" And as Witbert, thinking of the cost of
candles, answered nothing, Saint Mark guessed
his thought :

" ' Be not disquieted ? ' said he to him. * First
go and hear mass at Tavers. There thou wilt
meet a man who will give thee six farthings.'

" Witbert rose up, went to mass at Tavers,
related his vision to all who were there, and
prayed them to lend him twelve farthings. The
people mocked him and called him mad. But
suddenly a man of good, Hugo by name, advanced
towards him and gave him six crowns and a groat.

" Then Witbert, full of confidence, betook
himself to the church of the Benedictines of
Beaugency. He bought two candles, lit them,
and passed the night in prayer before Saint
Mark's shrine.

" Towards midnight it seemed to him that
two luminous globes, having the form of laurel
berries, but larger, descended from Heaven and
came to lodge beneath his eyelids in the two
holes where his eyes had been. At the same
time he felt his head exceedingly heavy and
he slept.

" He was awakened by the voices of the monks
chaunting matins. He saw !

" At first he doubted the miracle. But,
perceiving through the half-open door of the
church an ass that was on the point of entering
the holy place, he cried to the driver of the ass :

" * Prithee, there, take care of your ass ! ' And
immediately the man turned aside his beast.

4*

52 SERENUS

Whereupon Witbert was assured that he had
recovered his sight.

" He spent another year in wandering through
the country in order to show himself to the
people who had known him blind. Then he
bethought him of his salvation, and he entered
a monastery."

2. Of a mare brought back to life.

" There was at Lestiou, two leagues from
Beaugency, an old soldier named Foulque. This
man went to Rome on a pilgrimage, and he
returned riding on a mare lent him by his brother,
a holy priest named Bernard. On the road, the
mare fell ill. Foulque promised Saint Mark a
candle as long as the animal's tail, if she should
be cured. But the mare fell down one day
on the road and died. Foulque tried to sell her
skin to an innkeeper, who offered him a miserable
price. Indignant at this, Foulque broke off the bar-
gain, and then, with his knife, he made a number
of gashes both lengthways and crossways on the
dead animal's skin, so that it would be of no use to
the innkeeper. At the same time he exclaimed :

" * What would it have cost Saint Mark, who
cured so many people, to cure my mare also ?
I had promised him such a fine candle ! And
this mare was not mine, and I must pay my
brother for her. I am a ruined man.'

" As he said these words, the dead mare rose
up on her feet and began to neigh joyously.
The gashes that Foulque had given her healed
up, and in a moment they were covered with
hair finer than that on the rest of her body

SERENUS 53

and of a different colour ; and it formed a sort
of pattern, which was evidence of the miracle."

3. Of a merchant punished j or his avarice.

" A man from Auvergne had come to Beau-
gency on a pilgrimage to Saint Mark the Roman.
He noticed that candles were sold very cheaply
there because of the great number of sellers ;
and he thought that if he bought a great store
of them, he could sell them three times as dear
in another district. He therefore bought all
the candles he could find and put them in chests.
But one of the candles was longer than the
rest. This the man from Auvergne fastened
against his breast under his clothes, so that the
large end was hidden in his hose and the smaller
end went out of his collar, beneath his beard.
But God could not suffer the insolence of this
robber. The candle lit of its own accord and the
fire took hold of the beard and clothes of the man
from Auvergne. The wretch, howling like one
of the damned, ran to the church and threw
himself before Saint Mark's shrine, promising
to give him all the candles if he would succour
him. At that very moment the fire which was
devouring him was extinguished."

I think that these quotations will suffice.

In 1793, at the time of the dispersion of the
religious Orders, the library of the Abbey was
transported to the town hall of Beaugency, and
it was there that I had the good fortune to find
the manuscript of Serenus, as well as the account
of the miracles of Saint Mark the Roman.

MYRRHA

MYRRHA

" \\ 7ATCH and pray for the time is at
\\ hand. The signs multiply, and woe
unto them who have eyes but see
not ! Burnt stones have fallen from heaven.
Blood has rained on Pozzalo and on Cumae.
The sky has turned red for a whole night, and
thick smoke hangs over the Phlegrean Fields.
Remember the flooding of the Tiber and the
tempests that have ravaged the Campania, and
the plague which, last autumn, carried off thirty
thousand inhabitants of Rome, and the famine
which followed it for the provisions from Alexan-
dria were not enough, and the earthquake which
overthrew half the houses in Pompeii, that city
of effeminacy and lewdness. And lately a woman
of the Suburana brought into the world a pig
with a hawk's head."

And Timotheus, the priest, with his vehement
gestures, loosened the red mantle which was
thrown over his tunic of white wool. The
Christians listened to him, gazing at him with
ardent eyes, or dropping their eyelids so as the
better to hear his words. They were slaves,
small shopkeepers, artisans, or labourers. The
meeting was held in one of those large tombs in
which associations of poor people secured a
sepulchre for themselves by paying an annual
subscription. Mortuary tablets, on which, as
well as the inscriptions, there were carved images,
palms, lambs, fishes and doves, almost completely

57

58 MYRRHA

covered the walls of the vault. Copper lamps,
hanging by chains from the stone roof, feebly
shone on the bare heads of the men and the
veiled brows of the women.

The priest continued :

" I am going to tell you a vision which God
has sent me. I saw rising out of the waters a
woman sitting upon a beast. The woman was
clothed in purple and covered with gold, and
held in her hand a cup filled with the wine of
her abominations, for she had committed fornica-
tion with all the kings of the earth. The beast
was scarlet ; it had the body of a leopard, the
feet of a bear, and the mouth of a lion. And
this mouth vomited forth blasphemies against
God, against his name, and his tabernacle, and
them that dwell in heaven. And men said :
* Who is like unto the beast ? and who is able
to make war with him ? ' And all worshipped
him save those whose names are written in the
Book of Life of the Lamb that hath been slain.
. . . But the Lord will come. The wicked
seducer shall be thrown into the sea, and the
beast hurled into the lake of sulphur which burns
for ever. And the Lord shall build on earth
the new Jerusalem for his elect."

At that moment, a young girl, almost a child,
seated in the last row of the faithful and listening
with breathless attention, asked in a low voice
of her neighbour, an old woman, whose face
was yellow beneath its linen veil :

" Tell me, good Mammaea, who is the seducer
that carries a cup, and what is the scarlet beast ? "

" That is very easy to understand, Myrrha.

MYRRHA 59

The woman is Rome ; and the beast is the Emperor
Nero. But we must not say this openly."

Myrrha appeared to reflect ; a wrinkle came
between her eyebrows, and a great sadness
darkened her eyes and her brow.

The mass began. Timotheus, his hands
stretched out over the stone altar on which were
the bread and wine, recited the liturgical prayers.
Then the faithful came to break the bread and
drink of the cup. But Timotheus repelled two
men and two women who in their turn approached
the holy table.

" Our brethren and sisters here," he said,
pointing to them with his finger, " have publicly
sinned, and their penance must be public. Cor-
vinus has been seen in a tavern with a woman
of evil life. Vulteius has been present at a sacri-
fice in the temple of ^Esculapius. Materna has
gone to see the games in the circus. And Accia
has committed the sin of adultery. All four will
fast for a month on bread and water, and during
that period they will be excluded from com-
munion. It causes me shame and grief to reveal
such great sins and to promulgate these penances.
As the time draws near, the holiness of the faithful
ought to become more perfect, and their faults
are less deserving of pardon. The flesh is abomin-
able in the eyes of God ; games and spectacles
are the work of the demon ; and the Christian
who shares, even with his body only, in the worship
of idols, repeats the treason of Judas. Woe to
those who, having received the light, behave as
the Gentiles ! The world is condemned : let
there be nothing in common between the world

6O MYRRHA

and us ! But let us wait in trembling for the
Judge who is to come."

Corvinus, Vulteius, and Materna bowed their
heads. Accia sobbed.

An old man, Bishop Callistus, who was seated
near the altar, stood up. And, although his face
was covered with deep wrinkles, and his beard
was as white as snow, his blue eyes were as soft
and gentle as those of a child.

He said to Timotheus :

" Let me speak to them."

And to Corvinus :

" What have you to say on the subject of the
scandal you have caused to our brethren ? "

Corvinus, young, very brown, and with a
powerful neck, answered :

" I have sinned, I know it. But there are
days when the sky is so pleasant and the sun so
beautiful that I forget the mystery .of the fall
and of redemption, and I go back to the pleasures
of life and the joys of the body. A woman who
was passing made a sign to me, and I followed her,
hardly knowing any longer that I had a soul.
But after my fault I felt sad unto death. Then I
spoke to the woman of the revelation of the Lord
Jesus. As I spoke to her she loosed her arms
from my neck, and she even begged me to take
her some day to one of our assemblies."

" And you ? " asked the old man of the next
penitent.

Vulteius, a man of middle age, with a simple and
good-natured air, answered :

" My brother-in-law, who is an idolater, desired
to offer a sacrifice to ^Esculapius in order to

MYRRHA 6l

obtain a cure for his wife. He invited me to go
with him to the temple, and I consented, not
daring to say I was a Christian, and also from the
fear of being a bad relation. Certainly, I believe
that ^sculapius is only a demon. But I ought
to say that the sick woman grew well a few days
after the sacrifice."

" And you, Materna, tell us your sin."

Materna, still young, fair, and buxom, with
dancing eyes .whose natural gaiety could not be
entirely hidden by her contrite air, answered :

" My husband, whom I have not yet been able
to convert, begged me to accompany him to the
circus. I refused at first, but he grew angry.
Then I did as he wished, from cowardice, in order
to have peace in the house, and also, I confess
it, from curiosity : for the Emperor himself
was on that day to drive his chariot with six
horses."

At these words, Myrrha held up her head. She
had some hope that Callistus was going to ask
Materna what Nero was like and what she felt
when she saw him. But the old man turned
towards Accia.

" And you, my daughter, how could
you . . . ? "

Accia, tall and supple, with her two hands
covering her face, continued to weep. She
answered, shaken by sobs which agitated the long
folds of her veil :

" I loved him."

Callistus reflected for a moment.

" Are you sorrowful at .heart, Vulteius and
Materna, for your cowardice and your vain

62 MYRRHA

curiosity ; and you, Corvinus and Accia, for your
impurity ? "

The four penitents said " Yes " with a move-
ment of their heads ; but Accia, either because
her tears choked her, or because she was troubled
by some memory, only answered a little time
after the others.

" Then," resumed Callistus, " I order you to
pray, during a week, twice as much as you are
accustomed to do, and to seek every opportunity
for succouring the poor and the sick. Go in
peace and sin no more."

Then, as if to himself :

" Yes, that is what He would have said. I
know, for I have seen Him."

As Callistus spoke and showed his great charity,
Myrrha had felt the mysterious pain that filled
her heart diminishing within her. However,
there was still in her eyes a vestige of preoccupa-
tion and unrest, when, after the ceremony,
Callistus approached her.

" May the Lord keep you, Myrrha," said the
old man. " But you seem to me to be a little
sad. What is the matter ? "

" Father, I have something to ask you. You
will not scold me ? "

" It would be the first time, little Myrrha."

" Well, I would like to know if the Emperor
Nero is as wicked as Timotheus believes."

" Alas ! my child, I fear so."

" Am I then obliged to hate him ? "

" We must hate no man, Myrrha. We must
only hate sin."

" Then, as the Emperor was once kind to my

MYRRHA 63

father, I am not forbidden to be grateful to
him ? "

" Quite the contrary," said Callistus.

" But," resumed Myrrha, after a moment's
hesitation, " would it be a sin to try and see the
Emperor ? "

The calm face of the old priest suddenly be-
came severe and hard, and he answered in an
angry and menacing tone :

" It would be a very great sin from this day
forward, for in the name of God, and by the
authority He has given me over you, I forbid
you — give good heed, Myrrha — to try to see him
whom you have named."

" I will obey," said Myrrha. " But never
before have you spoken to me so harshly."

" I did not wish to cause you pain," said the
old man, caressing the child's hair. " I spoke
to you thus because I love you."

" Then," said Myrrha, " lean well on me and
do not be afraid of weighing too heavily. I am
strong."

And the old man and the young girl, like an
OEdipus and an Antigone, went out slowly
behind the crowd of the faithful.

Myrrha was sixteen years old. The daughter
of a Gallic woman who died in bringing her into
the world, and of a slave named Styrax employed
in the Emperor's kitchens, she had grown up in
the corner of Caesar's gardens where the houses
of the slaves were crowded together, and in the
subterranean halls of the palace.

64 MYRRHA

She was like a delicate and humble flower that
grows under the feet of a colossus of granite.

She had never seen Nero. She only knew him
from the conversation of the other slaves. She
heard of his power, his talents, the banquets
and feasts that he gave, never of his crimes ;
for the walls had ears, and the least imprudent
word would have been heard and carried to the
Emperor. She represented him to herself as an
extraordinary being, mysterious and unique,
handsome and terrible, who on high, far above
her, lived a triumphant and almost divine life.
And in the feelings of astonishment and terror
which he inspired in her, there was also a sort of
immobile curiosity which did not dare to satisfy
itself.

One day, Styrax had made a dish which pleased
the Emperor so much that he desired to know
the name of the cook. He sent for the poor man,
and immediately freed him, with the condition
that he would remain in his service.

Thus this all-powerful being took the trouble
to be good ! Myrrha was filled with a profound
and trembling gratitude.

But Styrax, who was a simple and straight-
forward man, remained saddened and frightened
by his adventure. He had seen Nero's glory
close at hand, and, in the glare of the feast, the
Emperor wallowing half-naked, with the face
of a madman, and in the midst of the .frayed
leaves of the roses, a carpet of bodies overwhelmed
by the orgy. . . . And his liberty terrified him
because it was Nero's intoxication that had
given it to him.

MYRRHA 65

A short time afterwards Styrax died, whether
it was that from the heat of his furnaces he had
contracted some slow malady which suddenly
declared itself, or that the head cook (this was the
current rumour) had poisoned him out of jealousy.

Old Mammaea gave Myrrha a refuge in her
little room in the Suburana. She taught her to
work embroidery for the robes of the Roman
ladies, and it was by this trade that they both
lived.

Callistus lived in the- same house. He was
eighty years old. Formerly, in Palestine, he had
been a collector of tolls on a bridge over the
Jordan. There he had several times seen Jesus
and his first companions. As they were poor and
pleased him by their simplicity and goodness, he
allowed them to cross for nothing. Neverthe-
less, he had not at first dared to believe " the
good news," and it was only after the execution
of Jesus that he gave himself to Him.

Coming to Rome with the Apostle Peter,
Callistus had helped him to preach the Gospel
there. And, ever since Peter and Paul had
returned to Asia to visit the churches, he had
acquired great authority over the faithful, because
he was very holy, and also because he was hence-
forth the only one among them who had seen the
Christ.

And whilst other prrests, such as Timotheus,
ruled their flock somewhat sternly, and thought
of fixing the dogmas of the new religion in order
to render the Church stronger, Callistus was
indulgent to sinners, provided there was in them
neither malice nor harshness, and he preached

66 MYRRHA

hardly anything except the love of God and men.
And every time he had to give a decision, he used
to repeat :

" Yes, that is what He would have done, that
is what He would have said. I know it, for I
have seen Him"

The first time that he met his little neighbour,
Myrrha, on the staircase of the house in the
Suburana, he was struck by her charm and her
innocence. He spoke to her, and he had no need
of saying much. Myrrha's soul went of its own
accord to Christ. The old man and the young
girl quickly understood and loved one another,
for both of them were charitable and pure.

And it was Myrrha who led Callistus every week
to the assembly of the faithful, and who led him
back.

Callistus and Myrrha went along the Appian
Way, paved with large blocks and bordered with
tombs whose whiteness flashed out here and
there among the green oaks, the yews, and the
rose-laurels. Evening was falling, and, in front
of them the city displayed the profiles of its
domes, its arches, and its pediments in the violet
sky. And they walked towards the enormous
city, bearing in their minds, humble as they were,
the new thought which was to conquer this
mistress of the world.

Myrrha was thoughtful, and had again fallen
into sadness.

" But," said she at last, " what is it that the
Emperor Nero has done ? "

MYRRHA 67

" Such things, Myrrha, as I would not dare to
tell you, and you could not even imagine."

" But what ? "

" I shall not speak to you of his pleasures, nor
of the frightful and public profanations to which
he delivers his body. And it is not enough for
him to be impure ; he would like to have the
whole human race in a similar state. His joy is
to pollute everything that he can reach. I
cannot tell you more of this. By his means, all
Rome has become a circus, a tavern, a place of evil."

" But," said Myrrha, " if the Emperor is that
sort of man, is it not because he is able to do
whatever he wills, and the truth has not yet been
preached to him ? Who knows ? He may be
all that you say and yet not have an entirely bad
heart, and not be evil or cruel."

" A man is always evil whose sole thought is to
surfeit his body ; and your gentleness, Myrrha,
comes from your innocence. Besides, Nero has
poisoned his brother ; he has put to death his
wife, a good and virtuous princess. He has
killed Seneca and Burrhus, his old teachers. And
they were both worthy men ; even the Apostle
Paul held Seneca in high esteem ; he had several
conversations with him, and he hoped to lead
him to the faith. Nero has killed many others,
either from jealousy, or hatred of virtue, or greed.
And, lastly, he tried to drown his mother, and
he had her killed by a centurion. He is not only
the basest of charlatans ; he is the cruellest
of murderers and executioners. . . . But what
is the matter, Myrrha ? And of what are vou
thinking ? "

5*

68 MYRRHA

With dilated eyes, the young girl seemed to
look at something horrible, which she made an
effort to visualize although it frightened her.
At last she murmured softly :

" I am thinking that no man is more to be
pitied than the Emperor Nero."

Myrrha had hitherto lived in great retirement
with old Callistus and old Mammaea. And in
the streets she had always avoided joining in the
conversations of the loungers and gossips before
the vendors' stalls. But now, each time she went
out for her work or to make purchases, she lin-
gered in the crowd, listening to what they were
talking about, and when she met people whom
she knew, she questioned them about the Emperor.

It was Scevola, the barber, who answered her
most fully. His shop was at the corner of the
house in which Myrrha lived. His trade per-
mitted him to be well informed about many
things, and his remarks were a fairly exact sum-
mary of the opinion of the people about what
interested the young girl so much.

" Yes, it is true, people say all sorts of things
about the Emperor Nero. There is, first of all,
the death of Prince Britannicus. The affair
has an ugly look, and it is not for me to tell you
the truth about it, seeing that I don't know.
But what I do know is that when two princes
fall out over the government things always
end badly. On that, at least, we can all agree.
There is also his mother's death, but I know no
more about that story than I do about the other.

MYRRHA 69

What is certain is that his mother was a proud
hussy, and that she made no scruple of giving
her husband, the Emperor Claudius, some bad
mushrooms to eat. Not to mention that she
wanted to reign by her son's side, and that she
mixed herself up in things that did not concern
her. We must be fair, and that was not very
pleasant for him. As for his first wife, the
Empress Octavia, what happened to her was her
own misfortune ; but people hardly knew her.
She was proud and never showed herself in public.
So that when it was known that she was dead,
the fact made no great stir. Well, it is none of
my business. It is politics. Must not somebody
be master ? There are also several others of
whom the Emperor got rid. But they were
rich people and aristocrats, men who wished that
nobody should ever do anything for the people.
The Emperor cares about our interests. He has
made laws to prevent the lawyers from charging
so much. He wishes to suppress the indirect
taxes, but the Senate opposed this. Then he
took vengeance by striking at the nobles. He is
not a bad Emperor for us."

" I owe him my freedom," Myrrha could not
prevent herself from saying. " It is he who
freed my father."

" You see, then," answered the barber. " And,
besides, nobody ever gave so many festivals, nor
such fine ones. He even takes trouble personally
to amuse us himself. Only the other day, at
the races on the Festival of Youth, he drove a
chariot. He won. Perhaps it was arranged
beforehand, but we owe him that much."

7O MYRRHA

" Did you see him ? "

" As plain as I see you."

" What is he like ? "

" Ah ! it is not because he is Emperor, but he
is a handsome man. And he has an air ! One
feels that nobody could overlook him. What-
ever they say, he is not a man like the rest of us.
He does what he wishes, and those who find
something to blame in that — well, let them go and
talk about it somewhere else than in my shop.
I do not mean you, Myrrha."

Myrrha grew more and more restless. She
certainly did not doubt Callistus's word, and
even the barber's remarks confirmed on many
points what the old priest had said. When she
tried to form a notion of Nero's crimes in their
reality, she shuddered with fright, and she had a
great pity for their victims. But at the same time
it gave her almost a pleasure to know that Nero
was not hated by the people.

From thinking of the Emperor, a secret desire
grew up within her. If she could see him !
Only for once ! Then she would be more
tranquil. Not that she forgot her promise.
She had resolved to do nothing to meet him ;
and, moreover, she hardly admitted to herself
her own desire, to such a degree was it mingled
with terror.

Accordingly she did not think that she was
doing anything wrong on the morning when she
went to pay a visit to old Menalcas, one of Nero's

MYRRHA 71

gardeners. He lived in a corner of the great
terrace, in a little house hidden by trees, and one
could enter it without passing through the Im-
perial garden. Myrrha brought the good man's
little daughter a clay doll which she had dressed
like a patrician lady, but the truth was that she
came to talk about Nero.

Thus she did not hesitate to repeat to Menalcas
all that Callistus had told her, and she added :

" Is all this true ? You ought to know, you
who have been here so long, and to whom the
slaves of the palace tell everything."

With a quick gesture Menalcas led Myrrha
to the end of the room, looked all round him,
and whispered very softly in her ear :

" Yes, everything they say is true, and I know
things that are still more terrible."

Then, without noticing the young girl's sudden
pallor :

" I never speak of them, for I want to die in
peace."

And changing the subject :

" But as you are here, would you not like to
take a little stroll ? This part of the garden is
farthest from the palace, and the Emperor never
comes to it, at least at this hour of the day."

" Yes, I should," said Myrrha.

Menalcas went out with her, and then left her
to go to his work.

A broad avenue bordered by giant trees
stretched from the palace to the terrace, and
ended in a lofty portico whence one could see the
whole city. Towards the middle of the avenue
was a large pond, where bronze Tritons vomited

72 MYRRHA

forth quivering jets of water. On each side, at
regular intervals, gods, goddesses, satyrs, and
nymphs displayed their white bodies.

Myrrha did not dare to look at them, in alarm
at their immodesty, or from fear of finding beauty
in these representations of idols. Moreover,
though she was alone, she was intimidated by the
pomp and majesty of the place.

Suddenly she heard the sound of voices, and
saw entering the avenue a band of walkers, clothed
in magnificent garments.

Quickly she threw herself behind a clump of
foliage.

Soon the company passed in front of her. First
came the Emperor, leaning on a beautiful Syrian
boy ; then at a distance of some paces behind,
his usual companions, Otho, Senecio, Tigellinus,
with their pale and sharp features, and their
effeminate and balanced gait.

Myrrha saw only Nero. She recognized him
by his likeness to the images on the coins and,
above all, by the air and expression of his coun-
tenance. His overhanging eyebrows threw a
shadow over his green and dreamily languid eyes.
His jaws were heavy, his chin projecting, his
lips thick. There was in him something of the
god and something of the beast.

Embroideries of gold shone on the folds of his
white silken toga ; a collar of rubies quivered on
his breast like drops of blood and fire ; and the
fat hand which he rested on the brown child's
shoulder flashed with sparks at every step, so
laden was it with jewels.

Although Myrrha was but an ignorant little

MYRRHA 73

girl, she had the feeling that this man was in-
finitely distant from her, not merely in earthly
position — he, the master of the world ; she, so
obscure and poor — but in the very depths of his
thought and his soul. And at the same time she
was struck by the immense sadness of this all-
powerful man. Something strange passed in her
mind. It was as if she pitied him, softly and
tremblingly, and as if her pity had to traverse
an infinite world which lay between them.

At the moment he passed the clump of shrubs
behind which she crouched, Nero was speaking.
He was speaking to himself, and did not turn to
his companions. And this is what Myrrha heard :

" I am bored. . . . My power is too limited.
The pleasures that I can procure satiate me ;
and those of which I dream are unrealizable even
for me. ... I am richer than the ancient kings
of Persia ; but whatever I do, I shall never hold
within my hands all the treasures of the uni-
verse. . . . There is a supreme degree of the
joys of the senses to which I sometimes attain
by means of artifice, but I cannot hold it. ...
I have put many men to death ; but I cannot kill
all my enemies, for I do not know them all. . . .
I am the greatest of poets : but when I write
verses, I am obliged to choose the words with
an effort, and to count and measure the syllables.
... I am the most harmonious of singers : but
in order to preserve my admirable voice, I am
obliged to be sober in my use of wine and to
deprive myself of food that I like. . . . All this
is absurd and irritating. ... I am most un-
happy. ... I would insult the gods if the gods

74 MYRRHA

existed. . . . To be the greatest of men — and
to be nothing more, O fury ! . . . How paltry
this garden is, and how monotonous ! I should
like to have gardens so vast that one would see
in them forests, rivers, mountains, and lakes, and
that all the noblest views which the face of the
earth can assume would be assembled in them,
and I would have them all the more beautiful
because they would be the work, not of nature,
but of art, and in them one would feel the power
and the will of a man."

He had reached the end of the terrace, under
the marble portico. He leant over the balus-
trade and gazed at the wave of roofs beneath his
feet, spreading out to the horizon.

" How ugly this city is ! " he said.

And he added :

"I will burn it."

The next day Myrrha went to seek Callistus in
his poor room, and, kneeling down, said to him :

" Father, I have grievously sinned."

" Oh ! " said the good Callistus, " I do not
believe you."

" It is only too true. I have broken the promise
I made you. I have seen Nero."

The old priest started up in astonishment and
fright.

" And did he see you ? "

" No, for I was well hidden."

Callistus's face became more serene.

" Thank God ! " he said.

He asked the young girl where and how this
meeting had taken place, and she explained it to
him point by point.

MYRRHA 75

" But," he resumed, " when you went to the
house of Menalcas, the gardener, did you desire
to see the Emperor ? "

" I think I did ; but I desired to meet him by
chance."

" Why ? "

" I cannot say."

" And when you walked in the garden did you
know that you would see him ? "

" How could I have known ? "

" But at least you hoped that you would ? "

" I don't know."

" Then why do you say that you have grievously
sinned ? "

" Because I have lost my peace of mind, and
I am troubled as if I had committed a great
fault."

" Oh, Myrrha, it is then true that we have
within us thoughts and feelings of which we our-
selves are ignorant, and that the most limpid and
purest soul has its darkness. Let us pray to God
that He grant us to know ourselves completely,
and to suffer nothing in us which is displeasing
to Him. But tell me, what were your feelings
when you saw the greatest enemy of God ? "

" Shall I confess it, oh father ! At first I
was dazzled by his beauty and the magnificence
of his garments. Then he began to speak, and
though the meaning of some of his words escaped
me, I understood that he must be really guilty
of the impurities and cruelties with which people
charge him. But also I understood that he
suffers."

" If that is true, it is but justice."

j6 MYRRHA

" I do not dare to tell you a thought that
came to me."

" Speak, Myrrha, I wish it."

" Well, perhaps if he has committed so many
crimes, it is because he is Emperor, and he sees
the entire world beneath him. And then he
would not be any wickeder, even when he com-
mits tho.se crimes, than other men are when they
commit their ordinary faults."

" By this reasoning, Myrrha, if God had caused
you to be born an Empress, would you not have
become the worst of women ? "

" Oh, father, what do you say ? "

" You see, then ! "

" But the Emperor does not know the good
news. Perhaps he would listen if it were told
to him. Do you not think so ? "

" No, Myrrha, I do not think so. He has
shown in all his actions so profound and black a
malignity that he has in advance repelled the
grace of God."

" Yet he said one thing that would not have
displeased you. He said that he did not believe
in idols."

" Alas ! he would be less far away from the
true God if only he believed in those other
gods."

" But they say that, out of pity for the poor,
he wished to suppress the taxes."

" Say out of pride and in order to be applauded
by the populace of the circus. He feigned pity
by a sacrilegious comedy ; and, besides, he could
only have relieved the poor of Rome by pressing
more heavily on those in the provinces."

MYRRHA 77

Myrrha reflected ; she remembered Nero's
words : " I shall burn Rome ; " but she did not
repeat them to Callistus. She resumed :

" I see well that he is the most criminal of men ;
the only one, perhaps, whose damnation is assured.
But is not that a frightful thought ? If he is,
as you say, irremediably wicked, if he is wicked
intentionally and without remorse, what is sadder
than to be thus ? And since God knew that
he would be so wicked, why did He put him into
the world ? "

" That, Myrrha, is a great mystery. Doubt-
less God has willed in this way to try the virtue
of His servants. I know nothing more."

" But," said the young girl, in a low tone,
and as if hesitating before her own thought,
" perhaps the Emperor Nero has no soul, and
when he dies he will sink into nothingness ? He
would then be but a scourge, like a tempest or
an earthquake. Cannot God send men the trials
that strengthen them without the agent of that
pain being condemned some day to eternal
suffering ? "

Callistus was so surprised that he found nothing
to answer.

" These," said Myrrha, " are things that I
do not understand. Yet . . . there are men
and women who love him. . . . He himself
gave freedom to my father. . . . He is handsome,
and they say he is very clever. ... If one
could. ... Is it a sin to believe that any man,
whatever he may have done, can still be
saved ? "

" Certainly it is not," said Callistus.

78 MYRRHA

" And would it be a sin to pray for the Emperor
Nero, and to impose on oneself penances whose
fruit one would apply to him ? "

" No, indeed ; but I believe it would be very
useless."

" And if someone offered their life to God
with the hope that God would be willing, in
exchange, to grant the Emperor a chance of
salvation, would there be anything reprehensible
in that ? "

" Abandon these thoughts, Myrrha, I entreat
you. Take care that there does not enter into
them a little pride and much vain curiosity.
Content yourself with being a modest and pious
child, and attached to the duties of your state
of life as you have hitherto been. And promise
me again, and more seriously than the first time,
never to try to see the Emperor Nero again.
It is only on this condition that I can give you
absolution."

" Father, I will do as you wish ; but it is not
my fault that, ever since I saw him, I am always
thinking about him."

One day Myrrha went to a country house
in the outskirts of Rome, to fetch embroideries
for a lady.

As she was returning in the evening, she saw a
great red light in the sky. This light kept in-
creasing in size as she drew nearer to the city.
Soon it filled the entire sky. The trees on the
road along which the young girl walked were
brightly lit up, and her shadow advanced by her
side, as clearly outlined as if it were broad
daylight.

MYRRHA 79

At a turn of the road, she saw before her Rome
in a blaze.

The flame had burst out in the part of the
great circus close to the Palatine and Caelian hills.
It had devoured that quarter with all its tortuous
and narrow lanes, the tops of whose houses almost
touched one another, plunging and rushing
through them as if it were in some Cyclopean
chimney. Soon the Palatine hill was surrounded
like an island in a sea of fire, and whilst the flames
licked its sides, they were also spreading round
about into the Velabrum, the Forum, and the
Carinae. Finally, they climbed the Imperial
hill, and there, in a mad spring, they seemed to
spout upwards to the stars. Then, in fast streams,
they fell back again towards the Suburana.
And Rome was like a huge furnace whose embers
had the shapes of domes, pediments, porticos,
and walls pierced with holes. . . .

As she passed beneath the walls of a lofty
terrace on which there stood a square tower,
Myrrha heard somebody singing on the summit
of the tower, and accompanying himself on the
lyre.

It was a sad and slow song, in a language she
did not understand, an elegy of Simonides on
the burning of Troy. The voice was harmonious
though a little clouded, and it prolonged itself
in laments. Myrrha stopped to listen. But
she soon felt that the grief was feigned and that
the singer was admiring the beauty of his own
voice. And then the song hurt her.

When she reached the Capenan gate, she found
there a despairing crowd of people, surrounded

8O MYRRHA

by as much of their poor furniture and such
bundles of clothes as they had been able to rescue
from the fire.

Many wept and told how some of their relatives,
an old mother, a wife, a little child, had been
unable to escape and had perished in the flames.

A man said :

" I am sure that three hundred were left in
the district of the Esquiline hill, alone."

" But," said another, " we must try and
put out the fire, or at least do what we can to
pull down the houses, so as to save the rest
of the city."

Somebody answered him :

" We have tried. But there are men who
keep off those who want to help. They say
they have orders."

And Myrrha remembered what the Emperor
had said. He had done it then ! Assuredly this
crime surpassed all the rest. And she herself
saw and touched this crime ; it displayed itself
beneath her very eyes.

Then, her heart wrung with pity for the vic-
tims, she thought :

" Wilt Thou not open, O Lord, Thy holy
Paradise to all these unhappy beings, and will
not their suffering have passed away like an evil
dream ? . . . But he ! he ! ... If there be
yet time I offer Thee my life that it may please
Thee to send him a ray of Thy grace."

She reached the Suburana by a circuitous path,
very anxious about Callistus and Mammaea.

MYRRHA 8 I

They were both safe and sound, but the house
in which they had lived was burnt down. A
large number of other Christians were on the
streets. Callistus was comforting and encouraging
them.

" Let us bless God," he said, " for having
taken from us the small amount of earthly goods
we had, for we always think too much of them.
As the distress is common, it gives us an oppor-
tunity for helping one another and showing that
we love one another."

The Emperor allowed the victims to take refuge
in those temples that were still standing and in
the markets. He also opened a part of his
gardens to them. He had wooden huts built
for them on the Forum, and he caused food to
be distributed among them.

But this did not prevent the people from saying
that it was Nero who had set fire to the city,
and that he had even sung as he gazed at the
fire from the summit of a tower.

These remarks reminded Myrrha of the song
she had heard on her way. But to those who
accused the Emperor, she answered, endeavouring
to deceive herself :

" If he had kindled the fire, would he have
shown so much zeal in succouring the victims ? "

And she did not perceive the weakness of this
reasoning.

The Christians, not wishing to go into the
temples of false gods, nor to shelter in the huts,
from hatred of the impious hands that would
offer them succour, took refuge in their tombs.

Myrrha and Mammaea continued to work

6

82 MYRRHA

embroideries for the Roman ladies, and this
enabled them to live and even to help their in-
digent brethren.

Now, in spite of their great distress, many
Christians rejoiced at the fire, so much did they
hate Rome, the impure city.

In particular, Timotheus, the priest, exulted
with a sombre joy. He said one day to the
assembled brethren :

" The hand that lighted this fire may be
abominable. But it has done nothing save by
the will of God. For behold, the oldest temples
of idols, those which malice or ignorance venerated
most, have been destroyed from top to bottom.
Burnt is the temple of the Moon, built by Servius
Tullius ! Burnt is the temple consecrated to
Hercules by King Evander ! Burnt is the temple
of Jupiter Stator, elevated by Romulus ! Burnt
are the palace of Numa Pompilius and the temple
of Vesta ! This, more clearly than aught else,
proclaims the end of the world, which is to come
by fire. And that end will be the beginning of
our victory and of our joy."

" My brother," said Callistus, " perhaps you
may be right. But how can you rejoice at an
event which has brought so much suffering to
the humble, to those whom Jesus loved ? ':

At that moment, some soldiers, led by a
centurion, entered the place of assembly.

" We arrest you by order of the Emperor,"
they said.

" Why ? " asked Callistus.

" Because it was you Christians who set fire to
the city."

MYRRHA 83

And, pointing to Timotheus :

" Is it not proved by the words of that
ruffian ? "

Myrrha had believed that Nero's last crime
was the greatest that one could conceive. He
had now done something still more terrible by-
accusing innocent persons of that crime. And
for this reason she said to God :

" For him, for his salvation, not only my
life, Lord, but all the tortures it will please
Thee."

The soldiers then led away the Christians,
and flung them without distinction into * the
underground cells of the Mamertine prison.

And Myrrha felt an obscure pleasure in think-
ing that she was a prisoner by Nero's command :
for it was the first time that the will of the
almighty Caesar was directly influencing her
humble destiny. Continually she saw again,
grown still more beautiful in her memory, the
Emperor's sad and terrible countenance, and
she hoped that she would appear before him at
her trial.

Often, in the prison, the priest, Timotheus,
between two prayers, burst forth into impre-
cations against Nero, and repeated the list of
his crimes ; and never did he name him otherwise
than as " the Beast."

And although she knew that Timotheus was
right, Myrrha suffered cruelly.

But, on one occasion, one of the prisoners
expressed the opinion that it was the Empress

6*

04 MYRRHA

Poppaea who had persuaded Nero to accuse the
Christians, because she had been initiated into
the Jewish religion, and therefore hated the
disciples of Jesus. He said that the Emperor
loved Poppaea to distraction, that it was on her
account he had killed his first wife, that he never
refused her anything, and that recently he had
given her three hundred she-asses, so that she
could take baths of milk.

And although Poppaea's intervention diminished
Nero's guilt a little, on that day Myrrha suffered
still more.

" Oh, that Jewess ! " she said.

The prisoners appeared before a proconsul,
and this was a great disappointment to Myrrha.
He contented himself with asking them if they
were Christians, and then condemned them to
be exposed to the lions in the great circus.

" Will the Emperor be there ? " Myrrha
asked one of the jailers.

" The Emperor never misses one of those
festivals," answered the man.

A great joy lit up the young girl's face, that
pale and diaphanous face in which there was
no longer room for anything but the large
ardent eyes, with their violet eyelids, and the
little mouth always half-opened by the soft
panting of an angelical desire. . . . She no
longer saw clearly into her own thoughts. It
was pleasant to die for so great a criminal and
thus to fulfil her vow. But to die through

MYRRHA 85

him — was not this horrible ? No, for though,
doubtless, it aggravated the punishment, it
would also make it more meritorious and more
efficacious, and for the same reason it would no
longer be painful. Indeed, she no longer knew
anything. . . . Sometimes she was seized with
terror. She did not understand why it was
that Nero did not seem horrible to her. She
no longer heard or saw anything, but lived in a
fever, in a dream.

Old Callistus regarded her with uneasiness.
For a long time she had not spoken to him
again of the Emperor Nero. But he felt that
she had no other thought. He asked himself
if this strange preoccupation ought not to be
regarded as something other than a miracle of
charity. And he did not dare to question her,
fearing his lack of skill in reading that soul, and
lest he might trouble it merely by touching it.

On the eve of the execution, after the evening
prayer, which the condemned made in common,
Myrrha said in a loud voice :

" Let us pray for the Emperor Nero ! "

The Christians hesitated an instant. But the
priest Callistus thought within himself :

" I was wrong to be uneasy : Myrrha is holier
than all of us."

And he began the prayer for the Emperor,
and the other Christians recited it with him.

Now, when he heard this, a jailer who was
standing near the door (he was a very tall and
fair Gaul), began to weep, and prayed Myrrha
to explain to him the religion of Christ.

86 MYRRHA

On the next day the Christians were led into
a low prison, situated beneath the amphi-
theatre of the great circus.

Through the bars Myrrha saw the arena
dazzling with light, and a great populace seated
on the benches which were spread around in
circles — senators, knights, soldiers, plebeians,
vestals, and courtesans, in woollen hoods, in
fawn-coloured tunics, in silk n aniples ; a swarm-
ing and buzzing crowd, whom the curtains, hang-
ing in the air and held up by cords, bathed in
moving reflections of red light.

She perceived, in front, the end of the heavy
carpet that fell from the Imperial dais, and, a
little to the side, behind some other bars in the
half-darkness, the lions gliding backwards and
forwards.

The other condemned prayed, prostrated on
the ground in groups, or embraced one another
before dying. And with death so near, although
their wills remained firm, several wept, sobbed,
or were seized with fits of trembling. Timotheus
and Callistus exhorted them. Timotheus said
to them :

" It is a joy to sign one's faith in one's blood,
and to brave the powerless anger of the impious.
This blood will cry out against him. Yet once
more, the time is at hand. . . . And what is a
moment of suffering for a life of eternal happi-
ness ? He is a fool and a coward who would
refuse the bargain."
And Callistus :

" O my brethren, God be merciful to you.
The d-eath that awaits you, what is it after all

MYRRHA 87

but the death of a hunter surprised in a wood ?
We will go on together, so strongly united in the
same thought of love that we shall not feel the
wild beast's claw or tooth. And God will do
such great things with your blood ! By your
death you will lay the foundation of happiness
and peace for future humanity."

But Myrrha remained apart, standing near
the bars, a stranger to all that was happening
around her.

The keepers of the beasts opened the gate of
the prison and that of the cage of lions at the
same time, and suddenly there was a great
silence.

Myrrha was the first to enter the arena. She
saw the Emperor on the dais ; and, with a light
and even step, she walked straight towards him.
She thought :

" He will have to see me, and it will be near
him that my soul shall be sent forth to save his."

Callistus followed her, as quickly as the
weakness of his age allowed him.

The lions had left their cage : and, at first,
blinded by the sudden light, some stood still,
others turned about vaguely, with their muzzles
to the ground.

Myrrha kept on walking, her eyes fixed upon
Nero. The Emperor, half leaning towards one
of his companions, felt this look and turned
round. He believed that the young girl was
coming to beg his mercy, and he had a malicious
smile.

But she went to the foot of the dais without
saying a word or raising her clasped hands, and

88 MYRRHA

there, motionless, she continued to look at
him.

Her hair was untied and hung over her back,
and a rent in her robe laid bare her delicate
shoulder.

The Emperor stretched forward his head, like
that of a bestial god. A quick flame blazed
beneath his heavy eyelids. He stood up, and
calling by name the chief of the keepers of the
wild beasts, made a gesture of pardon. . . .

One of the lions, having perceived Myrrha,
was approaching her with long, oblique
steps. . . .

Then old Callistus, who had understood the
Emperor's gesture, seized Myrrha in his frail
arms, and, with all his strength, pushed her
towards the lion.

LILITH

LILITH

W J Then Jesus was born in the days of Herod

l/m/ the king, there came wise men from
the East to Jerusalem, saying :

Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for
we have seen his star in the East, and are come
to worship him.

When Herod the king heard these things he was
troubled. And when he had gathered all the chief
priests and scribes of the people together, he de-
manded of them where Christ should be born.

And they said unto him : In Bethlehem.

Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise
men, enquired of them diligently what time the
star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem
and said :

Go and search diligently for the young child ;
and when ye have Jound him, bring me word again,
that I may come and worship him also.

But after that the wise men, led by the star, had
found the child and worshipped him, they were
warned in a dream that they should not return to
Herod, and they departed into their own country
another way.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked by
the wise men, was exceeding wroth. . .

Princess Lilith, King Herod's daughter, lay
dreamily on her purple bed, while the negress,

92 LILITH

Noun, slowly waved a feathery fan over her brow
and Ashtaroth, her cat, slept at her feet.

Princess Lilith was fifteen years old. Her eyes
were as deep as the water of a well, and her
mouth resembled an hibiscus blossom.

She thought of her mother, Queen Mariamne,
who died when Lilith was quite small. She did
not know that her father had killed her out of
jealousy ; but she knew that he kept the body
of the queen in a secret chamber, embalmed with
honey and aromatic herbs, and that he still wept
for her.

She thought of her father, King Herod, so
gloomy and always ill. Sometimes he shut him-
self up in his room, and there he would be heard
uttering loud cries. He kept thinking that he
saw those whom he had put to death : Kostobar,
his brother-in-law ; Mariamne, his wife ; his
sons Aristobulus and Alexander, Lilith's brothers ;
Alexandra, his mother-in-law ; Antipater, his
son ; Baba-ben-Bouta, the teacher of the law,
and many others. And although Lilith was
ignorant of these things, her father filled her
with great terror.

She thought of the Messiah whom the Jews
expected, and of whom her nurse, Egla, now dead,
had often spoken to her. And although the
Messiah was to be king in place of Herod, she
said to herself that nevertheless she would like
to see him ; . for the distant attraction of this
marvellous event diverted her mind from the
thought of how it could be accomplished.

She thought, lastly, of little Hozael, the son
of her foster-sister, Zebouda, who lived in

LILITH 93

Bethlehem. Hozael was a little boy a year old,
who laughed and was beginning to speak. Lilith
loved him tenderly. And almost every day she
had the mules harnessed to her cedar chariot,
and went with Noun, the negress, to visit little
Hozael.

Lilith thought of all this, and that she was
quite alone in the world, and that, without little
Hozael, she would be terribly bored.

Then Lilith went into the garden to walk
beneath the great sycamores.

There she met old Zabulon, who had formerly
been captain of the king's guards. Herod had
replaced his Jewish guard by Roman soldiers, but
as he had confidence in old Zabulon, he had
entrusted him with the duty of watching over
the part of the palace in which Princess Lilith
lived.

Old Zabulon had been ailing for some time past,
and he was warming himself on a stone bench in
the sun. Age had bent him so much that his
long beard was folded over his knees.

Lilith said to him :

" Why are you sad, old Zabulon ? "

" I have heard from a centurion that the king
has given orders that to-morrow, at dawn, all
the children of Bethlehem under two years old are
to be killed."

" Oh ! " said Lilith, " and why ? "

" The wise men have proclaimed that the
Messiah is born. But it is not known how he is
to be recognized, and the wise men have not

94 LILITH

returned to say if they had found him. By
killing all the little children in Bethlehem, the
king is sure that the Messiah will not escape."

" That is true," said Lilith ; " it is a very
good plan."

Then, after a moment's reflection :

" Can one see him ? "

" Who ? "

" The Messiah."

" In order to see him it would be necessary to
know where he is. And if it were known where
he is, the king would have no need to kill all the
little children in the village."

" That is so," said Lilith.

She added in a low voice, and as if afraid of
her words :

" My father is very wicked."

Then suddenly :

" And little Hozael ? "

" Little Hozael," said Zabulon, " will die like
the rest, for the soldiers will search all the
houses."

" But I am quite sure that little Hozael is
not the Messiah. How could he be the Messiah ?
He is my foster-sister's son."

" Ask mercy for him of your father," said
Zabulon.

" I do not dare," said Lilith.

She resumed :

" I myself will go, with Noun, to look for
little Hozael, and I will hide him in my room.
He will be safe there, for the king hardly ever

comes into it.':

LILITH

95

Lilith had her mules harnessed to her cedar
chariot, went to Bethlehem with Noun, entered
the house of her foster-sister, Zebouda, and said
to her :

" It is a long time since I have seen Hozae'l.
I would like to take him to my palace and keep
him there for a day and a night. The child is
weaned and no longer needs your care. I will
give him a robe of hyacinth and a necklace of
pearls."

And she did not tell Zebouda what she had
learnt from Zabulon, so great was her fear of
the king.

But she noticed that Zebouda's face shone with
unaccustomed joy.

' Why are you so joyful ? "

Zebouda hesitated a moment, and said :

" I am joyful, Princess Lilith, because you love
my son."

" And your husband, where is he ? "

Zebouda hesitated again, and answered :

" He has gone to collect the flock on the
mountain."

Noun hid little Hozae'l under her clothes ; and
Lilith and the good negress returned to the
palace at the hour when the sun was setting
behind Jerusalem.

When Lilith was in her room, she took Hozae'l
on her knees ; and the child laughed and tried
to grasp the little princess's long ear-rings.

But Noun, who was preparing a mess of maize

96 LILITH

pap for the child in an adjoining room, ran in
and said :

" The king ! Here is the king ! "

Lilith had only time to hide Hozael in the
bottom of a large basket and to cover him up
with a heap of silks and bright-coloured wools.

King Herod entered with a heavy step, his
back bowed, his bloodshot eyes sunk in his
cadaverous face, while collars and plates of gold
jingled upon him ; and his chin was agitated by
a trembling that shook all his plaited beard.

He said to Lilith :

" Where have you been ? "

She answered :

" In Jericho."

And she raised her tranquil eyes towards the

" Oh ! how like her she is ! " murmured Herod.

At that moment a little cry came from the
basket.

" Be quiet, won't you ? " said Lilith to Ash-
taroth, the cat, who was sleeping on the carpet.

Then she said to the king :

" Father, you seem to be troubled by some-
thing. Would you like me to sing you a song ? ':

And taking her zither, she sang a song about
the roses.

And the king murmured :

" Oh ! that voice ! "

And he fled, as if seized with terror, because
Lilith's looks and song had reminded him of
the voice and eyes of Queen Mariamne.

LILITH 97

A short time afterwards Lilith went into the
garden and saw old Zabulon weeping.

" Why are you weeping, old Zabulon ? " she
asked.

" You know why ; Princess Lilith, I am weeping
because the king desires to kill the little child who
is the Messiah."

" But," said Lilith, " if he were really the
Messiah, men would not have the power to kill
him."

" God desires men to help Him," answered
Zabulon. " Princess, you who are good and
compassionate, you ought to warn the father
and mother of the little child."

" But where shall I find them ? "

" Ask the people of Bethlehem."

" But ought I to save him who will drive my
race out of the palace, him through whom I
shall perhaps one day be a poor prisoner or a
beggar in the streets ? "

" That time is far off," said Zabulon, " and
the Messiah is as yet only a very little child,
weaker than little Hozae'l. Besides, the Messiah
will have enough power to be king with-
out harming anybody. And if one day
you have a daughter, Princess Lilith, the
Messiah, when he is grown up, could take her
in marriage."

" But is he the Messiah ? " asked Lilith.

" Yes," said Zabulon, " for he was born in
Bethlehem at the time declared by the prophets,
and the wise men have seen his star."

"He must be beautiful, though little, must
he not, Zabulon ? "

LILITH

" It is written that he will be the most beau-
tiful among the children of men."
" I will go and see him," said Lilith.

When night came, Lilith wrapped herself in
dark garments ; and the bracelets and circlets
of gold on her arms and ankles, and the necklaces
of gold on her neck, and the precious stones with
which she was covered, shone through her
garments with as mild a radiance as the stars in
the sky ; and thus Lilith resembled the night,
whose name she bore.

For " Lilith " in the Hebrew language means
Night.

She went out of the palace secretly, with Noun,
the negress, and she reflected on her way :

" I should not like the Messiah to take away
my father's crown, for it would be hard for me
to live no longer in a beautiful palace, and no
more to have beautiful carpets, fine dresses,
jewels and perfumes. But neither do I wish
that this little newly-born child should be put
to death. Therefore I shall tell my father
that I have discovered his retreat, and as a reward
for that service I shall beg him to spare this child
and to keep him in his palace. In this way he
will be unable to do us harm ; but if he is the
Messiah, he will associate us with his power.

Lilith found Zebouda in prayer with her
husband, Methouel. A.nd both seemed to be
filled with great joy.

LILITH 99

Then Lilith thought of an artifice.

" Hozael is well," said she, " and I will bring
him back to you to-morrow. But since you
know where the Messiah is, lead me to him. I
have come to worship him."

Methouel was a simple man, and little inclined
to believe evil. He answered :

" I will lead you, Princess."

When they reached the place where the child
was, Lilith was greatly astonished, for she had
expected something extraordinary and magni-
ficent, though she did not know what, and she
saw but a hut built against the side of a rock,
and beneath its thatched roof an ass, an ox,
a man who had the appearance of an artisan, a
woman of the people, beautiful indeed, but
pale and fragile and poorly clad, and in the
manger, on the straw, a little child who at first
seemed like many other children.

But as she drew nearer, she saw his eyes, and
in those eyes a look which was not that of a
child, an infinite and more than human tender-
ness ; and she perceived that the only light in
the stable was the light that emanated from him.

She said to the young mother :

" What is your name ? "

" Miriam."

" And your little boy's ? "

" Jesus."

" He seems to be very good."

" He sometimes weeps, but he never cries out."

" Would you allow me to embrace him ? "

7*

IOO LILITH

" Yes, lady," said Miriam.

Lilith bent down and kissed the child on the
forehead ; and Miriam was a little angry to see
that she did not kneel.

" Then," said Lilith, " this little child is the
Messiah ? "

" It is as you have said, lady."

" And he will be the King of the Jews ? "

" That is why God has sent him."

" But then he will make war, he will kill many
men, and he will dethrone King Herod or his
successor ? "

" No," said Miriam, " for his kingdom is not
of this world. He will have neither guards nor
soldiers ; he will have neither palaces nor
treasures ; he will raise no taxes, and he will
live like the poorest fishermen on the lake of
Genesareth. He will be the servant of the
humble and lowly. He will cure the sick, he
will console the afflicted. He will teach truth
and justice, and it is over hearts and not over
bodies that he will reign. He will suffer in
order to teach us the worth of suffering. He
will be the king of tears, of charity, of pardon.
He will be the king of love. For he will love
men ; and to those who are tormented with the
desire of loving and for whom the earth is not
enough, he will tell how their poor hearts can
find contentment and joy. He will have in-
exhaustible mercy for all those, even though
guilty, who have kept this gift of loving and of
feeling themselves the brothers of other men,
and who do not prefer themselves to others.
And, doubtless, he will have a throne "

LILITH IOI

" Ah ! You see, I was right," said Lilith,
still resisting.

" But," resumed Miriam, " that throne will
be a cross. It is on a cross that he will die, in
order to expiate the sins of men and that God,
his father, may take pity upon them."

Lilith listened with astonishment. Slowly she
turned her head towards the manger ; she saw
that the child was looking at her, and under the
caress of his deep eyes, she was conquered, and
slipped on her knees, murmuring :

" I was never told these things."

And she worshipped.

Noun, the good negress, had for a long time
been kneeling and weeping.

" I know," said Lilith, as she got up, " that
King Herod seeks the child to put him to death.
Take the ass (I will pay his master), and flee ! "

By the narrow paths which twist about the
round hills, Jesus and his mother and Joseph and
Lilith and the negress and the ass reached the
plain.

" I must leave you here," said the Princess.
" I am Princess Lilith, King Herod's daughter.
Remember me."

And while Miriam, mounted on the ass which
Joseph led, and holding Jesus in her arms, went
away along the road to the right, Lilith followed
with her eyes in the night the aureole which
surrounded the divine brow of the little child.

And just at the moment when the pale,

IO2 LILITH

mysterious light disappeared behind a wood of
sycamore trees, there appeared on the road at
the left-hand side, with a noise of horses and
clanking of steel and rapid flashes of helmets
in the moonlight, the squadron of Roman soldiers
marching towards Bethlehem. . . .

THE BELL

THE BELL

THE little parish of Lande-Fleurie had
an old bell and an old parish priest.
The bell was so cracked that its sound
was like an old woman's cough. It was unpleasant
to hear, and it saddened the labourers and shep-
herds scattered among the fields.

The parish priest, Father Corentin, was still
sturdy in spite of his seventy-five years. He
had the face of a child, wrinkled but rosy,
framed with white hairs like the skeins of wool
which the good women of Lande-Fleurie used
to weave. And he was loved by his flock for his
goodness and great charity.

As the period approached when Father Corentin
was about to complete the fiftieth year of his
priesthood, his parishioners resolved to give him
a present of some importance to mark this
anniversary.

The three churchwardens secretly made a
collection in every house, and when they had got
together a hundred crowns they brought them
to the priest, begging him to go to the town and
himself choose the new bell.

" My children," said Father Corentin, " my
dear children ... it is evidently the good God
who ... so to speak ... in some way . . ."

And he could not go on, so greatly was he moved.
He could only murmur :

105

IO6 THE BELL

" Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secun-
dum verbum tuum in pace.11

(" Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart
in peace, according to thy word.")

On the following day, Father Corentin 'set
out to buy the bell. He had to go two leagues
on foot, as far as the village of Rosy-les-Roses,
where the diligence passed that went to the good
town of Pont-1'Archeveque, the chief town of
the province.

It was fine weather. The life of the trees,
of the birds, of the herbs and the flowers rustled
in the sun on both sides of the road.

And the old priest, his head already full of fine
future peals, walked along joyously, praising God,
like Saint Francis, for the gladness of creation.

As he approached Rosy-les-Roses, he saw, on
the side of the road, an unharnessed cart belong-
ing to some performing gipsies. Not far from
the cart, an old horse was lying on his side,
his four legs outstretched and stiff, the curves
of his ribs and the pointed bones of his rump
bursting through his worn skin, blood in his
nostrils, and with a huge head and white eyes.

An old man and an old woman, clothed in
strange rags and wearing tights of reddish cotton
sprinkled with stars, were sitting on the bank
of a ditch, weeping for their dead horse.

A girl of fifteen rose out of the bottom of
the ditch and ran towards the priest, saying :

" Charity, Father, charity if you please ! "

Her voice was husky yet gentle, and it modu-

THE BELL

lated her prayer like a gipsy song. "The child,
whose skin was the colour of freshly tanned leather,
wore only a dirty little smock and a red petticoat ;
but she had large velvety black eyes, and lips
like ripe cherries ; her yellow arms were tattooed
with blue flowers, and a leather band held back
her black hair, which was arranged in the shape
of a fan on each side of her thin face, just as
is seen in Egyptian statues.

The priest, slackening his pace, had taken a
couple of pence out of his purse. But, meeting
the child's eyes, he stopped, and began to question
her.

" My brother," she explained, " is in prison
because they said he stole a fowl. It was he
who earned our livelihood, and we have not eaten
for two days."

The priest put the pennies back into his purse,
and took out a silver coin.

" I am able to juggle," she said, " and my
mother tells fortunes. But they will not let
us carry on our trade in the towns and villages,
because we are too poor. And now our horse
is dead. What is to become of us ? "

" But," asked the priest, " could you not
look for work in the country ? J!

" The people are afraid of us and throw
stones at us. Then we have not learnt how to
work ; we can only do our own tricks. If we
had a horse and a little money to get clothes,
we might be able to live by our own trade. . . .
But there is nothing left for us except to die."

The priest put the silver coin back into his
purse.

IO8 THE BELL

" Do you love the good God ? " he asked.

" I will love Him if He helps us," said the child.

The priest felt in his girdle the weight of the
bag that contained his parishioners' hundred
crowns.

The beggar did not take her eyes off the holy
priest, her gipsy eyes that were almost all pupils.
He asked :

" Are you good ? "

" Good ? " said the gipsy with astonishment,
for she did not understand.

" Say : ' My God, I love you ! '

The child was silent, her eyes full of tears.
The priest had unfastened his cassock and taken
out the bag of money.

The gipsy snatched the bag with the gesture
of a monkey, and said :

" Father, I love you."

And she fled towards the old couple who had
not moved and were still weeping for their dead
horse.

The priest continued his walk towards Rosy-les-
Roses, thinking of the extreme poverty in which
it pleases God to keep some of His creatures,
and praying Him to enlighten that little wanderer,
who obviously had no religion, and who, perhaps,
had not even received Holy Baptism.

But suddenly he recollected that it was no
longer any use going to Pont-1'Archeveque, since
he no longer had the money for the bell.

And he retraced his steps.

THE BELL I 09

He could hardly understand now how he could
have given to an unknown beggar, to a performing
gipsy, such an enormous sum — that did not belong
to him.

He hurried on, hoping to see the gipsy girl.
But there was no longer anything on the roadside
except the dead horse and the cart.

He reflected on what he had just done. He
had, without any doubt, sinned grievously : he
had abused the confidence of his flock, misappro-
priated money in his charge, committed a sort of
theft.

And he saw with terror the consequences of
his fault. How could he hide it ? How repair
it ? Where could he find another hundred
crowns ? And, in the meantime, what was he
to answer to those who might question him ?
What explanation could he give of his conduct ?

The sky darkened. The trees became a crude
and staring green against the livid horizon.
Large drops fell. Father Corentin was im-
pressed by the sadness of creation.

He was able to return to his presbytery without
being noticed.

" Are you back already, Father ? " asked his
servant, old Scholastica. " Then you did not
go to Pont-1'Archeveque ? "

The priest told a falsehood.

" I missed the diligence at Rosy-les-Roses.
... I will go another day. . . . But listen, do
not tell anybody that I am back."

110 THE BELL

He did not say his Mass the next day. He
remained shut up in his room and did not even
dare to walk in his orchard.

But, on the following day, he was sent for to
give Extreme Unction to a sick man in the hamlet
of Clos-Moussu.

" He has not returned," said the housekeeper.

" Scholastica is mistaken ; here I am," said
Father Corentin.

On his way back from Clos-Moussu, he met one
of his most pious parishioners.

" Well, Father, have you had a pleasant
journey ? "

The priest lied for the second time.

" Excellent, my friend, excellent."

" And the bell ! "

The priest told a further lie. Alas ! he had
already given up counting them.

" Superb, my friend, superb ! One would
say it was made of silver. And what a pretty
sound ! If you only give it a fillip with your
thumb, it keeps on humming so long that you
would think it was never going to end."

" And when shall we see it ! "

" Soon, my son, soon. But its baptismal
name must first be engraved on the metal, and
those of its godfather and godmother, and some
verses from the Holy Scriptures. . „ . And, you
see, that takes time."

THE BELL III

" Scholastica," said the priest when he got
home, " if we sold the arm-chair, the clock, and
the cupboard that are in my room, do you think
they would fetch a hundred crowns ? "

" They would not fetch three gold pieces,
Father. For, saving your reverence, your furni-
ture is not worth twopence."

" Scholastica," resumed the priest, " I shall
eat no more meat. Meat disagrees with me."

" Your reverence," said the old servant, " that
is not natural, and I am certain there is something
the matter with you . . . ever since the day
you started for Pont-1'Archeveque. What hap-
pened to you then ? "

And she bothered him so much with questions
that he ended by telling her everything.

" Ah ! " said she, " that does not surprise
me. Your good heart will ruin you. But do
not worry about it, Father. I will take it upon
myself to explain the matter until you have
got together another hundred crowns."

And then Scholastica invented stories, which
she poured out to everybody : " The new bell
had been cracked when it was being packed, and
it had been necessary to cast it again. The bell
had been cast again, but the priest had had the
idea of sending it to Rome so that it might
be blessed by our Holy Father the Pope, and that
was a long journey. . . ."

The priest allowed her to talk, but he became
more and more unhappy. For, besides reproach-
ing himself for his own falsehoods, he felt

112 THE BELL

responsible for those of Scholastica, and this,
joined to the misappropriation of his parishioners'
money, formed at last a frightful heap of sins.
He bent under their load, and, little by little, a
terrible pallor replaced, on his thin cheeks, the
red roses of his innocent and robust old age.

The day fixed for the parish priest's jubilee
and the baptism of the bell had long passed. The
inhabitants of Lande-Fleurie were astonished at.
such a delay. Rumours spread about. Farigoul,
the smith, said that Father Corentin had been
seen in company with a bad woman, in the
neighbourhood of Rosy-les-Roses, and he added :

" I tell you what happened ; he has spent the
money for the bell with wenches."

A party was formed against the worthy
minister. When he walked in the streets* there
were hats that remained on heads, and as he
passed he heard hostile murmurs.

The poor holy man was overwhelmed with
remorse. He saw the full extent of his fault.
He felt the saddest attrition ; and yet, try as
he would, he could not reach perfect contrition.

For he felt that he had given this imprudent
alms, this alms from the money of others, almost
in spite of himself and without even having
been able to think of what he was doing. He
told himself also that this unreasonable charity
might be, to the soul of the little gipsy, the best
revelation of God, and the beginning of an inward
illumination. And he kept seeing the eyes of
the little wanderer, so gentle and so full of tears.

THE BELL 113

However, the anguish of his conscience became
intolerable. His fault grew by mere lapse of
time. One day, after having remained a long
time in prayer, he resolved to unburden himself
of his sin by confessing it publicly to his
parishioners.

On the following Sunday, he mounted the
pulpit after the Gospel, and paler and tenser
for a more sublime effort than the martyrs in
the arena, he began :

" My dear brethren, my dear friends, my
dear children, I have a confession to make to
you. . . ."

At that moment, a clear, silver, limpid peal
rang forth from the steeple and filled the old
church. . . . All heads turned, and a wondering
whisper ran along the ranks of the faithful :

" The new bell ! the new bell ! "

Was it a miracle ? And had God sent the
new bell by His angels, in order to save the
honour of his faithful minister ?

Or had Scholastica gone and confided her old
master's embarrassment to those two American
ladies — do you know them ? — Susy and Betty
Percival, who lived in a splendid country house
three leagues distant from Lande-Fleurie, and
had these excellent ladies arranged to give Father
Corentin this pretty surprise ?

8

'rHE BELL

In my opinion, this second explanation would
raise even more difficulties than the first.

However that may be, the inhabitants of
Lande-Fleurie never knew what it was that
Father Corentin had to confess.

SAINT JOHN AND
THE DUCHESS ANNE

SAINT JOHN AND THE DUCHESS ANNE

THE parish of Saint John of the Finger is
thus named because it possesses in its
church one of the most precious of Chris-
tian relics — the actual finger of Saint John the
Baptist, the sacred forefinger which on the banks
of the Jordan pointed the crowds to the Divine
Saviour of men.

Some scholars of the present age maintain
that the word " finger " is here but an ortho-
graphical alteration of the word " figurine,"
that it therefore comes from the Latin word
" figura" meaning a shape or figure, that there
are, in the town, the remains of a number of
potters' moulds which date from Roman times,
and that thus, when one says " Saint John of
the Finger," it is as if one said, " Saint John
of the figures or shapes." And certainly this
explanation is plausible. Nevertheless, between
two etymologies, a Christian ought to prefer
that from which he can derive most edification.

Even to-day, this Finger performs miracles
from time to time. But four or five centuries
ago, when faith was more living, it performed
them in abundance.

The priests used to present the venerable relic
to the faithful, enclosed in a case of gold and
crystal ; and the greater number of those sick

117

Il8 SAINT JOHN AND THE DUCHESS ANNE

persons who kissed it were cured, above all if
they were poor.

For the Finger of the holy Forerunner preferred
to succour serfs, villeins, and people of low estate ;
but it was distrustful and parsimonious towards
the great, as appears in this veracious story.

In these times the Duchess Anne of Brittany
was, in spite of her power and her immense
riches, in the most piteous state in the world,
for she was plagued by an ulcer which made her
suffer a thousand deaths, and gave her no rest
either by day or night. In vain had she summoned
the most famous leeches of Padua and Ravenna.
Their science had to yield before the devouring
evil.

Then she thought that, without doubt, the
Finger of Saint John could cure her, and she
commanded the priests to bring the benevolent
relic to her castle. She promised that if she was
cured she would give ten thousand golden crowns
to the poor, and ten thousand more for the beau-
tifying of the miraculous sanctuary.

Now, it was ten days' journey from Saint
John of the Finger to the Duchess Anne's castle.

The Finger was placed in a rich reliquary
borne by monks chanting canticles, and a great
multitude of the faithful followed them.

On the first day the trees along the road bowed
with respect as the procession passed along, but
towards evening the trees ceased to bow, and
those who bore the reliquary felt an invincible

SAINT JOHN AND THE DUCHESS ANNE

fatigue which prevented them from advancing
further.

They looked into the reliquary and saw that
the Finger was no longer there.

For the Finger had said to itself on the way :
" What are they doing with me here ? After
all, a saint is more than a duchess, and it is for
her to put herself to some inconvenience."

And thereupon, taking with it its crystal case,
the Finger had returned in the air to its church,
where the priests found it again the next day.

The Duchess Anne understood that she must
go to the saint, since the saint refused to come
to her, and this is why that, in spite of the length
of the journey, she went to Saint John of the
Finger. She presented herself in the church in
pompous apparel, clad in purple and brocade,
and followed by her pages and her ladies-in-wait-
ing. And having placed on the recalcitrant
relic a kiss in which there were at once fervour
and condescension, she waited for her cure with
serenity.

The cure did not come.

The Duchess Anne grew obstinate.

She paid in advance the twenty thousand
golden crowns she had promised.

She made a vow to consecrate to the Lord
in a Bernardine convent the virginity of her
eldest daughter, who was a person of great
beauty.

She sent orders that a heretic, whose trial

I2O SAINT JOHN AND THE DUCHESS ANNE

had been unduly protracted, should be con-
demned and burned on the market-place of
Rennes.

And she caused three hundred waxen candles
to be lighted before the shrine in which the
Finger was enclosed.

But her malady did not leave her.

And yet each day, all about her, artisans and
peasants, beggar-women and mountebanks, men-
dicants and cut-throats, lepers and highway
robbers, were instantly restored to health by the
power of the compassionate Finger.

The Duchess Anne then consulted an old
priest, renowned for his knowledge and his
virtues.

" But," said she, " why does the Saint refuse
with this obstinacy to me what he grants to all
these wretches whose lives are of no account to
anybody ? "

" They are of some account at least to them-
selves," replied the old priest. " And as the
saint consents to cure them, their lives are of
account also to God, and it pleases Him to be
served here below by these poor people."

" Yet," answered the duchess, " if the saint
cared to take some interest in me, would he not
find more advantages in that than in occupying
himself with this herd of beggars ? I am power-
ful, and I would not be ungrateful."

" Learn to know the character of this great
prophet better," said the old man. " He was a

SAINT JOHN AND THE DUCHESS ANNE 121

rather rugged saint, and he never had any re-
spect for either riches or external pomp. He wore
a garment of camel's hair and a leathern girdle
about his loins. His meat was locusts and wild
honey. And he gladly welcomed the poor and
humble, and baptized them in the waters of
Jordan. But when he saw Pharisees and Sad-
ducees coming to be baptized, he drove them
away with hard words, because he knew that
these people were proud in their hearts and
thought themselves superior to other men."

The Duchess Anne reflected upon these words.
She told herself that it would not be easy for her
to overcome the prejudice of this rugged patron
of the common people, and she thought of this
stratagem.

She put on a dress of fustian and a peasant's
cloak, and thus dressed she slipped into the crowd
in order that, without being perceived, she might
kiss the merciful relic.

And this time the duchess was in fact delivered
of her malady, whether it was that the saint
was so busy as to be duped by her artifice, or that
he cured her, without knowing it, in the jumble
of the other sick persons.

And, at the same time as the body, the good
saint healed the soul. The Duchess Anne sud-
denly gained a knowledge of charity. She did
not shut up her daughter in a cloister, and she
did not cause the poor heretic of Rennes to be
burned, it having been revealed to her that God

122 SAINT JOHN AND THE DUCHESS ANNE

did not demand either that imprisonment or
that execution.

And she began to give much in alms. And
not only did she relieve the indigent ; she loved
them, because it was when wearing their livery
that she had been cured. And she did not
believe herself above them. And she died in
the odour of sanctity.

THE TWO FLOWERS

THE TWO FLOWERS

MESSIRE ORY DE HAUTCCEUR was
riding through the country one day on
his white horse, seeking adventures. He
was clad from head to foot in steel, and a plume
an ell long floated over his morion. Behind
came his chaplain, a venerable man with a red,
good-natured face, slowly balancing himself on
the back of a mule ; then four men-at-arms, clad
in coarse fustian and astride of ill-conditioned
nags, for the good knight was richer in virtue
than in coin.

As he rose in his stirrups to explore the horizon,
he perceived a cloud of dust in the distance.
The cloud grew larger and approached him ;
from the midst of it came a noise of furious gallop-
ing. The whirlwind passed close to Ory. He
distinguished at the head of the band a knight of
tall stature in black armour, then men-at-arms
with miscreant faces, and, in the middle of them,
bound on a horse by her girdle, her feet fastened
to the mane, and her head tossing on the crupper,
a marvellously beautiful woman, in a white dress,
whose long golden hair was blown by the wind
and intwined with the long tail of the palfrey.

" Help ! " she cried, " in the name of God and
the Blessed Virgin Mary ! "

Ory de Hautcoeur clapped spurs to his horse,
but the cavalcade was already some distance off,

"5

126 THE TWO FLOWERS

and it was galloping so fast that the good knight's
horse, though properly spurred, could not reach
it. His four companions made an effort and
followed him from afar. Ory shouted to the
black knight :

" Stop, stop ! ravisher of women ! felon ! rene-
gade ! "

The other did not hear, and continued to
gallop away.

Then, in less time than it takes to say Amen,
Ory leaped to the ground, took up a small stone,
remounted his horse, and hurled the stone with
such strength and skill that it struck the black
knight's helmet with a loud noise.

The wicked knight swore like a pagan, and he
and his band turned round. He sneered when
he saw Ory on his lean horse and the poor appear-
ance of his four varlets. He did not think of
this, that God was with Ory.

It would take too long to describe the combat.
Know only that Ory cleaved the knight in twain
with a great stroke of his sword, and that he and
his four good servants killed or put to flight the
whole band, whilst the chaplain, keeping him-
self apart behind a hawthorn bush, prayed God
to help the champions of the noble lady.

When this task was done, Ory de Hautcoeur,
after wiping his good sword on the grass, carefully
cut the fair prisoner's bonds, and lifted her down
from her horse with his gauntleted hands. She
leant against a tree to breathe a little, for she
had been bruised by her bonds and by the ride ;
but by a singular grace from on high, she had no
grievous wound.

THE TWO FLOWERS I2J

Ory took off his helmet and laid it on the
ground ; and the noble lady was not a little
surprised to see that the knight who had just
fought for her so fiercely had a young and fresh
countenance, with a few brown hairs beginning
to show themselves on his lips, and eyes as gentle
as those of a young girl.

He, on his side, marvelled at the beauty of
the lady, her hair as silky as silk, her eyes as blue
as bluebells, her mouth as rosy as roses, and the
air of sweetness and modesty that covered her
delicate face. He thought her more beauti-
ful than the faces of the angels he had seen in
illuminated missals or the saints he had seen on
the painted windows in the churches. And, as
he gazed at her, he began to love her as deeply
as one of God's creatures has ever been loved.

Then he placed himself with one knee on the
ground and said to her :

" Most noble matron or maiden, I thank God
who has led me across your path. I place myself
from this moment entirely at your service ; and
if it please you that I wear your colours, I will
stain them by no unworthy action, but I will
bear them with as much reverence as a clerk bears
the Holy Sacrament. I am a knight-errant, and
my name is Ory de Hautcceur."

" Rise, Sir Knight," said the lady, " for it is
becoming to kneel only in churches. My name
is Frileuse de Blanc-Lys, and I am not a matron
but a maiden. I was still fresh from Holy Baptism
when my mother died ; and my father was away
on the kst crusade, from which he has never
returned. I lived alone in the old castle of

128 THE TWO FLOWERS

Tour-Vermeille, which is only two leagues from
here, under the care of Dame Gudule, my mother's
woman, and an old man, Rigobert by name, who
was squire to the late lord. But when I reached
my sixteenth year, our neighbour, the Sire de Pic-
Tordu, whom you have just slain, seeing me one
day close to our dwelling, suddenly conceived a
damnable desire and wished to lead me into sin.
Now, as he was not able to overcome me by his
insidious words, and as I remained shut up in
my manor so as to avoid any unpleasant en-
counter, he came last night with an armed band,
and entered the castle by some treachery. The
faithful Rigobert and my other servants died de-
fending me. I do not know what has become of
Dame Gudule. As for me, I was in great danger
of death and dishonour, if God had not sent you
to my aid. Of that, gentle knight, I shall have
an eternal remembrance. And therefore I
authorize you to wear my colours, which are
white and azure, seeing that I esteem purity of
heart above all things, and that often, in my
lonely life, the thought of heaven has comforted
me. And now, to finish your good action, take
me back to the castle of Tour-Vermeille, the red
stone donjon and turreted roofs of which you
can perceive rising behind that range of hills.
Alas ! I shall find the bodies of my good vassals
bleeding on the flagstones, and I shall be more
lonely than before. But I doubt not that God
has received their souls into His blessed Paradise ;
and I do not think myself entirely abandoned by
Him, since He has summoned to my protection
so trusty and virtuous a knight."

THE TWO FLOWERS 129

Thus spake Frileuse de Blanc-Lys, in a voice
as sweet as music, and broken with tears towards
the end of her speech. Ory placed a devout kiss
on the maiden's long white hand, and helped her
to mount her horse, which he himself led by the
bridle.

ii

As they went along, they spoke of the adven-
tures in which the knights of former times had
distinguished themselves, principally those of
King Arthur's companions, who are also called
the Knights of the Round Table ; of the beauty
and chastity of their ladies, and of the deeds of
prowess into which they had been led by love,
which, if it is pure and reverential and free from
all evil desire, makes every virtue to blossom in
the hearts of men and inspires them with invin-
cible valour.

" Gentle knight," said Frileuse, " though I am
not comparable with the illustrious ladies of
ancient times, I would wish with all my heart
that, for love of me and zeal in my service, as
great fame should come to you as formerly to
Launcelot of the Lake and Perceval of Gaul."

" If not by my prowess," answered Ory, " at
least by my goodwill and the constancy of my
love, do I hope to equal those ancient paragons
of chivalry whose miraculous feats are sung by
the minstrels during the winter evenings."

And, in truth, Ory was very much like those
perfect knights of distant ages. Although he
lived at a time when chivalry was already in decay,

I3O THE TWO FLOWERS

when most nobles were more often guided by-
interest and avarice than by the love of God and
of their ladies, when the burghers, enriching
themselves in the towns and making merry with
their cronies, were beginning to mock those who
dreamt of uncarnal and immutable loves and who
went to seek fame in foreign lands, Ory de
Hautcoeur passed through the corruption of the
age without seeing it, for his eyes and his soul were
always turned upwards, and he was as candid and
credulous as a well-born child whose nurse delights
him with pretty stories.

" I was baptized," he continued, " with water
from the stream whence Archbishop Turpin drew
water for Roland. My father died, as did yours,
gentle lady, warring against the Saracens. My
mother, after she became a widow, built a con-
vent for noble girls, of which she is now the abbess,
and there she lives in lofty penitence, praying for
the unbelievers whom I slay, and illuminating
missals and antiphonaries, for she is as skilled in
matters of writing as any cleric. I have a castle
somewhere in the Pyrenees, but I left it when I was
about twelve years old, and I have never gone back
there since. I go through the world righting for
causes that seem to me just. I have left in my
manor an old man who manages my estate and
lets me have, when he can, a purse of money, for
I never receive payment for my services or take
my share of the booty. I sleep in the churches
that I pass on my way, sometimes in the open
air beneath the heavenly vault, which is a vaster
and equally holy church, or in the castle of some
friendly noble, or in the huts of the villeins, who

THE TWO FLOWERS

think me mad and yet treat me with honour,
knowing that I love them as poor and weak
brethren, and that I defend them upon occasion.
Thus I wander at random, trusting to my sword
and always endeavouring to be a good servant of
God. And I am yours also, which is the same
thing, for you would never command me to do
anything of which God does not approve."

" Sir Knight," replied Frileuse, " it is sweet
to hear you speak. In the old castle where my
days flow by, one like another, I do not pray from
morning until evening, for it is necessary to have
some respite even from the holiest exercises. But
often I used to get old Rigobert (may God have
his soul !) to repeat to me the finest tales of
chivalry ; then I used to think of them again
in my chamber, and I used to wish to be one of
those ladies for whom knights do deeds of prowess.
In the evenings as I watched the sunset through
my window I felt within me a mingled sweetness
and sadness, and I began to desire things that I
could not express in words. I let my thoughts
go where they wished ; I dreamt of a splendid
knight decked with all virtues and perfections ;
he loved me alone, and he took the place in my
heart of my dead father and mother, and he was
something more still. I expected him, I saw
him coming in the glory of the setting sun, and
the purple clouds formed the canopy of his
triumph. Now to-day, I dream no more, Sir
Knight, since you are here."

Whilst Ory and Frileuse conversed thus, the
chaplain, who followed them on his mule, listened
without saying a word, but a malicious smile

9*

132 THE TWO FLOWERS

turned up the corners of his thick lips and of his
little grey eyes ; and it seemed that the holy
man inwardly mocked at the sublimity of such
subjects.

in

After walking for two hours, the little troop
reached the castle of Tour-Vermeille. Corpses
in pools of blood were scattered over the court-
yards ; but Ory and Frileuse scarcely saw them,
because they were happy. Moreover, God, wish-
ing this miserable world to continue, has placed
in the hearts of the living a rapid forgetfulness
of the dead.

As they were entering the great hall they heard
groans, then cries of " Help ! " and they perceived
Dame Gudule firmly fastened to the biggest arm-
chair, which was of such ample structure and so
massively formed of heavy oak, that the old
woman, in spite of all her efforts, had hardly been
able to move it an inch. As soon as the varlets
had unbound her, she burst forth in words :

" What ! it is you, dear young lady, my angel,
my dove, rny lamb, Frileuse of my heart ! Holy
Virgin, what an adventure ! Certain I was that
I should never see you again except in Paradise,
and that I should die of hunger in the late lord's
chair ! Is it possible, Jesus, that there exist
Christians so wicked ! But you, what has hap-
pened to you ? And how did you escape from
the talons of the renegades ? They have beaten
me to a jelly, my child, and my old skin must be
black and blue ; and while they were beating me,

THE TWO FLOWERS 133

they made horrible jokes among themselves, and
wanted to take off my petticoat, so that I feared
for my virtue ; and I shall be seventy years old,
or nearly that, next Candlemas. But tell me, my
lamb, have they robbed you of your honour ?
For that Pic-Tordu is a scoundrel ! His mother
was an Egyptian, learned in evil spells, whom his
father brought back from the Levant, where that
Pagan had bewitched him with her philtres and
diabolical charms. One day she disappeared,
whether it was that she died or something else.
Some thought her a demon and are sure that Pic-
Tordu is a true son of the devil. I trembled all
over, therefore, when I saw him dragging you
away. Has he done you any harm, dear heart ?
You are a little pale, but not ill it seems, and even
your blue eyes are brighter and shine more than
usual. What a happiness to see you again !
You were cutting your first teeth when your
sainted mother grew faint and felt death coming.
' Gudule,' said the dear lady to me, * you will
watch over Frileuse and protect her from all
harm whether of body or of soul.' Judge of my
feeling when I saw myself bound to this chair,
all alone and not able to move, and I thought to
myself : ' Where is she now, the poor dear
creature ? And what are they doing to her,
Lord Jesus ? ' But why do you not answer
me?"

" Dame Gudule," said Frileuse, smiling, " I do
not answer you because you do not stop talking.
This brave knight whom you see has saved my
life, and perhaps more, by killing Pic-Tordu and
his soldiers. His name is Ory de Hautcceur. I

134 THE TWO FLOWERS

am glad, Dame Gudule, that no worse has hap-
pened to you, for I love you as my mother's
nurse and faithful servant."

" Sir Ory," replied Gudule, " be blessed of God
for having brought back to me our young lady.
She is a pearl, I tell you, a precious jewel, a notable
flower of grace and virtue. When she was still
quite small "

" Good Gudule," interrupted Frileuse, " Sir
Ory and his chaplain will be good enough to
receive the hospitality of the castle of Tour-
Vermeille. Go and see if those bandits have left
us any provisions, and get ready to treat our
guests as well as you can."

" Trust to me," Gudule answered. " I talk
a great deal, and often at random, as is the case
with old people ; but in spite of my age, I have
still a good head, thanks be to God, and "

" You will also take great care, Gudule, of
those brave men who have fought with Sir Ory.
As for you, reverend chaplain, you will pardon
me if I do not offer you to-day succulent dishes
such as quarters of venison, boars' heads, phea-
sants dressed in their feathers, with preserves
of fruits, almond cake, jams, and other deli-
cacies."

" Madam," said the chaplain, " we should not,
in truth, despise the gifts of the Lord ; but by
my state and profession I ought to be detached
from them ; and, moreover, the grace of your
welcome is a condiment that would make a
peasant's food worthy of a king."

" I do not know whether that condiment is
satisfying," said Frileuse ; " but I promise you

THE TWO FLOWERS 135

better cheer as soon as I can replace my poor ser-
vitors." (And at this word large tears moistened
her blue eyes.) " We will collect their bodies this
evening, and we will watch with them through
the night. To-morrow, reverend chaplain, you
will say a Mass for them, and we will lay them in
consecrated ground."

" May it rest lightly on their bones," mur-
mured the chaplain, " for if they did not all live
in a state of grace, assuredly they died in it, for
they died for you, Lady Frileuse ! They toiled
during their lives, they were resigned and valiant ;
they had simple minds and upright hearts, and
patient faith in God and in that future justice
which they called Paradise. They were numbered
among those humble souls who force God to
permit the continued existence in this world of
the powerful and the rich who are without
charity, and they counted among those whose
virtues are sufficient reasons why this earth
should go on existing, though it be evil and
full of horrible things. Fair visions of the
future and an immortal hope consoled their
narrow existences ; they lived and died for others
than themselves ; and in this they were not
deceived, even if one supposed, in abominable
impiety, that there is no Paradise beyond. Let
us pray for them, my brethren, oremus.

IV

Ory de Hautcoeur remained some weeks at the
castle of Tour-Vermeille. He hunted stags and
wild boars in the neighbouring forests. In the

136 THE TWO FLOWERS

evenings he talked with Frileuse, and the ladies
and knights of former times always entered into
their conversations. There were discussions on
their virtues and merits (Ory preferring the latter,
Frileuse the former) and on the conditions neces-
sary for loving rightly and well. But they always
ended in agreement. Often also they prayed the
chaplain to read them the written stories of noble
deeds which were to be found in great abundance
in the library of the castle. The holy man read
these to them willingly, yet not as a man whose
own interests were kindled by them (for he was
of a sedate temperament), but like someone who
amuses himself with observing curiously the ideas
and behaviour of others.

This chaplain, whose name was Simon Godard,
was the son of a villein, and was born in the
poorest hovel in a very poor village. The prior
of a neighbouring abbey had noticed his engaging
ways when he was quite a child, and the little
villager had, by his subtle intellect and his dili-
gence, become a most excellent clerk versed in
all sorts of studies. To tell the truth, he was not
quite so accomplished in holiness. He was rather
fond of the pleasures of the table, prudent to ex-
cess, a mocker, and less given to saying prayers than
was the good Ory de Hautcoeur. But his charity
towards his brethren was great, not only in giving
alms, but in excusing poor sinners provided there
was no malice in them, for he was no more severe
to the sins of others than he was to his own. In
addition, he was surprised at nothing, tolerated
everybody, and did not get angry with those who
were not like himself. He had ideas of his own

THE TWO FLOWERS 137

on many matters, but he did not express them,
either from prudence or from a fear of being
misunderstood. Ordinarily his face and his whole
exterior were those of a jovial and unthinking
churchman ; but his appearance belied him, for
sometimes when he forgot himself there escaped
from him reflections so wise and so bold that one
would not have expected them from so monastic
a countenance.

He amused himself with the loves of Ory and
Frileuse as if they were a pleasant game played
by simple-minded children. But he ended by
thinking that the game was lasting too long.
Such a quintessence of sentiments seemed to him
mere dreamy nonsense. Sometimes he thought
the knight a little too ingenuous ; and sometimes,
knowing men and the infirmity of the flesh, he
had fears for the very innocence of 'the two lovers,
and he could not prevent himself from having
some distrust of the end of the adventure.

" Sir Knight," said he one day to Ory, " do
you love the Lady Frileuse ? "

" Verily, I do," answered Ory, " and with all
the powers and faculties of my soul."

" And does the Lady Frileuse also love you ? "

" I have some suspicion she does, if I may say
so much."

" Are you a pure spirit, Sir Knight ? "

" If I were, reverend chaplain, I would not
be the miserable sinner I am."

" And do you think that the Lady Frileuse
is a pure spirit and a disembodied soul ? "

" I am quite ready to think so, worthy chaplain.
So much grace and so much beauty do not belong

138 THE TWO FLOWERS

to a terrestrial creature, nor to one subject to
the servitudes of the body."

" A pure spirit could not have such fine eyes,
Sir Knight, for spirits have no eyes at all ; and
you would not love her, for spirits are invisible.
Tell me also, are you both free ? "

" Frileuse is an orphan, and I have no master
except God."

" Why, then, do you not become the husband
of the Lady de Blanc-Lys by the sacrament of
marriage ? "

Ory started as if he felt disagreeably surprised

" So soon ? " he answered. " But that would
not be the same. I must do something to deserve
her,, and it is from this thought that my virtue
comes. To disturb that divine flower ! You
are not thinking of that, reverend chaplain.
If I did what you propose, it would seem to me
as if I were committing a sacrilege, that a force
would go out of me and that a grace would leave
me along with it."

" And why, then, do you love her, if it is
not to possess her ? "

" But I love her ... to love her," answered
Ory, simply.

" God bless you, my son," murmured Simon
Godard, musingly.

Now, there was in preparation a new crusade
against the infidels who still held the tomb of
our Lord in their power. As soon as the news

THE TWO FLOWERS 139

of this reached Ory, he was filled with great joy,
and said to Frileuse :

" It is not fitting that others should go without
me to conquer the Holy Sepulchre and harass
the Saviour's enemies. I beseech you humbly,
lady, to grant me leave to go. I shall return,
if God wills, less unworthy of your merciful
love."

" Dear Knight," answered Frileuse, " I should
be made of very coarse clay if I had not the courage
to say to you, ' Go.' But I should be of steel
or granite if I did not add : ' Return soon,'
and if I did not feel my heart growing weak
within me at the moment when you leave

me."

Having said these words, she herself aided
Ory to put on his armour, his leg-guards, spurs,
greaves, armlets, gauntlets, coat of mail, cuirass,
and, over all, a tunic of precious silk which she
had worked with her own hands and which was
partly white and partly blue ; for these, as you
may remember, were the dear lady's colours.
After which, she girt on his sword and put on
the helmet, whose steel mask only allowed the
light of day to enter through two holes pierced
at the places of the eyes.

Ory and Frileuse were at that moment in the
great courtyard of the castle, where the grass
grew between the flagstones, with here and there
some little flowers. Suddenly Frileuse, by an
inspiration from God, plucked one of the flowers,
a little daisy with a golden heart.

" Receive this little flower," she said, " and
keep it in memory of me. If you bring it back

I4O THE TWO FLOWERS

to me from the Holy Land as intact and fresh
as it is now, I shall know that your thought
has remained faithful to me, and I will give you
my hand in return."

" Lady," answered Ory, " I do not ask how
this flower can preserve its freshness and newness
for so long a time, but I believe it since you say
so, for you have never spoken falsely. If all that
is needed is that I should be faithful to you, I
will bring it back, were it after ten years, if I
do not die, in the condition in which you see
it now. Do not doubt this any more than
you doubt the Holy Gospel."

Then Frileuse placed the little flower in Ory's
helmet, fastening the stalk in one of the joints,
and (what she would not have done on one of
the fair knight's cheeks of flesh) she kissed the
two polished steel cheeks of his helmet ; and so
great was the poor girl's love that this cold kiss
warmed her to the heart. She trembled, nearly
fainted, and wept for a long time.

VI

Then Sir Ory started on his way, followed by
his four varlets, whose names were Hector, Ogier,
Lahire, and Launcelot, and by his chaplain,
Father Simon Godard. The good man was
going to Palestine, not from religious fervour
or from love of blows, but out of curiosity and to
see new things.

As the little troop advanced, it joined other
bands, and little by little they grew into an army.

THE TWO FLOWERS

But the time had already passed when all Chris-
tendom, even to old jnen, women, and little
children, marched behind a monk to the conquest
of Palestine. In the host where Sir Ory rode
in the front rank, one saw hardly any villeins ;
not a single burgher, but only knights and men-
at-arms and mercenary soldiers who made war
their trade.

Ory went along, full of his dreams and of the
memory of Frileuse, without even perceiving
that a number of his companions were led by
other thoughts than that of the service of God,
and that they did not always behave themselves
as perfect Christians.

Simon Godard, lolling on his ancient mule,
and heaving like a full leathern bottle, usually
rode at the knight's side, for he loved his can-
dour, and they often conversed together to while
away the tedium of the journey.

" Shall we soon be in Palestine ? " Sir Ory
asked him one day, for the knight was no great
clerk in geography.

" In a month from now we shall approach
it, if nothing unforeseen happens," answered
the chaplain. " But we shall be half as many
when we reach it as we were when we started.
Many of the host are dying of famine, of fatigue,
or of malignant fevers. I do not know if you
notice it, but we leave behind us a large number
of our companions, and, as there is no time to
bury them properly, the dogs and crows give
them another sort of burial."

" I do not pity those who go before us into
the holy Paradise of God," said Ory. "The

142 THE TWO FLOWERS

body is a prison and its substance is vile ; what
becomes of it matters not a jot."

" There are moments, Sir Knight, when I
do not distinguish clearly between the prison
and the prisoner. It afflicts me that so many
people are dying. Nor do I clearly see what
purpose these deaths serve. We shall spend a
year or more in taking two or three towns, and
when we are conquerors, there will remain of us
less than a handful of men. Disease will then
finish us ; the infidels will not even have the
trouble of driving us out, and everything will have
to begin again."

" Truly ; but the walls of Jericho did not
fall until the seventh day, and this is not yet
the seventh crusade."

" But is it absolutely necessary that Christians
should possess the tomb of the Lord Jesus,
which, moreover, is but an empty sepulchre,
where nothing of Him remains, and which He
has allowed for more than a thousand years to
be kept in the hands of infidels ? And do you
not think, Sir Knight, that this soil belongs to
them as legitimately as the soil of France does
to the French ? "

" Do not speak thus, reverend chaplain, for
such mockery does not become a churchman
and a saint such as you are."

" I do not mock, Sir Knight ; but the will of
God does not appear to me so manifest as it does
to you. It troubles me that God has given to
his worst enemies greater wealth than to Chris-
tians, more skill in industry, better engines of
war, and victory over his faithful servants."

THE TWO FLOWERS 143

" Do you not know, Father Godard, that their
wealth comes to them from the demon, and that
it only serves to lead them into the most abomin-
able vices ? And if God sometimes allows
them to defeat us, it is because He is proving
those whom He loves, seeing that trials purify
us and raise us to Him."

" You would make a very good theologian,
and I should make a very bad knight. If it so
happened that I was ruler of the land of France,
I believe that I should hardly ever leave it.
For while the nobles and sovereigns go and get
themselves killed in distant lands, the villeins
are slack in paying their dues ; the burghers in
the towns accumulate gold pieces, and, as the
nobles need money for their distant expeditions,
these burghers gain all sorts of liberties and privi-
leges. I do not complain of this, for I am one
of the people ; but I say that it is a great mistake
for a noble to join a crusade."

" I know, worthy chaplain, that you are speak-
ing contrary to your thought, and that all this
is only to try me. But such words do not
touch me, for I have but a small castle, little
lands, and no towns. Then, I am not sorry that
other Christians are endeavouring to improve
their hard and base condition. For my own
part, I am not a draper or a spice merchant
to stay always in my own little corner, and to
value nothing but money and material joys.
It is something higher and of greater value that
I seek. I am not, reverend chaplain, made of
the same stuff as your burghers and your villeins.
I could not remain long in the same place or

144 THE TWO FLOWERS

limit my felicity to the things that can be seen
and touched. I love the Lady Blanc-Lys, and
I leave her without knowing whether I shall
return. I am joining in an adventure which
you say is useless and foolish, and from which
no profit will come to me even if it should
succeed. Why am I doing this ? I do not
know ; I cannot do otherwise, and I feel that it
pleases God and that I am His workman."

Simon Godard, although of a subtle mind,
found nothing to reply to this except : " Amen ! "

VII

As the crusaders were passing through
Germany, a knight of that country came to join
them. He was of small stature, seemed to wear
his steel armour with difficulty, and rode without
grace. He had with him a numerous train of
varlets and a quantity of baggage and wagons.
He said that he came a long way, from a castle
which he possessed near the mouth of the river
Vistula, and that he was going to the Holy Land
to expiate his sins. His name was von der Pouf.
Otherwise, he spoke little and did not mix with
the other crusaders either on the march or in
the camps.

One day he met all alone in the country a boy
who was herding swine. He asked him if they
were for sale, and while he was discussing the
price, his varlets from behind noiselessly slaugh-
tered the poor swineherd.

Having thus gained possession of the swine,

THE TWO FLOWERS 145

as some of the crusading nobles suffered from a
dearth of victuals, he sold them at as dear a price
as he could.

Ory de Hautcceur bought a young pig, a fine
enough one, in truth, but he had to pay fifty
crowns.

" This von der Pouf," said the chaplain, " who
goes to the Holy Land to expiate his sins, is
doubtless afraid that he should lack cause for
his penitence. I reckon this knight to be very
capable of betraying Him whose sepulchre he is
going to seek."

" Let us," answered Ory, " keep our own hands
all the more carefully from all unjust gains,
and let us detach ourselves from earthly goods,
which are perdition to the soul."

VIII

Meanwhile, every evening as he took off his
helmet, Ory used to look at the little white
flower which Frileuse had fastened to it. He
always found it as fresh as at the moment when
it had been plucked, and he was in no wise
astonished at this, but rejoiced at it in his heart.
And he pointed out this prodigy to the chaplain
as a sign of the protection of God and the high
sanctity of the Lady Frileuse.

" I am not," said Simon Godard, " versed in
the science of plants ; but it is possible that the
water which flows from your brow during the
long days of marching, coming to moisten the
stalk of this little flower, keeps it in its original

10

146 THE TWO FLOWERS

freshness. Still, I would not pledge myself to
this. There are in the world many natural
phenomena whose causes I do not know, and I
leave to greater clerks the task of elucidating
this."

" Happy are those who believe, worthy chap-
lain ! " answered Ory de Hautcceur.

"Ah!" said Simon Godard, "the Turks
believe in Mohammed as firmly and as simply as
you do in Christ, and yet they will be damned ! "

When the army, after crossing the Hellespont
in boats and passing through still other countries,
reached the Holy Land, the little flower was no
more withered than at the start. And when
Sir Ory slept beneath the stars on bright and
clear nights, he found in the morning a drop of
dew in the heart of the marvellous little flower.

The good knight thought of the fogs and mists
of the West, and wondered at the purity of the
Oriental sky, the grandeur and rigidity of the
foliage, the deep azure of the lakes, the whiteness
of the houses and buildings, and the ardent
light that spread over everything. The land-
scapes seemed to him made of precious metals ;
he found their aspect supernatural and fantastic,
and he thought that this place had been a fitting
theatre for the life of the Saviour Jesus. Some-
times also, in the warm and languid evenings,
there came to him a desire to live without toil
and to enjoy his body. Then he took the flower
in his fingers, and the sight of its immaculate
corolla gave him back his courage and his virtue.

Many battles were fought in which Sir Ory
performed wonderful deeds of prowess. Frileuse's

THE TWO FLOWERS 147

little flower, always fresh and living, never left
the visor of his helmet, and though it was
his custom to plunge into the thickest part of
the fight, and his armour was often red and
streaming with Saracen blood, never was the
dear flower soiled by the least stain.

At last the host of crusaders began to besiege
Jerusalem. Although no mention of this siege
is made in the histories, it must have taken place,
since I am here relating what happened at it
to Sir Ory de Hautcceur.

The walls of the city were high, and defended
by a large ditch, and well supplied with Saracen
soldiers firing arrows through the loopholes of
the battlements. As they slew many Christians
in this way, the ditch was filled with corpses so
that a heap of them soon reached half-way up
to the top of the rampart. Seeing this, our good
knight thought of a plan :

Twenty men-at-arms, having climbed on this
pile of corpses, joined their shields above their
heads and made what the old Romans used to
call a tortoise, for the shields, joined in this way,
imitated the shell of that animal. Ten other
soldiers mounted on top of this, and used their
shields like the others. The knight of Haut-
coeur's four varlets climbed on this second roof,
holding their four shields joined on their arms.
This formed a lofty pyramid of three stages,
to the summit of which Ory de Hautcceur
lifted himself, clothed in steel, and with the
blossom of the little flower in his helmet. He
was only a few feet from the summit of the
wall and was getting ready to climb over it,

10*

THE TWO FLOWERS

when the Saracens who were guarding the
loopholes poured upon his head, one after
another, more than -a hundred pots full of boiling
oil. The stream flowed over him, and then
dripped on the three layers of shields, as one
sees the water of a fountain flow in a large sheet
from one basin into another. And, in truth,
when the boiling liquid touched Sir Ory's head,
it seemed to him that it was limpid and re-
freshing water, and the little flower opened its
white bosom to the rain of fire as if it had been
the dew of heaven.

Ory then made the sign of the Cross, and,
raising himself by the strength of his wrists,
climbed to the top of the wall. The Saracens
had disappeared. He began to run along the
rampart, looking for a suitable place to descend
into the interior of the city, when a tall Saracen,
who was hiding in an embrasure of the wall,
rushed upon him unexpectedly, and smote him
a blow with his sword strong enough to cleave
a knight in two and cut into his horse's body.
But when the sword of the infidel touched the
little flower, it broke clean in two in the middle,
although it was made of the finest Damascus steelv
Nevertheless, the shock was so great that Ory
stumbled, made a false step, and fell from the
summit of the wall.

Just at that moment, it happened unluckily
that the crusaders were pushing a heavy catapult
towards the rampart. The enormous machine
met the good knight in his fall, and his head
was suddenly caught between the steel-pointed
beam and the granite of the wall, while his

THE TWO FLOWERS

body and his legs hung in space. It seemed that
his head must be crushed like a nut under a
smith's hammer. But his helmet, in which
blossomed the innocent little daisy, was not even
cracked. Only the wall yielded to the stroke
of the catapult, and crumbled with a great
noise, while Sir Ory fell on his feet in the ditch
without suffering any injury. He jumped on
the ruins, sword in hand, and was the first to
enter Jerusalem.

IX

The Christian conquerors, after massacring
the army of the infidels, dispersed themselves
through the city, pillaging the houses, and
slaughtering here and there those who protested
too strongly. Sir Ory, alone, as he had told
Frileuse, did not soil his hands with any booty,
wishing to serve the cause of God gratuitously.
But after praying in tears at the Holy Sepulchre,
he went through the city in the company of
Simon Godard. And sometimes they went into
the houses, not to pillage, but curious to know
what these were like inside.

Ory related to the chaplain how, by the
miraculous power of the little flower, he had
been saved three times from certain death.

" I was not there and I saw nothing of it,"
said Godard, " being then occupied, I think,
in reciting my breviary ; but even if what you
tell me were not true, I think it possible, for
you are assuredly the most virtuous lord in
Christendom."

I5O THE TWO FLOWERS

" I believe so, reverend chaplain," said Ory,
with simplicity. " I am not like the other knights
who at this moment are drinking and feasting
without a thought of God, and are wantoning
with the pagan women. But I remain pure in
the time of victory as in the time of trial, and
since I kissed the stones of the holy Tomb I
feel around my heart an invincible cuirass against
evil."

These words were too much, and here the
knight sinned against Christian humility. This
movement of pride was not lost upon the demon,
who is always on the watch.

As Ory and the chaplain talked, they entered
the house of one of the principal Saracen chiefs.
A peristyle of white columns supporting arches
wrought in trefoils, surrounded a square court-
yard paved with mosaics. In the middle, a
jet of water rose up and fell into a marble basin,
and at the four corners, banana trees stretched out
their leaves like long parasols. An odour of
incense, coming from some unknown quarter,
floated in the air.

" How good it is here ! " exclaimed the knight
of Hautcceur. And, in order to breathe more
freely, he took off his helmet (decorated with the
little flower, which still remained fresh) and held
it in his hand.

As they passed under the peristyle, they saw
a closed door. It was painted red and furnished
with ironwork artfully designed, and some Arab
letters around the arch formed an intricate
ornament. Ory broke in the heavy door with
a blow of his gauntlet. He entered with the

THE TWO FLOWERS

chaplain ; shrill cries burst forth ; it was the
women's room.

There they were, lying among cushions on a
carpet as thick as a plot of grass, their faces
painted, wrapped in bright and silky stuffs.
The sunlight, dimmed by the coloured windows,
lit up this place of damnation. Perfumes of
deadly sweetness rose from braziers, unfolding
their blue spirals.

The most beautiful of the women dragged her-
self to Ory's feet, weeping and lamenting in the
Saracen language ; and she surrounded him with
her arms and mingled with her supplications
diabolical caresses and glances. Ory did not
comprehend her words, but he understood that
this pagan wished to lead him into evil. The
image of Frileuse, so fair and so white and with
her blue eyes, suddenly became effaced from his
memory, and he saw only this pagan, quite material
and earthly in her beauty, fat, amber-coloured,
smelling of honey, with her long eyes so dark
beneath their heavy lids. . . .

Meanwhile another infidel had thrown herself
at the chaplain's feet and was kissing his robe.

" Oh ! it is hot here," said the holy man.

" Reverend chaplain ! reverend chaplain ! "
cried Ory in anguish.

But Simon Godard had gone out to breathe
the air.

Then, for a space of a quarter of a minute,
Ory consented to sin in his heart.

At that same moment, a thousand leagues
away from the Holy City, Frileuse de Blanc-Lys,
in her oratory, was praying to God for her knight.

152 THE TWO FLOWERS

And this was why Sir Ory, with a violent gesture,
suddenly repulsed the seducer, who rolled on
the carpet, and he fled away with great strides
and without looking behind him.

As he ran, he turned his eyes towards his hel-
met, which he had kept in his hand. The little
white flower had entirely withered.

He tried to doubt his misfortune, put on his
helmet again, and went to fight in the neighbour-
hood of Jerusalem. He received a sword-stroke
from a Saracen which broke his helmet and gave
him a terrible gash on the forehead. He was
able to save from the confusion of the fight all
that was left of the little flower — its dried stalk
and its little golden heart, which had now become
almost black.

" I will do such a penance," said the good
knight, " that it must blossom again."

He made his confession to his chaplain with
tears and vehement contrition.

" It is nothing, my son," said the good man,
" less than nothing, in truth."

" My crime is enormous, father, for it weighs
upon me like a mountain. If it were so slight
a matter as you say, the Lady Frileuse's flower
would not have withered."

" All flowers wither, and it had lasted long
enough."

" And what will Frileuse say on my return ? "

" If she is sensible, she will say nothing."

THE TWO FLOWERS 153

" The daisy will blossom again, father."
" I have some doubt of that, my son."
" I shall not believe that God has forgiven me
until it blossoms again."

" Just as you please ; but, for my part, I will
give you holy absolution without any difficulty."
" Not before I have expiated my sin, father."
" As you will, my son, but you are a very diffi-
cult penitent to satisfy."

On the next day, Ory de Hautcoeur thought of
climbing the hill of the Holy Sepulchre, wearing
his armour and dragging himself along on his
knees. And to make his penance more vigorous
he had put gravel and sharp pebbles into his
leggings. So great was his pain that he fainted
three times on the road. Simon Godard, who
followed him grumbling, restored him three times
with a cordial made by the monks. The good
knight fell half-dead on the tomb of Christ, and
for a weak he could not stand upright.
Frileuse's daisy did not blossom again.

XI

When Sir Ory's legs were almost healed, as he
still tormented himself and sought in his mind
for some other penance, Simon Godard said to
him :

" Do not trouble yourself so much, Sir Knight.
As you wish to do a work that is pious and agree-
able to the Lord, I have one to propose to you.
You know that I am naturally curious and that
I like observing what is done about me. Now,
although it is not my habit to mix myself up in

154 THE TWO

other people's business, owing to my innate pru-
dence and my love of rest, yet I will not be silent
to you touching what I have discovered about
Sir von der Pouf. When he reached this place
he fell ill, a thing that seldom happens to a
knight on the eve of a battle. His varlets and
his men-at-arms did not fight any more than he
did, but, after the victory, this did not prevent
them from pillaging in the city, not capriciously
like the other crusaders, but with order and
application, without wasting or destroying any-
thing, not pillaging houses but rather stripping
them bare. And that is not all. I believe I
recognized the demeanour and bearing of von
der Pouf in a certain squalid little man whom I
have several times met in the city, late in the
evening, trafficking with the secondhand dealers.
In a word, I mightily suspect this von der Pouf
of being a wretched Jew who has slipped into the
host in order to betray the Christians and to
practise all sorts of hidden thefts. Do you
remember that on the day when he sold that herd
of swine at such a dear price to the knights,
he did not keep even a little ham for himself ?
Therefore treat him as seems good to you. I
gladly deliver him to you ; for though I am of
clement disposition, I do not like evil persons,
nor, above all, traitors."

" What do I hear ? " exclaimed Ory. " A
Jew, an executioner of our Lord Jesus in His
holy army ! I swear to God and all the blessed
dwellers in Paradise that by me shall perish in
certain death this son of those who crucified
my Saviour."

THE TWO FLOWERS 155

" Sir Knight," said the chaplain, " it is not
because he is a Jew that he must be slain, but
because he is a knave and an impostor. Neverthe-
less, it would please me if I first made sure of the
truth of my suspicions, and if you sent your varlet,
Launcelot, to find it out. He is of subtle mind
and knows some words of bad German. He will
have no difficulty, with God's help, in detecting
our man."

Launcelot set out immediately, and returning
some hours afterwards, confirmed all the words
of Simon Godard. He had loaded himself with
a bale, and by the artifice of a false beard he
had given himself the appearance of a Jewish
porter. Von der Pouf's people, believing what
he told them, to wit that he came to sell goods
to their master, had brought him into their
master's presence without suspicion.

Von der Pouf's true name was Manasseh. His
numerous wagons were filled with merchandise
from the West which he sold to the Saracens,
and in proportion as he emptied these vehicles,
he filled them with merchandise of the Levant
which he had stolen in the sack of the town
in order to sell it to Christians on his return.
Then, after each battle, his men went out at night
to spoil the corpses and to slay the wounded.

Von der Pouf himself had boasted to Launcelot
of these abominations.

" I could have this Jew burned after a public
trial," said Ory, " but it pleases me more that
I alone should execute justice for our Lord."

When night came, he girt himself with his
armour, and put on his helmet, without forgetting

156 THE TWO FLOWERS

the little dried heart of the poor daisy, and with
his sword in his hand, he marched straight
to the tent of von der Pouf. At his approach,
the Jew's varlets fled like hares. He entered the
tent and found the false knight wrapped in a
wretched saddle-cloth, and busy counting gold
pieces with his crooked fingers by the light of a
smoky lamp. Merchandise of all sorts was piled
up on the floor of the tent — Oriental carpets,
woollen and silken stuffs, bracelets, necklaces,
trays made of engraved copper, braziers, flagons
of rose-water, and also, in a corner, a great heap
of wretched clothing which had been taken
from the corpses of poor Christian soldiers.

" I know who you are," said Ory to the Jew,
" and I am going to slay you for the greater
glory of God."

Von der Pouf trembled in all his limbs. He
understood that it was his end and that all
supplications would be useless. Then in a voice
quivering with fear, hatred, and rage, he said :

" Sir Knight, it is true that I hate the Christians
with my whole strength, and that I have slain
many of your brethren, and that I rejoice at it
even in this hour when I am going to die. But
you shall know that my father and mother were
burnt to death by Christians, and that they
despoiled me three times of the goods I had
accumulated by my labour. You are going to
kill me, nothing is more certain ; but if you were
just you would spare me."

" I could excuse your hatred," said Ory gravely,
" but not your iniquity and your treachery.
Yet I do not wish to slay you except loyally and

THE TWO FLOWERS 157

in a regular combat. Come dog ! take up your
arms ! "

And as von der Pouf still trembled and his two
knees bent under him, Ory said :

" I am going to help you."

Then he himself took down the Jew's armour,
which hung on a nail, and put on him his coat
of mail, his armlets, his cuirass, and the rest.
As the knight equipped him, the Jew trembled
all the more, and bent beneath the growing
weight. At the end, when Sir Ory had put on
his helmet, the wretch sank down, rolled on the
ground in his armour, and then did not stir.

" This Jew," said Ory, " was so great a thief
that he has even robbed me of his death. I
should have liked to kill him with my own hands.
But though he has deprived me of that joy,
may God have mercy upon him ! "

At the moment when the knight of Hautcoeur
was leaving the Jew's tent, the moon fell like a
silver cloth over the camp of the crusaders,
lighting up the whitened tents and the groups of
men lying about them, and gleaming upon the
swords and cuirasses. Nothing moved in the
serene light, and the peace of night was as deep as if
the tents had been stacks of hay, and the soldiers
sleeping harvest-men, and. the swords sickles
thrown on the grass.

Ory took off his helmet and looked at it in the
moonlight. But Frileuse's little daisy had not
blossomed again.

158 THE TWO FLOWERS

XII

A short time afterwards, as the conquest of the
holy places seemed to be assured, Ory de Hautcceur
thought of returning to France.

" The way is long," he said to Simon Godard ;
" opportunities for suffering or fighting will
not be lacking on the road ; the little daisy will
blossom again. Whatever happens, I will not
see the Lady Frileuse until it has blossomed
again."

" In that case, you will never see her again,"
answered the chaplain.

" I shall see her again if I deserve it, for God is
just," said the knight.

Ory de Hautcceur left Jerusalem, followed,
as always, by Simon Godard and the four varlets.
They had been some hours on the march when
they heard groans coming from a ditch. Ory
got down from his horse, and approaching the
ditch, saw a leper lying on the grass. The pus
from his wounds had dried and made his rags as
stiff as wood ; his feet were swollen and violet-
coloured ; his eyes bled, and his face and all his
limbs were covered with white and red scales,
like the mouldy blotches that come on the walls
of cellars.

" I ask myself," said Simon Godard, " why
such a thing as this came into the world."

" To display," answered Ory, " the power of
Divine grace either by the miracle of his patience
or that of his cure."

And he himself poured into the wretched man's

THE TWO FLOWERS 159

mouth some drops of a cordial which Simon
Godard carried in a gourd. As soon as the leper
could speak, he said to Ory :

" God bless you for the help you have given
me ! I have come here on foot from the land
of France, living on roots and fruits and some-
times a little bread which good Christians throw
to me. I crossed the Straits by slipping into the
hold of a ship without anybody seeing me. It
will soon be a year since I started. I came to the
Holy Land to plunge myself into the pool of
Siloam, which in ancient times wrought amazing
cures through the Divine goodness ; and I hope
that it will cure me because I have faith. But
I have still twelve leagues to go, for the pool is
close to Jerusalem in the valley of the river
Cedron. I was so worn out by fatigue that I
was compelled to stop here, and I thought I was
going to die."

" Let us return to Jerusalem," said Ory.

He took the leper in his arms, mounted on his
horse without loosening his hold, and then placed
him on the crupper.

" Take care that you do not fall," he said to
him, " and hold me firmly by the girdle."

But after some moments, seeing that the leper
was not comfortable, he again dismounted, and
fixed him comfortably on the horse, which he
himself led by the bridle.

He remembered that he had led the Lady
Blanc-Lys in the same manner ; and he did not
feel less joy in his heart in serving the beggar
than he did formerly in serving the noble lady.

" Sir Ory," said the chaplain, " this unhappy

l6o THE TWO FLOWERS

man would be better off on my mule, and a walk
would stretch my legs."

" No, no, Father Godard, I do not want, to-
day at least, to share with anybody the honour
of serving one of Christ's poor."

When they reached the pool, Ory gently placed
the leper on the grassy turf which spread around
it. The poor man plucked a little red flower
and handed it to the knight, saying :

" Sir Knight, I am one of the humblest and
weakest of God's creatures, and can do nothing
to show my gratitude for your great charity.
But God inspires me to give you this flower.
Keep it in memory, not of me, but of the act
of mercy of which I have been the occasion,
so that the memory may strengthen you in hours
of distress."

" Brother," answered Ory, " I will do what
you ask me, and I pray God to heal you."

The good knight placed the scarlet flower in
the visor of his helmet, and he then saw that the
stalk and faded heart of the little daisy were no
longer there. And he understood that God had
given him the leper's little flower in its stead, and
that his sin had been forgiven him.

He again mounted his horse and prepared to
depart.

" Sir Knight," said Simon Godard to him,
" shall we not wait until this man has plunged
into the pool, and see what will come of it ? "

" I have no need to see the cure with my eyes,"
answered Ory, " in order to believe in the power
and goodness of God. Come along, for I long
to see the Lady Frileuse again."

THE TWO FLOWERS l6l

On the following day, Ory and his companions
encountered a band of Saracens, for the country-
was not yet completely pacified. They fought
them, one against ten. Ory received on his
helmet, where the red flower gleamed, some
terrible blows from their swords, and the helmet
was not even scratched, or the flower even
bruised ; and he recognized that he was henceforth
invulnerable.

Father Simon Godard, having seen so many
and such surprising things, no longer dared to say
anything, and he was not far removed from
sharing the good knight's opinion touching the
virtue of the two flowers.

XIII

As Ory de Hautcceur approached the castle
of Tour-Vermeille, he saw Frileuse de Blanc-Lys
coming to meet him.

The noble lady cast her eyes upon the little red
flower.

" Is it the sun of these distant lands," she asked
roguishly, " that has changed the colour of my
little daisy ? "

Ory was quite put out of countenance and
began to stammer ; nevertheless he saw that
Frileuse did not seem to be vexed when she said
this.

Simon Godard intervened.

" Lady," he said, " the pagans by spells and
witchcraft have robbed us of your little flower ;
but God has sent us this one which is not less
marvellous."

ii

1 62 THE TWO FLOWERS

" I knew it," answered Frileuse ; " for it has
pleased God to tell me of it by means of a dream."

And she offered her white hand to the knight.

" This story," said Simon Godard, " shows us
clearly that even in the eyes of God charity is as
good as purity. The best is to have both, for
those who can. But let him who has not the
second, endeavour at least to have the first.
Amen ! "

THE WHITE CHAPEL

THE WHITE CHAPEL

O on telling me, Susan, how splendid
the midnight mass is ; go on telling
me ! "

It was Christmas Eve. Pierrot's parents had
just come back from the fields ; the woman was
milking the cows, the man was stowing away his
tools in the barn, and Pierrot was waiting for his
supper, seated on a little stool by the side of the
great kitchen chimney, opposite his sister Susan.

He stretched out his hands to the clear and
sparkling flame ; and his hands and round face
were quite rosy, and his hair was the colour of
gold. Susan, very grave, was knitting a blue
woollen stocking. The pot was singing on the
big fire made of vine twigs, and through the lid
escaped a little white vapour which smelt of
cabbage.

" Go on telling me, Susan, how splendid it is."

" Oh ! " said Susan, " there are so many tapers
that one would think one was in Paradise. . . .
And they sing canticles, such pretty ones ! . . .
And there is the infant Jesus, dressed in beautiful
clothes, oh beautiful ! . . . and lying on straw ;
and the Holy Virgin in a blue robe, and Saint
Joseph with his plane, all in red ; and the shep-
herds with many sheep. . . . And the ox and the
ass, and the kings from the East, dressed like
soldiers, with long beards . . . and they bring
things to the infant Jesus — oh ! such things ! . . .
and the shepherds bring him puddings. And

165

l66 THE WHITE CHAPEL

then the shepherds, and the kings, and our priest,
and the ox, and the ass, and the choir boys, and
the sheep ask Jesus for His blessing. . . . And
there are angels who bring stars to the infant
Jesus."

Susan had been to the midnight mass last year,
and perhaps she believed that she had seen all
this. Pierrot listened to her with an air of delight,
and when she had ended, he said :

" I will go to the midnight mass."

" You are too little," said the mother, who was
just coming in. " You will go when you are as
big as Susan."

" I will go," said Pierrot, frowning.

" But, my poor little boy, the church is a long
way off, and it is snowing outside. If you are
good and go to sleep, you will hear the midnight
mass in the white chapel, without ever leaving
your bed."

" I will go," repeated Pierrot, clenching his
little fists.

" Who says ' I will ' ? " said a deep voice.

It was the father. Pierrot did not insist. He
was a very good child and already understood that
it is best to obey when one cannot do otherwise.

They sat down to the table. Pierrot ate with-
out appetite. He said nothing, and he was
thinking.

" Susan, put your little brother to bed."

Susan took Pierrot into the room that had a
floor of red tiles, where there was a cupboard and

THE WHITE CHAPEL l6j

even a chest of drawers with a marble top ; in a
frame on the wall there was a square of canvas
on which Susan had " marked " in red and blue
cotton the six and twenty letters of the alphabet,
a flower vase, a steeple, and a cat ; at the foot of
the parents' bed lay a rug with a pattern repre-
senting roses which looked at once like peonies
and cabbages ; in front were the two little beds
of the brother and sister, surrounded by curtains
of white calico.

When the child was in bed and tucked up,
Susan drew the curtains of the little bed.

" You will see," she said, " how pretty the
midnight mass is in the white chapel."

Pierrot did not answer.

He did not go to sleep. He did not want to
go to sleep and he remained with his eyes wide
open.

He listened to the footsteps of his parents in
the kitchen, then the shrill voice of Susan pain-
fully reading out of an old penny book, " The
Crimes of a Band of Ogres." At one moment
it seemed to him that they were eating chestnuts,
and his heart was full.

A little later his mother came into the room,
half drew the curtains, and bent over him. But
he closed his eyes and did not stir.

At last he heard them going out, and the door
being closed. Then silence.

Then Pierrot got out of his little bed.
He searched for his clothes in the dark. It
was a long job. He found his breeches and his

l68 THE WHITE CHAPEL

blouse, but not his knitted vest. He dressed
himself as well as he could, and put on his blouse
wrong side front ; and though his little fingers
took a great deal of trouble, no button was in its
proper buttonhole.

He could only find one of his stockings, and,
leaning against the wall, he put it on inside out,
the heel making a large lump, so that the badly
stockinged little foot could only half fit into one
of the little ashen clogs, and the bare little foot
had too much room in the other.

Groping his way, stumbling and clattering, he
found the door of the room, then crossed the
kitchen^ which was lit, through the uncurtained
window, by the cold light of the snowy night.

Pierrot was very clever, and he did not go to
the door which opened on the street, for he knew
that it was locked. But he easily opened the door
that led from the kitchen to the stable.

A cow moved in her bedding. A goat got up,
and pulling her cord, came to lick Pierrot's hands,
crying " Meh ! " in a gentle and plaintive tone.
She seemed to say to him :

" Stay with us where it is warm. What are
you going to do, so small as you are, in all that
snow ? "

By the feeble light of a window at the top,
which was covered with spiders' webs, he was able,
by standing on the tips of his toes, to draw the
inner bolt of the stable.

Suddenly he found himself outside, in the deep
and frozen whiteness.

THE WHITE CHAPEL 169

The house of Pierrot's parents lay by itself,
nearly half a mile distant from the church. You
went at first along a road bordered by orchards,
then you turned to the right, and you had the
steeple of the village church in front of you.

Pierrot started off without hesitation.

Everything was white with snow, the road, the
bushes, and the trees in the fields. And the snow
whirled about in the air like a light ball tossed
by a weather-vane.

Pierrot sank in the snow up to his ankles ; his
little clogs grew heavy with snow ; the snow
covered his hair and his shoulders like white dust.
But he felt nothing, for he saw, at the end of his
journey, in a great golden light, the infant Jesus,
and the Virgin, and the kings from the East, and
the angels who have stars in their hands.

He went on and on as if drawn by the vision.
But already he walked less quickly. The snow
was blinding him. It was filling the entire sky
with a padding of cotton-wool. He did not re-
cognize anything, he no longer knew where he was.

Now his little feet weighed like lead ; his hands,
his nose, his ears were hurting him terribly ; the
snow was coming into his neck, and his blouse
and his shirt were all wet.

He stumbled and fell over a stone, and lost one
of his clogs. He searched a long time for it, on
his knees in the snow, his hands benumbed with
cold.

And he no longer saw the infant Jesus, nor the
Virgin, nor the kings from the East, nor the angels
carrying stars.

I7O THE WHITE CHAPEL

He was afraid of the silence, afraid of the trees
veiled in white which burst out here and there from
the immense carpet of snow, and which no longer
looked like trees, but like fantoms.

His heart contracted with anguish. He wept
and cried out through his tears :

" Mamma ! Mamma ! "

The snow ceased to fall.

Pierrot looked around him and saw the pointed
steeple and the windows of the church, which
shone in the night.

His vision came back to him, and strength and
courage. There it was, the wonder he had longed
for, the splendid spectacle of Paradise !

He did not wait to reach the bend of the road,
but walked straight towards the illuminated
church.

He rolled into a ditch, struck against a stump
of a tree, and left there his other clog.

Across the fields, limpingly and haltingly, the
child dragged himself, his eyes fixed upon the
light. And as he kept going more slowly, the
row of little footsteps which he left behind him
grew closer and closer to one another in the white
immensity.

The church grew larger as he drew near.
Voices reached Pierrot :

" Come, divine Messiah ..."

His hands stretched out before him, his eyes
dilated in ecstasy, sustained only by the beauty
of his dream, which now drew closer to him, he
went into the graveyard that surrounded the
church. The large arched window gleamed

THE WHITE CHAPEL 17 1

above the west door. There, quite near him,
something ineffable was taking place. . . . Voices
were singing :

" In the plain below I hear
Angeh who from Heaven have come ..."

Little Pierrot went stumbling on, with all the
strength that was left in his tired little body,
towards this glory and towards these canticles.

Suddenly he fell at the foot of a box-tree
hooded with snow ; he fell with his eyes closed,
• uddenly asleep, and smiling at the angels' song.

The voices continued :

" Christ is born in Bethlehem."

At the same moment the soft and silent
descent of the white flakes began again. The
snow covered the little body with its muslin layer,
which slowly grew thicker.

And this is how Pierrot heard the midnight
mass in the white chapel.

CHARITY

CHARITY

TOURIRI, Prince of Baghdad, was very-
rich, very learned, and had the reputa-
tion of being very wise.

He had a palace in which marbles and precious
stones were carved so as to imitate trees and
flowers, and he had gardens in which flowers and
trees were so splendid as to imitate metals and
precious stones.

He entertained beautiful women without asking
anything from them but that they should be
beautiful and charmingly dressed — and he had
no grudge against them for being capricious or
foolish.

He entertained poets without asking anything
from them but that they should write verses and
songs whenever the fancy came to them — and
he had no grudge against them when their songs
were not good.

He entertained philosophers without asking
anything from them but that they should reason
with him on the nature of God and the origin of
the world — and he had no grudge against them
when by chance their reasoning was irrational.

One spring morning Touriri was walking in the
principal street of Baghdad.

T^he heaps of oranges and the bundles of roses
that filled the carts of the merchants, and teeming

175

CHARITY

crowds of garments and of blue, red, and green
robes shone in the whiteness of the street ;
magnolias leant down from the walls of the court-
yards, and the water sang more lightly in the
basins of the fountains.

And the young women were like half-moistened
flowers, burnished with a little cool dew, and very
subtly perfumed.

And because of these perfumes, these colours,
and this diffused joy, the sage Touriri felt his old
body becoming more supple ; he remembered
past days with pleasure ; he no longer saw any
serious objection to the world as it is ; and he was
not far removed from believing that life is good.

He said almost aloud :

" What pleasant warmth ! and what delightful
sunshine ! "

He met a little girl, five years old, fair and rosy
and pretty, and clad in a little smock. Very grave,
with a finger in her mouth, the child gazed at
him through the meshes of her flaxen hair, and
seemed to admire greatly Touriri's long beard,
or perhaps the mysterious animals that were
embroidered on his mantle.

And because she was pretty, Touriri leant
down towards her, embraced her, and placed two
pieces of gold in her little hand.

He afterwards met a little boy, ten years old.
The child was ugly, clad in rags, and covered
with freckles to the end of his wizened nose, and
his eyes were without transparence, like dirty
water. He stretched out his hand, and, in a shrill

CHARITY 177

voice and with the air of one reciting a lesson and
thinking of something else, he declared that his
mother was in bed, that he had seven little
brothers, and that he had not eaten for three days.

Touriri frowned and gave him a piece of gold. -

Twenty paces further on, he saw an old beggar,
tattered, wretched, and crippled, and with the
air of a beaten dog. His beard was yellow,
like badly washed hemp, and his red eyes, without
eyelashes, looked like the cracks of over-ripe
figs. In a hoarse voice that wheezed like a burst
bellows, slowly and without a pause, beginning
again as soon as he ended, he kept saying :

" Have pity on a poor man who can no longer
work. Our Lord Ormuz will reward you."

And the fetid breath of his prayer smelt of
fermented drinks.

Touriri stretched out a piece of silver to him,
but from such a distance that the piece fell to
the ground, and the old beggar knelt painfully
down to pick it up.

A moment afterwards Touriri met a woman of
whom one could not say whether she was young
or old, and who held on her shoulder a newly-
born child covered with blotches and ulcers.
Humble as the dust of the road, so bent that he
did not see her eyes, she followed him murmuring
a persistent prayer in a feeble voice.

Not from harshness but from annoyance,
Touriri hurried on ; but that misery and that
complaint kept trailing behind him. He searched
his purse, not finding what he sought. At last,
with an angry gesture, he threw to the woman
some pieces of copper.

12

iy CHARITY

He then perceived, thirty paces in front of
him, a man without arms or legs, supported against
a wall. The man was singing sadly and out of
tune, in a loud voice that seemed to be a voice
of wood, a love song, one of Firdousi's songs,
full of flowers and birds and sunshine, and it
was horrible to hear.

Touriri stopped, and, as this man at any rate
could not follow him, he pretended not to see
him, and passed by on the other side of the street.

He walked on for some time longer, but he no
longer felt the joy of life. He said aloud :

" This sunshine is unendurable ! "

And he went back to his palace.

Then, having reflected, he called his steward
and said to him :

" Go into the Grand Street. You will meet
an old beggar, and you will give him a piece of
gold ; then a poor woman suckling a child,
and you will give her two pieces of gold ; then
a man without arms or legs, and you will give
him three pieces of gold."

But from that day forward, every time Touriri
went out into the city, a servant walked before
him, giving money to all the beggars and ordering
them to go away so that his master should not
see them.

And the sage Touriri became more and more
of an alms-giver and charitable. One would
have said he had sworn that there should be no
more poor in Baghdad. Every day food and

CHARITY 179

money were distributed among all those who
presented themselves in the lower halls of his
palace. He founded a hospital for children, one
for old men, one for mothers, and one for the
ill and infirm.

And when he was told that somebody who had
pretended to be ill or had pretended to be in-
digent had obtained help by a trick, he used
to answer :

" Leave me in quiet. I have no leisure to
seek out the truth or to distinguish it from
falsehood."

He spent in this way, for the benefit of others,
more than nine-tenths of his immense wealth.
He even reduced the pomp of his house, and
kept about him only the youngest of his women,
the idlest of his poets, and the most dogmatic
of his philosophers.

Otherwise he continued to live delicately,
amid the finest works of the art, industry, and
intellect of men ; and he never visited the
hospitals he had founded, nor went down to the
halls where he fed the unfortunate.

One day as he was walking in the town, a crowd
of poor people surrounded him ; they cried out
together that they owed him life ; and several
knelt and kissed the hem of his garment. But
he got angry, as if this gratitude offended him
and gave him pain.

And the people regarded him as the most
venerable man and the most exalted in holiness
who had ever lived in Persia.

When he saw that his death was approaching,
he sent away all the philosophers and poets

12*

l8o CHARITY

and only kept by his bedside a beautiful girl of
sixteen, praying her to say nothing to him but
only to look at him with her eyes, which were as
blue as cornflowers.

He died.

The poor — those who had been the poor — of
Baghdad followed his funeral procession, and
many wept.

Beyond time, beyond space, beyond shape —
where ?

I do not know, nor does anybody else — the soul
of Touriri appeared before Ormuz to be judged.

Ormuz asked him :

" What have you done on earth ? What are
your works ? "

Touriri, quite at ease about the coming sen-
tence, answered with modesty and sincerity :

" Doubtless I have been weak, being but a
man. I have delighted in beautiful lines, in
beautiful colours, sounds, and perfumes, in
pleasant contacts and in the futile sports of speech.
But I have founded four hospitals at my expense,
I have given nine parts of my goods to the poor
and I have only kept the tenth for myself."

" It is true," said Ormuz, " that you were not
an evil man, and that you were often even
guided by a spirit of kindliness. Nevertheless,
you will not enter my Paradise this time. But
your soul will descend again into another body,
and you will live a fresh terrestrial life in order
to expiate and learn."

Touriri was greatly astonished, and asked :

CHARITY l8l

" What is it that I have to expiate, Lord ? "

" Enter within yourself, and know yourself
better. What was your thought when you
gave your goods to the poor ? And the day
that you met the old beggar, the pale woman
with her child, and the man without arms or
legs, what did you feel in your heart ? "

" An immense pity for human pain," an-
swered Touriri.

" You lie," said Ormuz. " Their sight was,
in the first place, a disagreeable1 surprise. It
reminded you too brutally of the existence of
suffering and misery. Then you disliked them
for having offended your eyes by their dirt and
ugliness. You disliked them also for their
humiliation, the baseness with which they im-
plored you, and the persistence of their con-
tinued prayers ; and you threw them alms with
disgust. You despised these unfortunates so
much that you could not endure their thanks.
The crudeness ^of popular effusions irritated
you ; and the delicacy of your tastes refused to
these poor people the right of proving to you,
by their gratitude, that they were not unworthy
of your benefits. You endeavoured to suppress
poverty, for you believed that it sullies the
world and dishonours life. But I, who pierce
into the depths of consciences, tell you that
revolt and hatred were in your charity."

" But," replied Touriri, " what I hated was
not the poor : it was suffering, it was evil, it was
Ahriman, your eternal enemy."

" I am Ahriman," answered Ormuz.

" You, Lord ? "

1 82 CHARITY

" I am Ahriman, for I am Ormuz. Good can
come only from evil, virtue can come only from
suffering."

" Is that, Lord, the best that you can ac-
complish ? "

" Do not blaspheme. Evil will pass away.
It only exists in order to produce felicity and
virtue. When the earth, on which this experi-
ment is being made, has disappeared, when all
the souls of the just are with me, it will be as
if evil had never existed."

" Your reasoning is specious," said Touriri,
" but what conclusion is to be drawn from it
in my own case ? What feeling could be in-
spired in me by debased creatures displeasing
to look at ? And what did I owe them except
to relieve their misery ? "

" It is in order to teach you this that I am
sending you back to earth."

" But, Lord . . ."

Touriri did not finish. No longer Ormuz.
. . . No longer Touriri. . . . An abyss. . . .

Nothing could be simpler or sadder than the
life of Tirirou.

He was born at Uskub, of a family of indigent
artisans. In his childhood he was poorly fed
and often beaten. He learnt a trade by which he
lived painfully. He had some of the virtues of a
poor man : he was fairly honest, fairly good, and
fairly resigned, but he had neither. the pride nor
the refinement which are the luxuries of the soul.

He married so as not to be alone. He often

CHARITY 183

failed to get work. His wife and his two children
died in misery. One day he fell from a scaffold-
ing, and, badly cared for, he remained impotent
in both his legs, with one arm paralysed and an
incurable wound in the other.

He had to beg. At first he did it badly. He
felt ashamed, did not dare to insist, and was
given hardly anything.

Little by little he acquired the habit of stretch-
ing out his hand, as if it were an implement for
fishing, of humiliating attitudes, of prayers
which pursued the passer-by with the hope of
importuning him. Thenceforward he was given
enough to prevent him from dying of hunger.

And as he had no joy in the world, whenever
he possessed a few coins he used to intoxicate
himself with liquor fermented from maize.

A very poor girl, who lived in a room close
to his garret, met him several times, and took
pity on him.

She came every morning to wash Tirirou's
wound, made his bed, prepared his soup, and
mended his clothes, without asking for anything
in return.

Her name was Krika, and she was not beau-
tiful, but her eyes were so good that one loved
to meet them.

And without knowing why, Tirirou watched
every morning from his mattress for the moment
when Krika would get up and appear at her
window.

184 CHARITY

One day, as Tirirou was begging in his usual
way, a rich man threw him a piece of gold, with
disgust. At that moment Ormuz permitted the
soul of Tirirou to remember that it had been
that of Touriri. And Tirirou, seeing the hatred
in the glance of the rich man who gave him
alms, understood why Touriri had been con-
demned by Ormuz. He understood that in his
former life, though he had relieved the poor, he,
too, had hated them because of their humiliation
and ugliness ; that is to say, because of things
for which they were not responsible.

Next morning, when Krika came to wash his
wound, he watched her. He saw that she did
it without disgust, and that her eyes remained
gentle and tranquil. He perceived that the
young girl who tended him and did not hold
herself aloof from him — although he was horrible
even among his fellows — was truly good and
saintly.

When she finished bandaging him, he kissed
her hand silently and wept. And Ormuz granted
him the favour of dying on that very night.

" What have you understood ? " asked Ormuz
of the soul of Touriri-Tirirou.

" This, Lord : We must serve the poor in
poverty. We must enter into their souls, and
not despise them for a humiliation and narrow-
ness of spirit to which we also might have been
reduced if we had been overwhelmed by the
same necessities ; to love them at least for their

CHARITY 185

resignation, they who form the greater number,
and whose united anger would sweep away the
rich like wisps of straw ; and, lastly, to seek
whether there does not exist in them some
remnant of nobility and dignity. And we must
serve them humbly ; just as we resign ourselves
to our own sufferings, so must we resign our-
selves to the misery of others, in so far as it
offends our own delicacy ; we must not, when
we relieve them, rebel against this misery, but
accept it as one accepts the mysterious designs
of Him Who alone knows the reasons of things.
For the aim of the Universe is not the production
of beauty but of goodness."

" That is not so far wrong," said Ormuz.
" Good servant, enter into my rest."

HELLE

HELLE

HELLE, the daughter of Themistocles, the
strategos, was very pale, and, though
supple as a reed, very frail for her seven-
teen years. But her big clear eyes spoke of the
generous thought that dwelt beneath her childish
brow, and of the ardent spirit that burned in
her delicate bosom.

When quite a child she had lost her mother,
a Greek from the islands who passed her life in
the mysterious practices of religions unknown to
the Athenians. Afterwards Helle had received
lessons from the poet ^Eschylus, a friend of her
father's, and had learnt from him many things
concerning her native country, concerning the
gods, and concerning the proper way of wor-
shipping them, things of which the vulgar were
ignorant. Helle was very pious, and very learned
for her age ; she admired her father and was
filled with love for the land in which she was born.

Helle had a friend, Mnais, the daughter of a
rich Athenian named Clinias, a young, laughing,
and ignorant girl, who thought of nothing but
amusement and dress. And the daughter of
Themistocles loved Mnai's tenderly, although she
resembled her so little.

It was the custom at Athens that, every four
years, two young girls of good family were ap-
pointed by the archon-king to weave and em-
broider the robe which was to be offered at the
Pan-Athenian festival to the protecting goddess

189

I9O HELLE

of the city. For six months the virgins lived on
the Acropolis, in the House of the Arrhcphoroi.
They were clad in a white robe and a mantle
embroidered with gold. And they ate a sacred
bread, called nastos, which was made of fresh
wheat, seasoned with all manner of spices.

Now, this year Helle and Mnai's were chosen
to weave the peplos for Pallas-Athene, and to
adorn it with embroideries.

It was a great day for Helle. She said to her-
self that, woven by her hands, the great robe
would please the goddess and be a good safeguard
for the city, so much zeal and love would she
bring to her task.

But when Mna'is heard the news, she began
to weep.

" For," said she, " I shall no longer dance
with my companions, and I shall live between
four walls, like a prisoner ! "

" You are a little fool," Clinias answered her.
" It is incredible that you should welcome with
tears a choice that does so much honour to our
family ! "

And, as Mnais would listen to nothing, Helle
took her aside :

" Why this grief, little Mna'is ? The house
of the virgins is not a prison. It is bright and
cheerful ; it is adorned with beautiful paintings
and surrounded by a tennis-court, a terrace, and
a garden. From our windows we shall see the
Piraeus, the blue sea, and the entire city at our
feet. And we shall not be alone, for we shall
have the companionship of the priests, and our
relatives will often come to see us."

HELLE

" But he, alas ! I shall not see him again."

" Who ? " said Helle.

" I am going to tell you my secret. I love a
young man who loves me. And that is why this,
which causes you so much joy, plunges me into
the deepest despair."

" What is his name ? "

" I cannot tell you."

" Of course he is some young man of noble
birth, fluent in speech, and skilful in the handling
of arms ? "

" He is handsome, and I love him," answered
Mnai's.

" But," said Helle, " are you so weak-hearted
that you cannot bear a separation of a few months ?
Think of the joy of working for the land that has
nurtured you, you and him whom you love.
Think of the thousands of girls who have eagerly
desired to weave the goddess's robe, and that
you are one of the two who are to enjoy so envied
an honour."

" What does it matter to Pallas," said Mnai's,
" whether the robe is woven by me or by some-
body else ? I am not irreligious, but why does
the goddess take away from me the best that I
have in the world ? "

" Oh ! Mnai's, how can you speak thus ?
Rather thank the goddess, for, after you have
embroidered her robe, your lover will be proud
of you and will love you all the more on that
account."

" Alas ! I shall walk no more with him in
the woods of myrtles and rose-laurels ! "

" It is true that you will be deprived of that

192 HELLE

joy for a season. But you will be the little
priestess of the great Pallas ; the citizens will
honour you, and you will be so pretty in your
white robe, with its little folds, and in your
mantle embroidered with gold."

At this Mnais smiled through her tears.

" Very well, I am willing, but have not you a
lover too ? "

" I love Athens," answered Helle, " and I am
the servant of Pallas-Athene."

Accordingly, Helle and Mnais were installed
in the little convent of the Arrhephoroi, near
the temple of Erechtheus.

They began to weave the robe, under the
supervision of the sacristan, Theodore, a gossipy
old man, who taught them the ceremonies
and rites and everything they would have to do
in the great Pan-Athenian procession.

He also told them incidents which he alone
knew in the goddess's history, and all the
miracles due to her power, such as cures, lost
caskets found, and ships saved from tempests.

And while he related these things, Helle's
eyes shone, and their pupils seemed to grow
larger. But Mnais only listened with one ear,
and sometimes she fell asleep.

When the cloth was woven, a young man,
Phidias by name, whose trade was to make
paintings and statues, came to the House of the
Arrhephoroi in order to trace the figures that
were to be embroidered on the robe.

HELLE 193

He drew the .battle of the Giants, and, on a
heap of their huge, overturned corpses, Pallas-
Athene, threatening, the corners of her lips
turned down, her eyes fierce and rolling, a deep
frown between her eyebrows.

" Oh," said Helle, " that is not how I see her,
but rather serene, a divine peace in her eyes,
victorious without effort and without anger."

Phidias next drew the birth of Athene, with
the skull of Zeus completely cloven in two,
and the goddess springing fully armed from the
gaping orifice, like a red flower from the cleft of
a rock.

" Oh," said Helle, " this Zeus is unpleasant
to look at. That is not how the gods ought to
be represented : they should always be beau-
tiful. This story signifies that Pallas-Athene
is the thought of Zeus. I should like her to be
standing perfectly white, above the divine brow,
and the brow to be already closed again."

" Child," said Phidias, " a purer spirit than
ours dwells within you."

He made both his designs over again, and
gave the goddess the eyes, the eyebrows, the
delicate cheeks, and the mouth of Helle.

" How like you she is ! " said Mnais to her
companion.

" You are a silly girl," answered Helle. " This
young man is too pious to have wished to give
the features of a mortal to a goddess."

But she blushed a little as she said this, being
moved by a secret joy.

194 HELLE

Both began to embroider the robe, Helle with
fervent application, and Mnai's very negligently.
Often it even happened that Mnai's entangled
the threads or mistook the colours, and then she
got angry at having to begin over again.

And as they worked, the two girls sang songs
in a low voice. Helle sang some of the verses
of Tyrtaeus or ^Eschylus. But Mnai's hummed
nothing except love songs, short odes of Simonides
or Anacreon.

And Helle saw that Mnai's was always thinking
of her lover.

During the hours when they were not working
at the embroidery, they used to play at ball in
the courtyard of the little convent, or they
would walk in the little garden, or help Theodore
to sweep the temple, or collect and arrange
flowers in order to make fresh garlands for the
portico.

Often they were present at the sacrifices which
pious persons came to perform. The offerings
were baskets of fruit, milk and wine — sometimes
a kid or a sheep. On those days the sacristan,
Theodore, was more cheerful than usual, for he
had the right of keeping and selling the skins, as
these were his perquisites.

There were in the temple of Erechtheus, which
was very old, an olive tree and a well.

The olive tree, which had a black and twisted
trunk and was crowned with thin, silvery foliage,
was that which Pallas had caused to spring up
from the ground with a stroke of her lance.

HELLE 195

Poseidon had dug the well with a blow of his
trident. The water of this well was sea water,
and, on stormy days, this water tossed and
moaned like the sea itself.

Mnais sometimes amused herself by throwing
pebbles into the well, for the pleasure of hearing,
multiplied and increased by the echoes, the
noise of the pebbles falling against the walls of
the pit.

" What are you doing ? " said Helle, uneasily.
" This well is sacred. Take care not to anger
the god ! "

In the temple also were laid, every month,
cakes of flour and honey, which the great serpent
who guarded the citadel came to eat.

Nobody had ever seen this serpent, but he
certainly existed, for the cakes offered him for
food always disappeared from the altar.

It happened that the sacristan, Theodore,
came to place fresh cakes on the marble table.

" I have thought of something," said Mnai's
to her friend. " Suppose we come to-night —
to see the serpent eating ? "

Helle was curious, and agreed.

At nightfall, the two girls slipped into the
temple of Erechtheus, and waited, hidden
behind a curtain.

They heard a sound like the noise of approach-
ing footsteps.

" It is the serpent," said Helle. " Come
away ! "

" Silly," said Mnai's, " do serpents walk ? "

They then saw Theodore come in, with a
lantern in his hand. He went towards the

13*

196 HELLE

altar, took the cakes from it, and ate them with
an air of great satisfaction.

Helle rushed from her hiding-place.

" Oh ! " said she, " and I thought you so
pious and so holy ! Are you not afraid that, by
robbing the god, you may bring misfortune on
the city ? "

" The serpent is ill," said the sacristan,
unmoved, " and he will not eat this month. He
has made it known to me by a dream."

" Perhaps," said Mnais, " there is no serpent."

But Helle believed Theodore's words.

" If the serpent will not accept our offerings,"
she thought, " it is doubtless because Mnais is
idle and slow in embroidering the robe, or
because she has thrown pebbles into the sacred
well."

And she felt her friendship for Mnais
diminishing.

The House of the Arrhephoroi being situated
at one of the corners of the Acropolis, the two
girls could see from their terrace, fifty cubits
below them, the place where the youths used to
exercise themselves in running, in combats, and
in archery.

Mnais often came and rested with her elbows
on the little wall. She used to remain there for
hours, and Helle saw that what she regretted
most was that she no longer lived amid the
noise and movement of the city.

But one day Helle saw Mnais, who believed
herself alone, draw a letter from her bosom

HELLE 197

and read it with restless eagerness, like somebody
who fears to be surprised.

" What is that ? " said Helle, approaching.

All the roses of a red-rose tree suddenly bloomed
on the cheeks of beautiful Mnai's. Clumsily
she tried to hide the letter.

" Give it to me," said Helle, very grave.

Mnaiis obeyed. It was a letter from her lover.
The note said :

" And I, also, my well-beloved, feel dreary
and languid. The goddess is cruel to take
you away from me and not to allow me to see
your violet eyes and your hair which is fairer
than ripe corn. Why cannot I, like one of my
arrows, fly to you through the air ? "

" Have you written to him, then ? " asked
Helle. " And how, by what messenger or by
what device, can you correspond thus ? Tell
me everything. I must know."

Mnai's burst into tears.

" Do not scold me, good Helle. I will confess
everything to you. By looking down so much
I at last recognized him whom I love in the midst
of the young men who play in the exercise ground.
And doubtless he also recognized me. He even
knows which is the window of my room. How ?
I don't know. Perhaps he saw me sometimes at
that window when I lingered there towards
sunset. . . . One night — Oh ! I slept well, all
the same, I assure you — I was awakened by a
noise. . . . An arrow had just broken itself
against the wall of my cell. ... I picked up the

198 HELLE

pieces. A letter was fastened to it. Is that my
fault ? "

" And you answered him ? "

" He would have died if I had not," said
Mna'is, " and I don't want him to die. He was
expecting an answer and he told me how to send
it to him. It is very simple. I fastened my
letter to a fairly big stone at the end of a long
string, and I let it down slowly from the top of
the terrace. . . ."

" And where did you get the string ? "

" Do not be angry ; I took it from the basket
of silks of all colours that we use for embroidering
the goddess's robe."

" Oh, Mnais ! what have you done ? In order
to please a divine Virgin, it is necessary to have
a pure heart in which lives only love for her
and for our country. And not only do you not
Jceep your heart intact, but, in order to serve a
feeling that offends the goddess, you make use
of things that belong to her ! Alas ! I greatly
fear that she may turn away from us because
of you."

" But," said Mnais, " I love the goddess and
she knows it. She will not be any angrier than
I was when, as I was working in summer in my
father's garden, a bird came and took away one
of my bits of wool or a thread from my distaff."

" You do not even understand my thought,"
said Helle. " Beyond doubt I ought to denounce
you to the archon-king. But the evil is done ;
and, besides, I love you still, and I don't want
to bring shame or grief upon you. But first
promise me not to write again to this young man."

HELLE 199

" I promise you."

" That is not all ; you must not touch the
robe again, I shall embroider it alone."

" As you wish," said Mnai's, very pleased in
her heart to have nothing more to do.

And, on her part, Helle was secretly glad that
henceforth she would be the only person who
would work on the sacred robe.

Meanwhile, news was brought that innumerable
Persian ships were advancing towards Attica, and
that Themistocles had been appointed supreme
head of the Greek army and fleet.

The strategos came to the House of the Arrhe-
phoroi to embrace Helle.

" I am going, my daughter," he said, " and I
know not whether the gods will grant me victory,
nor even whether I shall return."

Helle glowed with joy and pride.

" Yes, dear father, you will be victorious and
you will return to the city. It seems to me that
in some way it depends on me, that my feeble
hands hold, along with the sacred robe, the
destiny of our country, and that the zeal I shall
show in embroidering the holy figures will calm
the winds on the blue sea and, by the favour of
Athene, make the management of the ships
easier and more fortunate."

And from that day forward, Helle worked
on the robe with such an ardour of attention and
desire that she grew correspondingly pale, and
one would have said that a little of her own soul

200 HELLE

and being passed into each piece of the em-
broidery.

And idle Mnai's slept almost from morning
to evening, and her fresh beauty blossomed
more and more.

One night Helle heard steps and voices on the
terrace. She got up, and saw, in the moonlight,
Mnai's mounted on the little wall, and, some
cubits below her, a man clinging to the brushwood
and protuberances of the cliff.

Helle picked up some stones, climbed on to the
wall, and, appearing to be larger than she was
as she stood up in the light of the night, she
threw the stones at the man. He rolled down
through the rocks and bushes.

Mnai's uttered a cry.

" Do not kill him ! "

" Leave me alone, deceitful girl ! At the
hour when the city is in danger, when our fathers
and brothers are risking their blood for it, you,
an Athenian, and the daughter of an Athenian
. . . But, now that I think of it, why has not
your lover gone with the others ? Is he then a
coward ? Has he deserted from the army ?
Or did he hide himself when the rest went away ? "

" He had no need to go away," said Mnais,
" for he is the son of a foreigner who has estab-
lished himself in the city."

" Oh ! " said Helle, terrified, as she hid her
face in her hands.

Then, lifting up her head, she placed both her

HELLE 2O I

hands on the shoulders of Mna'is and looked into
her eyes.

" Listen," she said, " if misfortune comes to
Athens, beware ! "

Helle went back to her room and offered this
prayer :

" Oh, goddess, although my father is comparable
in courage with the ancient heroes ; although
all those who are at Salamis are men of good will
and are ready to die ; although I myself have
never had a thought except for thee and the city
that is dear to thee, I tremble lest the crime of
Mnais has aroused thy resentment against us.
For the gods have often made all the citizens of
a city expiate the fault of one, in order to teach
us that we depend upon one another, and that
the virtue of each is the concern of all. But, for
that very reason, thou dost permit the crime of
a bad and feeble heart to be effaced by the
sacrifice of a better and stronger one. And
that is why, goddess, I offer thee my life in ex-
piation. Take me ! take me ! I am already so
frail and so ill that it is not much for me to die,
and I shall go towards thee as a leaf falls at the
lightest wind when it has lost its sap and has
been burnt by the sun. Thus the sun of a
great love has devoured me, when still a mere
child. It was not the love of a man, as thou
knowest, nor of any creature condemned to
death. I love only what can endure for ever.
I love thee, oh goddess, because thou art intelli-
gence, virtue, harmony ; and I love Athens

2O2 HELLE

because it is the city in which thou hast chosen
to fashion little by little an example of life and
human society in conformity with thy divine
thought. Grant, by my death, by the ardour
of a desire of which that death will be the sign,
and by the emulation which its memory will
awaken after me, that I may aid thy designs,
oh, Virgin ! I am thine, and I shall die satisfied ;
for if I die, Athens will then triumph, and it is
thou who wilt call me. Take me, grant us victory,
and bring it about that I may spare Mnai's ! "

On the following day, Helle worked at the robe,
and Mnai's wept in a corner because of what had
happened. The sacristan, Theodore, entered
suddenly and said :

" Bad news ! The first line of our ships has
been broken at the beginning of the battle and
our defeat is certain."

Helle stood up, even paler than usual, and
remained motionless for an instant, then she
seized Mnais by the arm.

" Come ! " she said.

Mnais was quite stunned and did as she was
asked. Helle dragged her violently into the temple
of Athene-Polias, before the wooden statue that
was venerated above all others ; and her strength
being doubled by anger, she forced the beautiful
girl down on her knees.

She seized her by the hair and drew a poignard
from her bosom. All this was done so quickly
that Mnais had not time to defend herself.

HELLE 2O3

" And now, die ! " she said.

She was already lifting her arm when a noise
of trumpets and shouts of joy mounted towards
the temple.

Theodore entered and said :

" I was mistaken. The Persians are in flight.
Victory ! victory ! "

Helle dropped the poignard and fell fainting
on the floor, so great was her joy.

A month afterwards the great Pan-Athenian
festival was celebrated.

In the middle of the procession, stretched on a
little galley borne by twelve of the most illustrious
citizens, gleamed the robe, covered with ingeni-
ously embroidered figures.

Behind the robe came the two girls ; Mnai's,
blooming, careless, and laughing (for her lover
had not been killed by his fall, and had escaped
with a few scratches) ; Helle, scarcely able to
walk, and pale, deadly pale, from having em-
broidered the divine garment.

When the temple of Athene-Polias was reached,
Helle took the robe in her little hands, and with
an outburst of love in which there gushed forth
all her soul and all of life that was left her,
she placed the brilliant garment at the feet of the
goddess. . . .

Then her strength failed her. She slipped on
her knees, and slowly sank backwards into the
folds of the robe, Pallas having heard her prayer.

NAUSICAA

NAUSICAA

AFTER he had slain the suitors with his
arrows, the ingenious Ulysses, full of
wisdom and memories, passed tranquil days
in his palace at Ithaca. Every evening, seated
between his wife, Penelope, and his son, Tele-
machus, he told them of his travels, and when
he had finished, he began again.

One of the adventures which he related most
frequently was his meeting with Nausicaa, the
daughter of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians.

" Never," he would say, " shall I forget how
beautiful, courteous, and helpful she appeared
to me. For three days and three nights I had
been floating on the vast sea, clinging to a beam
of my broken raft. At last a wave lifted me up
and drove me towards the mouth of a river. I
climbed on to the bank ; a wood was near ; I
gathered leaves, and as I was naked, I covered
myself with them. I fell asleep. . . . Suddenly
a noise of pouring water wakened me, then
exclamations. I opened my eyes and I saw some
girls who were playing at ball on the shore. The
ball had just fallen into the rapid current. I
got up, taking care to hide my nakedness with a
leafy bough. I advanced towards the most
beautiful of the girls. . . ."

" You have already told us that, my dear,"
interrupted Penelope.

207

2O8 NAUSICAA

" It is very likely," said Ulysses.

" What difference does it make ? " said Tele-
machus.

Ulysses resumed :

" I can still see her in my mind's eye on her car,
driving her mules with their sounding bells. The
car was full ot fine white linen and dresses of
coloured wool which the little princess and her
companions had just washed in the stream. And,
as she stood, leaning forward a little and pulling
the reins, the evening wind blew her golden hair
— ill held by her head-band — about her brow,
and pressed her pliant robe against her well-
formed limbs."

" And then ? " asked Telemachus.

" She was perfectly brought up," continued
Ulysses. " When we approached the town,
she prayed me to leave her so that nobody could
make any ill remark about her from seeing her
with a man ! But from the way in which I
was welcomed in the palace of Alcinous, I saw
that she had spoken of me to her noble parents.
I did not see her again except at the moment of
my departure. She said to me : ' I salute you,
oh guest, in order that you may not forget me
in your own land, for it is to me that you owe
your life.' And I answered her : ' Nausicaa,
daughter of the magnanimous Alcinous, if the
mighty spouse of Hera wills me to enjoy the
moment of return and that i should re-enter
my dwelling, I will daily within its walls offer
my prayers to you as to a goddess ; for it is
you who have saved me.' A more beautiful
or better girl I have never met, and as my

NAUSICAA 2O9

travels are over, I am very sure I never shall

meet one."

" Do you think that she is married now ? "

asked Telemachus.

" She was only fifteen years of age and not yet

betrothed."

" Did you tell her that you had a son ? "

" Yes, and that I was consumed with the desire

of seeing him again."

" And did you speak well of me to her ? "

" I did, although I scarcely knew you, for I

had left Ithaca when you were quite a little child

in your mother's arms."

Meanwhile, Penelope, desiring to see her son
married, presented to him in succession the fairest
virgins of the land, the daughters of the princes
of Dulichios, of Samos, and of Zacynthos.
Each time Telemachus said :

" I will not have her, for I know another who
is better and more beautiful."

" Who ? "

" Nausicaa, the daughter of the king of the
Phaeacians."

" How can you say that you know her when
you have never seen her ? "

" Well, I shall see her," replied Telemachus.

One day he said to his father :

" My heart wishes, oh illustrious father, that,
cleaving the fish-frequented sea in a ship, I sail
towards the island of the Phaeacians, and that I
go and ask the hand of the fair Nausicaa from

210 NAUSICAA

King Alcinous. For I am consumed with love
for that virgin whom my eyes have never beheld ;
and, if you oppose my design, unwedded will I
grow old in your palace and you shall have no
grandson."

The ingenious Ulysses answered :

" It is doubtless a god who has put this desire
into your heart. Since I spoke to you of the
princess who was washing her linen in the stream,
you disdain the succulent meats served at our
table, and black circles grow around your eyes.
Take then with you thirty sailors in a swift
vessel and seek her whom you do not know and
without whom you cannot live. But I must
warn you of the dangers of the journey. If the
wind drives you towards the island of Polyphemus,
take care not to approach it ; or, if the tempest
casts you on the shore, hide yourself, and, as
soon as your ship can get to sea, fly and do not
attempt to see the Cyclops. I put out his eye
formerly ; but though he is blind he is still
formidable. Fly also from the island of the
Lotos-eaters, or, if you land among them, do
not eat the flower which they will offer you,
for it makes one lose his memory. Fear also
the island of ^Eaea, the kingdom of fair-haired
Circe whose charming-rod changes men into
swine. Yet if ill fortune wills that you meet
her on your way, here is a plant whose root is
black and whose flower is white as milk. The
gods call it moly, and it was given to me by
Mercury. By its means you will render power-
less the evil spells of that famous witch."

Ulysses added other advice concerning the

NAUSICAA 211

dangers of the island of the Sirens, of the island
of the Sun, and of the island of the Laestry-
gonians. He said in conclusion :

" Remember my words, my son, for I would
not have you repeat my fatal adventures."

" I will remember," said Telemachus. " More-
over, every obstacle and even every pleasure
will be my enemy if it could delay my arrival in
the island of the wise Alcinous."

Thus Telemachus set out, his heart full of
Nausicaa.

A gale took him out of his course, and, as he
was passing beside the island of Polyphemus,
he was curious to see the giant whom his father
had formerly conquered. He said to himself :

" The danger is not great, for Polyphemus
is blind."

He disembarked alone, leaving his ship at
anchor at the end of a bay, and he was visible
and unprotected in the rich, undulating plain,
sprinkled with flocks and tufts of trees. On
the horizon, behind a dip in the hill, an enormous
head arose, then shoulders like those polished
rocks that stretch out into the sea, then a chest
as bushy as a ravine. . . .

An instant afterwards, a huge hand seized
Telemachus, and he saw, bending over him, an
eye as large as a shield.

" You are not blind, then ? " asked Telemachus.

" My father, Neptune, has cured me," an-
swered Polyphemus. " It was a little man of

14*

212 NAUSICAA

your species who deprived me of the light of
day, and that is why I am going to eat you."

" You would make a mistake," said Tele-
machus ; " for if you let me live, I would
amuse you by telling you beautiful stories."

" I am listening," said Polyphemus.

Telemachus began the story of the Trojan
war. When night came the Cyclops said :

" It is time to sleep. But I will not eat you
this evening, for I want to know the rest."

Each evening the Cyclops said the same
thing, and this lasted for three years.

The first year Telemachus told of the siege
of Priam's city ; the second year of the return
of Menelaus and Agamemnon ; the third year
of the return of Ulysses, his adventures, and his
marvellous wiles.

" You are very bold;" said Polyphemus, " thus
to praise before me the little man who did me
so great an injury."

" But," answered Telemachus, " the more I
show the cleverness of that man, the less dis-
graceful will it be for you to have been con-
quered by him."

" That is plausible," said the giant, " and I
pardon you. Doubtless I would talk in a dif-
ferent way if a god had not given me back my
sight. But past evils are but a dream."

Towards the end of the third year, Telemachus
searched his memory in vain. He no longer
found anything to tell the giant. Then he began
the same stories over again. Polyphemus took

NAUSICAA 213

the same pleasure in them, and this lasted for
three more years.

But Telemachus did not feel that he had the
courage to repeat a third time the story of the
siege of Ilium and of the return of the heroes.
He confessed it to Polyphemus, and added :

" I would rather you ate me. I shall only
regret one thing as I die : it is that I have not
seen the fair Nausicaa."

He spoke at length of his love and his grief,
and suddenly he saw in the eye of the Cyclops
a tear as large as a pumpkin.

" Go," said the Cyclops, " go and seek her
whom you love. Why did you not speak to
me sooner ? . . ."

" I see," thought Telemachus, " that I would
have done better to have begun with that. I
have lost six years through my error. It is
true that shame prevented me from telling
my secret before. If I disclosed it, it was
because I believed I was going to die."

He constructed a canoe (for the ship he had
left in the bay had long since disappeared), and
set off afresh on the deep sea.

Another tempest threw him on Circe's island.

He saw, at the entrance to a large forest, in
a swinging hammock made of creepers interwoven
with garlands of flowers, a woman who was
gently rocking herself.

She wore on her head a mitre encrusted
with rubies ; her long eyebrows joined together
over her eyes ; her mouth was redder than a

214 NAUSICAA

fresh wound ; her bosom and her arms were
yellow as saffron ; flowers formed of precious stones
were strewn over her transparent robe which was
the colour of a hyacinth, and she smiled through
the tawny hair which completely enveloped her.

Her magician's wand was passed through her
girdle, like a sword.

Circe looked at Telemachus.

The young hero searched beneath his tunic
for the flower, moly, the black and white flower
his father had given him before his departure.
He perceived that he no longer had it.

" I am lost," he thought. " She is going to
touch me with her wand, and I shall be like
the swine who eat acorns."

But Circe said to him in a gentle voice :

" Follow me, young stranger, and come and
rest with me."

He followed her. Soon they arrived at her
palace, which was a hundred times more beautiful
than that of Ulysses.

Along the way, in the depths of the woods
and ravines, swine and wolves that had once been
men, shipwrecked on the island, ran after the
witch's steps ; and although she had taken a
long rod pointed with iron with which she pricked
them cruelly, they tried to lick her bare feet.

For three years Telemachus made his couch
with the magician.

Then, one day he grew ashamed. He felt
extremely wearied, and he discovered that he
had not ceased to love the daughter of Alcinous,

NAUSICAA 215

the innocent virgin with the blue eyes, her whom
he had never seen.

But he thought :

" If I want to go away, the witch will be angry
and transform me into an animal, and thus I
shall never see Nausicaa."

Now, Circe, on her part, was weary of her
companion. She began to hate him, because
she had loved him. She rose one night from
her purple couch and went out, taking her wand,
and struck him with it over his heart.

But Telemachus kept his form and his coun-
tenance. It was because at that moment he
was thinking of Nausicaa, and his heart was full
of his love.

" Go away ! go away ! " shrieked the witch.

Telemachus found his canoe, set forth again
on the sea, and a third tempest threw him on
the island of the Lotus-eaters.

They were polished men, full of intelligence,
and of equable and gentle temper.

Their king offered Telemachus a flower of the
lotus.

" I shall not eat it," said the young hero, " for
this is the flower of forgetfulness, and I wish to
remember."

" Yet forgetfulness is a great good," replied
the king. " Thanks to this flower, which is our
only food, we know nothing of pain, regret,
desire, and all the passions that trouble unhappy
mortals. But we force nobody to eat the divine
flower."

2l6 NAUSICAA

Telemachus lived for some weeks on the
provisions he had saved from his shipwreck.
Then, as there were not in the island either
fruits or animals fit to eat, he nourished himself
as well as he could on shell-fish and other fishes.

" Is it true," he asked the king, " that the
lotus-flower makes men forget even what they
most desire or what causes them to suffer most ? "

" Assuredly, it does," said the king.

" Oh ! " said Telemachus, " it would never
make me forget the fair Nausicaa."

" Try it, and see."

" If I try it, it is because I am very sure that
the lotus could not do what the artifices of a
magician have been unable to accomplish."

He ate the flower and fell asleep.

I mean that he began to live in the same way
as the gentle Lotus-eaters, enjoying the present
hour and caring for nothing else. Only, he
sometimes felt in the depths of his heart, as it
were, the memory of an old wound, without
being able to know exactly what it was.

When he awoke, he had not forgotten the
daughter of Alcinous. But twenty years had
slipped by without his noticing their passage.
His love had needed all that time to conquer
the influence of the flower of forgetfulness.

" They are the best twenty years of your life,"
the king told him.

But Telemachus did not believe it.

NAUSICAA

He politely took leave of his hosts.

I shall not tell you of the other adventures
in which he was engaged, sometimes by neces-
sity, sometimes by the curiosity of seeing new
things, either in the island of the Sirens, or in
the island of the Sun, or in the island of the
Laestrygonians, nor how his love was strong
enough to extricate him from all these dangers
and to tear him away from these various stopping-
places.

A last tempest drove him towards the mouth
of a river in the desired island, the land of the
Phaeacians. He reached the bank ; a wood
was near. He gathered leaves, and, as he was
naked, he covered himself with them. He
fell asleep. . . . Suddenly a noise of pouring
water wakened him.

Telemachus opened his eyes and saw servants
who were washing linen under the orders of an
aged woman who was richly clad.

He got up, and, taking care to hide his nakedness
with a leafy bough, he approached the woman.
Her figure was stout and clumsy, and grey hairs
escaped from her head-band. It was clear
that she had once been beautiful, but she was
so no longer.

Telemachus asked her for hospitality. She
answered him with kindness and made her women
give him some clothes.

" And now, my guest, I am going to lead you
to the King's house."

" Are you the Queen ? " asked Telemachus.

2l8 NAUSICAA

" It is as you have spoken, oh stranger."

Then Telemachus, rejoicing in his heart,
exclaimed :

" May the gods grant long life to the mother
of the fair Nausicaa ! "

" I am Nausicaa," answered the Queen. . . .
" But what ails you, venerable old man ? . . . "

In his canoe, which he hastily repaired, old
Telemachus gained the open sea without once
glancing behind him.

PRINCESS MIMI'S LOVERS

PRINCESS MIMI'S LOVERS

. . . ^TT^HEN Cinderella married the king's
son.

Some months afterwards, the
king's son, having lost his father, became king
in his turn.

Then Queen Cinderella brought into the world
a little girl, whose name was Princess Mimi.

Princess Mimi was as beautiful as the day.
Her rosy face and her light golden hair through
which the sun gleamed, made her look like a
moss-rose ; and she was very intelligent.

When she was fifteen years old, it was necessary
for her to marry : for such was the law of the
kingdom.

But, as she was a princess, she could only marry
a prince.

Now, there were at that time, in all the sur-
rounding countries, only two princes : Prince
Polyphemus, who was seven times bigger than
Princess Mimi, and Prince Tom Thumb, who
was seven times smaller than she was.

And both were in love with Princess Mimi ;
but Mimi was not in love with either of them,
for one was too big and the other was too small.

Nevertheless, the king ordered her to choose
one of the two princes before the month was over ;
and he allowed the two princes to pay their
court to the princess.

And it was agreed that he who should be
rejected would forgive the other and do him
no injury.

221

222 PRINCESS MIMIS LOVERS

Polyphemus came with presents. They were
oxen, sheep, and baskets filled with cheeses and
fruits. And he was attended by giant warriors,
clothed in the skins of animals sewn together.

Tom Thumb brought birds in a gilded cage,
flowers, and jewels, and he was attended by
jesters and dancers clothed in silk and wearing
caps with bells.

Polyphemus related his history to the princess.

" Do not believe," he said to her, " what a
poet called Homer has told about me. In the
first place, he said I had but one eye, and you
see I have two. It is true, indeed, that I ate
the men who landed in my island ; but, if I
did this, it was because they were very small,
and I had no more scruple about eating them
than you would have in picking the bone of a
plover or a young rabbit at the table of the king,
your father. But one day a Greek, named
Ulysses, made me understand that these little
men were yet men like myself, that they often
had families, and that I did them a great injury
by eating them. From that day forward, I
have lived only on the flesh and milk of my
flocks. For I am not of a bad disposition ;
and even, you see, Princess Mimi, that strong
and big as I am, with you I am as gentle as
a new-born lamb."

And, out of vanity, Polyphemus did not say
that Ulysses had conquered him in spite of his
strength, and had put out his eyes while he
slept, and that he had only recovered his sight
by the remedies of a learned magician.

And Mimi thought :

PRINCESS MIMIS LOVERS 223

" All the same, he would be capable of eating
me if he were hungry. On the other hand,
Prince Tom Thumb is so small that I could
gobble him up if I wanted."

Tom Thumb related his history in his turn.

" Perfidious enchanters," said he, " tried to
lead me astray in the forest with my six brothers.
But I scattered white pebbles behind me so that
we found our way. Unluckily I met the Ogre.
He brought us into his palace and placed us in
his big bed. I discovered that he intended
to kill us the next morning. Then I put the
Ogre's seven daughters into the big bed in our
place, and it was they whom the Ogre slaughtered.
And I took his seven-league boots, which were
of great use to me in a war I had to wage against
a neighbouring king : for they allowed me to
discover all the enemy's movements. And thus
I became a very powerful prince. But I gave
up wearing the boots, and I put them in the
museum of my palace, because they are un-
comfortable for my feet, and also because, as
they compel those who wear them to go over
seven leagues at every stride, they are not
suitable for ordinary walking. But I will show
them to you, Princess Mimi."

And, out of vanity, Tom Thumb did not say
that he was the son of a poor wood-cutter. And,
as Polyphemus had done, he mixed the true with
the false : for love, interest, and sometimes
imagination, make us always lie a little.

And Princess Mimi was amazed at the cleverness
of Prince Tom Thumb.

224 PRINCESS MIMIS LOVERS

One day Polyphemus, who was lying with his
legs stretched out in the princess's boudoir,
which he completely filled, said to her in a voice
like thunder, whose reverberations shook the
stained glass of the windows and jolted the
fragile little tables :

" I am simple-minded, but I have an honest
heart, and I am strong. I can tear off fragments
of rocks and hurl them into the sea ; I can knock
down oxen with a slight blow of my fist, and the
lions are afraid of me. Come to my country.
There you will see mountains, blue in the morning
and rose-coloured in the evening,, with great
lakes like mirrors, and forests as old as the world.
I will carry you wherever you wish. For you
I will gather, on the highest peaks, flowers with
which no woman has ever yet adorned herself.
My companions and myself will be your slaves.
Is it not a rare destiny to be like a little goddess
waited upon by giants, to be the sole queen —
little darling that you are — of forests and moun-
tains, of torrents and great lakes, of eagles and
lions ? "

The princess was a little moved as she heard
these words. She shuddered, and yet was
joyous, like a wren that, held in the hollow of a
big hand, yet felt that that hand adored her,
and that it was she who had made a captive of
the huge bird-catcher.

But Tom Thumb, snuggling in a fold of
Mimi's robe, said to her in his shrill and crystal
voice :

" Take me : I occupy such a little space !
Small as I am, you will have the pleasure of

PRINCESS MIMIS LOVERS 225

thinking that you can do with me whatever you
please. I will love you intelligently. I will tell
you so in a hundred different ways, and according
as you will be sad or gay, lively or quiet, according
to the hour and the season of the year, I will
suit my words and my caresses to the secret of
your heart. And I will have a thousand artifices
to amuse you. I will surround you with all that
the industry of men has invented to give pleasure
to life. You will have beneath your eyes only
elegant objects ; you will enjoy beautiful fabrics,
well carved statues, jewels and perfumes. I will
tell you stories and I will have comedies per-
formed for you by ingenious actors. I can sing,
play the mandolin, and compose verses. It is
finer to express harmoniously things that have
been seen and felt than it is to cross torrents,
more difficult to conquer words than to conquer
lions, rarer to beautify life by the grace .of
the mind than to exercise the muscles of the
body."

And Princess Mimi smiled and dreamed, as
if this speech had lulled her deliciously.

One morning she said to her two suitors :
" Make me some verses, I beg you."
Prince Tom Thumb thought for a moment,
then repeated these verses, small like himself :

" A prince I am
(You know the same),
Yet I am small,
Tom Thumb my name.

15

226 PRINCESS MIMl's LOVERS

" A tiny body
Far from stout.
No strength have I
To brag about.

" A drop of dew
Upon a briar
Humbly reflects
The heavens entire.

" A perfume drop
The breath encloses
Of many thousand
Living roses.

" Though I am small,
My claim I state.
It simply is
My love is great."*

* Tom Thumb's verses were in French, and the above lines are
a very inadequate translation. His exact words were these :

" Bien qu'etant prince
(Chacun le sait),
Je suis fort mince,
J'ai nom Poucet.

" Corps minuscule,
Gros comme rien,
Ne suis Hercule :
M'en moque bien I

" La goutelette
Sur l'£glantier
Humble, reflete
Le ciel entier.

" Et mille roses
(Une moisson 1)
Vivent encloses
Dans un flacon.

" J'ai (mais qu'importe ?)
Corps frele et court.
En moi je porte
Si grand amour i "

PRINCESS MIMIS LOVERS

" Charming ! exquisite ! " said the Princess.

And she felt proud to be loved by a little man
who strung words together with so much ease.

" Bah ! " said Polyphemus, " it ought not to
be very difficult to make such little verses."

" Try," said Tom Thumb.

The giant tried all day long. He could do
nothing. Sometimes he struck his forehead
angrily with his clenched fist, but this brought
nothing forth. He was astonished and enraged
at being so powerless to express what he felt so
keenly. That seemed to him unjust. He re-
mained motionless, his mouth half-open, and
with a vague look in his eye. At last, towards
evening, he remembered that love rhymes with
dove. Some hours afterwards he went to Mimi,
and said :

" You are as beautiful as a dove,
And I assure you, Princess, I have given you all my love."j

The Princess burst into laughter.

" Are not these verses good ? " asked Poly-
phemus.

Tom Thumb was triumphant.

" Still it was not so difficult ! " he said.
" You had only to say :

" Oh, Princess fair, although you're small,
For me you fill the world and all.*

Or:

u A giant I, madly in love,
And dying for a little dove.f

* " Vous etes bien petite, 6 ma Princesse blonde :
Mais votre petitesse emplit pour moi le monde ! "

f u Je suis un bon geant tres fou

Qui meur» d'amour pour un joujou.'

15*

228 PRINCESS MIMl's LOVERS

Or this :

" Tiny, tiny girl,
You have pierced my heart,
You are only as tall as my ankle,
But you struck me with love's dart.'

Or if you prefer it :

" In two words, this is how it goes,
Once a tall oak fell in love with a rose."f

" Adorable ! " said the Princess.

But she saw in the giant's eye a tear as large
as an egg ; and he had such an unhappy air
that she had pity on him. At the same time
it seemed to her that Tom Thumb showed too
much satisfaction with his own cleverness, and
that this was in bad taste. She was thus the
more touched by the gentleness and simplicity
of Polyphemus.

" After all," she said to herself, " he could
crush his rival with a fillip of his thumb, or
simply put him in his pocket. Although I
myself am bigger than Tom Thumb, he could
carry me off under his arm and do what he
wished with me. He must be very good, for
he does none of these things."

And she said to Polyphemus :

" Do not grieve, my friend. Your verses are
not very good ; but your heart is in them, and,
after all, they say the essential."

* " O petite, petite fille

Qui m'as perce" d'un trait vainqueur,

Toi qui me viens a la cheville,

Comment done as-tu fait pour atteindre mon coeur ? "

•j- " Je m'en vais en deux mots vous raconter la chose :
II ctait un grand chene amoureux d'une rose."

PRINCESS MIMIS LOVERS 229

" But," said Tom Thumb, " they are not

verses : for the first has nine syllables, and the
second has fourteen, and no caesura."

" Then," said the Princess, " they are the
verses of a Futurist poet. Be silent, Prince
Tom Thumb ! "

The palace of Princess Mimi was surrounded
by a large park, through which flowed a blue
river. In the middle of the river, on a little
island, like a nosegay, was a summer-house
made of fine coloured china, with windows
made of precious stones and sashes of silver. The
clever architect had given to this summer-house
the appearance of an immense tulip. It was the
Princess's custom to spend hours here, for the
joy of feeling herself suspended between the
azure of the river and the azure of the sky.

One day, as she was here, half reclining and
half dreaming, her eyes half-closed and singing
melancholy songs in a low voice, she did not
perceive that the river was rising around her.
At last the noise of the waves woke her out of
her half-sleep, and, opening a window, she
saw that the bridge which led to the little island
was submerged, and that the water would soon
come into the summer-house. She was
frightened and cried out.

On the bank, the King, her father, Queen
Cinderella, her mother, and Prince Tom Thumb
were in despair, and all three together were
raising their hands to Heaven. Suddenly,

230 PRINCESS MIMl's LOVERS

Polyphemus appeared. He entered the stream,
and the water hardly reached his girdle. In
three steps he reached the summer-house, grasped
the Princess carefully, and brought her to the
bank.

" Oh ! " said Mimi to herself, " how fine it is
to be big and strong ! And how pleasant it is
to feel oneself thus protected ! With him I
could sleep tranquilly, and I should never have
a fear or a care. I think it is he whom I shall
choose."

She smiled on the giant, and the smile of that
little mouth caused a tremor of pleasure to pass
over the whole huge body of Polyphemus.

The following day she saw Tom Thumb so
sad that, to console him, she proposed taking
a walk with him through the fields.

She held him by the hand, and she pretended
to dawdle so as not to walk too quickly, and not
tire out her companion.

They met a flock of sheep. And as Tom
Thumb wore that day a doublet of cherry-
coloured satin, a ram, who disliked that colour,
left the flock and, with horns lowered, rushed
straight at the little prince.

Tom Thumb, who was very proud, kept his
countenance, although he was greatly frightened.
But at the moment when the ram was going to
reach him, Mimi took Tom Thumb in her arms,
and, at the same time, adroitly opened her
parasol in the ram's nose. He stopped in
surprise and almost immediately retraced his
steps.

" He does well to go off," said Tom Thumb.

PRINCESS MIMIS LOVERS 23!

" I was not afraid of him, and you saw, Princess,
how ready I was for him."

" Yes, little Prince, I know that you are
brave," said Mimi.

And she thought :

" Oh ! how good it is to protect those weaker
than yourself ! Certainly one must love those
to whom one is useful ; above all, when they
are handsome and clever like this little man."

On the next day, Tom Thumb presented the
Princess with a little rose, still almost a bud,
but no rose had ever so rosy a tint or a more
delicate perfume.

Mimi took the flower, saying :

" Thanks, dear little Prince."

She wore on that day a robe that changed
its colour as it reflected the light, and that
seemed to be made of the same fabric as the
wings of a dragon-fly.

" Ah ! " said Tom Thumb, " what a beautiful
dress you are wearing ! "

" Isn't it ? " said Mimi. " And look how
well your rose goes with my bodice."

" A rose ! " thought Polyphemus, " what is a
rose ? I will show her what nosegays I can give
her."

He went off to India ; there he discovered a
large tree covered with brilliant blooms as big
as the bells of a cathedral ; and he tore it up by
the roots and brought it to Mimi with an air of
triumph.

232 PRINCESS MIMI S LOVERS

" It is very beautiful," said Mimi, laughing.
" But what would you have me do with it, my
dear Prince ? I cannot put it in my bodice or
in my hair."

The good giant was ashamed, and did not
know what to say.

As he cast down his eyes, he noticed that
Prince Tom Thumb was wearing a suit of the
same stuff as the Princess's robe.

" Oh ! " said he.

" Yes," she answered, " I have had this fine
suit made for him out of a little piece that was
left over from my robe. I could not give it to
you, for it would not have been enough to make
even a knot in your tie."

And, turning towards the King :

" Since the hour has come to decide, my father,
it is Prince Tom Thumb that I will take as my
husband. Prince Polyphemus will forgive me.
I have much esteem for him, and I am sorry for
his disappointment."

The giant heaved a sigh that made the whole
palace tremble ; then, as he was a gentleman,
he loyally offered Tom Thumb his huge hand,
in which that of the little Prince was lost.

" Make her happy," he said to him.

On the day of the wedding Princess Mimi
was neither sad nor gay ; for she had an undoubted
affection for Tom Thumb, but she was not in
love with him.

At the moment the procession started for the

233

church, it was announced that Prince Charming,
who had beer/ on his travels for several years,
had just come back, and that he would be present
at the wedding.

Prince Charming appeared. He was a little
taller than the Princess, handsome, with a fine
bearing, and full of intelligence. In brief,
Prince Charming was charming.

The Princess had never seen him, and had never
even heard him spoken of. But as soon as he
presented himself, she turned quite pale, then
quite red, and she said these words in spite of
herself :

" Prince Charming, I was expecting you. I
love you and I feel that you love me. But I
have pledged my faith to this poor little man,
and I cannot break my pledge."

As she said this she nearly fell into a swoon.

Polyphemus leant down to Tom Thumb :

" Little Prince, will you not have the courage
to do what I did ? "

" But I love her," said Tom Thumb.

" That is the reason," said the good giant.

" Madam," said Tom Thumb to Princess
Mimi, " this good giant is right. I love you too
much to possess you against your will. We did
not foresee the arrival of Prince Charming.
Marry him, since you love him."

Princess Mimi, in a burst of joy, lifted the
little Prince off the ground and kissed him on
both cheeks, saying :

" Ah, how nice of you to do that ! "

Tom Thumb wept and said :

" That is crueller than all the rest."

234 PRINCESS MIMIS LOVERS

" Come, poor little Prince," said Polyphemus.
" You will tell me all about your grief. We will
speak of her every day, and we will watch over her
from afar."

He took Tom Thumb on his shoulder, and soon
both disappeared over the horizon.

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

IN the Convent of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, where
the girls of the highest nobility of France
were educated, they were celebrating the
birthday of Madame de Rochebrune, the head
mistress.

The nuns, the lay sisters, the boarders, and a
number of ladies, the mothers, relatives, or
friends of the boarders, were gathered in the
theatre, which had been built by the Duchess of
Orleans, formerly abbess of the royal convent.

The long rows of little girls, seated on benches
and wearing blue, white, or red ribbons on their
dresses, according as they were in the junior,
middle, or senior classes, formed a frame for the
gleaming and sparkling audience, in which the
high-pointed corsages of the ladies rose out of
their stiff panniered skirts, and in which rosy
faces with patches on them balanced in the
movements of conversation the high powdered
structures of their head-dresses.

A Red — that is to say, a senior — on the stage
was playing a piece on the harp. Then some
Blues recited fables by Florian, and a White
declaimed verses by the Abbe Delille on the
pleasures of the country.

Then the curtain was lowered for the interval.
The curtain was a beautiful piece of old tapestry
which represented the loves of Diana and
Endymion. The evening was to end with the
second act of Athalie.

237

238 SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

Joad, Athalie, Abner, Mathan, Josabeth, and
Joas were moving about in the wings, very busy.
Joad was Mademoiselle de Montmorency decked
with a hempen periwig and a beard, and dis-
playing under the latter a little mouth as red
as a cherry. Mademoiselle de Conflans, who
played the part of Abner, wore a tin cuirass,
moustaches, and a chin-tuft. Mademoiselle de
Choiseul, very fair and very youthful, with a
gentle and peaceable air, played the part of the
fierce Athalie. She wore three patches, a round
one on her temple, an almond-shaped one on
her chin, and a star-shaped one on her cheek.

" Patches like the queen's for Athalie ! " said
Mademoiselle Sainte-Crinore (she was the nun
who conducted the rehearsals). " What are you
thinking of, mademoiselle ? "

" Oh, Madame, let me keep them ! She
might have worn patches, for her mother, Jezebel,
rouged herself. The text says so ! "

Joas was played by little Sophie de Mont-
cernay, a child of eight, who at the moment was
looking into the auditorium from two holes
pierced exactly through Endymion's eyes.

" What are you doing, Mademoiselle de Mont-
cernay ? "

" I am looking if my mother has come," said
Sophie sadly.

" You know well she will not come. She sent
you word this morning. Come ! Think no more
about it and pay attention to your part. Your
mother will be pleased if she knows you have
acted well."

The child endeavoured to smile. The per-

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY 239

formance began. At the moment when Made-
moiselle de Choiseul exclaimed, raising her
voice :

" Let all my Tyrians take up arms ! "

Sophie de Montcernay made her entry with
Josabeth, Zachariah, and the chorus.

As she was greatly moved, she uttered her first
reply in so gentle and touching a manner that a
little stir of pleasure and approbation ran
through the rows of ladies. But when Athalie
asked her :

" Are you then without parents ? "

her breast heaved, and she was scarcely heard to
reply :

" They have abandoned me,"

and when the queen added :

" How and since when ? "

Sophie de Montcernay made a face like a child
who is going to weep, stammered two or three
times : " Since . . . since . . ." and suddenly
burst into tears.

" You little fool," said Athalie to her in a
whisper, shaking her by the arm. " You are going
to make us all go wrong ! "

And she resumed :

" At least your country's name is not unknown ? "

But Sophie was sobbing with her head in her
hands. The curtain had to be lowered.

The head mistress went into the wings and
tried to comfort the child.

240 SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

" What is the matter with you, little Sophie ?
Are you afraid of all these people ? "

"No, Madame."

" What is the matter, then ? "

" I don't know."

Madame de Rochebrune, went back to the
auditorium and kept Sophie beside her. And
while the interrupted scene was resumed, and
Abner, by a bold convention, spoke the part of
Joas, Sophie, curled up at the feet of the old
nun, continued to weep silently.

" Alas ! " thought Madame de Rochebrune,
" I know well what ails the poor little thing !
But what is to be done ? "

Certainly, Sophie's mother, the brilliant
Marquise de Montcernay, was not unkind. Left
a widow at the age of twenty, her principal
occupation was to beautify herself and feel that
she was pretty ; but it must be admitted that
the pleasure she took in this made her amiable,
gentle, and indulgent to others. She even
loved her daughter in her own way. When
Sophie was quite little, she had occupied herself
with her as if she were a doll ; and in the parties
she gave, if she dressed herself as a young Indian
woman or a stage shepherdess, she amused herself
by giving similar costumes to the child, and
dressed her as an Indian baby or a tiny shep-
herdess. The little girl, who was very affectionate
and very sensitive, took these amusements as
evidences of affection. Seeing her pretty mother

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY 24!

always charmingly dressed and always triumphant,
and not conceiving that any other woman could
be so beautiful or so entertaining, she felt towards
her as one does towards an idol ; and she was
perfectly happy to be her toy.

When this toy no longer amused her, that is
to say, when Sophie was six years old, Madame de
Montcernay placed her in the Abbaye-aux-Bois.
The child yielded, in order not to displease her
whom she adored. The Marquise came to see
her two or three times a year, always more
beautiful and as dazzling as an apparition ;
and Sophie lived only for those visits. Saved
from continuous suffering by the instability of
her age, she yet carried in her heart a secret
wound. Sometimes even in the midst of her
games, she would suddenly burst into tears.
It is true that she was hardly more abandoned
by her mother than were most of her companions.
She understood, too, that the little girls of the
nobility had to be brought up in a certain way
and could not live much with their mothers. But
she suffered none the less from all this. The
nuns were good to her, and, if she wished, she
could have found in the senior class (the Reds)
some great friend who would have played the
part of her little mother. But that was not
enough for her. It was her mother she needed.
She was born such, poor little child.

From the Blue (the junior), Sophie passed into
the White (the middle) class to prepare for her
first Communion.

16

242 SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

Among her new mistresses, there was one,
Madame Sainte-Therese, who was young and
pretty, but who always seemed wearied and sad.
When she made the Whites repeat their cate-
chism, she had an air of thinking of something
else a thousand leagues distant. These dis-
tractions suited the Whites well enough, and they
profited by them to repeat their lessons at
random. But Sophie was chilled by this in-
difference, and was very much afraid of Madame
Sainte-Therese. On this very account she
could not prevent herself from following her
continually with her eyes ; and doubtless this
glance annoyed the young nun, for if she woke
up from her reverie and languidly gave somebody
a bad mark or some other punishment, it was
always on Sophie that it fell.

Sophie said to herself : " She detests me,"
and she was very unhappy.

On the day of their first Communion all the
mothers of the other girls were there. But
Sophie's mother had written that she would not
come, as she was detained by a party given by
the Count d'Artois.

Sophie tried to console herself by thinking
that she had the most beautiful and most admired
mamma in the world, and the one who was most
in request ; and she prayed for her from the
bottom of her heart — from her heart swollen
with sorrow.

But in the evening, while the Whites were
going up to their dormitory, she escaped from
their ranks and remained alone, dreaming and
weeping her fill in the Souls' Cloister (this was

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY 243

the name given to the inner courtyard of the
convent).

From the stone bench on which she was sitting,
she saw the shadows of the arcades outlined by
the moon. A bell rang slowly and sadly, and
then was silent. And, no longer daring to stir
on account of the silence, Sophie had a feeling
of being completely and hopelessly deserted. . . .

A white form appeared in the gallery not far
from the door that led to the rooms of the head
mistress. Sophie thought that it was Madame
de Rochebrune, and, with a despairing movement,
flung herself into the folds of that snow-white
robe.

" What is the matter, my child ? and why are
you not with your companions ? "

Sophie recognized Madame Sainte-Therese,
and was afraid ; but, lifting ,her eyes, she saw
that Madame Sainte-Therese was also weep-
ing.

" What is the matter ? " repeated the nun
more gently, as she leant down towards the child
and stroked her head with her long, pale hands.

Sophie, suffocated by her tears, could only
say these words :

" Mamma ! Mamma ! "

" Ah, was that the reason ? " murmured the
nun, as if surprised.

She seized the little girl in her arms, squeezed
her with all her strength, and lifted her on to
the stone bench, covering her with long, long
kisses.

Sophie remembered that she had not received
kisses like these since the time when she had been

16*

244 SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

quite small, and that Madame Sainte-Therese's
kisses were even warmer and better.

" Oh ! Madame," she said, " how good you
are ! "

" Would you like me to be a little bit your
mamma ? "

The child only answered by pressing against
the nun's breast. She buried herself in it as
closely as she could, and hid herself completely
beneath the large folds of the white veil.

And slowly Madame Sainte-Therese rocked
her on her knees.

Madame Sainte-Therese's name in the world
had been Madeleine de Fregeneuilles. When
quite young she had had the vocation to maternity.
As Colonel de Fregeneuilles was with the army,
and Madame de Fregeneuilles was always ill,
it was Madeleine who had brought up her little
brother, now one of the king's pages, and her
little sister, who had recently died. The
Fregeneuilles were not rich, and she had
resigned herself to enter the convent in order
that her brother might have something with
which to maintain the honour of the family.
But what agony it was for her to renounce
the joy of having children of her own to care
for and to caress ! If she remained cold towards
her pupils in spite of the tenderness of her heart,
the reason was that there were too many of them,
these little Whites, and it was impossible for her to
love them all in the unique fashion in which

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY 245

she was able to love. And if at first she had
been wanting in kindness towards Sophie, it was
because she thought she saw in the child's eyes
a curiosity that annoyed her.

But now at last they recognized and under-
stood one another, the little girl who needed a
mother, and the nun who needed a child to
love.

Thenceforward, Madame Sainte-Therese and
Sophie de Montcernay were happy. In the
morning, when the nun passed before the girls'
beds saying " Benedicamus Domino" she directed
towards Sophie a look and a smile that gave her
courage and gaiety for the whole day, and in
the evening she tucked her up in her little bed.
In class, she used to ask her for little services,
such as to fetch a book or to pick up the rattle
which she used to signal to the class ; and the
child, full of application, resting with her elbows
on her desk and with her tongue stuck out a
little so that she might write all the better, felt
continually behind her Madame Sainte-Therese's
head bending over her and watching her at work.
Often also the nun led her into her cell, and
there she went over Sophie's clothes, did her
hair for her, beautified her, and kissed her every
moment on both cheeks.

Both felt the joy of having a secret between
them, of having a separate life of their own in
the common life. They loved one another
all the more because they suspected that in the
innocent romance of their affection there might
be something of which the austerity of the
convent rule would not approve. And they kept

246 SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

a little in the background so as to love one
another.

In the following year, Sophie passed into the
Red class. This was a great sorrow. She could
no longer see Madame Sainte-Therese so often,
and she found it difficult to go to sleep in her
new dormitory — the dormitory of the bigger
girls — where her friend no longer came to em-
brace her each evening. Still she found means
of slipping into her cell sometimes during the
hours of recreation. But, to crown their mis-
fortunes, Madame de Rochebrune took it into
her head that the excessive ardour of this " special
friendship " of a nun for her pupil was contrary
to the very spirit of the profession. She warned
Madame Sainte-Therese of this, and at last,
in order to put an end to the irregularity, gave
her the duties of sacristan, which left her few
opportunities of meeting the pupils.

Sophie's grief almost amounted to despair.
It was her whole happiness of which she had been
deprived, and then, in order to divert her grief
and also to avenge herself for what she regarded
as an abominable cruelty, she, who had formerly
been so gentle and submissive, became the most
turbulent and undisciplined little scapegrace
among all the boarders.

Just at this period there was in the Red class
a mistress whom all the pupils detested for her
bad temper and her injustice. Her name was
Madame Saint-Jerome. The Reds had pre-
sented a petition to Madame Rochebrune that

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY 247

she should be removed, but the head mistress
had refused, not wishing to give the impression
of yielding to the girls.

One day, during a class, two of the Reds, little
Lastic and little Saint-Simon, had a dispute
which ended with an open fight. Without
knowing who was right or wrong, Madame Saint-
Jerome took Mademoiselle de Lastic by the arm
and tried to force her to go down on her knees.

" Madame," said the child, " I assure you that
it was not I who began."

At this, Madame Saint-Jerome burst into a
frightful temper, took her by the neck and flung
her so violently to the ground that she fell on
her nose and bled.

" Ladies," said Sophie, " you see how one of
us has been attacked. Let us throw Madame
Saint-Jerome out of the window."

All the Reds leaped over the benches and
thronged about the victim, uttering cries.
Madame Saint-Jerome lost her head and went out,
saying she was going to complain to Madame
de Rochebrune.

Sophie mounted on a table and made a speech
to her companions. She said they ought to leave
the class and only come back to it on honourable
conditions. Led by her, the Reds crossed the
garden and invaded the kitchens and the buttery :
they hoped thus to conquer the nuns by famine.
A nun and some lay sisters who were there fled
in terror. The little insurgents kept back a
lay sister to cook their dinner, bolted the doors,
and passed the night in deliberation.
• In order to prevent attempts at individual

248 SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

corruption, they all swore solemnly that they
would not enter into negotiations except with
the head mistress or her official envoys.

On her side, Madame de Rochebrune, having
assembled the nuns, decided that it was better
to wait until the rebels grew tired and made
their submission.

Towards morning, the Reds heard knocks at
one of the doors. They opened. It was Madame
Sainte-Therese.

Knowing that her little friend was most com-
promised in the affair, she had been unable to
resist the desire of seeing her and speaking to her.

" Sophie," she said, " if you still love me,
follow me."

Sophie longed to fling herself on her neck,
but the feeling of duty restrained her.

" Do you come," asked the conspirators, " in
your own name, or are you sent by Madame
de Rochebrune ? "

" I can only follow you in the latter case. . . .
I have sworn it," said Sophie, very -pale.

Madame Sainte-Therese hesitated a moment,
and answered :

" I am sent by Madame de Rochebrune, but
I would like to make her proposals known first
to Mademoiselle de Montcernay, who will com-
municate them to you."

And, purple with the shame of her falsehood,
she took Sophie by the hand and led her away
hurriedly. She stopped and kissed her in the
middle of the garden ; then, without saying a
word, she brought her to Madame de Roche-
brune.

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY 249

" Madame," she said gravely, " you will im-
pose upon me whatever penance you wish ; but
I beg you first of all to save my honour. I told
the young ladies that I brought them proposals
from you. You would not wish them to have
the thought that one of their mistresses has
publicly lied."

" But," said Sophie, " if Madame Sainte-
Therese spoke to us as she did, it was because
she knew that I love her so much that I could not
have prevented myself from following her ; she
wished to spare me the shame of that treason.
It is therefore me whom you should scold and
punish, Madame ? ':

And the nun and the child knelt down before
the head mistress.

" You are both ridiculous," said Madame de
Rochebrune. " But, God forgive me ! you move
me. Go and tell the young ladies that if they
are back in their class by noon I will give them a
complete amnesty. As for Madame Saint-Jerome
. . . make them understand that it is my duty
at the present moment to uphold her, and that
it is to their interest to make no further demands
about her."

Sophie carried these words to the rebels,
showed them that Madame de Rochebrune
could do no more without losing her own dignity,
and had not much trouble in convincing them
of this, for they had already exhausted all the
pleasure of their escapade.

Some days later, Madame Saint-Jerome fell ill
very opportunely, and was replaced by a less dis-
pleasing mistress.

250 SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

Madame de Rochebrune was a kind-hearted
woman ; and, as the conduct of Madame Sainte-
Therese seemed to her singular and touching,
and as, moreover, she thought that they had
brought about the fortunate solution of the
whole business, she allowed them, as a reward,
to see and love one another freely.

And the Marquise de Montcernay continued
to lead her brilliant and amusing life at Versailles
and Paris. Every three or four months she
remembered her daughter and went to see her.
During these short visits, Sophie spoke to her
mother of nothing but Madame Sainte-Therese.

" That is excellent," the Marquise would say ;
" I see that you are not dull here."

And she would go off perfectly satisfied, with
a rustle of skirts, and wearing a large plumed
hat upon her unchangingly young and thought-
less head.

Two years later, in 1791.

The convent of the Abbaye-aux-Bois was
dispersed.

Because she was either very heedless or very
brave, the Marquise de Montcernay had remained
in Paris. She had sent Sophie to an old country
house in Savoy and had entrusted her to the
care of an old steward, Maitre Germain.

At first Sophie had buried herself in sombre
and silent despair. But little by little the grand-
motherly cares of Maitre Germain's wife had
softened and soothed her. She allowed herself
to live. She followed the worthy man in his

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

trips through the woods, beside melancholy
ponds, or over violet heaths. And her days
passed in rather melancholy indolence which was
not without its sweetness.

She roused herself from it only to carry on
an impassioned correspondence with Madame
Sainte-Therese, who was a refugee in Paris under
a borrowed name. And she thought rarely of her
mother.

. . . Madame Sainte-Therese's letters ceased
to come. Sophie waited for a month, with
increasing anxiety. Then one day she got hold
of a newspaper which Maitre Germain had
badly hidden, and read the name of " the former
Marquise de Montcernay " in a list of recently
arrested suspects.

She saw her, in her childish imagination,
stretched upon a straw bed in a frightful cell,
with chains on her feet and hands, she so elegant
and so delicate. . . . And suddenly the adora-
tion she had felt when quite a child for that
exquisite and frivolous mother, returned to her
heart, all the more ardently because it was
mingled with remorse. She said to herself
that perhaps she had ignored the Marquise's
affection, and imagined superior duties which
had kept her apart from her child. At last she
threw all the blame on her own timidity. " If
I had been able," she thought, " to open my heart
to her, to make her understand that I suffered
from not seeing her, she would have had pity
on me and would have shown me a more attentive

252 SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

affection." She reproached herself for having
so long loved another woman more than her
mother, and she almost had a sort of grudge
against Madame Sainte-Therese for having taken
the place her mother had abandoned. Thence-
forward she had but one thought : to see her
mother and tell her all this ; or simply to hold
her in her arms and press her against herself —
very strongly and very gently.

She persuaded Maitre Germain to take her to
Paris, and there, without too much difficulty,
they obtained permission to pay Madame de
Montcernay a visit in her prison.

The Marquise had appeared before the Revo-
lutionary Tribunal on the previous day, and had
been condemned to death. Maitre Germain
knew this and had hidden it from Sophie.

The prison was an old college, with an inner
courtyard surrounded by arcades. The child,
who expected thick walls, chains, gratings, and
subterranean cells, was astonished to see this
courtyard planted with trees and full of sunshine.

A jailer brought in the Citizeness Montcernay.
She was still pretty and very graceful in her
black dress. But it was no longer powder that
made her hairs white.

As soon as she saw Sophie, she rushed to her,
took her, lifted her up and carried her to a stone
bench in the corner of the cloister, and covered
her with mad kisses :

" Oh, my little girl ! my little girl ! "

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY 253

And Sophie remembered another bench in
another cloister, and the caresses of Madame
Sainte-Therese. And she understood that there
was something more in her mother's kisses, a
tenderness of heart and flesh by which she felt
deliciously enveloped, and she would have liked
to die in that embrace.

For the frivolous Marquise had greatly changed.
The certainty of approaching death had sud-
denly simplified and led back to nature and truth
the frivolous creature of former days. A mother
had awakened within her, a mother in despair at
having neglected her child, eager to see her, to
hold her, to pay her before dying such big
arrears of love. She wished also, before parting
with her for ever, to leave in her daughter's mind
a memory and an image that would never be
effaced. And just at the moment when Sophie
was dragging Germain to Paris, she had written
to the old steward : " Bring me my daughter."

Now she gazed at her, filling her eyes and her
heart with the dear image of her child :

" Ah ! my poor little one," she said, " how
guilty I have been towards you ! Say you for-
give me ! "

And Sophie murmured :

" I am happy . . . very happy ! "

Then, while not forgetting that she would
certainly die the next day, the Marquise began
to chat with Sophie about a thousand charming
nothings, as if she was in the parlour at the Abbaye-
aux-Bois. She made her tell her in detail all
about her days in the old country-house in
Savoy, and asked about herFclothes and the

254 SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY

state of her trousseau. And she plaited her
hair and arranged her collar. . . . She wished to
do, for at least an hour, what she should always
have done.

The jailer warned them that they had only
a few minutes more.

The Marquise had the courage to say almost
gaily :

" Au revoir'^ my love."

But as she said " au revoir" Sophie doubtless
read " farewell " in her eyes. She had a feeling
that if she left this mother whom she had at
last recovered, she would never see her again.
She slipped to the ground, clung about her feet,
hung to her dress, and, shaken by sobs, she cried :
" No ! No ! I will not."
Madame de Montcernay bent towards her,
knelt down, took her in her arms, and consoled
her with the words that one says to tiny children.
She added :

" You see this prison is not very terrible. If
they wished to do me any harm they would have
put me somewhere else. Think a little. They
cannot condemn me, for I have done nothing. . . .
In a few days, I swear to you, I shall go out of this
place, and we shall never leave one another again.
Be sensible then in the meantime if you don't
want to make me unhappy."

These last words convinced Sophie.
" I will be sensible," she said, " I promise you."
At that moment the Marquise seemed to make
a great effort :

" My daughter," she continued, " your great
friend Madame Sainte-Therese has been a prisoner

SOPHIE DE MONTCERNAY 255

here for the last month. Would you like to
see her ? I think the jailer, who is not a bad
man, would allow you."

Perhaps Sophie divined the Marquise's secret
thought, and that, in spite of her effort, she was
but a mother, a jealous mother, who would suffer
if, at that supreme moment, she had to share her
child's heart with another, and, above all, with
that other. Perhaps also there are hours that
make us forget years and swallow up all the past.
Madame Sainte-Therese's assumed motherhood
was so distant now.

" Does she know that I came here ? " Sophie
asked.

" No."

" Then . . . say nothing to her about it."

Sophie never forgot the infinite joy which sud-
denly shone in her mother's eyes.

... A last kiss — so long, so sweet, so sad !
Then the heavy door turned on its hinges and
closed between mother and child with a dull
sound. . . .

On the next day, the Marquise de Montcernay
mounted the scaffold.

MELIE

MELIE

" A DORED ? " said the Countess Chris-
l\ tiane, " I am sure that I have been
adored once in my life. Not by you,
gentlemen, though several have told me so : for I
know that it is a manner of speaking, and that
merely to be liked is very pleasant. But, when
quite a child, I was adored by a little girl of my
own age, who was by far the most wretched
little girl, the worst washed, and the greatest
slattern one could see, and whose name was
Melie.

" Yes, adored ; and I pray you to give the word
its full meaning. There is no other for the feel-
ing I inspired in Melie. I understand now that
I was her only thought, her only joy in the world,
her only reason for living ; that nothing existed
for her apart from me, that she was really my
property and belonged to me absolutely. . . .

" Where did this take place ? In the old house
in the provinces where I was born. A bright
and deserted street, paved with sharp stones,
bordered with grey gables and long convent walls.
A large, sonorous house, with tall windows and
wooden panels, with a vast garden, with a vine-
carpeted arbour running through its whole length,
where it was as dark and cool as a church, and
which gave us three or four pipes of white wine
every year. On each side of the arbour were
three or four large squares planted with very old

259 17*

260 MELIE

fruit trees. At the end of the garden, a latticed
door of wood opened on the fields. From here
one could see the sunset, and, if one turned round,
one saw the apse of the cathedral and its last
buttresses, gilt by the evening light. Melie's
humble image is joined in my memory to that
corner of earth with a deep and almost solemn
peace.

" Every time I think of Melie I see a little
girl from ten to twelve, ugly, fairly tall, very thin,
covered with freckles, her eyes shining through her
tangled hair ; her feet in old elastic boots, burst
and down at heels ; rags of no colour, her bodice
badly buttoned, and some corner of her under-
garments showing through a hole in her skirt.
In short, a perfect little ragamuffin. Her best
feature was a large mouth with teeth like those
of a young dog, which she showed continually,
at any rate to me, for she could not look at me
without laughing with happiness.

" It seems that I was a fairly pretty little girl,
very white, very delicate, with long hair the colour
of a horse-chestnut. My brother, a little older
than I was and a terrible tease, called it carrots
so as to put me in a rage. Or he compared it with
Petit-Blond's tail (Petit-Blond was a reddish,
sturdy, and obstinate pony, a companion of our
childhood, who took us out in fine weather, and
who visibly derived great pleasure from upsetting
us). At all events, whatever its colour, it was
hair which my father greatly liked, and of which

MELIE 26l

great care was taken. Add to this, strange green
eyes, and, in my whole person, something un-
healthy and over-excitable. I had the air of an
unreal little girl. I repeat what I have been
told. It is evident that, for Melie at all events,
I belonged to a superior world, to the same world
as the faces of the transparent saints and angels
that she saw in the painted windows in the
church.

" How did I make Melie's acquaintance ? I
no longer know. Her parents were poor people
of the neighbourhood. What is certain is that
they did not bother themselves much about their
daughter, that I was accustomed to see her every-
where on my paths, and that she lived in my
shadow.

" I have no doubt that at the beginning my
father tried to keep me away from that little
witch. For, indeed, she was no companion for a
rich, middle-class little girl such as I was. I
imagine that he was conquered by Melie's per-
severance, by her snake-like suppleness in slipping
away, appearing and disappearing, and perhaps
also by her prayers. I felt, in truth, that I was
for Melie a sort of little Madonna ; and a Madonna
is not angry when ragamuffins pay her their devo-
tions from the other end of the chapel.

" And poor Melie was so little in the way !
She only asked me to endure her, not even by my
side, but behind me. In the morning, when my
nurse led me to the convent, Melie, hidden at

262 MfeLIE

the corner of the door, would watch for my de-
parture. She would take the satchel which held
my books and would follow us at a distance of
some paces. I used to say to her : * Thank you,
Melie ! ' That was enough for her. She knew
that my father would not have allowed her to
walk by my side, and that he would not think it
proper for her to engage in conversation with me
in the street ; and she herself was of the same
opinion.

" Besides, she had her own dignity, the dignity
which all disinterested love maintains without
knowledge or effort. Thus, although she was
poor, I never gave her pennies. Once, when I
wished to give her one, she had refused, energeti-
cally shaking her head like a wolf's. Only when
I had some dainties, chocolates or macaroons, I
offered her some behind my back as I trotted
along at my nurse's side ; and she came and took
them. Sweets she would accept.

" I sometimes ask myself why Melie was so
ragged, for certainly she must have been given
at home old garments with which she could have
clothed herself more decently. I sometimes
rated her for her badly combed hair, her missing
buttons, her stains and her torn clothes. Then
she would sink her head, very confused, and say
nothing. But she would appear again next day
as shabby as before. It was doubtless stronger
than she was.

" It must be said that with the life she led it
would have been difficult for her to be neat. All
the time she was not with me she spent playing
in the street with young ragamuffins, or running

MELIE 263

through the fields, climbing trees, gathering
flowers, sleeping in the hay. A regular little
faun ! She could not read and had never gone
to school, but she knew plants well, those that
are good for a cold, those that are refreshing,
those that cure pains, those that ease the smart
of cuts. . . . She often brought some to the
kitchen, and also lamb's lettuce, watercress,
dandelion, and enormous bouquets of violets,
snow-drops, cowslips, michaelmas daisies, poppies,
and cornflowers.

" These were all so many pretexts for slipping
into the house. Or she would wander about the
kitchen, watching for an errand to run : for
bread which was wanted just at lunch time, or
when the butcher had not sent the meat. Melie
would run off, be back in a twinkling, and then
would not go away, would hide herself in corners,
pass through half-open doors, looking for me, and
end by finding me.

" This happened oftenest in the garden. She
showed herself at first from a distance, timidly.
I would make her a sign to approach. And she
would run to me, with a joy of Paradise in her
eyes.

" f Oh ! Mademoiselle ! Mademoiselle ! '

" We used to settle ourselves on a bench in the
arbour, and there, well hidden, we would chat
at our ease. I have forgotten what we spoke of,
but I remember quite well what we did. Melie
was very ingenious. She taught me how to make
whistles out of willow branches, guns out of
pieces of elder, balls of cowslips, crowns of all
sorts of flowers, pumps from straws fixed in

264 MELIE

apricot stones (it is quite simple : you make a
hole by rubbing the stones against a piece
of sandstone, and you take out the kernel
through these holes with a pin). When she
received some pennies for her errands, she would
buy bits of stuff and ends of ribbons from a dress-
maker in the town, and by rolling and sewing these
multi-coloured rags around a handful of hay and
four little sticks, she used to make dolls which
seemed to me superb, dazzling and fantastic dolls
with heads of rose-coloured satin and unexpected
gestures, dolls much more alive, much more
suggestive than those one buys in shops.

" Melie was also very generous. One day, as
I was going out, I saw her waiting for me, lean-
ing against a post and holding a large slice of
bread on which smoked a layer of mashed potatoes
seasoned with onions and other herbs. The layer
of potatoes was much thicker than the bread,
and it smelt so good ! I could not restrain
myself :

" * That cannot be bad, Melie ! '

" Immediately she stretched out to me the piece
of bread, in which teeth like those of a wolf had
cut out half-circles as if with a punching machine.
And I, so delicate that I was always scolded
because I did not eat, I devoured the bread and
covered myself with the potatoes to the tip of my
nose. And Melie gazed at me with an odd
air in which there were delight, pride at seeing
that I appreciated her cooking so highly, and also,
under it all, a little regret. . . . From that day
forward, every time she had a special dish at home,
she brought me some in a piece of paper. She

MELIE 265

would take it out of her pocket with great
mystery. . . . But it was not mashed potatoes !
It was poor people's food and had a decidedly
strong smell. I would try and taste it ; but it
was no good ; I used to tell her that I was not
hungry, and this used to sadden her.

" On the whole, Melie inspired me, in some
ways, with a sort of respect. Her strength, her
agility, her boldness, astonished a timid, frail,
retired, and sheltered little girl such as I was. I
envied her power of being able to run everywhere
and of fearing nothing. Sometimes she smelt
of the hay in which she had been rolling, and had
some blades of it in her hair. She made me dream
of a free life in the fields, like Robinson Crusoe's.
When we were quite sure that we were alone,
she would climb the trees of the orchard, shake
the branches, and send down a rain of ripe fruit,
and pluck handfuls of it. She was very fond of
green apples, and still more of green apricots as
hard as little balls. She would assure me, as she
ate them, that they were excellent, and I ate
some also, out of pride and to do as she did. But
all the same, I preferred ripe fruit. We had only
very late cherries, and I once said to her that it
was a nuisance not to have cherries yet. The
next day she brought me an apron full. She had
pillaged some garden of them. She robbed for
me, she would have killed for me.

" As soon as she saw anybody from the house
coming towards us — unless it was my nurse or
the cook, with whom she was good friends — she
would disappear, I know not how, through some
hole in the hedge.

266 MELIE

" The worst days for Melie were those when
other little friends came to see me. Melie would
continue to hover about me, but I used to pass
before her without speaking to her, without seem-
ing to know her. And then she would retire,
efface herself, make herself small. She bore me no
grudge, she understood that these elegant little
girls must not know that she was my friend. She
did not say to herself that I was ashamed of her,
or if she did, she thought it quite natural that
it should be so. But I felt all the same that it
made her heart swell.

" Another grief for her was when my father
took me with my brother to a very rustic country
house, flanked by a small farm, that he possessed,
at a distance of about a league from the town.
She used to try and follow us in the distance,
but my father would not allow it, and sharply
sent her back. One day, as we were approaching
the farm, I saw Melie, covered with dust, rising
out of a ditch in which she had hidden to see me
pass. She remained there, trembling, ready to
flee at the least hostile movement of my father.
I was touched by it.

" ' Father,' I said, very gently, ' let her walk
behind us. What harm would it do ? '

" My father consented ; and Melie, radiant,
followed us like a good dog ; and, from time to
time, I stretched out my hand behind me without
saying anything ; she took it in hers, and laid her
other little paw upon it just for a moment.
Nothing more.

" Towards the end of luncheon, I took an
opportunity to go out alone, and I brought

MELIE 267

Melie, who was crouching against the door,
some bread and a little meat and cheese that I
was able to take with me.

" ' Oh, Mademoiselle ! Mademoiselle ! '

" Then I played with my brother under the
big trees that surrounded the farm ; and, with-
out seeing her, I divined that Melie was in the
neighbourhood, hidden behind some bush, and
that she was looking at nie, and that it pleased
her.

" After a while, my brother left me, and soon
I heard cries coming from the direction of the
farm. I ran towards it, and saw, in front of the
stable, poor Melie drenched up to her knees, her
dress soaking, her feet soused in her shoes. The
naughty boy had captured her by surprise, and
ducked her in the stone trough, full of rain water,
where the horses drank. Melie was weeping,
but as soon as she saw me, knowing that I was
going to scold my brother, and that this would
cause a quarrel, and not wishing to disturb or
vex me, or that I should be at the trouble of pity-
ing her, or make an effort to defend her, she
suddenly stopped her tears, and smiling with her
big mouth, said :

" ' It's nothing, Mademoiselle. It was only
fun.'

" When the time came for my first communion,
I showed an ardent piety which greatly impressed
Melie. She wished to do as I did, and to com-
municate on the same day. She was far from

268 MELIE

ready, never having learnt her catechism. It
was I who gave her instruction, who spoke to her
of God. But while my piety was full of love
and hope, in hers there was, above all else, aston-
ishment and fear.

" On the day of the ceremony, I had such a
fever that my taper trembled in my hand and
sprinkled the veils of my neighbours. It had
to be taken from me. Melie, who was in the last
rank, almogt clean, and very red in her thick
muslin, which had turned blue from washing, did
not leave me with her eyes. She prayed for her
sickly little companion ; for she never asked
anything for herself, judging herself to be quite
negligible in the eyes of God, and not thinking
that He could take the least pleasure in bothering
about her. But for me, that was a different
matter !

" In the afternoon, my godfather, the Cardinal,
confirmed me first of all, and my parents took me
at once to our country house. Melie was waiting
in her ditch, bordering a field of oats. My heart
softened and I blew her a kiss.

" They put me to bed. I could hear, from
my bed, the noise of voices and laughter, for the
whole family had met at dinner in honour of the
occasion. I was thinking of nothing, overcome
only by the sadness of evening, of that hour
so grey and so melancholy in those large plains
of Champagne. . . .

" I felt fresh flowers in my hands. Melie was
there, on her knees, her brow resting on the edge
of my bed. I wanted to speak ; she begged me
to be silent, to remain calm, to sleep — so that

MELIE 269

nobody would drive her away. . . . My father
came to see me, and found me asleep, held by
her, her arm beneath my head.

" He had not the courage to send her away on
that day, and he sent her something to eat.

" Some time afterwards, my mother required
me to learn all that a good housekeeper should
know. Felicie, a very sweet little work-girl, a
hunchback, who came to the house several times
a week (I can still see the humble and odd outline
of her form against the white curtains of the
window), had orders to teach me to sew. Others
were commissioned to teach me the care of linen
and a little ironing. I had also to tidy my own
things in my own room.

" All this bored me greatly, for I had one
passion — reading. Luckily, my mother was often
away from home ; and Melie had ended by
getting herself tolerated in the house. She was
present at the lessons of Felicie and the other
work-women, and in her desire to help me she
learnt far more quickly than I did. It was she
who oftenest did the little tasks I was given —
hemming, darning, folding up linen — and it
was she who tidied my room.

" While she worked, I read, seated in a corner,
stopping my ears with my fingers so that nothing
should distract me. I read * The Lives of the
Saints,' Rollin's ' Roman History,' travels,
and an old book with red edges which contained
anecdotes of the eighteenth century. And when

270 M£LIE

Melie had finished, I would tell her what I read.
That was her reward.

" Rolled up in a ball at my feet, motionless,
her eyes fixed upon me, she would listen in ecstasy,
as one would listen to God. I repeated the stories
very well, it seems, with the utmost seriousness,
expressive gestures, and an extreme ardour of
conviction. I remember that one of those
stories began with the phrase :

" ' At the time when Madame de Pompadour
reigned over France . . .'

"I do not quite know what Madame de
Pompadour represented to Melie, or even to
myself. But I remember that it was an excellent
story.

" Here there is a great gap in my memory . . .
a long illness, small-pox, fever, delirium. Of all
this, but a single vision remains with me : Melie
at my side, stirring the draughts of medicine I
had to take ; Melie crouching on the floor ;
Melie at the head of my little bed, holding my
hands gently, yet with all her strength, and
preventing me from scratching my face.

" She had been told that if I scratched myself,
I should become ugly ; and she watched over
my beauty like a gnome over his treasure.

" Why was she allowed near me, and exposed
to the risk of catching my malady ? Everything
had been done to prevent her entering the house ;
then, one morning, she was surprised in a corner
of my room, behind an arm-chair, where she had

MELIE 271

spent the night. It was too late to send her
away, and, besides, she would have found some
way of coming back, for the doors were never
very securely shut in that big house in the
provinces.

" The day that I began to get better (it was
already April, and the sun was shining on my
bedclothes), Melie brought me armfuls of
flowers and balls of cowslips. We played at
tossing these balls about ; I was still so weak and
awkward that I often let them fall. Melie
gathered them up out of the corners, from under
the furniture, creeping on all fours with the
agility of a cat ; and that amused me.

" I had the childish whims of convalescence,
whims beneath my age, although I was only a
little girl. After so long and severe a shock,
intelligence only came back to me very slowly.
I found myself more on Melie's level, almost as
simple as she was ; and when I tried to recall the
past (how distant it seemed !) it was always with
Melie that I pictured myself, under the arch of
the vine or in the orchard. And, very gravely,
we exchanged our recollections.

" * Do you remember, Melie ? . . .'

" * Oh, yes, Mademoiselle ! '

" And now it was she who best remembered
the fine stories I had told her, and it was I
who asked her for them and listened to her in my
turn.

" * And that other one, don't you know it,
Melie ? The one where they mention Madame
de Pompadour ? '

"•' Wait, Mademoiselle, I'll think of it.'

272 MELIE

" And Melie began :

" ' At the time when Madame de Pompadour
reigned over France . . .'

" One day Melie did not come. It was the
first day I was allowed to get up. I asked for
her with insistence. My mother told me that
Melie was ill, but that she would come soon.

" Next day I was taken to the country. Every-
body pressed around me, sought to amuse me, and
made me play. My father spent hours with
me, and, when the sun was hot, took me for
walks under the fresh and tender foliage of the
trees, and along paths snow-white with haw-
thorn. Still I did not forget Melie, and I asked
to see her.

" ' Melie,' my father told me, * is very ill. But
don't be uneasy. I have sent the doctor to her,
and she has everything she needs ; proper care
is taken of her. You will see her when she is
better.'

" My strength came back, little by little. I
had a great appetite. I enjoyed everything
thoroughly, the good air, the good warmth, the
good little dishes they made for me, the flowers,
the trees, the meadows, the walks, like somebody
who is discovering life over again. I grew
delightfully happy in the selfishness of con-
valescence. Once, however, I asked :

" ' And Melie ? '

" ' Melie is dead,' answered my mother
sadly.

MELIE 273

" * Poor Melie ! ' said I dreamily, as if thinking
of something very vague and very distant.

" And I thought no more about her.

"But since then I have thought of her very
often."

18

A CONSCIENCE

A CONSCIENCE

WE were speaking that evening of the
sovereignty of money and its corrupt-
ing power. Some said that even the
wisest and most virtuous have a respect for it.
Instances were cited. Examples were given
of strange indulgences, little hidden but unde-
niable meannesses, in which a regard for money
was able to bend a man otherwise irreproachable
and known for his austerity. These stories
gradually gave us a sort of evil satisfaction, as if
we ourselves were not completely sure of being
secure from this universal temptation, and as
if the statement of so many base acts were for us
a sort of revenge. And the conversation took
that easy turn of pessimism and misanthropy
which pleases us so much to-day.

But one of us, who had not said much before,
suddenly began to speak :

" Do not excite yourselves so much. Just as
the total sum of forces is always the same in the
physical universe, so I am tempted to believe that
the quantity of virtue never varies in the moral
world either. It is only the distribution of the
forces that changes. The development of a
vice leads to an increase of the contrary virtue.
It was perhaps in the age of Nero and Helioga-
balus that the finest examples of purity were seen.
I am convinced that similarly in our own age,

277

278 A CONSCIENCE

which is the age of finance, we would discover,
if we knew all souls, the finest examples of ' poor-
ness in spirit.'

" When love of money frequently goes to the
1-engths of the most shameful folly, contempt
for money, on this account all the more meri-
torious and based on a fuller knowledge, can reach
the most sublime scrupulousness. You ask me
where this is to be found. I do not know, for
souls which really possess this contempt do not
seek the light. I confess, in addition, that they
must be rare.

" I believe, however, that I have known at
least one of them. Yes, some months ago, *I
met a person who had a very sincere and pro-
found contempt, hatred, and terror of money,
and under conditions that gave something ex-
travagant and unprecedented to that dis-
interestedness.

" I was living last year at the other end of
Nogent, not far from Beauty Island. I often
walked on the banks of the Marne, a little crowded
on Sundays, but solitary, fresh, and charming
during the rest of the week.

" I- met there, on nearly every occasion, a
lady of forty or forty-five, very simply dressed,
with a folding-stool under her arm, on which
she used to rest at the edge of the water with
a book or some embroidery.

" One day my maid chanced to tell me the
lady's name. It was Madame Durantin. She
could not be rich, for she lived with one servant
in a little furnished flat at Nogent. But she
often received visits from ' high-class people,

A CONSCIENCE 279

carriage people,' and she was regarded as a lady
of breeding.

" Suddenly, I remembered. Four years earlier
I had made the acquaintance of the Baroness
Durantin, the wife of the wealthy financier.
With the rest of ' smart society,' I had gone
to two or three of her evenings, and had called
on her several times. Then, as I had kept away
rather a long time, I did not go again to the
house.

" Now, the lady who walked on the banks of
the Marne resembled the Baroness and had
the same name. The similarity of names alone
or the likeness of faces alone would not have
proved anything. But both at once ?

" I wished to clear the matter up. The
first time I met her on the towing-path, I went
up to her, and with a profound bow, I boldly
asked her :

" ' The Baroness Durantin, I believe ? '

" After a moment's hesitation, she quietly
answered :

" ' Yes.'

" I mentioned my name. She recognized me,
and began to chat, cheerfully, and in the most
natural manner possible.

" She was not very beautiful nor highly
intelligent. But her whole person exhaled a
perfect serenity. It was this which attracted
me. Her companionship was soothing and calm.
One felt in her a soul that had found rest.

" We soon became rather good friends. During
the last fortnight of my holiday I saw her almost
every day. I even once went into her rooms,

28O A CONSCIENCE

a little against her will, I must admit. The
flat was extremely modest ; at one side of the
drawing-room there was an alcove which was
used as a bedroom at night-time.

" And I remembered the Baroness Durantin,
standing in evening dress and sparkling with
diamonds, in the sumptuous reception rooms
of her house in the Avenue de Friedland, stretch-
ing out her gloved hand to the long line of
visitors, one of the wealthiest women in Paris.

" But she seemed to have so little recollection
of all this, that, in spite of the most intense
curiosity I have ever felt, I did not dare to ques-
tion her, even in the most roundabout way,
concerning so extraordinary a change.

" When I returned to Paris, I tried to find out
the facts. I learned that Durantin continued
to augment his millions, and that, a few winters
ago, he had married his daughter to a Spanish
duke. As regards Madame Durantin, nothing
was known. She was believed to be travelling
or on one of her country estates.

" At last I was lucky enough to discover among
my acquaintances a lady who had long been
Madame Durantin's intimate friend. I ques-
tioned her eagerly, and this is what she answered
me :

" ' I am going to tell you what I know, but I
do not attempt to explain it to you. My friend
was seventeen when she was married. She was
the daughter of an honest manufacturer, and had

A CONSCIENCE 28 I

but a modest dowry, a hundred and fifty thou-
sand francs, I think. I have been assured that
Durantin married her for love. That is possible.
But it is also true that at that time Durantin
was only beginning his business career.

" ' Their marriage was like many others. After
the first months passed, Durantin had mistresses,
and it is said that he was harsh and brutal to his
wife. But an understanding was reached, and
of late years the couple seemed to have come to
terms with one another.

" ' Now, one thing which I can state posi-
tively, is that, while Durantin was gathering
millions, building a magnificent house, filling it
with marvels — a little incongruously and ostenta-
tiously— and living in almost royal style, his
wife, amid all this luxury, continued to dress
like a clerk's wife, spent nothing on herself, and,
as far as I could see, gave away in charity the
whole of the large allowance which her husband
made her. There was in her mind a definite
resolution not to profit by this immense fortune.

" ' In all this there was nothing affected or
ostentatious. On special occasions, for example
at the four or five balls that Durantin gave every
winter, she allowed herself to wear dresses suited
to her position and to display her admirable
diamonds. But, I repeat, at other times, were
it not for a certain air which she naturally had,
you might have taken her for her own lady's
maid.

" ' She had a daughter. She brought her
up in the same habits of simplicity. She also
made her work hard, and required the child to

282 A CONSCIENCE

pass all her examinations. And this, not out of
vanity or to follow the fashion, which latter was
beginning to change. No ; she had another
idea ; she once said to me :

" ' " I want Lucie to be able to earn her own
living, if some day she wishes to do so."

" ' One could have said that, the reverse
of sensible mothers, she was endeavouring to
develop romantic ideas in her daughter's mind.
She had got it into her head that Lucie would
make a love match, or, to speak with more pre-
cision, that she would only marry a man by whom
she would be loved, who would love her, and who
would be neither rich nor of high rank.

" * That was the position ! But it is not so
easy for a millionaire's daughter to marry solely
for love. Add that Lucie had no such inclina-
tion. At heart, that little person was her father's
daughter. Still, out of obedience, she tried,
in succession, to kindle her imagination about
two or three young men without a penny,
writers or artists of some sort.

" * But always, at the decisive moment,
Madame Durantin remembered that, if her
daughter was marrying for love, nothing proved
that the young man was not marrying for money.
It is, in truth, quite impossible to know whether
a girl who will one day have a hundred million
francs is loved for herself alone.

" * My friend accordingly decided, after many
useless experiments, to let her daughter be
guided by her own nature and marry an impecu-
nious duke.

" ' I was present at the marriage. Madame

A CONSCIENCE 283

Durantin was perfectly calm. Immediately after
the ceremony, she bade her daughter farewell,
had her baggage placed on a cab which was
waiting at the door of the house, got into the
cab, and went off. . . .

" ' She has lived since then in the little flat
you have seen. She has kept an income of only
six thousand francs from her dowry. That
is what she lives on. She has not even taken her
jewels with her.

" ' What she did, and what seems so strange
to us, she did discreetly, without noise, without
emphasis, as if it were a thing on which she had
been resolved for some time, a thing she felt
obliged to do, which she could not refrain from
doing, and from which, therefore, she could
derive no merit. Her attitude clearly signifies
that it is her wish that it should never be spoken
of, that it should excite no surprise, and that
people should act as if they had not noticed it.

" * She did not try to hide herself or to shut
herself up in a mysterious solitude. She very
often goes to see her daughter, and sometimes
lunches with her. She has not dropped her
old acquaintances. She even comes, from time
to time, to quiet dinners with us, just as she
used to do. Only now she wears a dust-cloak,
or carries an umbrella and goes home by
omnibus.

" ' She is cheerful, of a very placid disposition,
more and more indulgent to other people ;
very kind to her daughter and her son-in-
law.

" * She has not once asked for news of her

284 A CONSCIENCE

husband. He offered her a considerable allow-
ance, but she refused it. I am convinced that
she will never see him again.

" * I have often asked myself whether it was
not as a result of some domestic quarrel that
she left him. But I know beyond doubt that
whatever may have been the differences between
them, they never reached such a pitch as that,
and, in any case, these differences belonged to
the early years of their marriage.

" * I formed another theory. Perhaps she dis-
covered some act of financial brigandage among
her husband's business affairs, and she has wished
to repudiate dishonest money so that she
should not be an accomplice of the thief. I
have questioned several competent persons on
this point.

" ' Now, it appears that Durantin has in-
credible audacity and extraordinary luck ; but
the speculations that have made him wealthy
are those universally practised on the Stock
Exchange ; his wife has therefore nothing with
which to reproach him on this head.

" ' In a word, I am quite at sea as to the
matter.'

" This is a faithful report of what Madame
Durantin's friend told me. Do any of the rest
of you understand it ? "

Someone said :

" In my view, nothing could be clearer. It
is a very fine and noble case of a woman's hatred.
Doubtless one of those intimate and irreparable

A CONSCIENCE 285

wounds of her early married life. At some
time or other, she must have suffered frightfully
through her husband, perhaps without his
suspecting it or believing that he had done any-
thing particularly odious. But she was wounded
to the quick, and she has remembered it. She
waited for twenty years for the sake of her
daughter, and, during these twenty years, nobody
suspected her thought. Then, the first moment
it was possible for her to leave the man she
hated, without failing in any of her duties, she
has done so.

" The length of that wait, the rapidity and
serenity of that flight, that hatred pushed to the
length of a woman who was a multi-millionaire
finding delight in poverty, that is most remark-
able. Madame Durantin is a woman of
character."

Another replied :

" Madame Durantin is, in my opinion, some-
thing still greater — a woman of conscience.
At bottom she is a soul who has taken the Gospel
seriously, and who has acted according to the
Gospel. But that is so rare to-day, so im-
probable, so extreme, above all in the circle in
which she lived, that nobody has thought of so
simple an explanation.

" Madame Durantin did not concern herself
with the fact whether her husband's operations
were or were not legitimate in the eye of the
law. She saw only one thing, and this was
that by a sort of game the working of which
she did not understand — by an abominable
game, in which the richest is always sure of

286 A CONSCIENCE

winning in the end — that vulgarian, without
himself producing anything of value, was yearly
adding millions to his pile of millions, and that
those millions came necessarily from the thrift
and labour of the poor. She saw that her hus-
band was too rich, and she was afraid of that
money, precisely because she did not understand
how it was acquired.

" It seemed to her that to remain with her
husband was to consent, and consequently
contribute her own share, to unmerited suffer-
ings, to monstrous injustices, to an evil the
notion of which tortured her all the more
because it was far from her eyes, because she
could not form an exact notion of it or deter-
mine its extent. . . . And by leaving him, she
redeemed her soul."

At these words, a distinguished financial
journalist, who was one of our party, burst into
a long, uncontrollable fit of laughter.

THE END

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