Kabanata Kabanata 35 · THE MYSTERIOUS MONK.

. THE MYSTERIOUS MONK.

The illustrious wine shop of “Eve’s Apple” was situated in the

University, at the corner of the Rue de la Rondelle and the Rue

de la Bâtonnier. It was a very spacious and very low hall on the

ground floor, with a vaulted ceiling whose central spring rested

upon a huge pillar of wood painted yellow; tables everywhere,

shining pewter jugs hanging on the walls, always a large number

of drinkers, a plenty of wenches, a window on the street, a vine

at the door, and over the door a flaring piece of sheet-iron,

painted with an apple and a woman, rusted by the rain and turning

with the wind on an iron pin. This species of weather-vane which

looked upon the pavement was the signboard.

Night was falling; the square was dark; the wine-shop, full of

candles, flamed afar like a forge in the gloom; the noise of

glasses and feasting, of oaths and quarrels, which escaped

through the broken panes, was audible. Through the mist which the

warmth of the room spread over the window in front, a hundred

confused figures could be seen swarming, and from time to time a

burst of noisy laughter broke forth from it. The passers-by who

were going about their business, slipped past this tumultuous

window without glancing at it. Only at intervals did some little

ragged boy raise himself on tiptoe as far as the ledge, and hurl

into the drinking-shop, that ancient, jeering hoot, with which

drunken men were then pursued: “Aux Houls, saouls, saouls,

saouls!”

Nevertheless, one man paced imperturbably back and forth in front

of the tavern, gazing at it incessantly, and going no further

from it than a pikeman from his sentry-box. He was enveloped in a

mantle to his very nose. This mantle he had just purchased of the

old-clothes man, in the vicinity of the “Eve’s Apple,” no doubt

to protect himself from the cold of the March evening, possibly

also, to conceal his costume. From time to time he paused in

front of the dim window with its leaden lattice, listened,

looked, and stamped his foot.

At length the door of the dram-shop opened. This was what he

appeared to be waiting for. Two boon companions came forth. The

ray of light which escaped from the door crimsoned for a moment

their jovial faces.

The man in the mantle went and stationed himself on the watch

under a porch on the other side of the street.

“_Corne et tonnerre!_” said one of the comrades. “Seven o’clock

is on the point of striking. ’Tis the hour of my appointed

meeting.”

“I tell you,” repeated his companion, with a thick tongue, “that

I don’t live in the Rue des Mauvaises Paroles, _indignus qui

inter mala verba habitat_. I have a lodging in the Rue

Jean-Pain-Mollet, _in vico Johannis Pain-Mollet_. You are more

horned than a unicorn if you assert the contrary. Every one knows

that he who once mounts astride a bear is never after afraid; but

you have a nose turned to dainties like Saint-Jacques of the

hospital.”

“Jehan, my friend, you are drunk,” said the other.

The other replied staggering, “It pleases you to say so, Phœbus;

but it hath been proved that Plato had the profile of a hound.”

The reader has, no doubt, already recognized our two brave

friends, the captain and the scholar. It appears that the man who

was lying in wait for them had also recognized them, for he

slowly followed all the zigzags that the scholar caused the

captain to make, who being a more hardened drinker had retained

all his self-possession. By listening to them attentively, the

man in the mantle could catch in its entirety the following

interesting conversation,—

“_Corbacque!_ Do try to walk straight, master bachelor; you know

that I must leave you. Here it is seven o’clock. I have an

appointment with a woman.”

“Leave me then! I see stars and lances of fire. You are like the

Château de Dampmartin, which is bursting with laughter.”

“By the warts of my grandmother, Jehan, you are raving with too

much rabidness. By the way, Jehan, have you any money left?”

“Monsieur Rector, there is no mistake; the little butcher’s shop,

_parva boucheria_.”

“Jehan! my friend Jehan! You know that I made an appointment with

that little girl at the end of the Pont Saint-Michel, and I can

only take her to the Falourdel’s, the old crone of the bridge,

and that I must pay for a chamber. The old witch with a white

moustache would not trust me. Jehan! for pity’s sake! Have we

drunk up the whole of the curé’s purse? Have you not a single

parisis left?”

“The consciousness of having spent the other hours well is a just

and savory condiment for the table.”

“Belly and guts! a truce to your whimsical nonsense! Tell me,

Jehan of the devil! have you any money left? Give it to me,

_bédieu!_ or I will search you, were you as leprous as Job, and

as scabby as Cæsar!”

“Monsieur, the Rue Galiache is a street which hath at one end the

Rue de la Verrerie, and at the other the Rue de la Tixeranderie.”

“Well, yes! my good friend Jehan, my poor comrade, the Rue

Galiache is good, very good. But in the name of heaven collect

your wits. I must have a sou parisis, and the appointment is for

seven o’clock.”

“Silence for the rondo, and attention to the refrain,—

“Quand les rats mangeront les cas,

Le roi sera seigneur d’Arras;

Quand la mer, qui est grande et lée

Sera à la Saint-Jean gelée,

On verra, par-dessus la glace,

Sortir ceux d’Arras de leur place.”[43]

“Well, scholar of Antichrist, may you be strangled with the

entrails of your mother!” exclaimed Phœbus, and he gave the

drunken scholar a rough push; the latter slipped against the

wall, and slid flabbily to the pavement of Philip Augustus. A

remnant of fraternal pity, which never abandons the heart of a

drinker, prompted Phœbus to roll Jehan with his foot upon one of

those pillows of the poor, which Providence keeps in readiness at

the corner of all the street posts of Paris, and which the rich

blight with the name of “a rubbish-heap.” The captain adjusted

Jehan’s head upon an inclined plane of cabbage-stumps, and on the

very instant, the scholar fell to snoring in a magnificent bass.

Meanwhile, all malice was not extinguished in the captain’s

heart. “So much the worse if the devil’s cart picks you up on its

passage!” he said to the poor, sleeping clerk; and he strode off.

The man in the mantle, who had not ceased to follow him, halted

for a moment before the prostrate scholar, as though agitated by

indecision; then, uttering a profound sigh, he also strode off in

pursuit of the captain.

We, like them, will leave Jehan to slumber beneath the open sky,

and will follow them also, if it pleases the reader.

On emerging into the Rue Saint-André-des-Arcs, Captain Phœbus

perceived that some one was following him. On glancing sideways

by chance, he perceived a sort of shadow crawling after him along

the walls. He halted, it halted; he resumed his march, it resumed

its march. This disturbed him not overmuch. “Ah, bah!” he said to

himself, “I have not a sou.”

He paused in front of the College d’Autun. It was at this college

that he had sketched out what he called his studies, and, through

a scholar’s teasing habit which still lingered in him, he never

passed the façade without inflicting on the statue of Cardinal

Pierre Bertrand, sculptured to the right of the portal, the

affront of which Priapus complains so bitterly in the satire of

Horace, _Olim truncus eram ficulnus_. He had done this with so

much unrelenting animosity that the inscription, _Eduensis

episcopus_, had become almost effaced. Therefore, he halted

before the statue according to his wont. The street was utterly

deserted. At the moment when he was coolly retying his shoulder

knots, with his nose in the air, he saw the shadow approaching

him with slow steps, so slow that he had ample time to observe

that this shadow wore a cloak and a hat. On arriving near him, it

halted and remained more motionless than the statue of Cardinal

Bertrand. Meanwhile, it riveted upon Phœbus two intent eyes, full

of that vague light which issues in the night time from the

pupils of a cat.

The captain was brave, and would have cared very little for a

highwayman, with a rapier in his hand. But this walking statue,

this petrified man, froze his blood. There were then in

circulation, strange stories of a surly monk, a nocturnal prowler

about the streets of Paris, and they recurred confusedly to his

memory. He remained for several minutes in stupefaction, and

finally broke the silence with a forced laugh.

“Monsieur, if you are a robber, as I hope you are, you produce

upon me the effect of a heron attacking a nutshell. I am the son

of a ruined family, my dear fellow. Try your hand near by here.

In the chapel of this college there is some wood of the true

cross set in silver.”

The hand of the shadow emerged from beneath its mantle and

descended upon the arm of Phœbus with the grip of an eagle’s

talon; at the same time the shadow spoke,—

“Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers!”

“What, the devil!” said Phœbus, “you know my name!”

“I know not your name alone,” continued the man in the mantle,

with his sepulchral voice. “You have a _rendezvous_ this

evening.”

“Yes,” replied Phœbus in amazement.

“At seven o’clock.”

“In a quarter of an hour.”

“At la Falourdel’s.”

“Precisely.”

“The lewd hag of the Pont Saint-Michel.”

“Of Saint Michel the archangel, as the Pater Noster saith.”

“Impious wretch!” muttered the spectre. “With a woman?”

“_Confiteor_,—I confess—.”

“Who is called—?”

“La Smeralda,” said Phœbus, gayly. All his heedlessness had

gradually returned.

At this name, the shadow’s grasp shook the arm of Phœbus in a

fury.

“Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers, thou liest!”

Any one who could have beheld at that moment the captain’s

inflamed countenance, his leap backwards, so violent that he

disengaged himself from the grip which held him, the proud air

with which he clapped his hand on his swordhilt, and, in the

presence of this wrath the gloomy immobility of the man in the

cloak,—any one who could have beheld this would have been

frightened. There was in it a touch of the combat of Don Juan and

the statue.

“Christ and Satan!” exclaimed the captain. “That is a word which

rarely strikes the ear of a Châteaupers! Thou wilt not dare

repeat it.”

“Thou liest!” said the shadow coldly.

The captain gnashed his teeth. Surly monk, phantom,

superstitions,—he had forgotten all at that moment. He no longer

beheld anything but a man, and an insult.

“Ah! this is well!” he stammered, in a voice stifled with rage.

He drew his sword, then stammering, for anger as well as fear

makes a man tremble: “Here! On the spot! Come on! Swords! Swords!

Blood on the pavement!”

But the other never stirred. When he beheld his adversary on

guard and ready to parry,—

“Captain Phœbus,” he said, and his tone vibrated with bitterness,

“you forget your appointment.”

The rages of men like Phœbus are milk-soups, whose ebullition is

calmed by a drop of cold water. This simple remark caused the

sword which glittered in the captain’s hand to be lowered.

“Captain,” pursued the man, “to-morrow, the day after to-morrow,

a month hence, ten years hence, you will find me ready to cut

your throat; but go first to your rendezvous.”

“In sooth,” said Phœbus, as though seeking to capitulate with

himself, “these are two charming things to be encountered in a

rendezvous,—a sword and a wench; but I do not see why I should

miss the one for the sake of the other, when I can have both.”

He replaced his sword in its scabbard.

“Go to your rendezvous,” said the man.

“Monsieur,” replied Phœbus with some embarrassment, “many thanks

for your courtesy. In fact, there will be ample time to-morrow

for us to chop up father Adam’s doublet into slashes and

buttonholes. I am obliged to you for allowing me to pass one more

agreeable quarter of an hour. I certainly did hope to put you in

the gutter, and still arrive in time for the fair one, especially

as it has a better appearance to make the women wait a little in

such cases. But you strike me as having the air of a gallant man,

and it is safer to defer our affair until to-morrow. So I will

betake myself to my rendezvous; it is for seven o’clock, as you

know.” Here Phœbus scratched his ear. “Ah. _Corne Dieu!_ I had

forgotten! I haven’t a sou to discharge the price of the garret,

and the old crone will insist on being paid in advance. She

distrusts me.”

“Here is the wherewithal to pay.”

Phœbus felt the stranger’s cold hand slip into his a large piece

of money. He could not refrain from taking the money and pressing

the hand.

“_Vrai Dieu!_” he exclaimed, “you are a good fellow!”

“One condition,” said the man. “Prove to me that I have been

wrong and that you were speaking the truth. Hide me in some

corner whence I can see whether this woman is really the one

whose name you uttered.”

“Oh!” replied Phœbus, “’tis all one to me. We will take, the

Sainte-Marthe chamber; you can look at your ease from the kennel

hard by.”

“Come then,” said the shadow.

“At your service,” said the captain, “I know not whether you are

Messer Diavolus in person; but let us be good friends for this

evening; to-morrow I will repay you all my debts, both of purse

and sword.”

They set out again at a rapid pace. At the expiration of a few

minutes, the sound of the river announced to them that they were

on the Pont Saint-Michel, then loaded with houses.

“I will first show you the way,” said Phœbus to his companion, “I

will then go in search of the fair one who is awaiting me near

the Petit-Châtelet.”

His companion made no reply; he had not uttered a word since they

had been walking side by side. Phœbus halted before a low door,

and knocked roughly; a light made its appearance through the

cracks of the door.

“Who is there?” cried a toothless voice.

“_Corps-Dieu! Tête-Dieu! Ventre-Dieu!_” replied the captain.

The door opened instantly, and allowed the new-comers to see an

old woman and an old lamp, both of which trembled. The old woman

was bent double, clad in tatters, with a shaking head, pierced

with two small eyes, and coiffed with a dish clout; wrinkled

everywhere, on hands and face and neck; her lips retreated under

her gums, and about her mouth she had tufts of white hairs which

gave her the whiskered look of a cat.

The interior of the den was no less dilapitated than she; there

were chalk walls, blackened beams in the ceiling, a dismantled

chimney-piece, spiders’ webs in all the corners, in the middle a

staggering herd of tables and lame stools, a dirty child among

the ashes, and at the back a staircase, or rather, a wooden

ladder, which ended in a trapdoor in the ceiling.

On entering this lair, Phœbus’s mysterious companion raised his

mantle to his very eyes. Meanwhile, the captain, swearing like a

Saracen, hastened to “make the sun shine in a crown” as saith our

admirable Régnier.

“The Sainte-Marthe chamber,” said he.

The old woman addressed him as monseigneur, and shut up the crown

in a drawer. It was the coin which the man in the black mantle

had given to Phœbus. While her back was turned, the bushy-headed

and ragged little boy who was playing in the ashes, adroitly

approached the drawer, abstracted the crown, and put in its place

a dry leaf which he had plucked from a fagot.

The old crone made a sign to the two gentlemen, as she called

them, to follow her, and mounted the ladder in advance of them.

On arriving at the upper story, she set her lamp on a coffer,

and, Phœbus, like a frequent visitor of the house, opened a door

which opened on a dark hole. “Enter here, my dear fellow,” he

said to his companion. The man in the mantle obeyed without a

word in reply, the door closed upon him; he heard Phœbus bolt it,

and a moment later descend the stairs again with the aged hag.

The light had disappeared.