Part 4

On New Year’s Day he had always grounds for bewailing his destiny, before he set out to pay his respects to two vulgar, offensive fellows, for such were the rector and the dean. The rector, M. Leterrier, could not bear him. This feeling was a natural antipathy that grew as regularly as a plant and brought forth fruit every year. M. Leterrier, a professor of philosophy and the author of a text-book which summed up all systems of thought, had the blind dogmatic instincts of the official teacher. No doubt whatever remained in his mind touching the questions of the good, the beautiful and the true, the characteristics of which he had summarised in one chapter of his work (pages 216 to 262). Now he regarded M. Bergeret as a dangerous and misguided man, and M. Bergeret, in his turn, fully appreciated the perfect sincerity of the dislike he aroused in M. Leterrier. Nor, in fact, did he make any complaint against it; sometimes he even treated it with an indulgent smile. On the other hand, he felt abjectly miserable whenever he met the dean, M. Torquet, who never had an idea in his head, and who, although he was crammed with learning, still retained the brain of a positive ignoramus. He was a fat man with a low forehead and no cranium to speak of, who did nothing all day but count the knobs of sugar in his house and the pears in his garden, and who would go on hanging bells, even when one of his professional colleagues paid him a visit. In doing mischief he showed an activity and a something approaching intelligence which filled M. Bergeret with amazement. Such thoughts as these were in the professor’s mind, as he put on his overcoat to go and wish M. Torquet a happy New Year.

Yet he took a certain pleasure in being out of doors, for in the street he could enjoy that most priceless blessing, the liberty of the mind. In front of the Two Satyrs at the corner of the Tintelleries, he paused for a moment to give a friendly glance at the little acacia which stretched its bare branches over the wall of Lafolie’s garden.

“Trees in winter,” thought he, “take on an aspect of homely beauty that they never show in all the pomp of foliage and flowers. It is in winter that they reveal their delicate structure, that they show their charming framework of black coral: these are no skeletons, but a multitude of pretty little limbs in which life slumbers. If I were a landscape-painter....”

As he stood wrapt in these reflections, a portly man called him by name, seized his arm and walked on with him. This was M. Compagnon, the most popular of all the professors, the idolised master who gave his mathematical lectures in the great amphitheatre.

“Hullo! my dear Bergeret, happy New Year. I bet you’re going to call on the dean. So am I. We’ll walk on together.”

“Gladly,” answered M. Bergeret, “since in that way I shall travel pleasantly towards a painful goal. For I must confess it is no pleasure to me to see M. Torquet.”

On hearing this uncalled-for confidence, M. Compagnon, whether instinctively or inadvertently it was hard to say, withdrew the hand which he had slipped under his colleague’s arm.

“Yes, yes, I know! You and the dean don’t get on very well. Yet in general he isn’t a man who is difficult to get on with.”

“In speaking to you as I have done,” answered M. Bergeret, “I was not even thinking of the hostility which, according to report, the dean persists in keeping up towards me. But it chills me to the very marrow whenever I come in contact with a man who is totally lacking in imagination of any kind. What really saddens is not the idea of injustice and hatred, nor is it the sight of human misery. Quite the contrary, in fact, for we find the misfortunes of our fellows quite laughable, if only they are shown to us from a humorous standpoint. But those gloomy souls on whom the outer world seems to make no impression, those beings who have the faculty of ignoring the entire universe—the very sight of them reduces me to distress and desperation. My intercourse with M. Torquet is really one of the most painful misfortunes of my life.”

“Just so!” said M. Compagnon. “Our college is one of the most splendid in France, on account of the high attainments of the lecturers and the convenience of the buildings. It is only the laboratories that still leave something to be desired. But let us hope that this regrettable defect will soon be remedied, thanks to the combined efforts of our devoted rector and of so influential a senator as M. Laprat-Teulet.”

“It is also desirable,” said M. Bergeret, “that the Latin lectures should cease to be given in a dark, unwholesome cellar.”

As they crossed the Place Saint-Exupère, M. Compagnon pointed to Deniseau’s house.

“We no longer,” said he, “hear any chatter about the prophetess who held communion with Saint Radegonde and several other saints from Paradise. Did you go to see her, Bergeret? I was taken to see her by Lacarelle, the _préfet’s_ chief secretary, just at the time when she was at the height of her popularity. She was sitting with her eyes shut in an arm-chair, while a dozen of the faithful plied her with questions. They asked her if the Pope’s health was satisfactory, what would be the result of the Franco-Russian alliance, whether the income-tax bill would pass, and whether a remedy for consumption would soon be found. She answered every question poetically and with a certain ease. When my turn came, I asked her this simple question:

“‘What is the logarithm of 9’? Well, Bergeret, do you imagine that she said 0,954?”

“No, I don’t,” said M. Bergeret.

“She never answered a word,” continued M. Compagnon; “never a word. She remained quite silent. Then I said: ‘How is it that Saint Radegonde doesn’t know the logarithm of 9? It is incredible!’ There were present at the meeting a few retired colonels, some priests, old ladies and a few Russian doctors. They seemed thunderstruck and Lacarelle’s face grew as long as a fiddle. I took to my heels amid a torrent of reproaches.”

As M. Compagnon and M. Bergeret were crossing the square chatting in this way, they came upon M. Roux, who was going through the town scattering visiting-cards right and left, for he went into society a good deal.

“Here is my best pupil,” said M. Bergeret.

“He looks a sturdy fellow,” said M. Compagnon, who thought a great deal of physical strength. “Why the deuce does he take Latin?”

M. Bergeret was much piqued by this question and inquired whether the mathematical professor was of opinion that the study of the classics ought to be confined exclusively to the lame, the halt, the maimed and the blind.

But already M. Roux was bowing to the two professors with a flashing smile that showed his strong, white teeth. He was in capital spirits, for his happy temperament, which had enabled him to master the secret of the soldier’s life, had just brought him a fresh stroke of good luck. Only that morning M. Roux had been granted a fortnight’s leave that he might recover from a slight injury to the knee that was practically painless.

“Happy man!” cried M. Bergeret. “He needn’t even tell a lie to reap all the benefits of deceit.” Then, turning towards M. Compagnon, he remarked: “In my pupil, M. Roux, lie all the hopes of Latin verse. But, by a strange anomaly, although this young scholar scans the lines of Horace and Catullus with the utmost severity, he himself composes French verses that he never troubles to scan, verses whose irregular metre I must confess I cannot grasp. In a word, M. Roux writes _vers libres_.”

“Really,” said M. Compagnon politely.

M. Bergeret, who loved acquiring information and looked indulgently on new ideas, begged M. Roux to recite his last poem, _The Metamorphosis of the Nymph_, which had not yet been given to the world.

“One moment,” said M. Compagnon. “I will walk on your left, Monsieur Roux, so that I may have my best ear towards you.”

It was settled that M. Roux should recite his poem while he walked with the two professors as far as the dean’s house on the Tournelles, for on such a gentle slope as that he would not lose his breath.

Then M. Roux began to declaim _The Metamorphosis of the Nymph_ in a slow, drawling, sing-song voice. In lines punctuated here and there by the rumbling of cart-wheels he recited:

The snow-white nymph, Who glides with rounded hips Along the winding shore, And the isle where willows grey Girdle her waist with the belt of Eve, In leafage of oval shape, And palely disappears.[2]

[2] La nymphe blanche Qui coule à pleines hanches, Le long du rivage arrondi Et de l’île où les saules grisâtres Mettent à ses flancs la ceinture d’Ève, En feuillages ovales, Et qui fuit pâle.

Then he painted a shifting kaleidoscope of:

Green banks shelving down, With the hostel of the town And the frying of gudgeons within.[3]

[3] De vertes berges, Avec l’auberge Et les fritures de goujons.

Restless, unquiet, the nymph takes to flight.

She draws near the town and there the metamorphosis takes place.

Fretted are her hips by the rough stone of the quay, Her breast is a thicket of rugged hair And black with the coal, which mingled with sweat, Has turned the nymph to a stevedore wet. And below is the dock For the coke.[4]

[4] La pierre du quai dur lui rabote les hanches, Sa poitrine est hérissée d’un poil rude, Et noire de charbons, que délaye la sueur, La nymphe est devenue un débardeur. Et là-bas est le dock Pour le coke.

Next the poet sang of the river flowing through the city:

And the river, from henceforth municipal and historic, And worthy of archives, of annals and records, Worthy of glory. Deriving something solemn and even stern From the grey stone walls, Flows under the heavy shadow of the basilica Where linger still the shades of Eudes, of Adalberts, In the golden fringes of the past, Bishops who bless not the nameless dead, The nameless dead, No longer bodies, but leather bottèls, Who will to go hence, Along the isles in the form of boats With, for masts, but the chimney-tops. For the drownèd will out beyond. But pause you on the erudite parapets Where, in boxes, lies many a fable strange, And the red-edged conjuring book whereon the plane-tree Sheds its leaves, Perchance there you’ll discover potent words: “For you’re no stranger to the value of runes Nor to the true power of signs traced on the sheets.”[5]

[5] Et le fleuve, d’ores en avant municipal et historique, Et dignement d’archives, d’annales, de fastes, De gloire. Prenant du sérieux et même du morose De pierre grise, Se traîne sous la lourde ombre basilicale Que hantent encore des Eudes, des Adalberts, Dans les orfrois passés, Évêques qui ne bénissent pas les noyés anonymes, Anonymes, Non plus des corps, mais des outres, Qui vont outre, Le long des îles en forme de bateaux plats Avec, pour mâtures, des tuyaux de cheminées. Et les noyés vont outre. Mais arrête-toi aux parapets doctes Où, dans les boîtes, gît mainte anecdote, Et le grimoire à tranches rouges sur lequel le platane Fait pleuvoir ses feuilles, Il se peut que, là, tu découvres une bonne écriture: Car tu n’ignores pas la vertu des runes Ni le pouvoir des signes tracés sur les lames.

For a long, long while M. Roux traced the course of this marvellous river, nor did he finish his recital till they reached the dean’s doorstep.

“That’s very good,” said M. Compagnon, for he had no grudge against literature, though for want of practice he could barely distinguish between a line of Racine and a line of Mallarmé.

But M. Bergeret said to himself:

“Perhaps, after all, this is a masterpiece?”

And, for fear of wronging beauty in disguise, he silently pressed the poet’s hand.

V

As he came out of the dean’s house, M. Bergeret met Madame de Gromance returning from Mass. This gave him great pleasure, for he always considered that the sight of a pretty woman is a stroke of good luck when it comes in the way of an honest man, and in his eyes Madame de Gromance was a most charming woman. She alone, of all the women in the town, knew how to dress herself with the skilful art that conceals art: and he was grateful to her for this, as well as for her carriage that displayed the lissom figure and the supple hips, mere hints though they were of a beauty veiled from the sight of the humble, poverty-stricken scholar, but which could yet serve him as an apposite illustration of some line of Horace, Ovid or Martial. His heart went out towards her for her sweetness and the amorous atmosphere that floated round her. In his mind he thanked her for that heart of hers that yielded so easily; he felt it as a personal favour, although he had no hope at all of ever sunning himself in the light of her smile. Stranger as he was in aristocratic circles, he had never been in the lady’s house, and it was merely by a stroke of extraordinary luck that someone introduced him to her in M. de Terremondre’s box, after the procession at the Jeanne d’Arc celebrations. Moreover, being a wise man with a sense of the becoming, he did not even hope for closer acquaintance. It was enough for him to catch a chance glimpse of her fair face as he passed in the street, and to remember, whenever he saw her, the tales they told about her in Paillot’s shop. Thus he owed some pleasant moments to her and accordingly felt a sort of gratitude towards her.

This New Year’s morning he caught sight of her in the porch of Saint-Exupère, as she stood lifting her petticoat with one hand so as to emphasise the pliant bending of the knee, while with the other she held a great prayer-book bound in red morocco. As he gazed, he offered up a mental hymn of thanksgiving to her for thus acting as a charming fairy-tale, a source of subtle pleasure to all the town. This idea he tried to throw into his smile as he passed.

Madame de Gromance’s notion of ideal womanhood was not quite the same as M. Bergeret’s. Hers was mingled with many society interests, and being of the world, she had a keen eye to worldly affairs. She was by no means ignorant of the reputation she enjoyed in the town, and hence, whenever she had no special desire to stand in anyone’s good graces, she treated him with cold hauteur. Among such persons she classed M. Bergeret, whose smile seemed merely impertinent. She replied to it, therefore, by a supercilious look which made him blush. As he continued his walk, he said to himself penitently:

“She has been a minx. But on my side, I have just made an ass of myself. I see that now; and now that it’s too late, I also see that my smile, which said ‘You are the joy of all the town,’ must have seemed an impertinence. This delicious being is no philosopher emancipated from common prejudices. Of course, she would not understand me: it would be impossible for her to see that I consider her beauty one of the prime forces of the world, and regard the use she makes of it only as a splendid sovereignty. I have been tactless and I am ashamed of it. Like all honourable people, I have sometimes transgressed a human law and yet have felt no repentance for it whatever. But certain other acts of my life, which were merely opposed to those subtle and lofty niceties that we call the conventions, have often filled me with sharp regret and even with a kind of remorse. At this moment I want to hide myself for very shame. Henceforth I shall flee whenever I see the charming vision of this lady of the supple figure, _crispum ... docta movere latus_. I have, indeed, begun the year badly!”

“A happy New Year to you,” said a voice that emerged from a beard beneath a straw hat.

It belonged to M. Mazure, the archivist to the department. Ever since the Ministry had refused him academic honours on the ground that he had no claim, and since all classes in the town steadily refused to return Madame Mazure’s calls, because she had been both cook and mistress to the two officials previously in charge of the archives, M. Mazure had been seized with a horror of all government and become disgusted with society. He lived now the life of a gloomy misanthrope.

This being a day when friendly or, at any rate, courteous visits are customary, he had put on a shabby knitted scarf, the bluish wool of which showed under his overcoat decorated with torn buttonholes: this he did to show his scorn of the human race. He had also donned a broken straw hat that his good wife, Marguerite, used to stick on a cherry tree in the garden when the cherries were ripe. He cast a pitying glance at M. Bergeret’s white tie.

“You have just bowed,” said he, “to a pretty hussy.”

It pained M. Bergeret to have to listen to such harsh and unphilosophic language. But as he could forgive a good deal to a nature warped by misanthropy, it was with gentleness that he set about reproving M. Mazure for the coarseness of his speech.

“My dear Mazure,” said he, “I expected from your wide experience a juster estimate of a lady who harms no one.”

M. Mazure answered drily that he objected to light women. From him it was by no means a sincere expression of opinion, for, strictly speaking, M. Mazure had no moral code. But he persisted in his bad temper.

“Come now,” said M. Bergeret with a smile, “I’ll tell you what is wrong with Madame de Gromance. She was born just a hundred and fifty years too late. In eighteenth-century society no man of brains would have disapproved of her.”

M. Mazure began to relent under this flattery. He was no sullen Puritan, but he respected the civil marriage, to which the statesmen of the Revolution had imparted fresh dignity. For all that, he did not deny the claim of the heart and the senses. He acknowledged that the mistress has her place in society as well as the wife.

“And, by the way, how is Madame Bergeret?” he inquired.

As the north wind whistled across the Place Saint-Exupère M. Bergeret watched M. Mazure’s nose getting redder and redder under the turned-down brim of the straw hat. His own feet and knees were frozen, and he suffered his thoughts to play round the idea of Madame de Gromance just to get a little warmth and joy into his veins.

Paillot’s shop was not open, and the two professors, thus fireless and houseless, stood looking at each other in sad sympathy.

In the depths of his friendly heart M. Bergeret thought to himself:

“As soon as I leave this fellow with his limited, boorish ideas, I shall be once more alone in the desert waste of this hateful town. It will be wretched.”

And his feet remained glued to the sharp stones of the square, whilst the wind made his ears burn.

“I will walk back with you as far as your door,” said the archivist of the department.

Then they walked on side by side, bowing from time to time to fellow-citizens who hurried along in their Sunday clothes, carrying dolls and bags of sweets.

“This Countess de Gromance,” said the archivist, “was a Chapon. There was never but one Chapon heard of—her father, the most arrant skinflint in the province. But I have hunted up the record of the Gromance family, who belong to the lesser nobility of the place. There was a Demoiselle Cécile de Gromance who in 1815 gave birth to a child by a Cossack father. That will make a capital subject for an article in a local paper. I am writing a regular series of them.”

M. Mazure spoke the truth: every day, from sunrise to sunset, alone in his dusty garret under the roof of the prefecture, he eagerly ransacked the six hundred and thirty-seven thousand pigeonholes which were there huddled together. His gloomy hatred of his fellow-townsmen drove him to this research, merely in the hope that he would succeed in unearthing some scandalous facts about the most respected families in the neighbourhood. Amid piles of ancient parchments and papers stamped by the registrars of the last two centuries with the arms of six kings, two emperors and three republics he used to sit, laughing in the midst of the clouds of dust, as he stirred up the evidences, now half eaten up by mice and worms, of bygone crimes and sins long since expiated.

As they followed the windings of the Tintelleries, it was with the tale of these cruel revelations that he continued to entertain M. Bergeret, a man who always cultivated an attitude of particular indulgence towards our forefathers’ faults, and who was inquisitive merely in the matter of their habits and customs. Mazure had, or so he averred, discovered in the archives a certain Terremondre who, being a terrorist and president of a local club of Sans-Culottes in 1793, had changed his Christian names from Nicolas-Eustache to Marat-Peuplier. Instantly Mazure hastened to supply M. Jean de Terremondre, his colleague in the Archæological Society, who had gone over to the monarchical and clerical party, with full information touching this forgotten forbear of his, this Marat-Peuplier Terremondre, who had actually written a hymn to Saint Guillotine. He had also unearthed a great-great-uncle of the diocesan Vicar-General, a Sieur de Goulet, or rather, more precisely, a Goulet-Trocard as he signed himself, who, as an army contractor, was condemned to penal servitude in 1812 for having supplied glandered horseflesh instead of beef. The documents relating to this trial he had published in the most rabid journal in the department. M. Mazure promised still more terrible revelations about the Laprat family, revelations full of cases of incest; about the Courtrai family, with one of its members branded for high treason in 1814; about the Dellion family, whose wealth had been gained by gambling in wheat; about the Quatrebarbe family, whose ancestors, two stokers, a man and a woman, were hanged by lynch law on a tree on Duroc Hill at the time of the consulate. In fact, as late as 1860, old people were still to be met who remembered having seen in their childhood the branches of an oak from which hung a human form with long, black, floating tresses that used to frighten the horses.

“She remained hanging there for three years,” exclaimed the archivist, “and she was own grandmother to Hyacinthe Quatrebarbe, the diocesan architect!”

“It’s very singular,” said M. Bergeret, “but, of course, one ought to keep that kind of thing to oneself.”

But Mazure paid no heed. He longed to publish everything, to bruit everything abroad, in direct opposition to the opinion of M. Worms-Clavelin, the _préfet_, who wisely said: “One ought most carefully to avoid giving occasion to scandal and dissension.” He had threatened, in fact, to get the archivist dismissed, if he persisted in revealing old family secrets.

“Ah!” cried Mazure, chuckling in his tangled forest of beard, “it shall be known that in 1815 there was a little Cossack who came into the world through the exertions of a Demoiselle de Gromance.”

Only a moment since M. Bergeret had reached his own door, and he still held the handle of the bell.

“What does it matter, after all?” said he. “The poor lady did what she couldn’t help doing. She is dead, and the little Cossack also is dead. Let us leave their memory in peace, or if we recall it for a moment, let it be with a kindly thought. What zeal is it that so carries you away, dear Monsieur Mazure?”

“The zeal for justice.”

M. Bergeret pulled the bell.

“Good-bye, Mazure,” said he; “don’t be just, and do be merciful. I wish you a very happy New Year.”