August 11.
All day long I have been classifying MSS.... The sun came in throughthe loft uncurtained windows; and, during my reading, often veryinteresting, I could hear the languid bumblebees bump heavily againstthe windows, and the flies intoxicated with light and heat, making theirwings hum in circles around my head. So loud became their hummingabout three o'clock that I looked up from the document I was reading--adocument containing very precious materials for the history of Melun inthe thirteenth century--to watch the concentric movements of those tinycreatures. "Bestions," Lafontaine calls them: he found this form ofthe word in the old popular speech, whence also the term,tapisserie-a-bestions, applied to figured tapestry. I was compelledto confess that the effect of heat upon the wings of a fly is totallydifferent from that it exerts upon the brain of a paleographicalarchivist; for I found it very difficult to think, and a rather pleasantlanguor weighing upon me, from which I could rouse myself only by a verydetermined effort. The dinner-bell then startled me in the midst of mylabours; and I had barely time to put on my new dress-coat, so as tomake a respectable appearance before Madame de Gabry.
The repast, generously served, seemed to prolong itself for my benefit.I am more than a fair judge of wine; and my hostess, who discovered myknowledge in this regard, was friendly enough to open a certain bottleof Chateau-Margaux in my honour. With deep respect I drank of thisfamous and knightly old wine, which comes from the slopes of Bordeaux,and of which the flavour and exhilarating power are beyond praise.The ardour of it spread gently through my veins, and filled me with analmost juvenile animation. Seated beside Madame de Gabry on the terrace,in the gloaming which gave a charming melancholy to the park, and lentto every object an air of mystery, I took pleasure in communicatingmy impression of the scene to my hostess. I discoursed with a vivacityquite remarkable on the part of a man so devoid of imagination as I am.I described to her spontaneously, without quoting from an old texts, thecaressing melancholy of the evening, and the beauty of that natal earthwhich feeds us, not only with bread and wine, but also with ideas,sentiments, and beliefs, and which will at last take us all back to hermaternal breast again, like so many tired little children at the closeof a long day.
"Monsieur," said the kind lady, "you see these old towers, those trees,that sky; is it not quite natural that the personage of the populartales and folk-songs should have been evoked by such scenes? Why, overthere is the very path which Little Red Riding-hood followed when shewent to the woods to pick nuts. Across this changeful and always vapourysky the fairy chariots used to roll; and the north tower might havesheltered under its pointed roof that same old spinning woman whosedistaff picked the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood."
I continued to muse upon her pretty fancies, while Monsieur Paul relatedto me, as he puffed a very strong cigar, the history of some suit hehad brought against the commune about a water-right. Madame de Gabry,feeling the chill night air, began to shiver under the shawl her husbandhad wrapped about her, and left us to go to her room. I then decided,instead of going to my own, to return to the library and continue myexamination of the manuscripts. In spite of the protests of MonsieurPaul, I entered what I may call, in old-fashioned phrase, "thebook-room," and started to work by the light of a lamp.
After having read fifteen pages, evidently written by some ignorant andcareless scribe, for I could scarcely discern their meaning, I plungedmy hand into the pocket of my coat to get my snuff-box; but thismovement, usually so natural and almost instinctive, this time cost mesome effort and even fatigue. Nevertheless, I got out the silver box,and took from it a pinch of the odorous powder, which, somehow or other,I managed to spill all over my shirt-bosom under my baffled nose. I amsure my nose must have expressed its disappointment, for it is a veryexpressive nose. More than once it has betrayed my secret thoughts, andespecially upon a certain occasion at the public library of Coutances,where I discovered, right in front of my colleague Brioux, the"Cartulary of Notre-Dame-des-Anges."
What a delight! My little eyes remained as dull and expressionless asever behind my spectacles. But at the mere sight of my thick pug-nose,which quivered with joy and pride, Brioux knew that I had foundsomething. He noted the volume I was looking at, observed the placewhere I put it back, pounced upon it as soon as I turned my heel, copiedit secretly, and published in haste, for the sake of playing me atrick. But his edition swarms with errors, and I had the satisfaction ofafterwards criticising some of the gross blunders he made.
But to come back to the point at which I left off: I began to suspectthat I was getting very sleepy indeed. I was looking at a chart of whichthe interest may be divined from the fact that it contained mention ofa hutch sold to Jehan d'Estonville, priest, in 1312. But although, eventhen, I could recognise the importance of the document, I did not giveit that attention it so strongly invited. My eyes would keep turning,against my will, towards a certain corner of the table where there wasnothing whatever interesting to a learned mind. There was only a bigGerman book there, bound in pigskin, with brass studs on the sides, andvery thick cording upon the back. It was a find copy of a compilationwhich has little to recommend it except the wood engravings it contains,and which is known as the "Cosmography of Munster." This volume, withits covers slightly open, was placed upon edge with the back upwards.
I could not say for how long I had been staring causelessly at thesixteenth-century folio, when my eyes were captivated by a sight soextraordinary that even a person as devoid of imagination as I could notbut have been greatly astonished by it.
I perceived, all of a sudden, without having noticed her coming into theroom, a little creature seated on the back of the book, with one kneebent and one leg hanging down--somewhat in the attitude of the amazonsof Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne on horseback. She was so small thather swinging foot did not reach the table, over which the trail of herdress extended in a serpentine line. But her face and figure were thoseof an adult. The fulness of her corsage and the roundness of her waistcould leave no doubt of that, even for an old savant like myself. I willventure to add that she was very handsome, with a proud mien; for myiconographic studies have long accustomed me to recognise at once theperfection of a type and the character of a physiognomy. The countenanceof this lady who had seated herself inopportunely on the back of"Cosmography of Munster" expressed a mingling of haughtiness andmischievousness. She had the air of a queen, but a capricious queen; andI judged, from the mere expression of her eyes, that she was accustomedto wield great authority somewhere, in a very whimsical manner. Hermouth was imperious and mocking, and those blue eyes of hers seemed tolaugh in a disquieting way under her finely arched black eyebrows. Ihave always heard that black eyebrows are very becoming to blondes; butthis lady was very blonde. On the whole, the impression she gave me wasone of greatness.
It may seem odd to say that a person who was no taller than awine-bottle, and who might have been hidden in my coat pocket--butthat it would have been very disrespectful to put her in it--gave meprecisely an idea of greatness. But in the fine proportions of thelady seated upon the "Cosmography of Munster" there was such a proudelegance, such a harmonious majesty, and she maintained an attitude atonce so easy and so noble, that she really seemed to me a very greatperson. Although my ink-bottle, which she examined with an expression ofsuch mockery as appeared to indicate that she knew in advance every wordthat would come out of it at the end of my pen, was for her a deep basinin which she would have blackened her gold-clocked pink stockings up tothe garter, I can assure you that she was great, and imposing even inher sprightliness.
Her costume, worthy of her face, was extremely magnificent; it consistedof a robe of gold-and-silver brocade, and a mantle of nacarat velvet,lined with vair. Her head-dress was a sort of hennin, with two highpoints; and pearls of splendid lustre made it bright and luminous asa crescent moon. Her little white hand held a wand. That wand drew myattention very strongly, because my archaeological studies had taught meto recognise with certainty every sign by which the notabl
e personagesof legend and of history are distinguished. This knowledge came to myaid during various very queer conjectures with which I was labouring.I examined the wand, and saw that it appeared to have been cut from abranch of hazel.
"Then its a fairy's wand," I said to myself; "consequently the lady whocarries it is a fairy."
Happy at thus discovering what sort of a person was before me, I triedto collect my mind sufficiently to make her a graceful compliment. Itwould have given me much satisfaction, I confess, if I could have talkedto her about the part taken by her people, not less in the life of theSaxon and Germanic races, than in that of the Latin Occident. Such adissertation, it appeared to me, would have been an ingenious method ofthanking the lady for having thus appeared to an old scholar, contraryto the invariable custom of her kindred, who never show themselves butto innocent children or ignorant village-folk.
Because one happens to be a fairy, one is none the less a woman, I saidto myself; and since Madame Recamier, according to what I heard J. J.Ampere say, used to blush with pleasure when the little chimney-sweepsopened their eyes as wide as they could to look at her, surely thesupernatural lady seated upon the "Cosmography of Munster" might feelflattered to hear an erudite man discourse learnedly about her, as abouta medal, a seal, a fibula, or a token. But such an undertaking, whichwould have cost my timidity a great deal, became totally out of thequestion when I observed the Lady of the Cosmography suddenly take froman alms purse hanging at her girdle the very smallest of nuts I had everseen, crack the shells between her teeth, and throw them at my nose,while she nibbled the kernels with the gravity of a sucking child.
At this conjuncture, I did what the dignity of science demanded of me--Iremained silent. But the nut-shells caused such a painful tickling thatI put up my hand to my nose, and found, to my great surprise, that myspectacles were straddling the very end of it--so that I was actuallylooking at the lady, not through my spectacles, but over them. Thiswas incomprehensible, because my eyes, worn out over old texts, cannotordinarily distinguish anything without glasses--could not tell a melonfrom a decanter, though the two were placed close up to my nose.
That nose of mine, remarkable for its size, its shape, and itscoloration, legitimately attracted the attention of the fairy; for sheseized my goose-quill pen, which was sticking up from the ink-bottlelike a plume, and she began to pass the feather-end of that pen overmy nose. I had had more than once, in company, occasion to suffercheerfully from the innocent mischief of young ladies, who made me jointheir games, and would offer me their cheeks to kiss through the backof a chair, or invite me to blow out a candle which they would liftsuddenly above the range of my breath. But until that moment no personof the fair sex had ever subjected me to such a whimsical piece offamiliarity as that of tickling my nose with my own feather pen. HappilyI remembered the maxim of my late grandfather, who was accustomed to saythat everything was permissible on the part of ladies, and that whateverthey do to us is to be regarded as a grace and a favour. Therefore, as agrace and a favour I received the nutshells and the titillations with myown pen, and I tried to smile. Much more!--I even found speech.
"Madame," I said, with dignified politeness, "you accord the honour ofa visit not to a silly child, not to a boor, but to a bibliophile whois very happy to make your acquaintance, and who knows that long ago youused to make elf-knots in the manes of mares at the crib, drink the milkfrom the skimming-pails, slip graines-a-gratter down the backs of ourgreat-grandmothers, make the hearth sputter in the faces of the oldfolks, and, in short, fill the house with disorder and gaiety. Youcan also boast of giving the nicest frights in the world to lovers whostayed out in the woods too late of evenings. But I thought you hadvanished out of existence at least three centuries ago. Can it reallybe, Madame, that you are still to be seen in this age of railways andtelegraphs? My concierge, who used to be a nurse in her young days, doesnot know your story; and my little boy-neighbour, whose nose is stillwiped for him by his bonne, declares that you do not exist."
"What do you yourself think about it?" she cried, in a silvery voice,straightening up her royal little figure in a very haughty fashion, andwhipping the back of the "Cosmography of Munster" as though it were ahippogriff.
"I don't really know," I answered rubbing my eyes.
This reply, indicating a deeply scientific scepticism, had the mostdeplorable effect upon my questioner.
"Monsieur Sylvestre Bonnard," she said to me, "you are nothing but anold pedant. I always suspected as much. The smallest little ragamuffinwho goes along the road with his shirt-tail sticking out through a holein his pantaloons knows more about me than all the old spectacled folksin your Institutes and your Academies. To know is nothing at all; toimagine is everything. Nothing exists except that which is imagined. Iam imaginary. That is what it is to exist, I should think! I am dreamedof, and I appear. Everything is only dream; and as nobody ever dreamsabout you, Sylvestre Bonnard, it is YOU who do not exist. I charm theworld; I am everywhere--on a moon-beam, in the trembling of a hiddenspring, in the moving of leaves that murmur, in the white vapoursthat rise each morning from the hollow meadow, in the thickets of pinkbrier--everywhere!... I am seen; I am loved. There are sighs uttered,weird thrills of pleasure felt by those who follow the light print ofmy feet, as I make the dead leaves whisper. I make the little childrensmile; I give wit to the dullest-minded nurses. Leaning above thecradles, I play, I comfort, I lull to sleep--and you doubt whether Iexist! Sylvestre Bonnard, your warm coat covers the hide of an ass!"
She ceased speaking; her delicate nostrils swelled with indignation; andwhile I admired, despite my vexation, the heroic anger of this littleperson, she pushed my pen about in the ink-bottle, backward and forward,like an oar, and then suddenly threw it at my nose, point first.
I rubbed by face, and felt it all covered with ink. She had disappeared.My lamp was extinguished. A ray of moonlight streamed down through awindow and descended upon the "Cosmography of Munster." A strong coolwind, which had arisen very suddenly without my knowledge, was blowingmy papers, pens, and wafers about. My table was all stained with ink. Ihad left my window open during the storm. What an imprudence!