“Free!” bellowed the voices, triumphantly, and now he heard the rushing of millions of released feet, though he could see nothing. But he felt the breath of countless armies and multitudes hot in his face, panting, searing with destruction.
“It is the end,” thought Arsène.
Then, as he thought this, he was no longer afraid. A frightful joy leapt in him, and a stern exultant anger. He flung up his arms. “Free!” he shouted, his voice mingling with all the other voices. This was not death upon him, but the furious prelude to morning, the storm that presaged a calm, the ruin and chaos that came before life.
He awoke. Even while he opened dazed eyes, he could hear the last echoes of the thunderous voices, drifting far into space among the stars. Then there was silence, but his eardrums rang, and the silence was the more intense after the chaotic and overwhelming uproar.
The dream was more real than what he saw as his eyes opened. It was very dark now, and in the candlelight near him sat the old abbé, crouched in his chair, his withered lips moving, his eyes closed. His rosary dripped slowly through his gnarled fingers, and there was a look of solemn ecstasy on his face. Arsène watched him. He could not feel his old contempt. Suddenly, the ecstasy on the old man’s face subsided, and his lips ceased their moving. The rosary slipped into his tattered bony knee, and lay there, like black tears. Now his face took upon it an expression of terrible sorrow and exhaustion. He sighed deeply, bent his head. One by one tears crept from under the lids of his closed eyes, and each tear was a globule of pain and suffering, shining piteously in the candlelight. He clasped his hands to his breast convulsively, and the gesture was unbearably moving, for it betrayed despair and hopelessness and immeasurable sadness.
Arsène did not stir on his straw bed. To have allowed the old man to become aware that his naked torment has been seen by alien and unsympathetic eyes would have been inexcusable. But Arsène wondered, with a strange pity. He had known, mysteriously, that this sorrow, and these tears, came from no fanatical meditation, no mystic contemplation of the forgotten tortures of Christ. It was not the gesture of priests, removed from men, not the formal outpouring of deliberately induced rapture. These were the tears of an old man, burdened and suffering, the tears of earth and grief and bitter pain, the tears of all men, acrid as gall and cleansed of mysticism, and purely unconscious of God.
He weeps, thought Arsène. He weeps as a man, and there is no faith, no hope, in his weeping. It is as though reality had become, to him, more exigent than superstition, and had made it impossible for him to pray, had swept away all belief. His pity became stronger; it ran through his veins, like painful blood through paralyzed limbs. Never had he felt such pity, and the remembrance of his dream mixed with it.
Arsène closed his eyes. He stirred his weak body deliberately on the bed, so that it creaked. He muttered, sighed, imitating the movements and sounds of an awakening man. He groaned, faintly. He opened his eyes again. The old abbé was bending over him with his sweet smile, anxious and solicitous. On his sunken cheeks gleamed the thin streaks of rivulets of pain. His hand, feeble yet kind, pressed itself on Arsène’s brow. So gentle was the smile, so calm, as the old man satisfied himself that there was no return of fever, that Arsène would have doubted what he had seen had it not been for the marks of the tears on the old abbé’s face.
Arsène returned the smile. “I am well,” he repeated.
“Yes,” said the abbé. “And it is time for your broth, my child.”
He said this, not unctuously, in the manner of priests, but with loving sincerity. He crept from the bedchamber, and once Arsène saw him grasp the lintel of the doorway, as if to sustain himself. He returned with a pewter bowl of steaming soup, and a pewter spoon. He sat beside Arsène and dipped the spoon in the broth. He smiled again, and Arsène was painfully moved. He allowed himself to be fed, docilely. Moment by moment, he was conscious of the return of his youthful strength. The abbé did not speak, but he was openly pleased at Arsène’s appetite.
Arsène lay back on his musty pillows, life tingling in his body.
“Why have you, all of you, done this for me, a stranger out of the night?” he asked, and his voice was full of unaccustomed gratitude.
The old abbé was truly surprised. He gazed at Arsène incredulously.
“That is an odd question, my son,” he said. “You were wounded and a fugitive. You were sickened. What else could we have done?”
Arsène considered this, then he frowned, cunningly. Ah, but you all knew that I was not some homeless wretch, he thought. There was my sword, and my pistol, my garments and my money. These are evidences of wealth. But, had I been a beggar, perhaps you would not have done these things for me.
He glanced swiftly at the abbé. The old man’s face had become stern and dignified, as he watched Arsène. He had clearly read the young man’s thoughts.
“No,” he said, quietly. “It is not that we suspected you were not of us, but a great lord. Moreover, we knew that you were in danger, and that in taking you in, we endangered our lives. François told me that the musketeers of Monsieur the Cardinal were searching for you, and that he hid you.”
Arsène was both embarrassed and ashamed. Then he said: “And you, a priest, were not disturbed by the fact that His Holy Eminence’s men were seeking me, with bared swords?”
The old abbé sighed, and he glanced away. The terrible sorrow sharpened again on his face, but he said nothing. Finally, he whispered: “You were a fugitive, and wounded, hunted and desperate.”
Arsène’s shame increased. There was some mystery concerned in this. He was sure of it, from the expression of the old man’s sorrowful eyes.
“I thank you all, from the depths of my heart,” he said, gently. “And I shall not forget it, I promise you.”
The abbé’s face became stern and dignified again. “We ask nothing of you, Monsieur, but that you regain your health quickly, and leave this place. You are a constant danger to us.”
“Do not fear,” replied Arsène, with some contempt. “I assure you that even if the Cardinal’s rascals knew of my real identity they would lift no finger against me.” But he wondered, cynically, if this were entirely true.
“Even if they knew you were a Huguenot?” asked the priest, with a direct look.
“Ah, then, you know,” smiled Arsène, looking at him keenly. “And even that does not disturb you? You do not, as all priests do, hate Protestantism?”
The abbé rose, picked up the bowl and spoon, and carried it into the kitchen. He came back, and sat again on the bench near Arsène. He regarded him straightly, and his sunken eyes shone in the candlelight.
“Nothing is evil which makes men think,” he said. “And a sword cuts away gangrened flesh. A fountain of cold water can wash away corruption.”
Arsène was perplexed, for there was no subtlety in him. The old man’s words annoyed him with their ambiguity. Ambiguity, he knew, was the very essence of the priesthood, the chant of the deceivers, and the liars.
He said, somewhat childishly: “I am your sworn enemy.”
The old man regarded him with genuine surprise. Then he began to smile, as at a child, with true mirth.
“No man is my enemy,” he said, “unless I admit him to be so.”
“That is a mystical sophistry,” remarked Arsène, with disdain.
“No,” said the priest, “it is a living truth. No man can hurt another, unless that other admits his enemy’s capacity to hurt him. There is no evil if we deny its existence, there is no menace to the soul unless that soul has conceded the reality of evil.”
“And you refuse to believe there is evil?” asked Arsène, with pitying scorn and amusement.
He was again ashamed at the sight of the old man’s sudden sadness. The abbé glanced away and fixed his mournful eyes on space.
“I am frail, and old, and sinful,” he whispered. “Had I true faith, I would know that evil lives only in the imagination of men, in the corrupt hearts of the enem
ies of God. God has created no wicked thing, therefore, good is the only reality. How can one, then, believe in the existence of evil?”
His face brightened, became suddenly ecstatic, as though some rapturous secret had been revealed to him by another voice. His emaciated frame appeared to expand, as a prisoner’s body expands after being released from chains. Heroic joy appeared in his eyes, shone like the reflection of the sun. He turned upon Arsène the full beam of his transformed face.
“My son,” he said, in a shaking voice, “you have done a miraculous thing to me!”
Arsène, the unsubtle, was amazed, and regarded the old abbé suspiciously. Was he making game of him? He knew the tricks of priests. Moreover, he felt himself a dull lout in the presence of a man of full stature. This did nothing to restore his good humor.
Then he had another thought. Vaguely, he recalled that often in the day there had been another here, a young man like himself, moving about with bowls and basins and administering to him, and washing him. He had a faint memory of a thin taut countenance, of considerable attenuated beauty. He looked at the abbé. The unearthly light had died on his face, leaving a steadfast and radiant peace.
“There was another here, at times,” said Arsène, irritated at the other’s rapturous detachment. “Who is he?”
The old man looked at him, bemused. Then another light came to his eyes, fond and sweet.
“That was my nephew, a young man, from Toulouse,” he said. “A student. He keeps my poor house, and I teach him what I know. He is also a poet.” He hesitated, became saddened. “His mother, my sister, died of starvation. There was a drought on their land, and my nephew came to me.”
He looked again into space, with a mournful sigh.
Arsène watched him with interest, and unusual curiosity. This poor old man reminded him of the wretched curés of more wretched villages, creatures whom he had not considered human beings. He marvelled at himself, that in the past humanity had seemed to him, and others like him, the exclusive attribute of the gracious and the cultured, the noble and the aristocratic. Beyond this perfumed and sophisticated circle had lived a vast world of sub-beings, starving, oppressed and blighted, the concern of priests only. Yet, today, he saw humanity in these poor wretches, the stamp of his own race in their tortured lineaments, his own capacity for life and joy and suffering reflected in their eyes.
If this is so, he mused, then something is most frightfully wrong. There was something here that called for the vengeance of heaven, the compassion of saints, the retribution of a whole world. Like Genghis Khan, the powerful had spread their banquet cloths upon the dying bodies of the helpless, and had feasted loudly above the groaning. But surely, there was a day of liberation approaching, and let those beware who stood in the path of the bloody deluge. He heard again, as in his dream, the shrieking of a multitude of voices, the rushing of millions of liberated feet. When that day came, there would be no mercy for the oppressors, for the smilers in ducal châteaus, for the mitred despoilers of the people, for thrones and kings.
The abbé saw the darkening and sparkling of the sick man’s eyes as they were fixed unseeingly upon him. He exclaimed: “I have tired you. You must rest, my child.”
He brought a bowl of cool water and washed Arsène’s hot face and hands, drying them on a coarse clean rag.
“I have been thinking,” said Arsène, with a smile. “And I assure you, mon abbé, that that is a peculiar thing for me to do.”
But the abbé did not smile. He stood, with the bowl in his hand, and he looked down at the young man with a strange, grave face. His brown eyes were bright and stern. But he said nothing. He carried the bowl and cloth into the kitchen, returned. He sat on the bench and gazed at the candle as it burned, and he seemed to have forgotten Arsène. His wrinkled hands lay palm-up on his knees, in an attitude of weariness and desolation, his shoulders were bent and bony under his worn garments. There was infinite patience in his attitude, but bitter grief, also.
“What is your name, mon abbé?” asked Arsène, after a long while, and in a voice unusually gentle.
The old man started. He looked at Arsène, bemused.
“I am André Mourion, Monsieur,” he said, at last, as from a dream. “And this is my parish. A poor one, a lost one, but I do what I can.”
He sighed, deeply, and the sound was like the echo of weeping.
“The young girl, Cecile,” said Arsène. “She is a maid-servant?”
At the mention of that name, the old priest smiled as though at the sight of a sudden sunbeam.
“Yes, Monsieur. Or, rather, she assists the seamstresses in the household of Madame de Tremblant. The lady has ten daughters, and there is constant sewing. Cecile has told me that one of them, the Mademoiselle Clarisse, is betrothed, and soon to marry.”
He paused, in surprise, for Arsène’s face had turned a deep crimson at the mention of these names.
“You know the family?” exclaimed the abbé.
Arsène’s countenance increased in redness. “Slightly,” he murmured. “But only slightly.”
He turned his head aside, away from the scrutiny of the other. He was intensely confused. He had not thought of the pretty blond Clarisse since the night of his coming to this hovel—Clarisse, who was his betrothed. He saw her vividly in his mind’s eyes, delicate and fastidious, with a dainty body like a graceful stem, and a mischievous and vivacious face all petulance and gaiety. He saw her flaxen curls and her brilliant blue eyes, her little white hands and smooth white shoulders. He heard her high flute of a voice, full of naughty laughter, and her capricious and endearingly imperious gestures. She was the third daughter of Madame de Tremblant, that vicious and corrupt dame, and the only one with great beauty, though the others, poor languishing creatures, were comely enough. It had been a fine occasion for Madame de Tremblant, to betroth Clarisse to the son of Armand de Richepin, Marquis de Vaubon, so lately restored to favor in the sight of King and Church.
An uneasy thought seized Arsène. He turned his head abruptly and stared at the abbé.
“Does Cecile know the name of the gentleman to whom Mademoiselle de Tremblant is betrothed?”
The abbé shook his head. “No, I think not.” He was more surprised than ever. Then he had a thought which made his worn face brighten.
He said: “The little Cecile, herself, is betrothed to my nephew, Henri Chalon. Madame de Tremblant has promised to engage him as one of her footmen very soon. Madame has been gracious enough to look upon Cecile with favor, and having learned of her coming marriage, has endeavored to soften the path of these poor children. Cecile, then, and Henri, will live at the residence of Madame, and the arrangement will be excellent.”
“What an occupation for a poet!” murmured Arsène, with indifferent ridicule.
The abbé gazed at him with dignity. “François Villon was only a vagabond,” he said, with gentle reproof.
Arsène thought of the young Cecile’s noble and beautiful countenance, her distinguished bearing and sweet voice. And he thought of Madame de Tremblant, the foul old harridan, to whom nothing was sacred, and all things were evil. He was affronted, and angered, and then again, he wondered at himself. This was very strange! He had always been amused by Madame de Tremblant, the plotter, the gay and the shrewd, confidante and great friend of Her Majesty, the Queen, and arrogant mistress of ceremonies, full of intrigue and noisomeness. No Court affair had been complete without her shrill and ribald supervision, her fans and her attitudes, her scalding jokes and sly epigrams. Even the King’s mistresses were afraid of her tongue, and the Cardinal, it was said, regarded her with amusement and appreciation. She knew everything, and also knew when to hold her tongue. To acquire her enmity was the nightmare of every ambitious courtier and corrupt lady. It was even rumored that she was feared in London, because of her influence, and that many costly and secret treasures found their way into her house as gifts from the British ambassador. Buckingham, himself, on those occasions when it was safe for him to a
ppear in Paris, frequently was her guest.
She frankly prided herself on her greediness, her treachery, her power, and her viciousness. A widow, soon after the birth of her last daughter, she had inherited enormous wealth and estates from her father and her husband, the Comte de Tremblant, who had, in his time, also been the favorite of Church and Majesty. Though nearly fifty, she was still beautiful, still arrogant, still lewd and conscienceless, and her toilettes were the wonder and envy even of the Queen herself. But she kept her daughters as immured as nuns, while she scrutinized, coldly and shrewdly, all the eligible young gentlemen of the Court. There were many who would gladly have married any of the girls, for reasons of dowry and influence. The three oldest, including whom was Clarisse, were already betrothed, and the betrothals reflected Madame de Tremblant’s perspicacity and genius.
Arsène contemplated all these things with intensity. He had lost himself in his thoughts. When he glanced up, he saw that the abbé was watching him with some uneasiness. He did not know that he had been scowling blackly.
“There is some pain?” suggested the abbé.
“No,” replied Arsène, impatiently. But he was exhausted. Thought was so rare with him that it wearied him, as flaccid and unused muscles are wearied by unaccustomed exertion. Then, as he saw the abbé’s perplexed anxiety, he was reminded of his father, who often regarded him like this, perturbed, waiting for explanation.
The two men stared at each other in silence. But Arsène saw only his father’s thin dark face.
In all his careless life, he had felt only aversion, disdain, amusement and ennui for his father. Given more easily to hatred than affection, he had yet not truly hated Armand de Richepin, for no one can really hate the creature who adores one. Now, recalling his father, he felt the old pure amusement, the old indifferent disdain, but with them, he felt new pity, new affection, and concern.
Now Arsène knew that his father’s terror was less for himself than for his son. He felt shame for his past cruelty, remembering less his father’s amusing weaknesses, greed, avarice and ambition, and remembering more his love and devotion. He had tormented this poor creature, without any more provocation than his own selfish contempt and callousness.