CHAPTER V
The Two Men Dressed in Black
The person who entered wore a black gown and a gloomy air. Our friend Jehan (who, as may readily be supposed, had so disposed himself in his corner that he could see and hear everything at his good pleasure) was struck, at the first glance, by the extreme melancholy of the newcomer’s face and attire. Yet a certain amiability pervaded the countenance, albeit it was the amiability of a cat or a judge,—a sickly amiability. The man was very grey, wrinkled, bordering on sixty years; had white eyebrows, hanging lip, and big hands. When Jehan saw that he was a mere nobody,—that is, probably a doctor or a magistrate, and that his nose was very far away from his mouth, a sure sign of stupidity,—he curled himself up in his hiding-place, in despair at having to pass an indefinite length of time in so uncomfortable a position and in such poor company.
Meantime, the archdeacon did not even rise from his chair to greet this person. He signed to him to be seated on a stool near the door, and after a few moments’ silence, which seemed the continuation of a previous meditation, he said in a somewhat patronizing tone, “Good-morning, Master Jacques.”
“Your servant, master,” replied the man in black.
In the two ways of pronouncing,—on the one hand that “Master Jacques,” and on the other that distinctive “master,”—there was the difference that there is between domine and domne. It bespoke the greeting of teacher and pupil.
“Well,” resumed the archdeacon after a fresh pause, which Master Jacques took care not to break, “have you succeeded?”
“Alas! master,” said the other, with a sad smile, “I am still blowing away. As many ashes as I choose; but not a particle of gold.”
Dom Claude made an impatient gesture. “I’m not talking about that, Master Jacques Charmolue, but about the trial of your sorcerer, Marc Cenaine,—wasn’t that what you called him?—the butler to the Court of Accounts. Does he confess his magic? Was the rack successful?”
“Alas! no,” replied Master Jacques, still with the same sad smile, “we have not that consolation. The man is as hard as flint; we might boil him at the Pig-market before he would say a word. And yet, we have spared nothing to get at the truth; all his bones are out of joint already; we have left no stone unturned. As the old comic author, Plautus says:—
‘Advorsum stimulos, laminas, crucesque, compedesque,
Nervos, catenas, carceres, numellas, pedicas, boias.‘cr
All in vain; the man is terrible indeed. I can’t make him out!”
“You’ve not found anything new at his house?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Master Jacques, fumbling in his purse; “this parchment. There are words written on it which we cannot comprehend. And yet the criminal lawyer, Philippe Lheulier, knows a little Hebrew, which he picked up in that affair of the Jews in the Rue Kantersten at Brussels.”
So saying, Master Jacques unrolled a parchment.
“Give it to me,” said the archdeacon. And casting his eyes over the writing, he exclaimed, “Clear magic, Master Jacques! ‘Emen-Hétan!’ that is the cry of the vampires as they appear at their Sabbath. ‘Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso!’—that is the word of command which rechains the devil in hell. ‘Hax, pax, max!’ this belongs to medicine: a prescription against the bite of mad dogs. Master Jacques, you are the king’s attorney to the Ecclesiastical Court. This parchment is an abomination.”
“We will return the man to the rack. Here again,” added Master Jacques, rummaging in his wallet once more, “is something else which we found in Marc Cenaine’s house.”
It was a vessel similar to those which covered Dom Claude’s stove.
“Ah!” said the archdeacon, “an alchemist’s crucible.”
“I must confess,” replied Master Jacques, with his shy, awkward smile, “that I tried it on my furnace, but I succeeded no better than with my own.”
The archdeacon began to examine the vessel.
“What has he inscribed upon his crucible? ‘Och! Och’—the word which drives away fleas! This Marc Cenaine is a dolt! I can easily believe that you will never make gold with this. Put it in your alcove in summer, for that’s all it’s fit for.”
“Talking of mistakes,” said the king’s proxy, “I have just been studying the porch below before I came upstairs; is your reverence very sure that it is the opening of the book of physics which is represented there on the side towards the Hospital; and that, of the seven nude figures at the feet of the Virgin, the one with wings at his heels is meant for Mercury?”
“Yes,” replied the priest; “it is so written by Augustin Nypho, that Italian doctor who had a bearded familiar spirit, which taught him everything. However, we will go down, and I will explain all this to you on the spot.”
“Thanks, master,” said Charmolue, bowing to the ground. “By the way, I forgot! When will it please you to have the little witch arrested?”
“What witch?”
“That gipsy girl whom you know well, who comes every day and dances in the square before the cathedral, despite the official prohibition. She has a goat which is possessed, and which has the devil’s own horns; which reads and writes, and is as good a mathematician as Picatrix, and would be quite enough to hang an entire tribe of gipsies. The papers are ready; the case will be a short one, I warrant! A pretty creature, by my soul,—that dancing-girl! The finest black eyes! Two carbuncles! When shall we begin?”
The archdeacon was extremely pale.
“I will let you know,” he stammered in a voice which was scarcely articulate; then he added, with an effort, “Devote yourself to Marc Cenaine.”
“Never fear,” said Charmolue, smiling; “I’ll have him restrapped to the leather bed when I go back. But he’s a devil of a fellow; he would tire out Pierrat Torterue himself, and his hands are bigger than mine. As the worthy Plautus says:—
‘Nudus vinctus, centum pondo, es quando pendes per pedes.’cs
The torture of the wheel! That’s the best thing we have. He shall take a turn at that.”
Dom Claude seemed absorbed in gloomy reverie. He turned to Charmolue with the words,—
“Master Pierrat,—Master Jacques, I mean,—devote yourself to Marc Cenaine.”
“Yes, yes, Dom Claude. Poor man! he must have suffered like Mummol. But then, what an idea, to go to the Witches’ Sabbath,—a butler of the Court of Accounts, who must know Charlemagne’s text, ‘Stryga vel masca!’ct As for that little girl,—Smelarda, as they call her,—I will await your orders. Ah! and as we pass through the porch you will also explain to me the meaning of the gardener painted in relief at the entrance to the church. The Sower, isn’t it? Eh! master, what are you thinking about?”
Dom Claude, lost in his own thoughts, did not hear him. Charmolue, following the direction of his gaze saw that it was fixed mechanically upon the large cobweb which covered the window. At this instant a rash fly, in search of the March sun, plunged headlong into the trap and was caught in it. At the vibration of its web the huge spider made a sudden sally from its central cell, and with one bound fell upon the fly, which it doubled up with its front antennæ, while its hideous proboscis dug out the head. “Poor fly!” said the king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court; and he raised his hand to save it. The archdeacon, with a start, held back his arm with convulsive force.
“Master Jacques,” he cried, “do not interfere with the work of Fate!”
The attorney turned in alarm; he felt as if iron pincers had seized his arm. The priest’s eye was fixed, wild, and flaming, and was still fastened upon the horrible little group of the spider and the fly.
“Oh, yes,” added the priest in a voice which seemed to come from his very entrails, “this is a universal symbol. The insect flies about, is happy, is young; it seeks the spring sun, the fresh air, freedom; oh, yes, but it runs against the fatal web; the spider appears,—the hideous spider! Poor dancing-girl! poor predestined fly! Master Jacques, do not interfere! it is the hand of Fate! Alas! Claude, you are the spider. Claude, you are the fly as well! You flew abroad in search of learning, light, and sun; your only desire was to gain the pure air, the broad light of eternal truth; but in your haste to reach the dazzling window which opens into the other world,—the world of intellect, light, and learning,—blind fly! senseless doctor! you failed to see that subtle spider’s web woven by Fate between the light and you; you plunged headlong into it, wretched fool! and now you struggle in its meshes, with bruised head and broken wings, in the iron grasp of destiny. Master Jacques, Master Jacques, let the spider do its work!“14 “I assure you,” said Charmolue, looking at him uncomprehend ingly, ”I will not touch it. But for mercy’s sake, master, let go my arm! Your hand is like a pair of pincers.”
The archdeacon did not hear him. “Oh, madman!” he resumed, without taking his eyes from the window. “And if you could have broken this dreadful web with your frail wings, do you think you could have reached the light? Alas! how could you have passed that pane of glass beyond it,—that transparent obstacle, that crystal wall harder than iron, which separates all philosophy from truth? Oh, vanity of science! How many sages have flown from afar to bruise their heads against it! How many contending systems have rushed pell-mell against that everlasting pane of glass!”
He ceased speaking. These last ideas, which had insensibly diverted his thoughts from himself to science, seemed to have calmed him. Jacques Charmolue completely restored him to a sense of reality by asking him this question: “Come, master, when are you going to help me to make gold? I long for success.”
The archdeacon shook his head with a bitter smile:
“Master Jacques, read Michel Psellus, ‘Dialogues de Energia et Operatione Dæmonum.’cu Our work is not altogether innocent.”
“Not so loud, master! I fear you are right,” said Charmolue. “But I must needs dabble a little in hermetics, being only the king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court, at a salary of thirty Tours crowns a year. But speak lower.”
At this moment the sound of champing and chewing proceeding from under the stove, attracted Charmolue’s anxious ear.
“What was that?” he asked.
It was the student, who, greatly cramped and much bored in his hiding-place, had contrived to find an old crust of bread and a bit of mouldy cheese, and had set to work to devour them without more ado, by the way of consolation and of breakfast. As he was ravenously hungry, he made a great deal of noise, and smacked his lips loudly over every mouthful as to give the alarm to the lawyer.
“It is my cat,” said the archdeacon, hastily, “feasting under there upon some mouse.”
This explanation satisfied Charmolue.
“Indeed, master,” he replied with a respectful smile, “every philosopher has had his familiar animal. You know what Servius says: ‘Nullus enim locus sine genio est.’”cv
But Dom Claude, who feared some fresh outbreak from Jehan, reminded his worthy disciple that they had certain figures on the porch to study together; and the two left the cell, to the great relief of the student, who began seriously to fear that his knees would leave their permanent mark upon his chin.