Chapter III: How I Continued My Journey (1)

And he stopped his poor mule, which seemed delighted that I had asked the question. At the same time he lifted the oilcloth from his little cart, as if to arrange the straw which almost filled it, and I saw something very sad. I saw two blue eyes, extraordinarily large, admirably shaped, starting from a head pale, thin and long, and overflowing with quite straight fair hair. I saw nothing, in truth, but those two eyes, for the rest was dead. Her brow was red; her hollow white cheeks were bluish at the cheek-bones; she was cowering in the midst of the straw, so much so that you scarcely saw projecting from it her knees, on which she was playing dominoes all by herself. She looked at us for a minute, trembled a long time, smiled at me a little, and went on playing. It seemed to me that she was labouring to perceive how her right hand would beat her left. “You see, she has been playing that game for a month,” the major said to me; “to-morrow, perhaps it will be another game that will last a long time. It’s strange, eh?”

At the same time he began to replace on his shako the oilcloth, which the rain had slightly disarranged.

“Poor Laurette!” I said, “you have lost, and for ever, truly!”

I brought my horse near the cart, and held out my hand to her; she gave me hers mechanically, smiling with great sweetness. I noticed with surprise that she wore on her long fingers two diamond rings; I thought that here were her mother’s rings still, and wondered how poverty had left them there. I would not have remarked as much to the old commandant for all the world; but, as he followed me with his eyes, and saw mine fixed on Laura’s fingers, he said to me with a certain air of pride:

“They are pretty big diamonds, aren’t they? They might fetch a price on occasion, but I did not want her to part from them, poor child. When they are touched, she cries, she is never without them. Otherwise, she never complains, and she can sew now and then. I have kept my word to her poor little husband, and, in truth, I don’t regret it. I have never left her, and I have said everywhere that she is my mad daughter. People have respected that. In the army everything gets arranged better than they would think at Paris, eh!--She has been through all the Emperor’s wars with me, and I have always got her through safe and sound. I have always kept her comfortable. With straw and a little carriage, it’s never impossible. Her dress was pretty well cared for, and I, being a major, with good pay, my Legion of Honour pension, and the monthly napoleon, whose value was double, formerly, I was quite able to keep things going, and she did not embarrass me. On the contrary, the officers of the 7th Light Horse would sometimes laugh at her child’s play.”

Then he went near, and tapped her on the shoulder, as he would have done to his little mule.

“Well, my girl! come now, say something to the lieutenant there: come, just a nod.”

She went on with her dominoes.

“Oh!” he said, “she is a little shy to-day, because it is raining. Yet she never catches cold. These mad people are never ill, it’s convenient in that way. At the Beresina and all through the retreat from Moscow, she went bareheaded.--There, my girl, go on playing, come, don’t worry about us; there, do as you please, Laurette.”

She took the hand that he rested on her shoulder, a great black and wrinkled hand; she lifted it timidly to her lips and kissed it like a poor slave. My heart was wrung by that kiss, and I turned my horse back violently.

“Shall we continue our march, commandant?” I said; “it will be night before we reach Béthune.”

The commandant carefully scraped off with the end of his sword the yellow mud that covered his boots; then he got up on the footboard of the cart, and pulled over Laura’s head the cloth hood of a little cloak she was wearing. He took off his black silk scarf and put it round his adopted daughter’s neck; after which he gave the mule a kick, jerked his shoulder, and said: “Off you go, you’re a poor lot!” and we set off again.

The rain was still falling dismally; the grey sky and the grey earth stretched out endlessly; a kind of wan light, a pale wet sun, was sinking behind great mills that were not turning. We relapsed into profound silence.

I was looking at my old commandant; he was walking in great strides, with energy still maintained, while his mule was exhausted, and even my horse was beginning to hang his head. This worthy man from time to time took on his shako to wipe his bald forehead and his few grey hairs, or his thick eyebrows, or his white moustache, from which the rain was dripping. He did not worry about the effect which his narrative might have had on me. He had not made himself out either better or worse than he was. He had not stooped to show himself to advantage. He was not thinking of himself, and, after a quarter of an hour, he began, in the same manner, a very much longer story about a campaign of Marshal Massena’s, where he had formed his company into a square against some cavalry or other. I did not listen to him, although he grew warm in demonstrating to me the superiority of the foot-soldier over the mounted man.

Night fell, we were not going fast. The mud was becoming thicker and deeper. Nothing on the road and nothing at the end. We stopped at the foot of a dead tree, the only tree in our path. He first attended to his mule, as I did to my horse. Then he looked into the cart, as a mother does into her child’s cradle. I heard him saying: “Come, my girl, spread this coat over your feet, and try to sleep.--Come, that’s right! She hasn’t got a drop of rain on her.--Oh! confound it! she has broken my watch that I left round her neck!--Oh! my poor silver watch!--There, it’s no matter; try to sleep, child. The fine weather will come soon.--It’s strange! she is always feverish; mad people are like that. Look, here’s some chocolate for you, child.”

He propped the cart against the tree, and we sat down under the wheels, sheltered from the incessant shower, sharing a loaf he had and one I had: a poor supper.

“I am sorry we have nothing but this,” he said; “but it’s better than horseflesh cooked under the ashes with gunpowder on top, by way of salt, as we used to eat it in Russia. As for the poor little woman, I am bound to give her the best I have. You see that I always keep her by herself. She cannot bear to be near a man since the affair of the letter. I am old, and she seems to believe that I am her father; in spite of that, she would strangle me if I tried merely to kiss her on the forehead. Education always leaves them something, it seems, for I have never seen her forget to hide herself like a nun.--That’s strange, eh?”

As he was talking of her like this, we heard her sigh and say: “Take away the lead! take away the lead!” I got up, he made me sit down again.

“Sit still, sit still,” he said to me, “it is nothing. She has always said that, because she always thinks she can feel a bullet in her head. That doesn’t prevent her doing whatever she is told, and that with great amiability.”

I was silent and listened to him sadly. I began to calculate that from 1797 to 1815, which we had reached, eighteen years had passed thus for this man.--For a long time I stayed beside him in silence, trying to account to myself for such a character and such a fate. Then, for no apparent reason, I gave him a very enthusiastic handshake. He was astonished at it.

“You are a noble man!” I said to him. He answered:

“Eh! why that? Is it because of that poor woman?... You know well, my lad, that it was a duty. I have long learnt to sacrifice self.”

And he talked to me about Massena again.

The next day, at dawn, we reached Béthune, an ugly little fortified town, where you would say that the ramparts, contracting their circle, had squeezed the houses one on top of another. Everything there was in confusion; there had just been an alarm. The inhabitants were beginning to draw in the white flags from the windows; and to sew the tricolours together in their houses. The drums were beating the call to arms; the trumpets were sounding “to horse,” by order of the Duke of Berry. The long Picardy carts were carrying the Swiss Hundred and their baggage; the cannon of the Body-guard hastening to the ramparts, the princes’ carriages, the squadrons of the Red Companies falling in, were blocking up the town. The sight of the Royal Dragoons and the Musketeers made me forget my old travelling companion. I joined my company, and in the crowd I lost the little cart and its poor occupants. To my great regret, it was for ever that I lost them.

It was the first time in my life that I read the inmost depths of a real soldier’s heart. This meeting revealed to me a kind of human nature unknown to me, and which the country knows little and does not treat well; I placed it thenceforward very high in my esteem. I have often since then sought around me some man like that one, capable of that complete and unheeding self-sacrifice. Now, during the fourteen years that I have lived in the army, it is in it alone, and above all in the poor and despised ranks of the infantry, that I have met these men of antique mould, carrying the sentiment of duty to its final consequences, feeling neither remorse for having obeyed nor shame for being poor, simple in customs and in speech, proud of their country’s glory and heedless of their own, gladly shutting themselves up in their obscurity, and sharing with the unfortunate the black bread which they pay for with their blood.

I was long ignorant of what had become of this poor major, especially as he had not told me his name and I had not asked it. One day, however, at the coffee-house, in 1825, I think, an old infantry captain of the line to whom I described him, whilst waiting for parade, said to me:

“Oh! by heaven, my dear fellow, I knew him, poor devil! He was a fine man; he was ‛put down’ by a bullet at Waterloo. He had, indeed, left with the baggage a kind of mad girl whom we took to the hospital at Amiens, as we were on our way to join the army of the Loire, and who died there, raving, three days later.”

“I can well believe it,” I said to him; “she had lost her foster-father!”

“Oh pooh! _father_! what is that you say?” he rejoined in a tone which he meant to be sly and suggestive.

“I say that the call to arms is being sounded,” I replied, going out. And I too exercised self-restraint.

THE VENUS OF ILLE
PROSPER MÉRIMÉE

“Ιλεως, ἦν δ’ ἐγὼ, ἔοτω ὁ ἀνδριὰς καὶ ἢπιος οὔτως ἀνδρεῖος ὤν.”

Lucian, _Philopseudes_.

I was descending the last declivity of the Canigou, and, although the sun was already set, I could distinguish in the plain the houses of the little town of Ille, towards which I was making.

“Of course,” I said to the Catalan who had served me as guide since the previous evening, “of course you know where M. de Peyrehorade stays?”

“Know where he stays!” he exclaimed; “I know his house as well as my own; and, if it were not so dark, I would show it you. It is the finest in Ille. He has money, he has, M. de Peyrehorade, and he’s marrying his son to richer than himself even.”

“And is this marriage to be soon?” I asked him.

“Soon! perhaps the fiddles are ordered for the wedding already. To-night, perhaps, to-morrow, the day after to-morrow, for all that I know! It’s to be at Puygarrig; for it’s Mademoiselle de Puygarrig whom the young gentleman is marrying. It will be grand, that it will!”

I had an introduction from my friend, M. de P., to M. de Peyrehorade. He, I had been informed, was a very learned antiquary, and most exceedingly obliging. He would consider it a pleasure to show me all the ruins for ten leagues around. Now, I was counting on his aid to visit the environs of Ille, which I knew to be rich in monuments of antiquity and of the Middle Ages. This marriage, of which I now heard for the first time, upset all my plans.

“I am going to be a spoil-sport,” I said to myself. But I was expected; seeing that M. de P. had said I was coming, I was bound to present myself.

“I’ll bet you, sir,” my guide said to me, when we were now in the plain, “I’ll bet you a cigar that I guess what you are going to do at M. de Peyrehorade’s.”

“O!” I said to him, as I handed him a cigar, “that’s not very difficult to guess! At this hour of night, after doing six leagues on the Canigou, the great thing is supper.”

“Yes, but to-morrow?... Listen, I’ll wager you’ve come to Ille to see the idol. I guessed as much from seeing you take the portraits of the saints at Serrabona.”

“The idol! What idol?” The word excited my curiosity.

“What! Did they not tell you at Perpignan, how M. de Peyrehorade had found an idol in the ground?”

“A statue in terra cotta or earthenware, do you mean?”

“No, no, in real copper, enough to make a lot of pennies with. It weighs as much as a church-bell. It was away down in the ground, at the foot of an olive-tree, that we got it.”

“Then you were present at the discovery?”

“Yes, sir. M. de Peyrehorade told us a fortnight ago, Jean Coll and me, to root up an old olive-tree that was frosted last year, for it was a very bad one, as you know. Well then, as we were busy, Jean Coll, who was going at it with all his might, gave a blow with his pick, and I hear Boom ..., as if he had struck on a bell. ‘What’s that?’ says I. We pick, and we pick, and, look! there appears a black hand, which looked like the hand of a corpse rising out of the ground. I did get a fright. I go off to the master, and I says to him, ‛Corpses, master, under the olive-tree! Must call the parson,’ ‛What corpses?’ says he to me. He comes, and has no sooner seen the hand than he cries out, ‛An antique! An antique!’ You would have thought he had found a treasure. And there he was, with the pick, with his hands, fussing away and doing as much work as the two of us, with his way of it.”

“And after all, what did you find?”

“A great black woman, more than half naked, saving your Honour’s presence, all in copper, and M. de Peyrehorade told us that it was an idol of the time of the heathens ... of the time of Charlemagne, no less!”

“I see what it is.... Just a Virgin in bronze from some convent that has been destroyed.”

“Just a Virgin! Very much so!... I’d easily have recognized it, if it had been just a Virgin. It’s an idol, I tell you; that’s well seen from her look. She fixes you with her great, white eyes.... You’d think she was staring at you. You have to cast down your eyes, you have, if you look at her.”

“White eyes, do you say? No doubt they are inlaid on the bronze. Perhaps it will be some Roman statue.”

“Roman! that’s it. M. de Peyrehorade said that she’s a Roman. Ah! I can see you’re a scholar like himself.”

“Is she complete, in good preservation?”

“Yes, sir. She wants nothing. She’s even finer and better finished than the bust of Louis-Philippe at the Town-house in painted plaster. But, for all that, I don’t like the idol’s face. She looks wicked ... and she is wicked.”

“Wicked! What wickedness has she done to you?”

“Not to me exactly; but you’ll see. We were breaking our backs to make her stand upright, even M. de Peyrehorade, who was also pulling at the rope, though he has not much more strength than a chicken, honest man! After a good deal of trouble we get her straight. I was picking up a piece of tile to prop her, when, crash! there she falls in a heap on her back. I shouted, ‛Look out below, there!’ But not quick enough, though, for Jean Coll had not time to pull away his leg.”

“And was he hurt?”

“Broken as clean as a pipe-shank, his poor leg! Zounds, when I saw that, my, I was furious! I wanted to put my pick through the idol, but M. de Peyrehorade prevented me. He gave money to Jean Coll, but for all that he has been in bed a fortnight since it happened to him, and the doctor says that he’ll never walk as well with that leg as with the other. It’s a pity for him, for he was our best runner and, next to the young gentleman, our trickiest tennis-player. M. Alphonse de Peyrehorade was sorry about it, for it was Coll he used to play with. My word, it was good to see how they returned the balls. Paf! Paf! They never once touched the ground.”

Talking thus, we entered Ille, and soon I found myself in presence of M. de Peyrehorade. He was a little old man, still fresh and lively, powdered, red-nosed, with a jovial and roguish air. Before opening M. de P.’s letter, he had installed me in front of a well-spread table, and had presented me to his wife and son as an illustrious archæologist, who was to rescue Roussillon from the oblivion in which it had been left by the indifference of savants.

All the time that I was eating with a good appetite--for nothing makes one so sharp-set as the keen air of the mountains--I was examining my hosts. I have said something about M. de Peyrehorade; I ought to add that he was vivacity itself. He talked, ate, got up, ran to his library, brought me books, showed me prints, filled my glass; he was never two minutes at rest. His wife, a little too stout, like most Catalan women when they are over forty, struck me as a double-dyed provincial, occupied solely with the cares of her household. Although the supper was enough for six persons at least, she ran to the kitchen, made them kill pigeons and fry _miliasses_, and opened I don’t know how many pots of preserves. In an instant the table was crowded with dishes and bottles, and I should assuredly have died of indigestion, if I had even tasted everything that they offered me. Nevertheless, at each dish that I refused, there were fresh excuses. They were afraid I should find myself very uncomfortable at Ille. In the country there are so few resources, and Parisians are so hard to please!

Amid all his parents’ comings and goings, M. Alphonse de Peyrehorade budged no more than a gate-post. He was a tall young man of six-and-twenty, with a countenance handsome and regular, but lacking in expression. His build and his athletic proportions quite justified the reputation of an indefatigable tennis-player which he had acquired in the district. He was dressed that evening with elegance, exactly after the plate in the latest number of the _Journal des Modes_. But he seemed to me to be ill at ease in his habiliments; he was as stiff as a poker in his velvet stock, and could only turn all in a piece. His large, sunburnt hands and short nails contrasted singularly with his costume. They were the hands of a labourer sticking out of the cuffs of a dandy. Moreover, though he looked me up and down from head to foot most inquisitively in my quality of a Parisian, he never addressed me the whole evening, except once, to ask me where I had bought my watch-chain.

“Ah, well, my dear guest,” M. de Peyrehorade said to me as the supper was drawing to an end, “you belong to me, you are under my roof. I will not let you go, at least not until you have seen everything of interest that we have in our mountains. You must get acquainted with our Roussillon, and do justice to it. You have no idea of all that we are going to show you. Phœnician, Celtic, Roman, Arab, Byzantine antiquities, I’ll show you them all, from the cedar to the hyssop. I’ll take you everywhere, and won’t spare you a single brick.”

A fit of coughing forced him to stop. I took advantage of it to tell him that I should be most sorry to inconvenience him on an occasion so interesting to his family.

If he would have the kindness to give me his valuable advice as to the excursions which I ought to make, I should be able, without his taking the trouble of accompanying me, to....

“Ah, you mean the marriage of that boy there!” he shouted, and interrupted me. “Fiddlesticks! that will be over by the day after to-morrow. You’ll celebrate the wedding along with us, a family affair, for the bride is in mourning for an aunt, whose heiress she is. So no party, no dance.... It’s a pity ... you would have seen our Catalan girls dancing.... They are pretty, and perhaps you’d have taken the fancy to imitate my Alphonse. One marriage, they say, leads to another.... By Saturday, after the young couple are married, I’ll be free, and we’ll set out. I must apologize to you for boring you with a country wedding. For a Parisian who is sated with gaieties ... and a wedding without a dance into the bargain! However, you’ll see a bride ... a bride ... you’ll tell me what you think about her.... But you’re a sober-sides and don’t look at women now. I’ve better than that to show you. I’ll let you see something!... I am keeping a fine surprise for you to-morrow.”

“Faith,” I said, “it is not easy to have a treasure in the house without the public knowing all about it. I think I can guess the surprise that you have in store for me. Yes, if it is your statue you mean, the description of it which my guide gave me has served only to excite my curiosity and to dispose me to admiration.”

“Ah! He has told you of the idol, for so they call my beautiful Venus Tur.... But I won’t tell you anything. To-morrow in daylight you shall see her, and you shall tell me if I am right in thinking her a masterpiece. Upon my word! you could not have arrived more opportunely! There are some inscriptions, which I, poor ignoramus, explain in my own way ... but a savant from Paris!... You will perhaps laugh at my interpretation ... for I have written a paper.... I who am speaking to you ... an old provincial antiquary, I have come out.... I mean to make the press groan.... If you will be so kind as read and correct me, I flatter myself.... For example, I am very curious to know how you will translate that inscription on the base: _CAVE_.... But I won’t ask you anything just now! To-morrow, to-morrow! Not a word about the Venus to-day!”

“You are just as well, Peyrehorade,” said his wife, “to let your idol alone. Can’t you see that you are preventing the gentleman from eating? Go away with you! The gentleman has seen plenty of finer statues than yours at Paris. At the Tuileries there are dozens of them, and in bronze, too.”

“There’s ignorance for you, the blessed ignorance of the provinces!” broke in M. de Peyrehorade. “To compare an admirable antique to Coustou’s vapid faces!

‛With great lack of reverence, truly,
Speaks my wife of gods divine!’

“Do you know, my wife wanted me to melt down my statue to make into a bell for our church? Because she would have been the donor. A masterpiece of Myron’s, my dear sir!”

“Masterpiece! Masterpiece! A pretty masterpiece she’s made, breaking a man’s leg!”

“Look here, wife,” said M. de Peyrehorade, in a firm tone, stretching out to her his right leg in a stocking of clouded silk, “if my Venus had broken that leg for me, I should not have regretted it.”

“Gracious! Peyrehorade, how can you say that? Fortunately the man’s getting better. But still I can’t bring myself to look at a statue which causes misfortunes like that. Poor Jean Coll!”

“Wounded by Venus, sir,” said M. de Peyrehorade with a great laugh, “wounded by Venus, the rascal complains:

‛_Veneris nec præmia nôris._’

Who hasn’t been wounded by Venus?”

M. Alphonse, who understood French better than Latin, winked an eye with a knowing air, and looked at me, as much as to ask, “D’ye understand, Mr. Parisian?”

The supper came to an end. For the last hour I had eaten nothing. I was tired, and I could not manage to hide the frequent yawns which escaped me. Madame de Peyrehorade was the first to notice them, and remarked that it was time to go to bed. Thereupon began fresh apologies for the poor couch I was about to find. I should not be so comfortable as in Paris. Things are so uncomfortable in the provinces. I must excuse Roussillon people. It was in vain that I protested that after a journey in the mountains a truss of straw would be a delicious couch for me; they persisted in entreating me to pardon poor country folk, if they did not treat me so well as they could have desired. At last I went upstairs to the room which was meant for me, accompanied by M. de Peyrehorade. The stair, the upper steps of which were of wood, led to the middle of a corridor, on which several rooms opened.

“To the right,” said my host, “are the apartments which I intend for the future Madame Alphonse. Your room is at the end of the opposite corridor. You quite understand,” he added with an air which was meant to be sly, “you quite understand that newly married folk must be isolated. You are at one end of the house, they at the other.” We entered a well furnished room, where the first object on which I set eyes was a bed seven feet long, six wide, and so high that one required a stool to hoist oneself into it. My host, having shown me where the bell was, and having satisfied himself that the sugar-bowl was filled and the eau-de-Cologne bottles duly set on the dressing-table, after having asked me several times if I had everything I wanted, wished me good-night and left me to myself.

The windows were shut. Before undressing, I opened one to breathe the fresh night air, so delightful after a long supper. Before me lay the Canigou, which is wonderful to behold at any time, but which, that night, seemed to me the finest mountain in the world, lit up as it was by a resplendent moon. I remained some minutes contemplating the marvellous sky-line, and I was about to close my window when, looking down, I observed the statue on a pedestal some two-score yards from the house. It was placed at the corner of a quick-set hedge, which divided a little garden from a spacious square perfectly smooth, which, as I learned later, was the town tennis-court. This space, the property of M. de Peyrehorade, had been made over by him to the commune, at the pressing solicitations of his son.

At the distance where I was, it was difficult to make out the attitude of the statue; I could only judge of its height, which seemed to be about six feet. At that moment, two rascals from the town were passing by the tennis-court, pretty close to the hedge, whistling the pretty Roussillon air _Montagnes régalades_. They stopped to look at the statue; one of them even apostrophized it aloud. He spoke Catalan; but I had been in Roussillon long enough to be able to understand pretty well what he was saying.

“So you’re there, you hussy!” (The Catalan word was more forcible). “You’re there!” he said. “So it’s you who broke Jean Coll’s leg for him! If you belonged to me, I’d break your neck.”

“Bah! What would you break it with?” said the other. “She’s made of copper, so hard that Stephen broke his file on it trying to cut into it. It’s copper of heathen times; it’s harder than I don’t know what.”

“If I had my cold chisel,” (it seems that he was an apprentice locksmith), “I’d soon knock out her big white eyes, as easy as I’d take an almond out of its shell. There’s more than two half-crowns’ worth of silver in them.”

They went a step or two on their way.

“I must wish the idol good-night,” said the taller of the apprentices, stopping short.

He stooped down, and no doubt picked up a stone. I saw him straighten out his arm and throw something, and immediately a sonorous blow rang on the bronze. That same instant, the apprentice put his hand to his head and uttered a cry of pain.

“She’s thrown it back at me!” he exclaimed.

And my two rascals took to their heels. Evidently the stone had rebounded from the metal and had punished the joker for his outrage on the goddess.

I shut the window, laughing heartily.

“Another Vandal punished by Venus! Would that all the destroyers of our ancient monuments had their heads broken in the same way!”

With this charitable desire, I fell asleep.

It was broad daylight when I awoke. At one side of my bed stood M. de Peyrehorade in his dressing-gown; at the other a servant, sent by his wife, a cup of chocolate in his hand.

“Come! get up, Parisian! That’s just like you lazy people from the capital!” said my host, while I dressed myself hurriedly. “Eight o’clock, and still in bed! Why, I’ve been up since six o’clock! This is the third time I’ve been upstairs; I went to your door on tiptoe; no one, no sign of life. It is bad for you to sleep too much at your age. And my Venus, whom you have not seen yet! Come, quick and take this cup of Barcelona chocolate.... Real smuggled.... Chocolate such as you don’t have in Paris. Fortify yourself, for, once you are in the presence of my Venus, there will be no tearing you away from her.”

In five minutes I was ready, that is to say, half shaved, buttoned awry, and scalded by the chocolate that I had swallowed boiling hot. I went down to the garden, and found myself before an admirable statue.

It really was a Venus of marvellous beauty. The upper part of the body was nude, as the ancients usually represented the greater divinities; the right hand, raised level with the breast, was turned palm inwards, the thumb and first two fingers extended, the others slightly bent. The other hand, approaching her haunch, supported the drapery that covered the lower part of the body. The pose of the statue recalled that of the player at morra, which is designated, for some reason or other, by the name of Germanicus. Perhaps the intention was to represent the goddess as playing at morra.

Be that as it may, nothing more perfect could possibly be seen than the body of that Venus; nothing more suave, more voluptuous than its contours; nothing more elegant and more noble than its drapery. I had expected some work of the Lower Empire; I saw a masterpiece of the best period of sculpture. What struck me above all was the exquisite truth of the forms, so much so that one might have supposed them moulded from nature, if nature produced such perfect models.

The hair, piled above the forehead, seemed to have been gilded at one time. The head, small like that of almost all Greek statues, was slightly inclined forwards. As for the face, I shall never succeed in expressing its strange character, the type of which was not like that of any other antique statue that I can remember. It was not the calm and severe beauty of the Greek sculptors, who, on system, gave all the features a majestic immobility. Here, on the contrary, I observed with surprise the distinct intention of the artist to render mischievousness almost bordering on malice. All the features were slightly contracted: the eyes a little oblique, the mouth raised at the corners, the nostrils somewhat distended. Disdain, irony, cruelty were to be read on this visage, which was at the same time of an incredible beauty. In fact, the more one looked at that admirable statue, the more one experienced a feeling of pain that such marvellous beauty could be allied to utter absence of sensibility.

“If the model ever existed,” I said to M. de Peyrehorade--” and I doubt if Heaven ever produced such a woman--how I pity her lovers! She must have found pleasure in making them die of despair. There is something ferocious in her expression, and yet I have never seen anything so beautiful.”

“‛Tis Venus’ self a stooping o’er her prey!”

exclaimed M. de Peyrehorade, gratified at my enthusiasm.

The expression of infernal irony was augmented, perhaps, by the contrast between her eyes inlaid with silver, very brilliant, and the blackish-green patina which time had given to the whole statue. Those brilliant eyes produced a certain illusion, which recalled reality, life. I remembered what my guide had told me, that she made those who looked at her cast down their eyes. That was almost true, and I could not refrain from a gesture of anger against myself at feeling somewhat ill at ease before this figure of bronze.

“Now that you have admired everything in detail, my dear colleague in the antique,” said my host, “let us proceed, if you please, to a scientific discussion. What do you say about this inscription, to which you have not paid any attention as yet?”

He showed me the base of the statue, and there I read these words:

CAVE AMANTEM.

“_Quid dicis, doctissime?_” he asked me, rubbing his hands. “Let us see whether we shall agree on the meaning of this _cave amantem_!”

“Why,” I said, “there are two possible meanings. You can translate, ‛Beware of him who loves thee; distrust lovers.’ But, in this sense I do not know whether _cave amantem_ would be good Latinity. Looking to the lady’s diabolical expression, I am more inclined to think that the artist meant to warn the beholder against this terrible beauty. So I would translate, ‛Beware for thyself, if _she_ loves thee.’”

“Humph!” said M. de Peyrehorade. “Yes, that is an admissible rendering: but you will not be offended if I prefer the first translation, which, however, I shall develop. You know who the lover of Venus was, do you not?”

“There are several.”

“Yes; but the first is Vulcan. Was the meaning not intended to be ‛Despite all thy beauty, thy disdainful air, thou shalt have a blacksmith, an ugly lameter for lover?’ A profound moral, sir, for coquettes!”

I could not keep from smiling, the interpretation seemed so far-fetched.

“It’s a terrible language, Latin, with its conciseness,” I remarked, to avoid contradicting my antiquary explicitly, and I fell back a few paces in order to view the statue better.

“One moment, colleague!” said M. de Peyrehorade, taking me by the arm, “you haven’t seen all. There’s still another inscription. Get up on the base and look at the right arm.” So speaking, he helped me to get up.

I clung on without much ceremony by the neck of the Venus with whom I was beginning to be quite at home. I even looked at her for a moment “under the nose,” and found her more wicked and more beautiful than ever at close quarters. Then I saw that there were engraved on the arm some characters in ancient cursive character, as it seemed to me. With the help of spectacles I spelled out what follows, and meanwhile M. de Peyrehorade repeated each word as I pronounced it, signifying his approval by voice and gesture. Accordingly I read:

VENERI TVRBVL ...
EVTYCHES MYRO
IMPERIO FECIT

After the word TVRBVL in the first line it seemed to me that there were several letters effaced; but TVRBVL was perfectly legible.

“Which means?” my host asked me, beaming and smiling mischievously, for he was pretty sure that I would not get easily over that TVRBVL.

“There is one word which I can’t explain yet,” I told him, “but all the rest is easy: Eutyches Myron made this offering to Venus at her command.”

“Just so! But TVRBVL, what do you make of that? What is TVRBVL?”

“TVRBVL bothers me considerably. I am hunting in vain for some known epithet of Venus which might help me. Let us see, what do you say to TVRBVLENTA? Venus who troubles, agitates?... You see that I am always possessed by her wicked expression. TVRBVLENTA, that is not at all a bad epithet for Venus,” I added in a modest tone, for I was not very well satisfied myself with my explanation.

“Venus the Turbulent! Venus the Rowdy! Ah! Then you believe that my Venus is a tavern Venus, do you? Not at all, sir; she is a well-bred Venus. But I’ll explain this TVRBVL ... to you. Though you must promise not to divulge my discovery before my paper is printed. Because, you see, I am proud of this find.... You might as well leave us poor devils of provincials some ears to glean. You are so rich, you learned gentlemen of Paris!”

From the top of the pedestal, where I was still perched, I solemnly promised him that I would never be so dishonourable as to rob him of his discovery.

“TVRBVL ..., sir,” said he, coming nearer and lowering his voice, for fear any one besides me might hear him, “read TVRBVLNERAE.”

“I am still no wiser.”

“Listen! A league from here, at the foot of the mountain, there is a village called Boulternère. That is a corruption of the Latin word TVRBVLNERA. Nothing more common than these inversions. Boulternère, sir, was a Roman town. I always suspected so, but I never had evidence for it. The evidence is here! This Venus was the local deity of the city of Boulternère; and this word Boulternère, of which I have just demonstrated the ancient origin, proves a thing more curious still, namely, that Boulternère, before being a Roman town, was a town of the Phœnicians!”

He paused for a moment to take breath and enjoy my surprise. I managed to repress a strong desire to laugh.

“In fact,” he continued, “TVRBVLNERA is pure Phœnician; TVR, pronounce TOOR.... TOOR and SOOR, the same word, are they not? SUR is the Phœnician name of Tyre; I need not remind you of its meaning. BVL is Baal; Bâl, Bel, Bul, slight difference of pronunciation. As for NERA, that gives me a little trouble. I am inclined to think, failing a Phœnician word, that it comes from the Greek νηρός, moist, marshy. The word would then be a hybrid. To justify νηρός, I’ll show you at Boulternère how the streams from the mountains form pestilential marshes there. On the other hand, the termination NERA might have been added much later in honour of Nera Pivesuvia, wife of Tetricus, who may have rendered some benefit to the city of Turbul. But, looking to the marshes, I prefer the derivation from νηρός.”

He took a pinch of snuff with a satisfied air.

“But let us leave the Phœnicians and return to the inscription. I translate, then, ‛To Venus of Boulternère Myron dedicates at her command this statue, his work.’”

I took good care not to criticize his etymology; but I wished in my turn to give evidence of penetration, and said to him:

“Stop a moment, sir, Myron consecrated something; but I do not at all see that it was this statue.”

“How so?” he exclaimed. “Was not Myron a famous Greek sculptor? His talent must have been perpetuated in his family: it must have been one of his descendants who made this statue. Nothing is more certain.”

“But,” I replied, “I see a little hole in the arm. In my opinion, it served to fasten something, a bracelet, for instance, which this Myron gave to Venus as an expiatory offering. Myron was an unhappy lover. Venus was angry with him; he appeased her by consecrating a golden bracelet to her. Note that _fecit_ is very often used for _consecravit_. They are synonymous terms. I could show you more than one example, if I had Gruter, or even Orellius at hand. It is natural that a lover should see Venus in a dream, that he should imagine that she commands him to give a golden bracelet to her statue. Myron consecrated a bracelet to her.... Then the barbarians, or even some sacrilegious robber....”

“Ah, it is easy to see that you have written novels!” exclaimed my host, as he lent me a hand to descend. “No, sir; it is a work of the school of Myron. Only look at the workmanship, and you’ll agree.”

Having made it an invariable rule never to give a point-blank contradiction to obstinate antiquaries, I bowed my head with an air of conviction and said:

“It is an admirable piece.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed M. de Peyrehorade. “Another piece of vandalism! Some one must have been throwing stones at my statue!”

He had just observed a white mark a little above the breast of the Venus. I noticed a similar trace on the fingers of the right hand, which, I supposed at the time, the stone had touched in its passage, or perhaps even a fragment had been knocked off it by the shock, and had rebounded on to the hand. I related to my host the insult, of which I had been a witness, and the prompt punishment which had followed it. He laughed heartily at the story, and, comparing the appprentice to Diomede, wished that, like the Greek hero, he might see all his companions turned into white birds.

The breakfast bell interrupted this classical conversation, and, as on the previous evening, I was obliged to eat enough for four. Then M. de Peyrehorade’s farmers came; and, while he gave audience to them, his son took me to see a barouche which he had bought at Toulouse for his bride, and which I, of course, admired. Next I went into the stable with him, where he kept me for half an hour boasting about his horses, telling me their pedigrees, and detailing the prizes that they had won at the county races. At last he came to tell me about his future wife, having been led up to her by a grey mare which he intended for her.

“We’ll see her to-day,” he said. “I don’t know whether you’ll think her pretty. You are difficult to please at Paris; but every one here and at Perpignan thinks her charming. The beauty of it is that she is very rich. Her aunt at Prades has left her property to her. Oh, I’ll be very happy.”

I was deeply disgusted to see a young man apparently more impressed by the dowry than by the charms of his future wife.

“You know something about jewels,” continued M. Alphonse, “what do you think of this? This is the ring which I’m to give her to-morrow.”

With these words he drew from the first joint of his little finger a big ring enriched with diamonds, in the form of two clasped hands; an allusion which struck me as infinitely poetical. The workmanship was ancient, but I thought that it had been remodelled to set the diamonds. Inside the ring, in Gothic letters, could be read the words, “_Sempr’ ab ti_,” that is to say, “Ever with thee.”

“It is a pretty ring,” I said; “but those diamonds that have been added have made it lose something of its character.”

“Oh, it is very much prettier like that,” he said with a smile. “There are twelve hundred francs worth of diamonds there. It was given to me by my mother. It was a very ancient family ring ... from the times of chivalry. My grandmother used it for her wedding-ring, and she got it from her grandmother. Goodness knows when it was made.”

“The custom at Paris,” I told him, “is to give quite a simple ring, usually composed of two different metals, such as gold and platinum. Wait! that other ring, the one on that finger, would be very suitable. This one, with its diamonds and its hands in relief, is so big that one could never put on a glove over it.”

“Oh, Madame Alphonse will manage as she likes. I expect she’ll be quite glad to have it in any case. Twelve thousand francs is a nice thing to have on one’s finger. That little ring there,” he added, with a complacent glance at the perfectly plain ring which he wore on his hand, “that ring there was given me by a girl at Paris one Shrove Tuesday. Ah, how I went the pace when I was at Paris two years ago! That’s the place to enjoy oneself!...” And he heaved a sigh of regret.

We were to dine that day at Puygarrig, with the bride’s parents; we got into a barouche and drove to the château, which was about a league and a half distant from Ille. I was presented and received as the friend of the family. I shall say nothing about the dinner or the conversation which ensued, and in which I took little part. M. Alphonse, placed beside his betrothed, said something in her ear every quarter of an hour. For her part, she did not often raise her eyes, and, when her intended spoke to her, she blushed modestly, but answered him without embarrassment.

Mademoiselle de Puygarrig was eighteen years of age; her supple and delicate figure was a contrast to the large-boned frame of her robust bridegroom. She was not merely beautiful, but entrancing. I admired the perfect naturalness of all her answers; and her air of kindness, which yet was not without a slight tinge of mischief, reminded me involuntarily of my host’s Venus. As I made this comparison mentally, I asked myself whether the superiority in point of beauty, which was undoubtedly to be awarded to the statue, was not due, in great part, to its tigress-like expression; for energy, even that of evil passions, always excites us to astonishment and a sort of involuntary admiration.

“What a pity,” said I to myself, as we left Puygarrig, “that so amiable a creature should be rich, and her portion should attract the suit of a man so unworthy of her!” On the way back to Ille, being at a loss for something to say to Madame de Peyrehorade, whom I thought it good manners to address occasionally, I exclaimed:

“You are great freethinkers in Roussillon! Why, Madame, you are holding a marriage on a Friday! At Paris we are more superstitious; nobody there would dare to take a wife on such a day.”

“For goodness’ sake don’t talk about that to me!” she said. “If it had depended on me alone, we should certainly have chosen another day. But Peyrehorade would have it, and we had to give in to him. I am anxious about it all the same. What if anything happens? There must be some reason for it, for else why is everybody afraid of Friday?”

“Friday!” cried her husband, “that’s Venus’s day! A good day for a marriage! You see, my dear colleague, I can never get away from my Venus. On my honour, it’s because of her that I chose Friday! To-morrow, if you like, before the wedding, we’ll make a little sacrifice to her; we’ll sacrifice two doves, and if I knew where to get some incense....”

“For shame, Peyrehorade!” broke in his wife, scandalized beyond endurance. “Burn incense to an idol! That would be an abomination! Whatever would they say about us in the district?”

“At least,” said M. de Peyrehorade, “you will allow me to place a wreath of roses and lilies on her head:

_Manibus date lilia plenis._

You see, sir, the Charter is an empty word. We have not liberty of worship!”

The arrangements for the morrow were settled as follows. Everybody was to be dressed and ready at ten o’clock sharp. After chocolate, we were to drive to Puygarrig. The civil marriage was to take place at the mayor’s office in the village, and the religious ceremony in the chapel at the château. Next was to come a breakfast. After the breakfast we were to pass the time as best we could until seven o’clock. At seven we were to return to Ille, to M. de Peyrehorade’s, where the united families were to sup. The rest followed naturally. As they could not dance, they meant to eat as much as possible.

By eight o’clock I was seated before the Venus, pencil in hand, beginning the head of the statue over again for the twentieth time without being able to catch its expression. M. de Peyrehorade kept coming and going about me, giving me his advice and repeating his Phœnician etymologies; then he disposed some Bengal roses on the pedestal of the statue, and in a tragi-comic voice addressed to it his prayers for the couple who were about to live under his roof. About nine o’clock he went in to dress, and at the same moment M. Alphonse made his appearance, very tight in a new coat, with white gloves, patent-leather boots, chased studs, a rose in his button-hole.

“You will draw my wife’s portrait?” he asked, bending over my sketch. “She is pretty too.”

At that moment, on the tennis-court which I have mentioned, a match began, which at once attracted M. Alphonse’s attention. I too, tired and in despair of rendering that diabolical face, soon quitted my sketch to watch the players. Among them were some Spanish muleteers who had arrived the night before. They were Aragonese and Navarrese, almost all of marvellous skill. Accordingly the Ille men, though encouraged by the presence and advice of M. Alphonse, were pretty promptly beaten by these new champions. The local spectators were in consternation. M. Alphonse looked at his watch. It was only half-past nine yet. His mother had not got her hair dressed. He hesitated no longer; he took off his coat, asked for a jacket, and challenged the Spaniards. When I saw him do so, I smiled and was rather surprised.

“We must keep up the honour of the country,” he said. I found him really handsome then. He was aroused. His dress, which had occupied him so much a little ago, was nothing more to him now. A few minutes before, he had been afraid to turn his head for fear of deranging his neck-tie. Now he had no more thought of his curled hair or his neatly pleated ruffle. And his bride?... Really, had it been necessary, I believe he would have had the marriage postponed. I saw him hastily slip on a pair of sandals, turn up his sleeves, and, with a confident air, place himself at the head of the defeated side, like Cæsar rallying his soldiers at Dyrrachium. I leaped over the hedge and stationed myself comfortably under the shade of a _celiis australis_, so that I had a good view of the two camps.

Contrary to general expectation, M. Alphonse missed the first ball; true it came skimming low down and delivered with surprising force by an Aragonese, who appeared to be the leader of the Spaniards.

He was a man about forty years of age, hard and wiry, about six feet tall, and his olive skin was almost as dark in tone as the bronze of the Venus.

M. Alphonse threw his racket on the ground in a rage.

“It’s this confounded ring,” he cried, “which pinched my finger, and made me miss a safe ball!”

He took off the diamond ring, not without difficulty; I went to take it from him; but he was too quick for me and ran to the Venus, put the ring on its ring-finger, and resumed his place at the head of the Ille men.