Ἰλεὼς ἣν δ' ἐγὼ, ἔστω ὁ ἀνδρίας
Καὶ ἤπιος, οὔτως ἀνδρεῖος ὢν.
ΛΟΥΚΙΑΝΟΥ ΦΙΛΟΨΕΥΔΗΣ.
I was descending the last slope of Canigou, and, although the sun had already set, I could distinguish in the plain below the houses of the little town of Ille, for which I was bound.
“You know,” I said to the Catalan who had been acting as my guide since the preceding day, “you know, doubtless, where Monsieur de Peyrehorade lives?”
“Do I know!” he cried; “why, I know his house as well as I do my own; and if it wasn’t so dark, I’d show it to you. It’s the finest house in Ille. He has money, you know, has Monsieur de Peyrehorade; and his son is going to marry a girl that’s richer than himself.”
“Is the marriage to take place soon?” I asked.
“Soon! It may be that the fiddles are already ordered for the wedding. To-night, perhaps, or to-morrow, or the day after, for all I know! It’s to be at Puygarrig; for it’s Mademoiselle de Puygarrig that the young gentleman is going to marry.”
I had a letter of introduction to M. de Peyrehorade from my friend M. de P. He was, so my friend had told me, a very learned antiquarian, and good-natured and obliging to the last degree. He would take pleasure in showing me all the ruins within a radius of ten leagues. Now, I relied upon him to accompany me about the country near Ille, which I knew to be rich in monuments of ancient times and of the Middle Ages. This marriage, of which I now heard for the first time, might upset all my plans.
“I shall be an interloper,” I said to myself.
But I was expected; as my arrival had been announced by M. de P., I must needs present myself.
“I’ll bet you, monsieur,” said my guide, as we reached the foot of the mountain, “I’ll bet you a cigar that I can guess what you are going to do at Monsieur de Peyrehorade’s.”
“Why, that is not very hard to guess,” I replied, offering him a cigar. “At this time of day, when one has walked six leagues over Canigou, the most urgent business is supper.”
“Yes, but to-morrow? Look you, I’ll bet that you have come to Ille to see the idol! I guessed that when I saw you drawing pictures of the saints at Serrabona.”
“The idol! what idol?” The word had aroused my curiosity.
“What! didn’t any one at Perpignan tell you how Monsieur de Peyrehorade had found an idol in the ground?”
“You mean a terra-cotta, or clay statue, don’t you?”
“No, indeed! I mean a copper one, and it’s big enough to make a lot of big sous. It weighs as much as a church bell. It was way down in the ground, at the foot of an olive tree, that we found it.”
“So you were present at the discovery, were you?”
“Yes, monsieur. Monsieur de Peyrehorade told us a fortnight ago, Jean Coll and me, to dig up an old olive tree that got frozen last year—for it was a very hard winter, you know. So, while we were at work, Jean Coll, who was going at it with all his might, dug his pick into the dirt, and I heard a bimm—just as if he’d struck a bell.—‘What’s that?’ says I. We kept on digging and digging, and first a black hand showed; it looked like a dead man’s hand sticking out of the ground. For my part, I was scared. I goes to monsieur, and I says to him: ‘Dead men under the olive tree, master. You’d better call the curé.’
“‘What dead men?’ he says.
“He went with me, and he’d no sooner seen the hand than he sings out: ‘An antique! an antique!’ You’d have thought he had found a treasure. And to work he went with the pick and with his hands, and did as much as both of us together, you might say.”
“Well, what did you find?”
“A tall black woman more than half naked, saving your presence, monsieur, of solid copper; and Monsieur de Peyrehorade told us that it was an idol of heathen times—of the time of Charlemagne!”
“I see what it is: a bronze Blessed Virgin from some dismantled convent.”
“A Blessed Virgin! oh, yes! I should have recognised it if it had been a Blessed Virgin. It’s an idol, I tell you; you can see that from its expression. It fastens its great white eyes on you; you’d think it was trying to stare you out of countenance. Why, you actually lower your eyes when you look at it.”
“White eyes? They are incrusted on the bronze, no doubt. It may be some Roman statue.”
“Roman! that’s it. Monsieur de Peyrehorade says she’s a Roman.—Ah! I see that you’re a scholar like him.”
“Is it whole, well preserved?”
“Oh! it’s all there, monsieur. It’s even handsomer and finished better than the plaster-of-Paris bust of Louis Philippe at the mayor’s office. But for all that, I can’t get over the idol’s face. It has a wicked look—and she is wicked, too.”
“Wicked! what harm has she done you?”
“None to me exactly; but I’ll tell you. We had got down on all fours to stand her up, and Monsieur de Peyrehorade, he was pulling on the rope, too, although he hasn’t any more strength than a chicken, the excellent man! With a good deal of trouble we got her on her feet. I was picking up a piece of stone to wedge her, when, patatras! down she went again, all in a heap. ‘Stand from under!’ says I. But I was too late, for Jean Coll didn’t have time to pull out his leg.”
“And he was hurt?”
“His poor leg broken off short like a stick! Pécaïre! when I saw that, I was furious. I wanted to smash the idol with my pickaxe, but Monsieur de Peyrehorade held me back. He gave Jean Coll some money, but he’s been in bed all the same ever since it happened, a fortnight ago, and the doctor says he’ll never walk with that leg like the other. It’s a pity, for he was our best runner, and next to monsieur’s son, the best tennis player. I tell you, it made Monsieur Alphonse de Peyrehorade feel bad, for Coll always played with him. It was fine to see how they’d send the balls back at each other. Paf! paf! They never touched the ground.”
Chatting thus we entered Ille, and I soon found myself in M. de Peyrehorade’s presence. He was a little old man, still hale and active, with powdered hair, a red nose, and a jovial, bantering air. Before opening M. de P.’s letter, he installed himself in front of a bountifully spread table, and introduced me to his wife and son as an illustrious archæologist, who was destined to rescue Roussillon from the oblivion in which the indifference of scholars had thus far left it.
While eating with a hearty appetite—for nothing is more conducive thereto than the keen mountain air—I examined my hosts. I have already said a word or two of M. de Peyrehorade; I must add that he was vivacity personified. He talked, ate, rose from his chair, ran to his library, brought books to me, showed me prints, filled my glass; he was never at rest for two minutes in succession. His wife, who was a trifle too stout, like all the Catalan women after they have passed forty, impressed me as a typical provincial, who had no interests outside of her household. Although the supper was ample for at least six persons, she ran to the kitchen, ordered pigeons killed, all sorts of things fried, and opened Heaven knows how many jars of preserves. In an instant the table was laden with dishes and bottles, and I should certainly have died of indigestion if I had even tasted everything that was offered me. And yet, with every new dish that I declined, there were renewed apologies. She was afraid that I would find myself very badly off at Ille. One had so few resources in the provinces, and Parisians were so hard to please!
Amid all the goings and comings of his parents, M. Alphonse de Peyrehorade sat as motionless as the god Terminus. He was a tall young man of twenty-six, with a handsome and regular face, which however lacked expression. His figure and his athletic proportions fully justified the reputation of an indefatigable tennis player which he enjoyed throughout the province. On this evening he was dressed in the height of fashion, exactly in accordance with the engraving in the last number of the Journal des Modes. But he seemed ill at ease in his clothes; he was as stiff as a picket in his velvet stock, and moved his whole body when he turned. His rough, sunburned hands and short nails formed a striking contrast to his costume. They were the hands of a ploughman emerging from the sleeves of a dandy. Furthermore, although he scrutinised me with interest from head to foot, I being a Parisian, he spoke to me but once during the evening, and that was to ask me where I bought my watch chain.
“Look you, my dear guest,” said M. de Peyrehorade, as the supper drew to a close, “you belong to me, you are in my house; I shall not let you go until you have seen everything of interest that we have in our mountains. You must learn to know our Roussillon, and you must do her justice. You have no suspicion of all that we are going to show you: Phœnician, Celtic, Roman, Arabian, Byzantine monuments—you shall see them all, from the cedar to the hyssop. I will take you everywhere, and I will not let you off from a single brick.”
A paroxysm of coughing compelled him to pause. I seized the opportunity to say that I should be distressed to incommode him at a season so fraught with interest to his family. If he would simply give me the benefit of his excellent advice as to the excursions it would be well for me to make, I could easily, without putting him to the trouble of accompanying me——
“Ah! you refer to this boy’s marriage,” he exclaimed, interrupting me. “That’s a mere trifle—it will take place day after to-morrow. You must attend the wedding with us, en famille, as the bride is in mourning for an aunt whose property she inherits. So there are to be no festivities, no ball. It is too bad, for you might have seen our Catalan girls dance. They are very pretty, and perhaps you would have felt inclined to follow my Alphonse’s example. One marriage, they say, leads to others.—Saturday, when the young people are married, I shall be free, and we will take the field. I ask your pardon for subjecting you to the ennui of a provincial wedding. For a Parisian, sated with parties of all sorts—and a wedding without a ball, at that! However, you will see a bride—a bride—you must tell me what you think of her. But you are a serious man, and you don’t look at women any more. I have something better than that to show you. I will show you something worth seeing! I have a famous surprise in store for you to-morrow.”
“Mon Dieu!” said I, “it is difficult to keep a treasure in one’s house without the public knowing all about it. I fancy that I can divine the surprise that you have in store for me. But if you refer to your statue, the description of it that my guide gave me has served simply to arouse my curiosity and to predispose me to admiration.”
“Ah! so he spoke to you about the idol—for that is what they call my beautiful Venus Tur—but I will tell you nothing now. You shall see her to-morrow, by daylight, and tell me whether I am justified in considering her a chef-d’œuvre. Parbleu! you could not have arrived more opportunely! There are some inscriptions which I, poor ignoramus that I am, interpret after my manner. But a scholar from Paris! It may be that you will make fun of my interpretation—for I have written a memoir—I, who speak to you, an old provincial antiquary, have made a start; I propose to make the printing-presses groan. If you would kindly read and correct me, I might hope. For example, I am very curious to know how you will translate this inscription on the pedestal: CAVE—but I won’t ask you anything yet. Until to-morrow! until to-morrow! Not a word about the Venus to-day!”
“You are quite right, Peyrehorade,” said his wife, “to let your old idol rest. You must see that you are keeping monsieur from eating. Bah! monsieur has seen much finer statues than yours in Paris. There are dozens of them at the Tuileries, and bronze ones, too.”
“There you have the ignorance, the blessed ignorance of the provinces!” interrupted M. de Peyrehorade. “Think of comparing an admirable antique to Coustou’s insipid figures!
“‘With what irreverence
Doth my good wife speak of the gods!’
Would you believe that my wife wanted me to melt my statue and make it into a bell for our church! She would have been the donor, you see. A chef-d’œuvre of Myron, monsieur!”
“Chef-d’œuvre! chef-d’œuvre! a pretty chef-d’œuvre she made! to break a man’s leg!”
“Look you, my wife,” said M. de Peyrehorade in a determined tone, extending his right leg encased in a stocking of Chinese silk, in her direction, “if my Venus had broken this leg, I should not regret it.”
“Gracious Heaven! how can you say that, Peyrehorade? Luckily the man is getting better. Still, I can’t make up my mind to look at the statue that causes such accidents as that. Poor Jean Coll!”
“Wounded by Venus, monsieur,” said M. de Peyrehorade, with a chuckle, “wounded by Venus, the clown complains:
“‘Veneris nec præmia noris.’
“Who has not been wounded by Venus?”
M. Alphonse, who understood French better than Latin, winked with a knowing look, and glanced at me as if to ask:
“And you, Monsieur le Parisien, do you understand?”
The supper came to an end. I had eaten nothing for the last hour. I was tired and I could not succeed in dissembling the frequent yawns which escaped me. Madame de Peyrehorade was the first to notice my plight and observed that it was time to go to bed. Thereupon began a new series of apologies for the wretched accommodations I was to have. I should not be as comfortable as I was in Paris. One is so badly off in the provinces! I must be indulgent for the Roussillonnais. In vain did I protest that after a journey in the mountains a sheaf of straw would be a luxurious bed for me—she continued to beg me to excuse unfortunate country folk if they did not treat me as well as they would have liked to do. I went upstairs at last to the room allotted to me, escorted by M. de Peyrehorade. The staircase, the upper stairs of which were of wood, ended in the centre of a corridor upon which several rooms opened.
“At the right,” said my host, “is the apartment which I intend to give to Madame Alphonse that is to be. Your room is at the end of the opposite corridor. You know,” he added, with an expression meant to be sly, “you know we must put a newly married couple all by themselves. You are at one end of the house and they at the other.”
We entered a handsomely furnished room, in which the first object that caught my eye was a bed seven feet long, six feet wide, and so high that one had to use a stool to climb to the top. My host, having pointed out the location of the bell, having assured himself that the sugarbowl was full, and that the bottles of cologne had been duly placed on the dressing-table, and having asked me several times if I had everything that I wanted, wished me a good-night and left me alone.
The windows were closed. Before undressing I opened one of them to breathe the fresh night air, always delicious after a long supper. In front of me was Canigou, beautiful to look at always, but that evening, it seemed to me the most beautiful mountain in the world, lighted as it was by a brilliant moon. I stood for some minutes gazing at its wonderful silhouette, and was on the point of closing my window when, as I lowered my eyes, I saw the statue on a pedestal some forty yards from the house. It was placed at the corner of a quickset hedge which separated a small garden from a large square of perfectly smooth turf, which, as I learned later, was the tennis-court of the town. This tract, which belonged to M. de Peyrehorade, had been ceded by him to the commune, at his son’s urgent solicitation.
I was so far from the statue that I could not distinguish its attitude and could only guess at its height, which seemed to be about six feet. At that moment two young scamps from the town walked across the tennis-court, quite near the hedge, whistling the pretty Roussillon air, Montagnes Régalades. They stopped to look at the statue, and one of them apostrophised it in a loud voice. He spoke Catalan; but I had been long enough in Roussillon to understand pretty nearly what he said.
“So there you are, hussy! (The Catalan term was much more forcible.) So there you are!” he said. “So it was you who broke Jean Coll’s leg! If you belonged to me, I’d break your neck!”
“Bah! with what?” said the other. “She’s made of copper, and it’s so hard that Étienne broke his file, trying to file it. It’s copper of the heathen times, and it’s harder than I don’t know what.”
“If I had my cold-chisel”—it seemed that he was a locksmith’s apprentice—“I’d soon dig out her big white eyes, as easy as I’d take an almond out of its shell. They’d make more than a hundred sous in silver.”
They walked away a few steps.
“I must bid the idol good-night,” said the taller of the two, suddenly stopping again.
He stooped, and, I suppose, picked up a stone. I saw him raise his arm and throw something, and instantly there was a ringing blow on the bronze. At the same moment the apprentice put his hand to his head, with a sharp cry of pain.
“She threw it back at me!” he exclaimed.
And my two rascals fled at the top of their speed. It was evident that the stone had rebounded from the metal, and had punished the fellow for his affront to the goddess.
I closed my window, laughing heartily.
“Still another vandal chastised by Venus!” I thought. “May all the destroyers of our ancient monuments have their heads broken thus!”
And with that charitable prayer, I fell asleep.
It was broad daylight when I woke. Beside my bed were, on one side, M. de Peyrehorade in his robe-de-chambre; on the other a servant, sent by his wife, with a cup of chocolate in his hand.
“Come, up with you, Parisian! This is just like you sluggards from the capital!” said my host, while I hastily dressed myself. “It is eight o’clock, and you are still in bed! I have been up since six. This is the third time I have come upstairs; I came to your door on tiptoe; not a sound, not a sign of life. It will injure you to sleep too much at your age. And you haven’t seen my Venus yet! Come, drink this cup of Barcelona chocolate quickly. Genuine contraband, such chocolate as you don’t get in Paris. You must lay up some strength, for, when you once stand in front of my Venus, I shall not be able to tear you away from her.”
In five minutes I was ready—that is to say, half shaved, my clothes half buttoned, and my throat scalded by the chocolate, which I had swallowed boiling hot. I went down into the garden and found myself before a really beautiful statue.
It was, in truth, a Venus, and wonderfully lovely. The upper part of the body was nude, as the ancients ordinarily represented the great divinities; the right hand, raised as high as the breast, was turned with the palm inward, the thumb and first two fingers extended, the other two slightly bent. The other hand was near the hip and held the drapery that covered the lower part of the body. The pose of the statue recalled that of the Morra Player, usually known, I know not why, by the name of Germanicus. Perhaps the sculptor intended to represent the goddess playing the game of morra.
However that may be, it is impossible to imagine anything more perfect than the body of that Venus; anything more harmonious, more voluptuous than her outlines, anything more graceful and more dignified than her drapery. I expected to see some work of the later Empire; I saw a chef-d’œuvre of the best period of statuary. What especially struck me was the exquisite verisimilitude of the forms, which one might have believed to have been moulded from nature, if nature ever produced such flawless models.
The hair, which was brushed back from the forehead, seemed to have been gilded formerly. The head, which was small, like those of almost all Greek statues, was bent slightly forward. As for the face, I shall never succeed in describing its peculiar character; it was of a type which in no wise resembled that of any antique statue that I can remember. It was not the tranquil, severe beauty of the Greek sculptors, who systematically imparted a majestic immobility to all the features. Here, on the contrary, I observed with surprise a clearly marked intention on the part of the artist to express mischievousness amounting almost to deviltry. All the features were slightly contracted; the eyes were a little oblique, the corners of the mouth raised, the nostrils a little dilated. Disdain, irony, cruelty could be read upon that face, which none the less was inconceivably lovely. In truth, the more one looked at that marvellous statue, the more distressed one felt at the thought that such wonderful beauty could be conjoined to utter absence of sensibility.
“If the model ever existed,” I said to M. de Peyrehorade,—“and I doubt whether Heaven ever produced such a woman—how I pity her lovers! She must have delighted in driving them to death from despair. There is something downright savage in her expression, and yet I never have seen anything so beautiful!”
“’T is Venus all intent upon her prey!” quoted M. de Peyrehorade, delighted with my enthusiasm.
That expression of infernal irony was heightened perhaps by the contrast between the very brilliant silver eyes and the coating of blackish green with which time had overlaid the whole statue. Those gleaming eyes created a certain illusion which suggested reality, life. I remembered what my guide had said, that she made those who looked at her lower their eyes. That was almost true, and I could not help feeling angry with myself as I realised that I was perceptibly ill at ease before that bronze figure.
“Now that you have admired her in every detail, my dear colleague in antiquarian research,” said my host, “let us open a scientific conference, if you please. What do you say to this inscription, which you have not noticed as yet?”
He pointed to the base of the statue, and I read there these words:
CAVE AMANTEM.
“Quid dicis, doctissime?” (“What do you say, most learned of men?”) he asked, rubbing his hands. “Let us see if we shall agree as to the meaning of this cave amantem.”
“Why, there are two possible meanings,” I said. “It may be translated: ‘Beware of him who loves you—distrust lovers.’ But I am not sure that cave amantem would be good Latin in that sense. In view of the lady’s diabolical expression, I should be inclined to believe rather that the artist meant to put the spectator on his guard against that terrible beauty. So that I should translate: ‘Look out for yourself if she loves you.’”
“Humph!” ejaculated M. de Peyrehorade; “yes, that is a possible translation; but, with all respect, I prefer the first, which I will develop a little, however. You know who Venus’s lover was?”
“She had several.”
“Yes, but the first one was Vulcan. Did not the artist mean to say: ‘Despite all your beauty, and your scornful air, you shall have a blacksmith, a wretched cripple, for a lover’? A solemn lesson for coquettes, monsieur!”
I could not help smiling, the interpretation seemed to me so exceedingly far-fetched.
“The Latin is a terrible language, with its extraordinary conciseness,” I observed, to avoid contradicting my antiquary directly; and I stepped back a few steps, to obtain a better view of the statue.
“One moment, colleague!” said M. de Peyrehorade, seizing my arm, “you have not seen all. There is still another inscription. Stand on the pedestal and look at the right arm.”
As he spoke, he helped me to climb up.
I clung somewhat unceremoniously to the neck of the Venus, with whom I was beginning to feel on familiar terms. I even looked her in the eye for an instant, and I found her still more diabolical and still lovelier at close quarters. Then I saw that there were some letters, in what I took to be the antique cursive hand, engraved on the right arm. With the aid of a strong glass I spelled out what follows, M. de Peyrehorade repeating each word as I pronounced it, and expressing his approbation with voice and gesture. I read:
VENERI TVRBVL—
EVTYCHES MYRO
IMPERIO FECIT
After the word tvrbvl in the first line several letters seemed to have become effaced, but tvrbvl was perfectly legible.
“Which means?”—queried my host, with a beaming face, and winking maliciously, for he had a shrewd idea that I would not easily handle that tvrbvl.
“There is one word here which I do not understand as yet,” I said; “all the rest is simple. ‘Eutyches made this offering to Venus by her order.’”
“Excellent. But what do you make of tvrbvl? What is tvrbvl?”
“Tvrbvl puzzles me a good deal. I have tried in vain to think of some known epithet of Venus to assist me. What would you say to Turbulenta? Venus, who disturbs, who excites—as you see, I am still engrossed by her evil expression. Turbulenta is not a very inapt epithet for Venus,” I added modestly, for I was not very well satisfied myself with my explanation.
“Turbulent Venus! Venus the roisterer! Ah! so you think that my Venus is a wine-shop Venus, do you? Not by any means, monsieur; she is a Venus in good society. But I will explain this tvrbvl to you. Of course you will promise not to divulge my discovery before my memoir is printed. You see, I am very proud of this find of mine. You must leave us poor devils in the provinces a few spears to glean. You are so rich, you Parisian scholars!”
From the top of the pedestal, whereon I was still perched, I solemnly promised him that I would never be guilty of the baseness of stealing his discovery.
“Tvrbvl—monsieur,” he said, coming nearer to me and lowering his voice, for fear that some other than myself might hear—“read tvrbvlneræ.”
“I don’t understand any better.”
“Listen. About a league from here, at the foot of the mountain, is a village called Boulternère. That name is a corruption of the Latin word Turbulnera. Nothing is more common than such inversions. Boulternère, monsieur, was a Roman city. I have always suspected as much, but I have never had a proof of it. Here is the proof. This Venus was the local divinity of the city of Boulternère; and this word Boulternère, whose antique origin I have just demonstrated, proves something even more interesting—namely, that Boulternère, before it became a Roman city, was a Phœnician city!”
He paused a moment to take breath and to enjoy my surprise. I succeeded in restraining a very strong inclination to laugh.
“It is a fact,” he continued, “Turbulnera is pure Phœnician; Tur, pronounced Tour—Tour and Sour are the same word, are they not? Sour is the Phœnician name of Tyre; I do not need to remind you of its meaning. Bul is Baal; Bal, Bel, Bul—slight differences in pronunciation. As for nera—that gives me a little trouble. I am inclined to believe, failing to find a Phœnician word, that it comes from the Greek word νηρός, damp, swampy. In that case the word would be a hybrid. To justify my suggestion of νηρός, I will show you that at Boulternère the streams from the mountain form miasmatic pools. On the other hand, the termination nera may have been added much later, in honour of Nera Pivesuvia, wife of Tetricus, who may have had some property in the city of Turbul. But on account of the pools I prefer the etymology from νηρός.”
And he took a pinch of snuff with a self-satisfied air.
“But let us leave the Phœnicians and return to the inscription. I translate then: ‘To Venus of Boulternère, Myron, at her command, dedicates this statue, his work.’”
I had no idea of criticising his etymology, but I did desire to exhibit some little penetration on my own part; so I said to him:
“Stop there a moment, monsieur. Myron dedicated something, but I see nothing to indicate that it was this statue.”
“What!” he cried, “was not Myron a famous Greek sculptor? The talent probably was handed down in the family; it was one of his descendants who executed this statue. Nothing can be more certain.”
“But,” I rejoined, “I see a little hole in the arm. I believe that it was made to fasten something to—a bracelet, perhaps, which this Myron presented to Venus as an expiatory offering.—Myron was an unsuccessful lover; Venus was irritated with him and he appeased her by consecrating a gold bracelet to her. Observe that fecit is very often used in the sense of consecravit; they are synonymous terms. I could show you more than one example of what I say if I had Gruter or Orellius at hand. It would be quite natural for a lover to see Venus in a dream and to fancy that she ordered him to give a gold bracelet to her statue. So Myron consecrated a bracelet to her; then the barbarians, or some sacrilegious thief——”
“Ah! it is easy to see that you have written novels!” cried my host, giving me his hand to help me descend. “No, monsieur, it is a work of the school of Myron. Look at the workmanship simply and you will agree.”
Having made it a rule never to contradict outright an obstinate antiquarian, I hung my head with the air of one fully persuaded, saying:
“It’s an admirable thing.”
“Ah! mon Dieu!” cried M. de Peyrehorade; “still another piece of vandalism! Somebody must have thrown a stone at my statue!”
He had just discovered a white mark a little above Venus’s breast. I observed a similar mark across the fingers of the right hand, which I then supposed had been grazed by the stone; or else that a fragment of the stone had been broken off by the blow and had bounded against the hand. I told my host about the insult that I had witnessed, and the speedy retribution that had followed. He laughed heartily, and, comparing the apprentice to Diomedes, expressed a hope that, like the Grecian hero, he might see all his companions transformed into birds.
The breakfast bell interrupted this classical conversation, and I was again obliged, as on the preceding day, to eat for four. Then M. de Peyrehorade’s farmers appeared; and while he gave audience to them, his son took me to see a calèche which he had bought at Toulouse for his fiancée, and which I admired, it is needless to say. Then I went with him into the stable, where he kept me half an hour, boasting of his horses, giving me their genealogies, and telling me of the prizes they had won at various races in the province. At last he reached the subject of his future wife, by a natural transition from a gray mare he intended for her.
“We shall see her to-day,” he said. “I do not know whether you will think her pretty; but everybody here and at Perpignan considers her charming. The best thing about her is that she’s very rich. Her aunt at Prades left her all her property. Oh! I am going to be very happy.”
I was intensely disgusted to see a young man more touched by the dowry than by the beaux yeux of his betrothed.
“You know something about jewels,” continued M. Alphonse; “what do you think of this one? This is the ring that I am going to give her to-morrow.”
As he spoke, he took from the first joint of his little finger a huge ring with many diamonds, made in the shape of two clasped hands; an allusion which seemed to me exceedingly poetical. The workmanship was very old, but I judged that it had been changed somewhat to allow the diamonds to be set. On the inside of the ring were these words in Gothic letters: Sempr’ ab ti; that is to say, “Always with thee.”
“It is a handsome ring,” I said, “but these diamonds have taken away something of its character.”
“Oh! it is much handsomer so,” he replied, with a smile. “There are twelve hundred francs’ worth of diamonds. My mother gave it to me. It was a very old family ring—of the times of chivalry. It belonged to my grandmother, who had it from hers. God knows when it was made.”
“The custom in Paris,” I said, “is to give a very simple ring, usually made of two different metals, as gold and platinum, for instance. See, that other ring, which you wear on this finger, would be most suitable. This one, with its diamonds and its hands in relief, is so big that one could not wear a glove over it.”
“Oh! Madame Alphonse may arrange that as she pleases. I fancy that she will be very glad to have it all the same. Twelve hundred francs on one’s finger is very pleasant. This little ring,” he added, glancing fatuously at the plain one which he wore, “was given me by a woman in Paris one Mardi Gras. Ah! how I did go it when I was in Paris two years ago! That’s the place where one enjoys one’s self!”
And he heaved a sigh of regret.
We were to dine that day at Puygarrig with the bride’s parents; we drove in the calèche to the château, about a league and a half from Ille. I was presented and made welcome as a friend of the family. I will say nothing of the dinner or of the conversation which followed it, and in which I took little part. M. Alphonse, seated beside his fiancée, said a word in her ear every quarter of an hour. As for her, she hardly raised her eyes, and whenever her future husband addressed her she blushed modestly, but replied without embarrassment.
Mademoiselle de Puygarrig was eighteen years of age; her supple and delicate figure formed a striking contrast to the bony frame of her athletic fiancé. She was not only lovely, but fascinating. I admired the perfect naturalness of all her replies; and her good-humoured air, which however was not exempt from a slight tinge of mischief, reminded me, in spite of myself, of my host’s Venus. As I made this comparison mentally, I asked myself whether the superiority in the matter of beauty which I could not choose but accord to the statue, did not consist in large measure in her tigress-like expression; for energy, even in evil passions, always arouses in us a certain surprise and a sort of involuntary admiration.
“What a pity,” I said to myself as we left Puygarrig, “that such an attractive person should be rich, and that her dowry should cause her to be sought in marriage by a man who is unworthy of her!”
On the way back to Ille, finding some difficulty in talking with Madame de Peyrehorade, whom, however, I thought it only courteous to address now and then, I exclaimed:
“You are very strong-minded here in Roussillon! To think of having a wedding on a Friday, madame! We are more superstitious in Paris; no one would dare to take a wife on that day.”
“Mon Dieu! don’t mention it,” said she; “if it had depended on me, they certainly would have chosen another day. But Peyrehorade would have it so, and I had to give way to him. It distresses me, however. Suppose anything should happen? There must surely be some reason for the superstition, for why else should every one be afraid of Friday?”
“Friday!” cried her husband; “Friday is Venus’s day! A splendid day for a wedding! You see, my dear colleague, I think of nothing but my Venus. On my honour, it was on her account that I chose a Friday. To-morrow, if you are willing, before the wedding, we will offer a little sacrifice to her; we will sacrifice two pigeons, if I can find any incense.”
“For shame, Peyrehorade!” his wife interposed, scandalised to the last degree. “Burn incense to an idol! That would be an abomination! What would people in the neighbourhood say about you?”
“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.’
The charter, you see, monsieur, is an empty word; we have no freedom of worship!”
The order of ceremonies for the following day was thus arranged: everybody was to be fully dressed and ready at precisely ten o’clock. After taking a cup of chocolate, we were to drive to Puygarrig. The civil ceremony would take place at the mayor’s office of that village, and the religious ceremony in the chapel of the château. Then there would be a breakfast. After that, we were to pass the time as best we could until seven o’clock, when we were to return to Ille, to M. de Peyrehorade’s, where the two families were to sup together. The rest followed as a matter of course. Being unable to dance, the plan was to eat as much as possible.
At eight o’clock I was already seated in front of the Venus, pencil in hand, beginning for the twentieth time to draw the head of the statue, whose expression I was still absolutely unable to catch. M. de Peyrehorade hovered about me, gave me advice, and repeated his Phœnician etymologies; then he arranged some Bengal roses on the pedestal of the statue, and in a tragi-comic tone addressed supplications to it for the welfare of the couple who were to live under his roof. About nine o’clock he returned to the house to dress, and at the same time M. Alphonse appeared, encased in a tightly fitting new coat, white gloves, patent-leather shoes, and carved buttons, with a rose in his buttonhole.
“Will you paint my wife’s portrait?” he asked, leaning over my drawing; “she is pretty, too.”
At that moment a game of tennis began on the court I have mentioned, and it immediately attracted M. Alphonse’s attention. And I myself, being rather tired, and hopeless of being able to reproduce that diabolical face, soon left my drawing to watch the players. Among them were several Spanish muleteers who had arrived in the town the night before. There were Aragonese and Navarrese, almost all wonderfully skillful at the game. So that the men of Ille, although encouraged by the presence and counsels of M. Alphonse, were speedily beaten by these new champions. The native spectators were appalled. M. Alphonse glanced at his watch. It was only half after nine. His mother’s hair was not dressed. He no longer hesitated, but took off his coat, asked for a jacket, and challenged the Spaniards. I watched him, smiling at his eagerness, and a little surprised.
“I must uphold the honour of the province,” he said to me.
At that moment I considered him really handsome. He was thoroughly in earnest. His costume, which engrossed him so completely a moment before, was of no consequence. A few minutes earlier he was afraid to turn his head for fear of disarranging his cravat. Now, he paid no heed to his carefully curled locks, or to his beautifully laundered ruff. And his fiancée?—Faith, I believe that, if it had been necessary, he would have postponed the wedding. I saw him hastily put on a pair of sandals, turn back his sleeves, and with an air of confidence take his place at the head of the beaten side, like Cæsar rallying his legions at Dyrrhachium. I leaped over the hedge and found a convenient place in the shade of a plum-tree, where I could see both camps.
Contrary to general expectation, M. Alphonse missed the first ball; to be sure, it skimmed along the ground, driven with astounding force by an Aragonese who seemed to be the leader of the Spaniards.
He was a man of some forty years, thin and wiry, about six feet tall; and his olive skin was almost as dark as the bronze of the Venus.
M. Alphonse dashed his racquet to the ground in a passion.
“It was this infernal ring,” he cried: “it caught my finger and made me miss a sure ball!”
He removed the diamond ring, not without difficulty, and I stepped forward to take it; but he anticipated me, ran to the Venus, slipped the ring on her third finger, and resumed his position at the head of his townsmen.
He was pale, but calm and determined. Thereafter he did not make a single mistake, and the Spaniards were completely routed. The enthusiasm of the spectators was a fine spectacle; some shouted for joy again and again, and tossed their caps in the air; others shook his hands and called him an honour to the province. If he had repelled an invasion, I doubt whether he would have received more enthusiastic and more sincere congratulations. The chagrin of the defeated party added still more to the splendour of his victory.
“We will play again, my good fellow,” he said to the Aragonese in a lofty tone; “but I will give you points.”
I should have been glad if M. Alphonse had been more modest, and I was almost distressed by his rival’s humiliation. The Spanish giant felt the insult keenly. I saw him turn pale under his tanned skin. He glanced with a sullen expression at his racquet, and ground his teeth; then he muttered in a voice choked with rage:
“Me lo pagarás!”
M. de Peyrehorade’s appearance interrupted his son’s triumph. My host, greatly surprised not to find him superintending the harnessing of the new calèche, was much more surprised when he saw him drenched with perspiration, and with his racquet in his hand. M. Alphonse ran to the house, washed his face and hands, resumed his new coat and his patent-leather boots, and five minutes later we were driving rapidly toward Puygarrig. All the tennis players of the town and a great number of spectators followed us with joyous shouts. The stout horses that drew us could hardly keep in advance of those dauntless Catalans.
We had reached Puygarrig, and the procession was about to start for the mayor’s office, when M. Alphonse put his hand to his forehead and whispered to me:
“What a fool I am! I have forgotten the ring! It is on the Venus’s finger, the devil take her! For Heaven’s sake, don’t tell my mother. Perhaps she will not notice anything.”
“You might send some one to get it,” I said.
“No, no! my servant stayed at Ille, and I don’t trust these people here. Twelve hundred francs’ worth of diamonds! that might be too much of a temptation for more than one of them. Besides, what would they all think of my absent-mindedness? They would make too much fun of me. They would call me the statue’s husband.—However, I trust that no one will steal it. Luckily, all my knaves are afraid of the idol. They don’t dare go within arm’s length of it.—Bah! it’s no matter; I have another ring.”
The two ceremonies, civil and religious, were performed with suitable pomp, and Mademoiselle de Puygarrig received a ring that formerly belonged to a milliner’s girl at Paris, with no suspicion that her husband was bestowing upon her a pledge of love. Then we betook ourselves to the table, where we ate and drank, yes, and sang, all at great length. I sympathised with the bride amid the vulgar merriment that burst forth all about her; however, she put a better face on it than I could have hoped, and her embarrassment was neither awkwardness nor affectation. It may be that courage comes of itself with difficult situations.
The breakfast came to an end when God willed; it was four o’clock; the men went out to walk in the park, which was magnificent, or watched the peasant girls of Puygarrig, dressed in their gala costumes, dance on the lawn in front of the château. In this way, we passed several hours. Meanwhile the women were hovering eagerly about the bride, who showed them her wedding gifts. Then she changed her dress, and I observed that she had covered her lovely hair with a cap and a hat adorned with feathers; for there is nothing that wives are in such a hurry to do as to assume as soon as possible those articles of apparel which custom forbids them to wear when they are still unmarried.
It was nearly eight o’clock when we prepared to start for Ille. But before we started there was a pathetic scene. Mademoiselle de Puygarrig’s aunt, who had taken the place of a mother to her, a woman of a very advanced age and very religious, was not to go to the town with us. At our departure, she delivered a touching sermon to her niece on her duties as a wife, the result of which was a torrent of tears, and embraces without end. M. de Peyrehorade compared this separation to the abduction of the Sabine women.
We started at last, however, and on the road we all exerted ourselves to the utmost to divert the bride and make her laugh; but it was all to no purpose.
At Ille supper awaited us, and such a supper! If the vulgar hilarity of the morning had disgusted me, I was fairly sickened by the equivocal remarks and jests which were aimed at the groom, and especially at the bride. M. Alphonse, who had disappeared a moment before taking his place at the table, was as pale as death and as solemn as an iceberg. He kept drinking old Collioure wine, almost as strong as brandy. I was by his side and felt in duty bound to warn him.
“Take care! they say that this wine——”
I have no idea what foolish remark I made, to put myself in unison with the other guests.
He pressed my knee with his and said in a very low tone:
“When we leave the table, let me have a word with you.”
His solemn tone surprised me. I looked at him more closely and noticed the extraordinary change in his expression.
“Are you feeling ill?” I asked him.
“No.”
And he returned to his drinking.
Meanwhile, amid shouts and clapping of hands, a child of eleven years, who had slipped under the table, exhibited to the guests a dainty white and rose-coloured ribbon which he had taken from the bride’s ankle. They called that her garter. It was immediately cut into pieces and distributed among the young men, who decorated their buttonholes with them, according to an ancient custom still observed in some patriarchal families. This episode caused the bride to blush to the whites of her eyes. But her confusion reached its height when M. de Peyrehorade, having called for silence, sang some Catalan verses, impromptu, so he said. Their meaning, so far as I understood it, was this:
“Pray, what is this, my friends? Does the wine I have drunk make me see double? There are two Venuses here——”
The bridegroom abruptly turned his head away with a terrified expression which made everybody laugh.
“Yes,” continued M. de Peyrehorade, “there are two Venuses beneath my roof. One I found in the earth, like a truffle; the other, descended from the skies, has come to share her girdle with us.”
He meant to say her garter.
“My son, choose whichever you prefer—the Roman or the Catalan Venus. The rascal chooses the Catalan, and his choice is wise. The Roman is black, the Catalan white. The Roman is cold, the Catalan inflames all who approach her.”
This deliverance caused such an uproar, such noisy applause and such roars of laughter, that I thought that the ceiling would fall on our heads. There were only three sober faces at the table—those of the bride and groom, and my own. I had a terrible headache; and then, for some unknown reason, a wedding always depresses me. This one, in addition, disgusted me more or less.
The last couplets having been sung by the mayor’s deputy—and they were very free, I must say—we went to the salon to make merry over the retirement of the bride, who was soon to be escorted to her chamber, for it was near midnight.
M. Alphonse led me into a window recess, and said to me, averting his eyes:
“You will laugh at me, but I don’t know what the matter is with me; I am bewitched! the devil has got hold of me!”
The first idea that came to my mind was that he believed himself to be threatened by some misfortune of the sort of which Montaigne and Madame de Sévigné speak:
“The sway of love is always full of tragic episodes,” etc.
“I supposed that accidents of that sort happened only to men of intellect,” I said to myself.—“You have drunk too much Collioure wine, my dear Monsieur Alphonse,” I said aloud. “I warned you.”
“Yes, that may be. But there is something much more terrible than that.”
He spoke in a halting voice. I concluded that he was downright tipsy.
“You remember my ring?” he continued, after a pause.
“Well! has it been stolen?”
“No.”
“Then you have it?”
“No—I—I can’t take it off that infernal Venus’s finger!”
“Nonsense! you didn’t pull hard enough.”
“Yes, I did. But the Venus—she has bent her finger.”
He looked me in the eye with a haggard expression, leaning against the window-frame to avoid falling.
“What a fable!” I said. “You pushed the ring on too far. To-morrow you can recover it with a pair of pincers. But take care that you don’t injure the statue.”
“No, I tell you. The Venus’s finger is drawn in, bent; she has closed her hand—do you understand? She is my wife, apparently, as I have given her my ring. She refuses to give it back.”
I felt a sudden shiver, and for a moment I was all goose-flesh. Then, as he heaved a profound sigh, he sent a puff of alcoholic fumes into my face, and all my emotion vanished.
“The wretch is completely drunk,” I thought.
“You are an antiquary, monsieur,” continued the bridegroom in a piteous tone; “you know all about these statues; perhaps there is some spring, some devilish contrivance that I don’t know about. Suppose you were to go out and look?”
“Willingly,” I said; “come with me.”
“No, I prefer that you should go alone.”
I left the salon.
The weather had changed while we were at supper, and the rain was beginning to fall violently. I was about to ask for an umbrella when a sudden reflection detained me. “I should be a great fool,” I said to myself, “to take any trouble to verify what an intoxicated man tells me! Perhaps, too, he is trying to play some wretched joke on me, in order to give these worthy provincials something to laugh at; and the least that can happen to me is to be drenched to the skin and to catch a heavy cold.”
I glanced from the door at the statue, which was dripping wet, and then went up to my room without returning to the salon. I went to bed, but sleep was a long while coming. All the scenes of the day passed through my mind. I thought of that lovely, pure maiden delivered to the tender mercies of a brutal sot. “What a hateful thing a mariage de convenance is!” I said to myself. “A mayor dons a tri-coloured scarf, a curé a stole, and lo! the most virtuous girl imaginable is abandoned to the Minotaur! Two persons who do not love each other—what can they have to say at such a moment, which two true lovers would purchase at the cost of their lives? Can a woman ever love a man whom she has once seen make a beast of himself? First impressions are not easily effaced, and I am sure that this Monsieur Alphonse well deserves to be detested.”
During my monologue, which I have abridged very materially, I had heard much coming and going about the house, doors opening and closing, carriages driving away; then I fancied that I heard in the hall the light footsteps of several women walking toward the farther end of the corridor opposite my room. It was probably the procession of the bride, who was being escorted to her bedroom. Then I heard the steps go downstairs again. Madame de Peyrehorade’s door closed.
“How perturbed and ill at ease that poor child must be,” I thought.
I turned and twisted in my bed, in an execrable humour. A bachelor plays an absurd rôle in a house where a marriage is being celebrated.
Silence had reigned for some time, when it was broken by heavy steps ascending the staircase. The wooden stairs creaked loudly.
“What a brute!” I cried. “I’ll wager that he will fall on the stairs!”
Everything became quiet once more. I took up a book in order to change the current of my thoughts. It was a volume of departmental statistics, embellished by an article from the pen of M. de Peyrehorade on the druidical remains in the arrondissement of Prades. I dozed at the third page.
I slept badly and woke several times. It might have been five o’clock, and I had been awake more than twenty minutes, when a cock crew. Day was just breaking. Suddenly I heard the same heavy steps, the same creaking of the stairs that I had heard before I fell asleep. That struck me as peculiar. I tried, yawning sleepily, to divine why M. Alphonse should rise so early. I could imagine no probable cause. I was about to close my eyes again when my attention was once more attracted by a strange tramping, to which was soon added the jangling of bells and the noise of doors violently thrown open; then I distinguished confused outcries.
“My drunkard must have set fire to something!” I thought, as I leaped out of bed.
I dressed in hot haste and went out into the corridor. From the farther end came shrieks and lamentations, and one heartrending voice rose above all the rest: “My son! my son!” It was evident that something had happened to M. Alphonse. I ran to the bridal chamber; it was full of people. The first object that caught my eye was the young man, half dressed, lying across the bed, the framework of which was broken. He was livid and absolutely motionless. His mother was weeping and shrieking by his side. M. de Peyrehorade was bustling about, rubbing his temples with eau de cologne, or holding salts to his nose. Alas! his son had been dead a long while.
On a couch, at the other end of the room, was the bride, in frightful convulsions. She was uttering incoherent cries, and two strong maidservants had all the difficulty in the world in holding her.
“Great God!” I cried, “what has happened?”
I walked to the bed and raised the unfortunate young man’s body; it was already cold and stiff. His clenched teeth and livid face expressed the most horrible anguish. It seemed perfectly evident that his death had been a violent one, and the death agony indescribably terrible. But there was no sign of blood on his clothes. I opened his shirt and found on his breast a purple mark which extended around the loins and across the back. One would have said that he had been squeezed by an iron ring. My foot came in contact with something hard on the carpet; I stooped and saw the diamond ring.
I dragged M. de Peyrehorade and his wife to their room; then I caused the bride to be taken thither.
“You still have a daughter,” I said to them; “you owe to her your devoted care.”
Then I left them alone.
It seemed to me to be beyond question that M. Alphonse had been the victim of a murder, the authors of which had found a way to introduce themselves into the bride’s bedroom at night. The marks on the breast and their circular character puzzled me a good deal, however, for a club or an iron bar could not have produced them. Suddenly I remembered having heard that in Valencia the bravi used long leather bags filled with fine sand to murder people whom they were hired to kill. I instantly recalled the Aragonese muleteer and his threat; and yet I hardly dared think that he would have wreaked such a terrible vengeance for a trivial jest.
I walked about the house, looking everywhere for traces of a break, and finding nothing. I went down into the garden, to see whether the assassins might have forced their way in on that side of the house; but I found no definite indications. Indeed, the rain of the preceding night had so saturated the ground that it could not have retained any distinct impression. I observed, however, several very deep footprints; they pointed in two opposite directions, but in the same line, leading from the corner of the hedge next the tennis-court to the gateway of the house. They might well be M. Alphonse’s steps when he went out to take his ring from the finger of the statue. On the other hand, the hedge was less dense at that point than elsewhere, and the murderers might have passed through it there. As I went back and forth in front of the statue, I paused a moment to look at it. That time, I will confess, I was unable to contemplate without terror its expression of devilish irony; and, with my head full of the horrible scenes I had witnessed, I fancied that I had before me an infernal divinity, exulting over the disaster that had stricken that house.
I returned to my room and remained there till noon. Then I went out and inquired concerning my hosts. They were a little calmer. Mademoiselle de Puygarrig—I should say M. Alphonse’s widow—had recovered her senses. She had even talked with the king’s attorney from Perpignan, then on circuit at Ille, and that magistrate had taken her deposition. He desired mine also. I told him what I knew and made no secret of my suspicions of the Aragonese muleteer. He ordered that he should be arrested immediately.
“Did you learn anything from Madame Alphonse?” I asked the king’s attorney, when my deposition was written out and signed.
“That unfortunate young woman has gone mad,” he replied, with a sad smile. “Mad! absolutely mad! This is what she told me:
“She had been in bed, she said, a few minutes, with the curtains drawn, when her bedroom door opened and some one came in. At that time Madame Alphonse was on the inside of the bed, with her face towards the wall. Supposing, of course, that it was her husband, she did not move. A moment later, the bed creaked as if under an enormous weight. She was terribly frightened, but dared not turn her head. Five minutes, ten minutes perhaps,—she can only guess at the time—passed in this way. Then she made an involuntary movement, or else the other person in the bed made one, and she felt the touch of something as cold as ice—that was her expression. She moved closer to the wall, trembling in every limb. Shortly after, the door opened a second time, and some one came in, who said: ‘Good-evening, my little wife.’ Soon the curtains were drawn aside. She heard a stifled cry. The person who was in the bed by her side sat up and seemed to put out its arms. Thereupon she turned her head, and saw, so she declares, her husband on his knees beside the bed, with his head on a level with the pillow, clasped in the arms of a sort of greenish giant, who was squeezing him with terrible force. She says—and she repeated it twenty times, poor woman!—she says that she recognised—can you guess whom?—the bronze Venus, M. de Peyrehorade’s statue. Since she was unearthed, the whole neighbourhood dreams of her. But I continue the story of that unhappy mad woman. At that sight she lost consciousness, and it is probable that she had lost her reason some moments before. She could give me no idea at all how long she remained in her swoon. Recovering her senses, she saw the phantom, or, as she still insists, the statue, motionless, with its legs and the lower part of the body in the bed, the bust and arms stretched out, and in its arms her husband, also motionless. A cock crew. Thereupon the statue got out of bed, dropped the dead body, and left the room. Madame Alphonse rushed for the bell-cord, and you know the rest.”
The Spaniard was arrested; he was calm, and defended himself with much self-possession and presence of mind. He did not deny making the remark I had overheard; but he explained it by saying that he had meant simply this: that, on the following day, having rested meanwhile, he would beat his victorious rival at tennis. I remember that he added:
“An Aragonese, when he is insulted, doesn’t wait until the next day for his revenge. If I had thought that Monsieur Alphonse intended to insult me, I would have driven my knife into his belly on the spot.”
His shoes were compared with the footprints in the garden, and were found to be much larger.
Lastly, the innkeeper at whose house he was staying deposed that he had passed the whole night rubbing and doctoring one of his mules, which was sick. Furthermore, the Aragonese was a man of excellent reputation, well known in the province, where he came every year in the course of his business. So he was released with apologies.
I have forgotten the deposition of a servant, who was the last person to see M. Alphonse alive. It was just as he was going up to his wife; he called the man and asked him with evident anxiety if he knew where I was. The servant replied that he had not seen me. Thereupon M. Alphonse sighed and stood more than a minute without speaking; then he said:
“Well! the devil must have taken him away, too!”
I asked him if M. Alphonse had his diamond ring on his finger when he spoke to him. The servant hesitated before he replied; at last he said that he did not think so, but that he had not noticed particularly.
“If he had had that ring on his finger,” he added upon reflection, “I should certainly have noticed it, for I thought that he had given it to Madame Alphonse.”
As I questioned this man, I was conscious of a touch of the superstitious terror with which Madame Alphonse’s deposition had infected the whole household. The king’s attorney glanced at me with a smile, and I did not persist.
Some hours after M. Alphonse’s funeral, I prepared to leave Ille. M. de Peyrehorade’s carriage was to take me to Perpignan. Despite his enfeebled condition, the poor old man insisted upon attending me to his garden gate. We passed through the garden in silence; he, hardly able to drag himself alone, leaning on my arm. As we were about to part, I cast a last glance at the Venus. I foresaw that my host, although he did not share the terror and detestation which she inspired in a portion of his family, would be glad to be rid of an object which would constantly remind him of a shocking calamity. It was my purpose to urge him to place it in some museum. I hesitated about opening the subject, when M. de Peyrehorade mechanically turned his head in the direction in which he saw that I was gazing earnestly. His eye fell upon the statue, and he instantly burst into tears. I embraced him, and, afraid to say a single word, entered the carriage.
I never learned, subsequent to my departure, that any new light had been thrown upon that mysterious catastrophe.
M. de Peyrehorade died a few months after his son. By his will he bequeathed to me his manuscripts, which I shall publish some day, perhaps. I found among them no memoir relating to the inscriptions on the Venus.
P. S.—My friend M. de P. has recently written me from Perpignan that the statue no longer exists. After her husband’s death, Madame de Peyrehorade’s first care was to have it melted into a bell, and in that new shape it is now used in the church at Ille.
“But,” M. de P. adds, “it would seem that an evil fate pursues all those who possess that bronze. Since that bell has rung at Ille the vines have frozen twice.”