第16章

"Yes, Madame," I said, "but that abominable Polizzi, to whom I advise you not to send Monsieur Trepof, has made me fall out for ever with Empedocles; and this portrait is not at all of a nature to make me feel more kindly to the ancient philosopher.""Oh!" declared Madame Trepof, "it is ugly, but it is rare! These boxes are not exported at all; you can buy them only where they are made.Dimitri has six others just like this in his pocket.We got them so as to exchange with other collectors.You understand?

At none o'clock this morning we were at the factory.You see we did not waste our time.""So I certainly perceive, Madame," I replied, bitterly; "but I have lost mine."I then saw that she was a naturally good-hearted woman.All her merriment vanished.

"Poor Monsieur Bonnard! poor Monsieur Bonnard!" she murmured.

And, taking my hand in hers, she added:

"Tell me about your troubles."

I told her about them.My story was long; but she was evidently touched by it, for she asked me quite a number of circumstantial questions, which I took for proof of her friendly interest.She wanted to know the exact title of the manuscript, its shape, its appearance, and its age; she asked me for the address of Signor Rafael Polizzi.

And I gave it to her; thus doing (O destiny!) precisely what the abominable Polizzi had told me to do.

It is sometimes difficult to check oneself.I recommenced my plaints and my imprecations.But this time Madame Trepof only burst out laughing.

"Why do you laugh?" I asked her.

"Because I am a wicked woman," she answered.

And she fled away, leaving me all disheartened on my stone.

Paris, December 8, 1859.

My unpacked trunks still encumbered the hall.I was seated at a tabled covered with all those good things which the land of France produces for the delectation of gourmets.I was eating a pate le Chartres, which is alone sufficient to make one love one's country.Therese, standing before me with her hands joined over her white apron, was looking at me with benignity, with anxiety, and with pity.Hamilcar was rubbing himself against my legs, wild with delight.

These words of an old poet came back to my memory:

"Happy is he who, like Ulysses, hath made a goodly journey."..."Well," I thought to myself, "I travelled to no purpose; I have come back with empty hands; but, like Ulysses, I made a goodly journey."And having taken my last sip of coffee, I asked Therese for my hat and cane, which she gave me not without dire suspicions; she feared I might be going upon another journey.But I reassured her by telling her to have dinner ready at six o'clock.

It had always been a keen pleasure for me to breathe the air in those Parisian streets whose every paving-slab and every stone I love devotedly.But I had an end in view, and I took my way straight to the Rue Lafitte.I was not long in find the establishment of Signor Rafael Polizzi.It was distinguishable by a great display of old paintings which, although all bearing the signature of some illustrious artist, had a certain family air of resemblance that might have suggested some touching idea about the fraternity of genius, had it not still more forcibly suggested the professional tricks of Polizzi senior.Enriched by these doubtful works of art, the shop was further rendered attractive by various petty curiosities:

poniards, drinking-vessels, goblets, figulines, brass guadrons, and Hispano-Arabian wares of metallic lustre.

Upon a Portuguese arm-chair, decorated with an escutcheon, lay a copy of the "Heures" of Simon Vostre, open at the page which has an astrological figure on it; and an old Vitruvius, placed upon a quaint chest, displayed its masterly engravings of caryatides and telamones.

This apparent disorder which only masked cunning arrangement, this factitious hazard which had placed the best objects in the most favourable light, would have increased my distrust of the place, but that the distrust which the mere name of Polizzi had already inspired could not have been increased by any circumstances--being already infinite.

Signor Rafael, who sat there as the presiding genius of all these vague and incongruous shapes, impressed me as a phlegmatic young man, with a sort of English character.he betrayed no sign whatever of those transcendent faculties displayed by his father in the arts of mimcry and declamation.

I told him what I had come for; he opened a cabinet and drew from it a manuscript, which he placed on a table that I might examine it at my leisure.

Never in my life did I experience such an emotion--except, indeed, during some few brief months of my youth, months whose memories, though I should live a hundred years, would remain as fresh at my last hour as in the first day they came to me.

It was, indeed, the very manuscript described by the librarian of Sir Thomas Raleigh; it was, indeed, the manuscript of the Clerk Alexander which I saw, which I touched! The work of Voragine himself had been perceptibly abridged; but that made little difference to me.All the inestimable additions of the monk of Saint-Germain-des-Pres were there.That was the main point! I tried to read the Legend of Saint Droctoveus; but I could not--all the lines of the page quivered before my eyes, and there was a sound in my ears like the noise of a windmill in the country at night.Nevertheless, Iwas able to see that the manuscript offered every evidence of indubitable authenticity.The two drawings of the Purification of the Virgin and the Coronationof Proserpine were meagre in design and vulgar in violence of colouring.Considerably damaged in 1824, as attested by the catalogue of Sir Thomas, they had obtained during the interval a new aspect of freshness.But this miracle did not surprise me at all.And, besides, what did I care about the two miniatures? The legends and the poem of Alexander--those alone formed the treasure I desired.My eyes devoured as much of it as they had the power to absorb.