第24章

After having read fifteen pages, evidently written by some ignorant and careless scribe, for I could scarcely discern their meaning, I plunged my hand into the pocket of my coat to get my snuff-box;but this movement, usually so natural and almost instinctive, this time cost me some effort and even fatigue.Nevertheless, I got out the silver box, and took from it a pinch of the odorous powder, which, somehow or other, I managed to spill all over my shirt-bosom under my baffled nose.I am sure my nose must have expressed its disappointment, for it is a very expressive nose.More than once it has betrayed my secret thoughts, and especially upon a certain occasion at the public library of Coutances, where I discovered, right in front of my colleague Brioux, the "Cartulary of Notre-Dame-des-Anges."

What a delight! My little eyes remained as dull and expressionless as ever behind my spectacles.But at the mere sight of my thick pug-nose, which quivered with joy and pride, Brioux knew that I had found something.He noted the volume I was looking at, observed the place where I put it back, pounced upon it as soon as I turned my heel, copied it secretly, and published in haste, for the sake of playing me a trick.But his edition swarms with errors, and I had the satisfaction of afterwards criticising some of the gross blunders he made.

But to come back to the point at which I left off: I began to suspect that I was getting very sleepy indeed.I was looking at a chart of which the interest may be divined from the fact that it contained mention of a hutch sold to Jehan d'Estonville, priest, in 1312.But although, even then, I could recognise the importance of the document, I did not give it that attention it so strongly invited.My eyes would keep turning, against my will, towards a certain corner of the table where there was nothing whatever interesting to a learned mind.

There was only a big German book there, bound in pigskin, with brass studs on the sides, and very thick cording upon the back.It was a find copy of a compilation which has little to recommend it except the wood engravings it contains, and which is known as the "Cosmography of Munster." This volume, with its covers slightly open, was placed upon edge with the back upwards.

I could not say for how long I had been staring causelessly at the sixteenth-century folio, when my eyes were captivated by a sight so extraordinary that even a person as devoid of imagination as I could not but have been greatly astonished by it.

I perceived, all of a sudden, without having noticed her coming into the room, a little creature seated on the back of the book, with one knee bent and one leg hanging down--somewhat in the attitude of the amazons of Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne on horseback.She was so small that her swinging foot did not reach the table, over which the trail of her dress extended in a serpentine line.But her face and figure were those of an adult.The fulness of her corsage and the roundness of her waist could leave no doubt of that, even for an old savant like myself.I will venture to add that she was very handsome, with a proud mien; for my iconographic studies have long accustomed me to recognise at once the perfection of a type and the character of a physiognomy.The countenance of this lady who had seated herself inopportunely on the back of "Cosmography of Munster" expressed a mingling of haughtiness and mischievousness.

She had the air of a queen, but a capricious queen; and I judged, from the mere expression of her eyes, that she was accustomed to wield great authority somewhere, in a very whimsical manner.Her mouth was imperious and mocking, and those blue eyes of hers seemed to laugh in a disquieting way under her finely arched black eyebrows.

I have always heard that black eyebrows are very becoming to blondes;but this lady was very blonde.On the whole, the impression she gave me was one of greatness.

It may seem odd to say that a person who was no taller than a wine-bottle, and who might have been hidden in my coat pocket--but that it would have been very disrespectful to put her in it--gave me precisely an idea of greatness.But in the fine proportions of the lady seated upon the "Cosmography of Munster" there was such a proud elegance, such a harmonious majesty, and she maintained an attitude at once so easy and so noble, that she really seemed to me a very great person.Although my ink-bottle, which she examined with an expression of such mockery as appeared to indicate that she knew in advance every word that would come out of it at the end of my pen, was for her a deep basin in which she would have blackened her gold-clocked pink stockings up to the garter, I can assure you that she was great, and imposing even in her sprightliness.

Her costume, worthy of her face, was extremely magnificent; it consisted of a robe of gold-and-silver brocade, and a mantle of nacarat velvet, lined with vair.Her head-dress was a sort of hennin, with two high points; and pearls of splendid lustre made it bright and luminous as a crescent moon.Her little white hand held a wand.That wand drew my attention very strongly, because my archaeological studies had taught me to recognise with certainty every sign by which the notable personages of legend and of history are distinguished.This knowledge came to my aid during various very queer conjectures with which I was labouring.I examined the wand, and saw that it appeared to have been cut from a branch of hazel.

"Then its a fairy's wand," I said to myself; "consequently the lady who carries it is a fairy."Happy at thus discovering what sort of a person was before me, I tried to collect my mind sufficiently to make her a graceful compliment.