第25章
It would have given me much satisfaction, I confess, if I could have talked to her about the part taken by her people, not less in the life of the Saxon and Germanic races, than in that of the Latin Occident.Such a dissertation, it appeared to me, would have been an ingenious method of thanking the lady for having thus appeared to an old scholar, contrary to the invariable custom of her kindred, who never show themselves but to innocent children or ignorant village-folk.
Because one happens to be a fairy, one is none the less a woman, Isaid to myself; and since Madame Recamier, according to what I heard J.J.Ampere say, used to blush with pleasure when the little chimney-sweeps opened their eyes as wide as they could to look at her, surely the supernatural lady seated upon the "Cosmography of Munster" might feel flattered to hear an erudite man discourse learnedly about her, as about a medal, a seal, a fibula, or a token.But such an undertaking, which would have cost my timidity a great deal, became totally out of the question when I observed the Lady of the Cosmography suddenly take from an alms purse hanging at her girdle the very smallest of nuts I had ever seen, crack the shells between her teeth, and throw them at my nose, while she nibbled the kernels with the gravity of a sucking child.
At this conjuncture, I did what the dignity of science demanded of me--I remained silent.But the nut-shells caused such a painful tickling that I put up my hand to my nose, and found, to my great surprise, that my spectacles were straddling the very end of it--so that I was actually looking at the lady, not through my spectacles, but over them.This was incomprehensible, because my eyes, worn out over old texts, cannot ordinarily distinguish anything without glasses--could not tell a melon from a decanter, though the two were placed close up to my nose.
That nose of mine, remarkable for its size, its shape, and its coloration, legitimately attracted the attention of the fairy; for she seized my goose-quill pen, which was sticking up from the ink-bottle like a plume, and she began to pass the feather-end of that pen over my nose.I had had more than once, in company, occasion to suffer cheerfully from the innocent mischief of young ladies, who made me join their games, and would offer me their cheeks to kiss through the back of a chair, or invite me to blow out a candle which they would lift suddenly above the range of my breath.But until that moment no person of the fair sex had ever subjected me to such a whimsical piece of familiarity as that of tickling my nose with my own feather pen.Happily I remembered the maxim of my late grandfather, who was accustomed to say that everything was permissible on the part of ladies, and that whatever they do to us is to be regarded as a grace and a favour.Therefore, as a grace and a favour I received the nutshells and the titillations with my own pen, and I tried to smile.Much more!--I even found speech.
"Madame," I said, with dignified politeness, "you accord the honour of a visit not to a silly child, not to a boor, but to a bibliophile who is very happy to make your acquaintance, and who knows that long ago you used to make elf-knots in the manes of mares at the crib, drink the milk from the skimming-pails, slip graines-a-gratter down the backs of our great-grandmothers, make the hearth sputter in the faces of the old folks, and, in short, fill the house with disorder and gaiety.You can also boast of giving the nicest frights in the world to lovers who stayed out in the woods too late of evenings.
But I thought you had vanished out of existence at least three centuries ago.Can it really be, Madame, that you are still to be seen in this age of railways and telegraphs? My concierge, who used to be a nurse in her young days, does not know your story; and my little boy-neighbour, whose nose is still wiped for him by his bonne, declares that you do not exist.""What do you yourself think about it?" she cried, in a silvery voice, straightening up her royal little figure in a very haughty fashion, and whipping the back of the "Cosmography of Munster" as though it were a hippogriff.
"I don't really know," I answered rubbing my eyes.
This reply, indicating a deeply scientific scepticism, had the most deplorable effect upon my questioner.
"Monsieur Sylvestre Bonnard," she said to me, "you are nothing but an old pedant.I always suspected as much.The smallest little ragamuffin who goes along the road with his shirt-tail sticking out through a hole in his pantaloons knows more about me than all the old spectacled folks in your Institutes and your Academies.To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.Nothing exists except that which is imagined.I am imaginary.That is what it is to exist, I should think! I am dreamed of, and I appear.Everything is only dream; and as nobody ever dreams about you, Sylvestre Bonnard, it is YOU who do not exist.I charm the world; I am everywhere--on a moon-beam, in the trembling of a hidden spring, in the moving of leaves that murmur, in the white vapours that rise each morning from the hollow meadow, in the thickets of pink brier--everywhere!...
I am seen; I am loved.There are sighs uttered, weird thrills of pleasure felt by those who follow the light print of my feet, as Imake the dead leaves whisper.I make the little children smile; Igive wit to the dullest-minded nurses.Leaning above the cradles, I play, I comfort, I lull to sleep--and you doubt whether I exist!
Sylvestre Bonnard, your warm coat covers the hide of an ass!"She ceased speaking; her delicate nostrils swelled with indignation;and while I admired, despite my vexation, the heroic anger of this little person, hse pushed my pen about in the ink-bottle, backward and forward, like an oar, and then suddenly threw it at my nose, point first.
I rubbed by face, and felt it all covered with ink.She had disappeared.My lamp was extinguished.A ray of moonlight streamed down through a window and descended upon the "Cosmography of Munster."A strong cool wind, which had arisen very suddenly without my knowledge, was blowing my papers, pens, and wafers about.My table was all stained with ink.I had left my window open during the storm.
What an imprudence!