第43章

It was the first Thursday in June.I shut up my books and took my leave of the holy abbot Droctoveus, who, being now in the enjoyment of celestial bliss, cannot feel very impatient to behold his name and works glorified on earth through the humble compilation being prepared by my hands.Must I confess it? That mallow-plant Isaw visited by a bee the other day has been occupying my thoughts much more than all the ancient abbots who ever bore croisers or wore mitres.There is in one of Sprengel's books which I read in my youth, at that time when I used to read in my youth, at that time when I used to read anything and everything, some ideas about "the loves of flowers" which now return to memory after having been forgotten for half a century, and which to-day interest me so much that I regret not to have devoted the humble capacities of my mind to the study of insects and of plants.

And only awhile ago my housekeeper surprised me at the kitchen window, in the act of examining some wallflowers through a magnifying-glass....

It was while looking for my cravat that I made these reflections.

But after searching to no purpose in a great number of drawers, Ifound myself obliged, after all, to have recourse to my housekeeper.

Therese came limping in.

"Monsieur," she said, "you ought to have told me you were going out, and I would have given you your cravat!""But Therese," I replied, "would it not be a great deal better to put in some place where I could find it without your help?"Therese did not deign to answer me.

Therese no longer allows me to arrange anything.I cannot even have a handkerchief without asking her for it; and as she is deaf, crippled, and, what is worse, beginning to lose her memory, Ilanguish in perpetual destitution.But she exercises her domestic authority with such quiet pride that I do not feel the courage to attempt a coup d'etat against her government.

"My cravat! Therese!--do you hear?--my cravat! if you drive me wild like this with your slow ways, it will not be a cravat I shall need, but a rope to hang myself!""You must be in a very great hurry, Monsieur," replied Therese.

"Your cravat is not lost.Nothing is ever lost in this house, because I have charge of everything.But please allow me the time at least to find it.""Yet here," I thought to myself--"here is the result of half a century of devotedness and self-sacrifice!...Ah! if by any happy chance this inexorable Therese had once in her whole life, only once, failed in her duty as a servant--if she had ever been at fault for one single instant, she could never have assumed this inflexible authority over me, and I should at least have the courage to resist her.But how can one resist virtue? The people who have no weaknesses are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them.

Just look at Therese, for example; she has not a single fault for which you can blame her! She has no doubt of herself; nor of God, nor of the world.She is the valiant woman, the wise virgin of Scripture; others may know nothing about her, but I know her worth.

In my fancy I always see her carrying a lamp, a humble kitchen lamp, illuminating the beams of some rustic roof--a lamp which will never go out while suspended from that meagre arm of hers, scraggy and strong as a vine-branch.

"Therese, my cravat! Don't you know, wretched woman, that to-day is the first Thursday in June, and that Mademoiselle Jeanne will be waiting for me? The schoolmistress has certainly had the parlour floor vigorously waxed: I am sure one can look at oneself in it now; and it will be quite a consolation for me when I slip and break my old bones upon it--which is sure to happen sooner or later--to see my rueful countenance reflected in it as in a looking-glass.Then taking for my model that amiable and admirable hero whose image is carved upon the handle of Uncle Victor's walking-stick, I will control myself so as not to make too ugly a grimace....See what a splendid sun! The quays are all gilded by it, and the Seine smiles in countless little flashing wrinkles.

The city is gold: a dust-haze, blonde and gold-toned as a woman's hair, floats above its beautiful contours....Therese, my cravat!...

Ah! I can now comprehend the wisdom of that old Chrysal who used to keep his neckbands in a big Plutarch.Hereafter I shall follow his example by laying all my neckties away between the leaves of the Acta Sanctorum."Therese let me talk on, and keeps looking for the necktie in silence.

I hear a gentle ringing at our door-bell.

"Therese," I exclaim; "there is somebody ringing the bell! Give me my cravat, and go to the door; or, rather, go to the door first, and then, with the help of Heaven, you will give me my cravat.But please do not stand there between the clothes-press and the door like an old hack-horse between two saddles.

Therese marched to the door as if advancing upon the enemy.My excellent housekeeper becomes more inhospitable the older she grows.

Every stranger is an object of suspicion to her.According to her own assertion, this disposition is the result of a long experience with human nature.I had not the time to consider whether the same experience on the part of another experimenter would produce the same results.Maitre Mouche was waiting to see me in the ante-room.

Maitre Mouche is still more yellow than I had believed him to be.

He wears blue glasses, and his eyes keep moving uneasily behind them, like mice running about behind a screen.