第49章
And here is this handsome young man already inside; and I cannot really take the girl at once and hide her like a secret treasure in the next room.I wait for him to explain himself; he does it without the least embarrassment; but it seems to me that he has already observed the young girl who is still bending over the table looking at Vecellio.As I observe the young man it occurs to me that I have seen him somewhere before, or else I must be very much mistaken.
His name is Gelis.That is a name which I have heard somewhere,--Ican't remember where.At all events, Monsieur Gelis (since there is a Gelis) is a fine-looking young fellow.He tells me that this is his third class-year at the Ecole des Chartes, and that he has been working for the past fifteen or eighteen months upon his graduation thesis, the subject of which is the Condition of the Benedictine Abbeys in 1700.He has just read my works upon the "Monasticon"; and he is convinced that he cannot terminate this thesis successfully without my advice, to begin with, and in the second place without a certain manuscript which I possess, and which is nothing less than the "Register of the Accounts of the Abbey of Citeaux from 1683 to 1704."Having thus explained himself, he hands me a letter of introduction bearing the signature of one of the most illustrious of my colleagues.
Good! Now I know who he is! Monsieur Gelis is the very same young man who last year under the chestnut-trees called me an idiot! And while unfolding his letter of introduction I think to myself:
"Aha! my unlucky youth, you are very far from suspecting that Ioverheard what you said, and that I know what you think of me--or, at least, what you did think of me that day, for these young minds are so fickle? I have got you now, my friend! You have fallen into the lion's den, and so unexpectedly, in good sooth, that the astonished old lion does not know what to do with his prey.But come now, old lion! do not act like an idiot! Is it not possible that you were an idiot? If you are not one now, you certainly were one! You were a fool to have been listening to Monsieur Gelis at the foot of the statue of Marguerite de Valois; you were doubly a fool to have heard what he said; and you were trebly a fool not to have forgotten what it would have been much better never to have heard."Having thus scolded the old lion, I exhorted him to show clemency.
He did not appear to require much coaxing, and gradually became so good-natured that he had some difficulty in restraining himself from bursting out into joyous roarings.From the way in which Ihad read my colleague's letter one might have supposed me a man who did not know his alphabet.I took a long while to read it; and Monsieur Gelis might have become very tired under different circumstances; but he was watching Jeanne, and endured the trial with exemplary patience.Jeanne occasionally turned her face in our direction.Well you could not expect a person to remain perfectly motionless, could you? Mademoiselle Prefere was arranging her curls, and her bosom occasionally swelled with little sighs.
It may be observed that I have myself often been honoured with those little sighs.
"Monsieur," I said, as I folded up the letter, "I shall be very happy to be of any service to you.You are occupied with researches in which I myself have always felt a very lively interest.I have done all that lay in my power.I know, as you do--and still better than you can know--how much there remains to do.The manuscript you asked for is at your disposal; you may take it home with you, but it is not a manuscript of the smallest kind, and I am afraid---""Oh, Monsieur," said Gelis, "big books have never been able to make me afraid of them."I begged the young man to wait for me, and I went into the next room to get the Register, which I could not find at first, and which Ialmost despaired of finding, as I discerned, from certain familiar signs, that Therese had been setting the room in order.But the Register was so big and so heavy that, luckily for me, Therese had not been able to put it in order as she had doubtless wished to do.
I could scarcely lift it up myself; and I had the pleasure of finding it quite as heavy as I could have hoped.
"Wait, my boy," I said, with a smile which must have been very sarcastic--"wait! I am going to give you something to do which will break your arms first, and afterwards your head.That will be the first vengeance of Sylvestre Bonnard.Later on we shall see what else there is to be done."When I returned to the City of Books I heard Monsieur Gelis and Mademoiselle Jeanne chatting--chatting together, if you please! as if they were the best friends in the world.Mademoiselle Prefere, being full of decorum, did not say anything; but the other two were chatting like birds.And what about? About the blond tint used by Venetian painters! Yes, about the "Venetian blond." That little serpent of a Gelis was telling Jeanne the secret of the dye with which, according to the best authorities, the women of Titian and of Veronese tinted their hair.And Mademoiselle Jeanne was expressing her opinion very prettily about the honey tint and the golden tint.
I understood that that scamp of a Vecellio was responsible--that they had been bending over the book together, and that they had been admiring either that Doge's wife we had been looking at awhile before, or some other patrician woman of Venice.
Never mind! I appeared with my enormous old book, thinking that Gelis was going to make a grimace.It was as much as one could have asked a porter to carry, and my arms were stiff merely with lifting it.But the young man caught it up like a feather, and slipped it under his arm with a smile.Then he thanked me with that sort of brevity which I like, reminded me that he had need of my advice, and, having made an appointment to meet me another day, took his departure after bowing to us with the most perfect self-possession conceivable.
"He seems quite a decent lad," I said.
Jeanne turned over a few more pages of Vecellio, and made no answer.