“For every inch that is not fool is rogue.”—DRYDRN.
AT last Tardif and Gaspard drew near the pleasant town of Montpellier, the capital of Languedoc. The fair and smiling landscape had no charms for Tardif, none at least that he was conscious of; but the orchards, the vineyards, the oliveyards—still more the beautiful gardens teeming with spring flowers in all the hues of the rainbow—filled the soul of Gaspard with frank delight. They saw everywhere handsome square villas, the dwellings of the rich and noble; and plenty of substantial homesteads, the homes of less rich but fairly prosperous people.
Tardif got into the town by representing himself as a workman, seeking employment in the manufacture of the woolen stuff called futaine, for which Montpellier was famous. Gaspard he represented as his son, who wished to be apprenticed to the craft. They found lodgings at a wine-shop, in the quarter where most of the wool-workers lived. With these Tardif quickly fraternized; he let them see that he was not quite penniless, very acceptably proving the fact by treating them to sundry cups of wine. He told them he was in no great hurry to settle down; he wanted to show the town to his boy, and to find out for himself which master would pay them the best.
His new comrades gave him information which would have been very useful if his professed object had been his real one. There was plenty of room, they told him for new workmen, now that the Huguenots were done for; and they named several master craftsmen, in their own trade and in others, who had been half ruined by the loss of their best workers. “However,” said they “things are beginning to look up again; Monsieur L’Intendant—though everybody is afraid of him—has a good eye to the prosperity of the town, and the increase of the king’s taxes, which depend upon it.”
Of course the first sight-seeing expedition of Tardi and Gaspard led them to the massive old building where the world-famous College of Medicine had its headquarters. They inquired there for Monsieur le Professeur Berbier, and Gaspard had the note for him ready to produce. But they learned, to their disappointment, that Monsieur Berbier had some time ago resigned his professorship, and left not only the University, but the town. Whither had he gone? No one knew, and, apparently, no one cared. The travelers left the College thoroughly disappointed, and not knowing what to do next.
For about a week they made what inquiries they could for Monsieur Berbier, always without success. This was unsatisfactory to both, though more so to Tardif than to Gaspard. For Gaspard, in spite of the strange thoughts that were stirring within him, could still be diverted by the wonders of a real city, the first he had ever seen. He loved to stand outside the shops examining the wares in their well-stocked windows, and to see the guards of Monsieur L’Intendant in their gay uniforms pass through the streets on their way to and from the citadel. Even the frequent processions of monks and nuns were too novel and too curious to be disregarded. Yet all the time he longed wistfully to come into touch somehow, sometime, with his own people. In vain! It seemed as if a Huguenot was not left alive in the town, so thoroughly were they crushed under the iron heel of Baville. Nor did people speak much about them now; some were silent for fear of bringing themselves under suspicion, others from the more generous fear of exposing some unfortunate neighbor to cruel persecution. Sometimes it was mentioned casually that there were soldiers quartered upon such and such a house, and that such another house was shut up because the father was in prison or at the galleys, and the family scattered, no one knew whither. That was all.
One day Gaspard was lingering, not for the first time, outside a particularly attractive goldsmith’s shop in the Rue des Augustins—his natural love of beautiful things, starved so long, finding in this way a real though imperfect satisfaction. Someone came to the door carrying a parcel, and inquired, “Does Mademoiselle Berbier live here?” Gaspard was on the alert in an instant, all the beauties of watches, rings, and bracelets totally forgotten. A young man stepped out and answered, “She does. Give me the parcel.” Gaspard looked at him. He was rather undersized, less dark than most of his southern race, and with sandy hair. His face was not an agreeable one, yet it showed considerable intelligence. Gaspard took an instant dislike to him, and felt a strong though quite unreasonable desire to knock him down. But this did not prevent his asking him, with the courtesy Frenchmen of all ranks usually show each other, if he knew Mademoiselle Berbier.
“Naturally,” said the young man. “I am for the present acting as garcon de boutique to Monsieur Fontanes, goldsmith and jeweler, and I also wait upon his lodger, Mademoiselle Berbier.”
“Can you tell me if she is related to Monsieur Berbier, who was once a Professor of Medicine here?”
“That can I. She is his aunt. Why do you ask?”
“Because I want to know.”
A queer little smile lit up the young man’s face, without making it more amiable. “And I have told you,” he answered, turning on his heel.
“Don’t be in such haste,” said Gaspard. “Tell me where Monsieur Berbier is to be found; I have a letter for him.”
“Give it to me then, and save thyself a long journey,” said the other, stretching out his hand. “He shall have it in a few days.”
“Not so fast, friend. I am to deliver it into no hand but his own.”
“I see. Thou dost look for payment. That is thine affair. So find him for thyself.”
“Tell me where, and I will.”
“Why should I? Is it worth my while?”
“It is worth every man’s while to be civil.”
Just then Tardif came up, and Gaspard in a couple of words explained the situation. With one of his keen glances, Tardif took in the young man from head to heel. He said to him, with a smile that was half a sneer, “Bring the lady her parcel, then look for us in the wine-shop round the corner, and we will discuss the matter over a cup or two.”
The shopman nodded acquiescence, and disappeared. Presently the three were seated in a private room of the wine-shop, talking amicably enough over more cups than one or two. “You want to know about Monsieur Berbier?” said the goldsmith’s assistant. “He lost the professorship—oh, about three years ago. Why? Just the old story, the standing quarrel between the Bishop and the University. There’s bad blood between them always, and the gentlemen of the Medical School come in for the worst of it. Monsieur Berbier is gone to Toulouse, where he came from, and where he has many friends. But he has left some of his instruments, and other matters of importance, here in my care. I am to bring them to him when he sends for them.”
“I thought it was in Monsieur Fontanes’ service you were,” said Gaspard, whose instinctive dislike to the young man made him anxious to trip him up.
“Not I; I belong to Monsieur Berbier. But being obliged to stay here, in order to take charge of his affairs, and having time on my hands, I engaged myself, for convenience, to the goldsmith. I like the business. It is good to be handling gold and silver.”
“True enough,” said Tardif. “Don’t you wish they came off in your hands when you touched them, like wet paint?”
The young man gave him a sharp, suspicious look, which he returned with interest. Something he saw seemed to strike him particularly. “Where are you from?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That means, don’t choose to tell.”
“Not at all. When I was a slip of a lad I had a very bad illness. In it, I forgot everything.”
“Not surely thy name and thy birthplace?”
“Not one thing at least—that it is not wise to talk of oneself to strangers. Monsieur Fontanes will be wanting me in his shop. Good afternoon, monsieur, and thanks for your good wine.”
Tardif s detaining hand was on his shoulder. “Stay a minute,” he said. “It will not hurt, Monsieur Fontanes to wait on his own customers a little longer. Nor will we hurt thee, perhaps rather do thee a service. Tell me—didst ever go through a wood with a dog at thy heels and a couple of bags of salt at thy girdle?”
The youth’s face paled suddenly, then crimsoned all over. “What dost mean? I know naught of such things,” he said, sharply.
“Ay, dost thou! For if I am not much mistaken, thy name is Philippe Darcheau.”
“Why? How do you—” But Gaspard sprang up with a great cry that drowned the rest of his words, and Tardif went on with cool decision: “No man could mistake thee who had seen thee as I did, a mean-faced urchin of thirteen. Thou art little changed, save in stature, and that down upon thy cheek. Dost not remember me?”
Philippe paused. “Thou art Tardif,” at last he said, sullenly, and with evident reluctance. “I did not know thee though at first”; and his tone seemed to say, “I am sorry I know thee now.”
Gaspard’s eager voice broke in: “And thou art Philippe Darcheau! Oh, I am so glad! Let’s look at thee.” He came in front of him, and stood looking him in the face. Had anyone wished to paint, by way of sharp contrast, the ideal noble and the unmistakable churl together, the pair might have stood as models for the picture. The keen, eager face of the one, with refinement and sensitiveness in every line and curve, made the blunt, coarsely-molded features of the other all the more striking. Yet there was no lack either of shrewdness or of force in the expression of the son of the people.
“What is that to thee?” he said. “Who art thou? Thy face, at least, I never saw.”
“Nor I thine. Yet have I dwelt for long years in the forest of Besogne, with thy father, and thy mother, and thy sister Babette.”
Philippe turned from him angrily. “What do I want to hear of all that for? Why hast thou come to torment me?”
“But—they are thy father, thy mother, and thy little sister,” pleaded Gaspard, in bitter surprise and disappointment.
“Much good they ever did for me! Put me to carrying the salt before I could bear the weight of it! Whose fault was it that I was caught, dragged to prison, misused, arid all but killed there? Parents, indeed! Precious parents they were; and a little like I am to go and look for them! If thou hast stepped into my shoes, I am sure I wish thee joy of them.”
“But Babette—thy little sister Babette—Philippe, she loves thee, mourns thee, longs for thee.”
With a short, derisive laugh, Philippe turned to Tardif: “Dost bear this young fool?” he said. “Blest if he does not want me to leave all my prospects, and go back to drudge at smuggling the salt” “Don’t know,” said Tardif, coolly. “After all, there is good money in the salt. But settle it between you as you may. I am going to take a walk.” He turned to go, but turned back to say, “How was it then, Philippe, that we heard thou wast dead, and—if not buried, done worse to?”
“I was dead,” said Philippe, quietly, and he sat down again.
Gaspard remained standing, his heart full of bitter pain and hot anger. He had found Philippe for Babette, and, behold, he no longer cared for her!
“It is not usual, in my experience, for dead people to come to life again, and serve in goldsmiths’ shops,” Tardif observed.
“I was ill in prison. I felt my life going from me. I knew I was dying. After that, I knew no more.”
“You had a swoon.”
“No, I died. If I had swooned, I would have been the same after that I was before. But ever since I am quite other. I was Philippe Darcheau, I am Jacques Fredon. The first thing I knew there was light all about me, and a wonderful sweet smell. One man was rubbing me, another stood watching. ‘He is coming to,’ I heard him say. Something was put to my lips—I drank, and it was delicious. Then they gave me other things—good wine, and by-and-by good food too. Oh, they were kind to me, very. I mean, he was.”
“Who?”
“Who but my master, the great physician and professor, Monsieur Berbier. He brought me back to life, fed me, clothed me, taught me.”
“He must be a good man,” said Tardif, with a congratulatory glance at Gaspard. This promised well for their prospects.
“I don’t know, for I never saw a good man. But I know he is a very wise man, most like the wisest in the world. And I am his pupil; he has made me wise too.” Philippe Darcheau, or Jacques Fredon, stretched out his arms, raised his head proudly, and looked about him with an air of profound self-satisfaction.
“We may take thy word for his wisdom,” said Tardif. “But thine is another matter.”
“Ah, you doubt me! But you shall see. Ask me about anything you like in Heaven or on earth, and I will give you an answer, and settle the matter for you in half a dozen words.”
“Ay, and another matter along with it in the same, half dozen—that thou art the biggest fool in the Province of Languedoc.”
“I?—A fool?”
“As I say; for the biggest fool is he who thinks himself a wise man. ‘Tis nothing to us, though. Now thou hast told us that Monsieur Berbier is in Toulouse, we want no more of thee.”
“Oh, but we do—we do!” said Gaspard. “Philippe, I cannot understand thee. Dost mean that, when Monsieur Berbier took thee from the prison and brought thee back to life, there was something that did not come back, something that died in thee? Dost mean it was thy love for Babette? For thou didst love her. Thou wert good and kind to her, she said it often, often. I tell thee, that part of thee is not dead, it is only sleeping. Wake up, man; wake up, I say, and be the old Philippe again! For the poor child’s heart is sore, it is nigh to breaking in her, for the love and the longing she has for thee.”
A slight, a very slight change came over the hard face of Philippe, bringing with it a moment’s softening. Then it passed. “‘Tis no use,” he said. “Once for all, Philippe is dead.” Then, with a smile; “But thou thyself art a likely lad enough, whosoever thou mayest be. Thou seemest very fond of Babette. Why didst thou not try if a lover would not console her for the loss of a brother?”
Gaspard was fond of Babette, yet somehow or other this suggestion seemed to him positively monstrous. Altogether, he thought Philippe detestable, and the desire to knock him down returned in full force. As he could not do that without any ostensible reason, he turned away from him in deep disgust.
“I must go,” Philippe said, presently. “But, messieurs, there is something has to be said first. You must swear not to betray me.”
“What about thee?” asked Tardif, with a touch of scorn.
“How I was once a little smuggler called Philippe Darcheau. How, by another kind of smuggling, the warders got what they thought was my dead body out of prison, and sold it to the doctors. And the rest of it.”
“Chut! Who is there to rake up all that at this hour of the day? Who cares what became, years ago, of an urchin like thee?”
“One never knows. One should always keep on the safe side.”
“True. But the safe side, for us and thee, is not in our oaths, but in our interests. If I tell tales, thou hast but to show that I have earned the gallows myself already; and assuredly, if half a word passes thy lips to our hurt, I will not spare thee. That either can hang the other is the best proof that neither will. However, seeing we are two and thou but one, and also that our danger is the greater, thou wilt swear on the crucifix to tell no man who I am.”
Philippe demurred a little, but soon consented; when a new difficulty arose—there was not a crucifix to be found. At last, however, some kind of oath was administered, and taken. Then Philippe departed.
But they were not done with him. That evening he came to their lodging, which he had found out somehow. Tardif had gone out; and Gaspard, not much pleased at the visit, asked him curtly what he wanted.
“To give you this letter for Monsieur Berbier. ‘Twill be a help to you, for I have written his address on it, can you read?”
Gaspard nodded. “Very well, we will take it,” he said. “That is all, I suppose?”
“Not quite. I do not know who you may be, but you come from Besogne. Who is cure there now?” “Pere Suchard, the same you knew.”
“He is a broken reed, but perhaps he will serve my turn. Because,” he added, with rather a shamefaced look, “I am thinking of writing a letter.”
“Who is there to read it?”
“The cure, if he will, can read it—to Babette.”
“He may, for he is kind enough. But he never comes into the forest, and the Darcheaus rarely trouble themselves about Mass, or the like.”
“Still, ‘tis the best way. I will send it to him, and he can send for her. No harm in that.”
“And small good,” said Gaspard, scornfully. “Where’s the merit of haggling over one’s plain duty? Half done is not done—sometimes worse. You ought to go to her.”
“And leave my master, and my master’s work? That is my first duty. But, after all, what is duty? What a man is paid to do. It comes to that in the end.”
“Oh! no. It is what we owe—to ourselves, to our neighbors, and to God.”
Then Philippe said words Gaspard had never heard from human lips before: “There is no God.” He recoiled from him in horror.
Philippe laughed aloud. “Art a three years’ babe?” he asked. “All wise men know that. Look round thyself at the world, and see if it be not true.”
At last Gaspard rallied his powers and spoke. “How darest thou utter that awful thing, if even thou art wicked enough to think it? Hast thou no fear of being punished for a blasphemer, and right horribly too?”
“Peste, no! The horrible punishments are kept for those who do believe in God—a little differently from their neighbors. Still, we philosophers take care to be on the safe side. ‘Tis not the way of wise men to proclaim their wisdom on the housetops. I once heard a sermon from the text, ‘Wisdom crieth without, and maketh her voice to be heard in the streets,’ and I thought how little the speaker knew about it! Oh, yes, we hear sermons, and go to Mass, and so forth—occasionally. That is wisdom too.”
“I call it hypocrisy. But does Monsieur Berbier think like that? I could not believe it of the friend of Monsieur Beauclaise,” he added to himself.
“Believe what you will—who cares? And say what you will—who would, mind you? But I am going to write to Babette; give me a message for her.”
“Not I! And the sooner you take yourself out of my sight the better,” said Gaspard.
And so there were people in the world who believed there was no God? No God to hear prayer, to pity the suffering, to help the weak, to do justice and judgment in the world to come! Gaspard wondered they had the courage to go on living at all. If he thought that, he would want to kill himself. But that would be worse. It would be horrible to go out of the world with no God to receive him anywhere, a lost wanderer, in blackness of darkness forever. If there was any other world to go to at all! If you take God away, he thought, all the rest would fall down like a house of cards—and people would just go out, like candles, when they died.
The horror possessed him, held him like a vice. But only for a few minutes, though these seemed an age. He woke up suddenly, as if from a dreadful dream. “What would my father or my mother have said to such talk?” he asked himself. “And where are they now? Why have they, who used to live in peace and plenty, been robbed of everything, and forced to wander in a foreign land? Why did they suffer so much, give up so much, imperil their very lives, and my own also? They might have escaped it all. But they would not, because of their duty to God—that they might worship Him, in what they thought the way He had appointed. Then—they knew Him!” To the bitter blasphemy of Philippe, “There is no God!” Gaspard’s heart flung back the answer, “There is, for my father and mother know Him.”
It was quite sufficient for him, just then. Still, it was an answer only in the seed. To meet the requirements of the future, it would need growth and development. And such requirements were pretty sure to come. The arrow of doubt may be drawn from the wound, it may be broken and cast away, yet once and again the old hurt will throb and sting, a chance touch may inflame it even to torture.
“And still at an uncertain hour
The agony returns,”
is true in the secret history of many a soul which yet never has yielded, and never will yield, to the whisper of despair.
Not amongst the conquered, but among the conquerors are written the names of those who have looked in the face of the “Everlasting No”—have seen the specter of negation, but, thank God, have seen beyond it too! For they know, and it may be with a larger and surer knowledge than the rest, that the heart and center of all things is not the Everlasting No but the Everlasting Yes—not a formless, sunless, fathomless abyss, but that Power, Love, and Righteousness—Infinite, yet Personal, comprehensible, and approachable—which in one imperfect utterance we call—God.