ἈΝÁΓΚΗ.
It that upon a in this same month of March, I think it was on Saturday the 29th, Saint Eustache’s day, our friend the student, Jehan Frollo du Moulin, perceived, as he was himself, that his breeches, which his purse, gave out no ring. “Poor purse,” he said, it from his fob, “what! not the smallest parisis! how the dice, beer-pots, and Venus have thee! How empty, wrinkled, limp, art! Thou the of a fury! I ask you, Messer Cicero, and Messer Seneca, copies of whom, all dog’s-eared, I on the floor, what profits it me to know, than any of the mint, or any Jew on the Pont Changeurs, that a with a is thirty-five of twenty-five sous, and eight apiece, and that a with a is thirty-six of twenty-six sous, six apiece, if I have not a single black to on the double-six! Oh! Consul Cicero! this is no from which one one’s self with periphrases, quemadmodum, and vero!”
He himself sadly. An idea had to him as he his boots, but he rejected it at first; nevertheless, it returned, and he put on his out, an of combat. At last he his cap on the floor, and exclaimed: “So much the worse! Let come of it what may. I am going to my brother! I shall catch a sermon, but I shall catch a crown.”
Then he his long jacket with half-sleeves, up his cap, and out like a man to desperation.
He the Rue de la Harpe toward the City. As he passed the Rue de la Huchette, the odor of those spits, which were turning, his apparatus, and he a toward the Cyclopean roast, which one day from the Franciscan friar, Calatagirone, this exclamation: Veramente, stupenda![36] But Jehan had not the to a breakfast, and he plunged, with a sigh, under the of the Petit-Châtelet, that of towers which the entrance to the City.
He did not take the trouble to a in passing, as was the usage, at the of that Périnet Leclerc who had delivered up the Paris of Charles VI. to the English, a which his effigy, its with and with mud, for three centuries at the of the Rue de la Harpe and the Rue de Buci, as in an pillory.
The Petit-Pont traversed, the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève crossed, Jehan de Molendino himself in of Notre-Dame. Then upon him once more, and he for minutes the of M. Legris, to himself with anguish: “The is sure, the is doubtful.”
He stopped a who from the cloister,—“Where is the of Josas?”
“I that he is in his in the tower,” said the beadle; “I should you not to him there, unless you come from some one like the or the king.”
Jehan his hands.
“Bédiable! here’s a to see the famous cell!”
This having him to a decision, he into the small black doorway, and the of the of Saint-Gilles, which leads to the upper of the tower. “I am going to see,” he said to himself on the way. “By the of the Holy Virgin! it must needs be a thing, that which my so secretly! ’Tis said that he lights up the of there, and that he cooks the philosopher’s there over a fire. Bédieu! I no more for the philosopher’s than for a pebble, and I would over his an of Easter eggs and bacon, than the biggest philosopher’s in the world.”’
On at the of columns, he took for a moment, and against the by I know not how many of devils; then he his through the narrow door of the north tower, now closed to the public. Several moments after the chamber, he came upon a little landing-place, in a niche, and under the of a low, pointed door, lock and iron he was to see through a in the opposite of the staircase. Persons of visiting this door at the present day will it by this in white on the black wall: “J’ADORE CORALIE, 1823. SIGNÉ UGÈNE.” “Signé” in the text.
“Ugh!” said the scholar; “’tis here, no doubt.”
The key was in the lock, the door was very close to him; he gave it a push and his through the opening.
The reader cannot have failed to turn over the of Rembrandt, that Shakespeare of painting. Amid so many engravings, there is one in particular, which is to Doctor Faust, and which it is to without being dazzled. It a cell; in the centre is a table with objects; skulls, spheres, alembics, compasses, parchments. The doctor is this table in his large and to the very with his cap. He is visible only to his waist. He has from his arm-chair, his on the table, and he is with and terror at a large circle, of magic letters, which from the beyond, like the in a dark chamber. This sun to the eye, and the with its radiance. It is and it is beautiful.
Something very to Faust’s presented itself to Jehan’s view, when he his through the half-open door. It also was a and retreat. There also a large arm-chair and a large table, compasses, alembics, of animals from the ceiling, a on the floor, with cups, in which of gold, upon with and characters, up wide open, without on the of the parchment; in short, all the of science, and on this and spiders’ webs; but there was no circle of letters, no doctor in an the vision, as the upon the sun.
Nevertheless, the was not deserted. A man was seated in the arm-chair, and over the table. Jehan, to his was turned, see only his and the of his skull; but he had no in that head, which nature had provided with an tonsure, as though of marking, by this symbol, the archdeacon’s vocation.
Jehan his brother; but the door had been opened so softly, that nothing Dom Claude of his presence. The took of this to the for a moments at his leisure. A large furnace, which he had not at observed, to the left of the arm-chair, the window. The of light which through this its way through a spider’s web, which its rose in the of the window, and in the centre of which the motionless, like the of this wheel of lace. Upon the were in disorder, all of vases, bottles, retorts, and of charcoal. Jehan observed, with a sigh, that there was no frying-pan. “How cold the are!” he said to himself.
In fact, there was no fire in the furnace, and it as though none had been for a long time. A mask, which Jehan noticed among the of alchemy, and which no doubt, to protect the archdeacon’s when he was over some to be dreaded, in one with and forgotten. Beside it a pair of no less dusty, the upper of which this in copper letters: SPIRA SPERA.
Other were written, in with the fashion of the hermetics, in great numbers on the walls; some with ink, others with a metal point. There were, moreover, Gothic letters, Hebrew letters, Greek letters, and Roman letters, pell-mell; the overflowed at haphazard, on top of each other, the more the more ancient, and all with each other, like the in a thicket, like in an affray. It was, in fact, a of all philosophies, all reveries, all wisdom. Here and there one out from among the like a banner among heads. Generally, it was a Greek or Roman device, such as the Middle Ages so well how to formulate.—Unde? Inde?—Homo monstrum—Astra, castra, nomen, numen.—Μέγα βιβλίον, μέγα κακόν.—Sapere aude. Fiat vult—etc .; sometimes a word of all sense, Ἀναγκοφαγία, which possibly a to the of the cloister; sometimes a of in a regular Cœlestem dominum. There was also Hebrew jargon, of which Jehan, who as yet but little Greek, nothing; and all were in every direction by stars, by of men or animals, and by triangles; and this not a little to make the of the a of paper over which a monkey had and a pen with ink.
The whole chamber, moreover, presented a of and dilapidation; and the of the the that their owner had long been from his labors by other preoccupations. Meanwhile, this master, over a manuscript, with illustrations, appeared to be by an idea which with his meditations. That at least was Jehan’s idea, when he him exclaim, with the of a aloud,—
“Yes, Manou said it, and Zoroaster it! the sun is from fire, the moon from the sun; fire is the of the universe; its and upon the world through channels! At the point where these each other in the heavens, they produce light; at their points of on earth, they produce gold. Light, gold; the same thing! From fire to the state. The the visible and the palpable, the and the solid in the same substance, water and ice, nothing more. These are no dreams; it is the law of nature. But what is one to do in order to from science the of this law? What! this light which my hand is gold! These same in with a law need only be in with another law. How is it to be done? Some have by a of sunlight, Averroës,—yes, ’tis Averroës,—Averroës one under the on the left of the of the Koran, in the great Mahometan of Cordova; but the cannot be opened for the purpose of the operation has succeeded, until after the of eight thousand years.
“The devil!” said Jehan, to himself, “’tis a long while to wait for a crown!”
“Others have thought,” the archdeacon, “that it would be while to upon a of Sirius. But ’tis hard to obtain this pure, of the presence of other with it. Flamel it more to upon fire. Flamel! there’s in the name! Flamma! yes, fire. All there. The diamond is in the carbon, gold is in the fire. But how to it? Magistri that there are names, which a so sweet and mysterious, that it to them the operation. Let us read what Manon says on the matter: ‘Where are honored, the are rejoiced; where they are despised, it is to pray to God. The mouth of a woman is pure; it is a water, it is a of sunlight. The name of a woman should be agreeable, sweet, fanciful; it should end in long vowels, and of benediction.’ Yes, the is right; in truth, Maria, Sophia, la Esmeral—Damnation! always that thought!”
And he closed the book violently.
He passed his hand over his brow, as though to away the idea which him; then he took from the table a and a small hammer, was painted with letters.
“For some time,” he said with a smile, “I have failed in all my experiments! one idea me, and my brain like fire. I have not been able to the of Cassiodorus, lamp without and without oil. A matter, nevertheless—”
“The deuce!” Jehan in his beard.
“Hence,” the priest, “one is to a man weak and himself! Oh! how Claude Pernelle would laugh at me. She who not turn Nicholas Flamel aside, for one moment, from his of the great work! What! I in my hand the magic of Zéchiélé! at every by the rabbi, from the of his cell, upon this nail, that one of his he had condemned, were he a thousand away, was a in the earth which him. The King of France himself, in of once having at the door of the thermaturgist, to the through the of his own Paris. This took place three centuries ago. Well! I the and the nail, and in my hands they are no more than a in the hands of a maker of tools. And yet all that is is to the magic word which Zéchiélé when he his nail.”
“What nonsense!” Jehan.
“Let us see, let us try!” the briskly. “Were I to succeed, I should the from the of the nail. Emen-Hétan! Emen-Hétan! That’s not it. Sigéani! Sigéani! May this open the to any one who the name of Phœbus! A upon it! Always and the same idea!”
And he away the in a rage. Then he so on the arm-chair and the table, that Jehan him from view the great of manuscripts. For the space of minutes, all that he saw was his on a book. Suddenly, Dom Claude up, a and in upon the in letters, this Greek word
ἈΝÁΓΚΗ.
“My is mad,” said Jehan to himself; “it would have been more to Fatum, every one is not to know Greek.”
The returned and seated himself in his armchair, and his on his hands, as a man does, is and burning.
The student his with surprise. He did not know, he who his on his sleeve, he who only the good old law of Nature in the world, he who allowed his to their inclinations, and in the of great was always dry, so did he let it off each day by fresh drains,—he did not know with what the sea of and when all is to it, how it accumulates, how it swells, how it overflows, how it out the heart; how it in sobs, and convulsions, until it has rent its and its bed. The and of Claude Frollo, that cold surface of and virtue, had always Jehan. The had that there was lava, and profound, the of Ætna.
We do not know he of these things; but, as he was, he that he had what he ought not to have seen, that he had just the of his in one of its most altitudes, and that Claude must not be allowed to know it. Seeing that the had into his immobility, he his very softly, and some noise with his the door, like a person who has just and is of his approach.
“Enter!” the archdeacon, from the of his cell; “I was you. I left the door expressly; enter Master Jacques!”
The entered boldly. The archdeacon, who was very much embarrassed by such a visit in such a place, in his arm-chair. “What! ’tis you, Jehan?”
“’Tis a J, all the same,” said the scholar, with his ruddy, merry, and face.
Dom Claude’s had its expression.
“What are you come for?”
“Brother,” the scholar, making an to assume a decent, pitiful, and mien, and his cap in his hands with an air; “I am come to ask of you—”
“What?”
“A little lecture on morality, of which I in need,” Jehan did not to add aloud,—“and a little money of which I am in still need.” This last of his phrase unuttered.
“Monsieur,” said the archdeacon, in a cold tone, “I am with you.”
“Alas!” the scholar.
Dom Claude his arm-chair a circle, and at Jehan.
“I am very to see you.”
This was a exordium. Jehan himself for a encounter.
“Jehan, are me about you every day. What was that in which you with a a little vicomte, Albert de Ramonchamp?”
“Oh!” said Jehan, “a thing that! A page himself by the scholars, by making his through the mire!”
“Who,” the archdeacon, “is that Mahiet Fargel, you have torn? Tunicam dechiraverunt, the complaint.”
“Ah bah! a cap of a Montaigu! Isn’t that it?”
“The says and not cappettam. Do you know Latin?”
Jehan did not reply.
“Yes,” the his head, “that is the of learning and at the present day. The Latin is understood, Syriac is unknown, Greek so that ’tis no in the most learned to a Greek word without reading it, and to say, ‘Græcum legitur.’”
The his boldly. “Monsieur my brother, it you that I shall in good French that Greek word which is on the wall?”
“What word?”
“ἈΝÁΓΚΗ.”
A spread over the of the with their high bones, like the of which on the the of a volcano. The student noticed it.
“Well, Jehan,” the with an effort, “What is the meaning of word?”
“FATE.”
Dom Claude again, and the carelessly.
“And that word it, by the same hand, Ἀνάγνεία, ‘impurity.’ You see that people do know their Greek.”
And the silent. This Greek lesson had him thoughtful.
Master Jehan, who all the of a child, that the moment was a one in which to his request. Accordingly, he an soft and began,—
“My good brother, do you me to such a as to look upon me of a and in a to a pack of and brats, marmosetis? You see, good Brother Claude, that people know their Latin.”
But all this did not have its on the brother. Cerberus did not bite at the cake. The archdeacon’s did not a single wrinkle.
“What are you at?” he said dryly.
“Well, in point of fact, this!” Jehan bravely, “I in need of money.”
At this declaration, the archdeacon’s a and expression.
“You know, Monsieur Jehan, that our of Tirechappe, the direct taxes and the rents of the nine and twenty houses in a block, only nine and thirty livres, eleven sous, six deniers, Parisian. It is one more than in the time of the Paclet, but it is not much.”
“I need money,” said Jehan stoically.
“You know that the official has that our twenty-one houses should be moved full into the of the Bishopric, and that we this only by paying the two marks of of the price of six parisis. Now, these two marks I have not yet been able to together. You know it.”
“I know that I in need of money,” Jehan for the third time.
“And what are you going to do with it?”
This question a of to Jehan’s eyes. He his dainty, air.
“Stay, dear Brother Claude, I should not come to you, with any motive. There is no of a in the with your unzains, and of about the of Paris in a of gold brocade, with a lackey, laquasio. No, brother, ’tis for a good work.”
“What good work?” Claude, surprised.
“Two of my friends wish to purchase an for the of a Haudriette widow. It is a charity. It will cost three florins, and I should like to to it.”
“What are names of your two friends?”
“Pierre l’Assommeur and Baptiste Croque-Oison.”[37]
“Hum,” said the archdeacon; “those are names as fit for a good work as a for the altar.”
It is that Jehan had a very choice of names for his two friends. He it too late.
“And then,” the Claude, “what of an infant’s is it that is to cost three florins, and that for the child of a Haudriette? Since when have the Haudriette taken to having in swaddling-clothes?”
Jehan the ice once more.
“Eh, well! yes! I need money in order to go and see Isabeau la Thierrye to-night; in the Val-d’ Amour!”
“Impure wretch!” the priest.
“Ἀναγνεία!” said Jehan.
This quotation, which the with malice, perchance, from the of the cell, produced a on the archdeacon. He his and his was in a flush.
“Begone,” he said to Jehan. “I am some one.”
The one more effort.
“Brother Claude, give me at least one little to something to eat.”
“How have you gone in the Decretals of Gratian?” Dom Claude.
“I have my copy books.
“Where are you in your Latin humanities?”
“My copy of Horace has been stolen.”
“Where are you in Aristotle?”
“I’ faith! what father of the church is it, who says that the errors of have always had for their place the of Aristotle’s metaphysics? A on Aristotle! I not to tear my religion on his metaphysics.”
“Young man,” the archdeacon, “at the king’s last entry, there was a gentleman, named Philippe de Comines, who on the of his this device, upon which I you to meditate: Qui laborat, manducet.”
The for a moment, with his in his ear, his on the ground, and a mien.
All at once he to Claude with the of a wagtail.
“So, my good brother, you me a parisis, to a at a baker’s shop?”
“Qui laborat, manducet.”
At this response of the archdeacon, Jehan his in his hands, like a woman sobbing, and with an of despair: “Ὀτοτοτοτοτοῖ.”
“What is the meaning of this, sir?” Claude, at this freak.
“What indeed!” said the scholar; and he to Claude his into which he had just his in order to to them the of tears; “’tis Greek! ’tis an anapæst of Æschylus which perfectly.”
And here he into a laugh so and that it the smile. It was Claude’s fault, in fact: why had he so that child?
“Oh! good Brother Claude,” Jehan, by this smile, “look at my out boots. Is there a in the world more than these boots, are out their tongues?”
The returned to his original severity.
“I will send you some new boots, but no money.”
“Only a little parisis, brother,” the Jehan. “I will learn Gratian by heart, I will in God, I will be a regular Pythagoras of science and virtue. But one little parisis, in mercy! Would you have bite me with its which are in of me, blacker, deeper, and more than a Tartarus or the nose of a monk?”
Dom Claude his head: “Qui laborat—”
Jehan did not allow him to finish.
“Well,” he exclaimed, “to the then! Long live joy! I will live in the tavern, I will fight, I will and I will go and see the wenches.” And thereupon, he his cap at the wall, and his like castanets.
The him with a air.
“Jehan, you have no soul.”
“In that case, according to Epicurius, I a something of another something which has no name.”
“Jehan, you must think of your ways.”
“Oh, come now,” the student, in turn at his and the on the furnace, “everything is here, ideas and bottles!”
“Jehan, you are on a very road. Do you know you are going?”
“To the wine-shop,” said Jehan.
“The wine-shop leads to the pillory.”
“’Tis as good a as any other, and with that one, Diogenes would have his man.”
“The leads to the gallows.”
“The is a which has a man at one end and the whole earth at the other. ’Tis to be the man.”
“The leads to hell.”
“’Tis a big fire.”
“Jehan, Jehan, the end will be bad.”
“The will have been good.”
At that moment, the of a was on the staircase.
“Silence!” said the archdeacon, his on his mouth, “here is Master Jacques. Listen, Jehan,” he added, in a low voice; “have a to speak of what you shall have or here. Hide under the furnace, and do not breathe.”
The himself; just then a happy idea to him.
“By the way, Brother Claude, a for not breathing.”
“Silence! I promise.”
“You must give it to me.”
“Take it, then!” said the angrily, his at him.
Jehan under the again, and the door opened.
