The Queen Pedauque by Anatole France

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"If in speaking of the planets I have given vent to a feeling of
disdain, it was that I only took into consideration the solid
surface and shell of those little balls or tops and the animals who
sadly crawl on them. I should have spoken in quite another tone, if
in my mind I had included with the planets the air and the vapours
wherein they are enveloped. For the air is an element in no way of
lesser nobility than fire, whence it follows that the dignity and
importance of the planets is in the air wherein they are bathed.
Those clouds, soft vapours, puffs of wind, transparencies, blue
waves, moving islets of purple and gold which pass over our heads,
are the abode of adorable people. They are called Sylphs and
Salamanders, and are creatures infinitely amiable and lovely. It is
possible for us, and convenient, to form with them unions, the
delights of which are hardly conceivable.

"The Salamanders are such that in comparison with them the prettiest
person at court or in the city is but an ugly woman. They surrender
themselves willingly to philosophers. Doubtless you have heard of
that marvel by which M. Descartes was accompanied on his travels.
Some say that she was a natural daughter of his, that he took with
him everywhere; others think that she was an automaton manufactured
with inimitable art. As a fact she was a Salamander, whom that
clever man had taken as his lady love. He never left her. During a
voyage in the Dutch Sea he took her with him on board, shut in a box
of precious wood lined with the softest satin. The form of this box,
and the precaution with which M. Descartes took care of it, drew the
attention of the captain, who, while the philosopher was asleep,
raised the cover and discovered the Salamander. This ignorant, rude
fellow imagined that such a marvellous creature was the creation of
the devil. In his dismay, he threw it into the sea. But you will
easily believe that the beautiful little person was not drowned, and
that it was no trouble to her to rejoin M. Descartes. She remained
faithful to him during his natural life, and when he died she left
this world never more to return.

"I give you this example, chosen from many, to make you acquainted
with the loves between philosophers and Salamanders. These loves are
too sublime to be in need of contracts, and you will agree that the
ridiculous display usual at human weddings would be entirely out of
place at such unions. It would be indeed fine, if a proctor in a wig
and a fat priest put their noses together over it! That sort of
gentleman is good only to join vulgar man to woman. The marriages of
Salamanders and sages have witnesses more august. The aerial people
celebrate them in ships which, moved by celestial breath, glide,
their sterns crowned with roses, to the sound of harps, on invisible
waves. But do not believe that, not being entered in a dirty
register in a shabby vestry, they would be of little solidity and
could be easily torn asunder. They have for guarantors the spirits
who gambol on the clouds whence flashes the lightning and roars the
thunder. I reveal matters to you, my son, which be useful to you to
know, because I conclude from certain indications that your destiny
is the bed of a Salamander."

"Alas! monsieur," I exclaimed, "this destiny alarms me, and I have
nearly as many scruples as the Dutch captain who threw the lady love
of Descartes into the sea. I cannot help thinking these aerial dames
are demons. I should fear to lose my soul with them, for after all,
sir, such marriages are against nature and in opposition to the
divine law. Oh! why is not M. Jerome Coignard, my good tutor,
present to hear you! I am sure he would strengthen me by his
valuable arguments against the delights of your Salamanders, sir,
and your eloquence."

"The Abbe Coignard," said M. d'Asterac, "is an admirable translator
of Greek. But you must not want anything from him beyond his books.
He has no philosophy. As far as you are in question, my son, you
reason with the infirmity of ignorance, and the weakness of your
arguments afflicts me. You say, those unions are against nature.
What do you know about it? What means have you to gain knowledge of
it? How is it possible to make a distinction between what is natural
and what is not? Is the universal Isis known enough to discriminate
between what is assisting her and what thwarts her? But to speak
better still; nothing thwarts her and everything assists her,
because nothing exists which does not enter into the functions of
her organs and does not follow the numberless attitudes of her body.
I beg of you to say, whence could enemies come to offend her?
Nothing acts against her nor outside of her; the forces which seem
to fight against her are nothing else but movements of her own life.

"The ignorant alone have assurance enough to decide if an action is
natural or not. Let's admit their illusions for a moment and their
prejudice, and let us feign to recognise the possibility of
committing acts against nature. These acts, are they for that reason
worse and condemnable? On this point I cannot but remember the
vulgar opinion of moralists who represent virtue as an effort over
instincts, as an enterprise on the inclinations we carry within us,
as a fight with the original man. They own themselves that virtue is
against nature, and going further on that opinion they cannot
condemn an action of whatever kind, for what is common to it and
virtue alike.

"I have made this digression, my son, to call your attention to the
contemptible lightness of your reason. I should offend you by
believing you still have any doubts of the innocence of the sensual
intercourse men may have with Salamanders. Know then, now, that such
marriages, far from being interdicted by religious law, are
commanded by that law to the exclusion of all others I will give you
some conclusive evidence for it."

He stopped talking, took his snuff-box from his pocket, and filled
his nose with a pinch.

The night was densely dark. The moon shed her limpid light over the
river, and tremblingly enlaced with the reflections of the street
lamps. The flying ephemerides enveloped us like a vaporous eddy. The
shrill voice of insects rose into the world's silence. Such a
sweetness fell slowly down from the sky that it seemed as if milk
had been mixed with the sparkling of the stars.

M. d'Asterac spoke again:

"The Bible, my son, and especially the books of Moses, contains
grand and useful verities. Such an opinion may appear absurd and
unreasonable, in consequence of the treatment the theologians have
inflicted on what they call the Scriptures, and of which they have
made, by means of their commentaries, explications, and meditations,
a manual of errors, a library of absurdities, a magazine of foolery,
a cabinet of lies, a gallery of stupidities, a lyceum of ignorance,
a museum of silliness, and a repository of human imbecility and
wickedness. Know, my son, that at its origin it was a temple filled
with celestial radiance.

"I have been fortunate enough to re-establish it in its primal
splendour. Truth obliges me to acknowledge that Mosaide has very
much assisted me with his deep comprehension of the language and the
alphabet of the Hebrews. But let us not lose sight of our principal
subject. Be informed from the outset, my son, that the sense of the
Bible is figurative, and that the capital error of the theologians
was to take it literally, whereas it is to be understood as
symbolical. Follow this truth in the whole course of my discourse.

"When Demiurge, who is commonly called Jehovah, and by many more
names, as all terms expressing quality or quantity are generally
applied to him, had, I do not want to say 'created' the world--for
such would be an absurdity--but had laid out a small corner of the
universe, as a dwelling place for Adam and Eve, there were some
subtle creatures in space, which Jehovah had not formed, was not
capable of forming. They were the work of several other demiurges,
older and more skillful. His craft was not beyond that of a very
clever potter, capable of kneading clay beings in the manner of
pots, such as we men are now. What I say is not to slight him,
because such work is still much beyond human power.

"But it became necessary to brand the inferior character of the work
of the seven days. Jehovah worked, not in and with fire, which alone
gives birth to the masterpieces of life, but with mud, out of which
he could not produce other than the work of a clever ceramist. We
are nothing, my son, but animated earthenware. Jehovah is not to be
reproached for having illusions over the quality of his work. If he
did find it well done in the first moment, and in the ardour of
composition, he did not take long to recognise his error, the Bible
is full of expressions of his discontent, which often becomes ill-
humour, sometimes actual rage.

"Never has artisan treated the objects of his industry with more
disgust and aversion. He intended to destroy them, and, in fact, did
drown the larger part. This deluge, the memory of which has been
conserved by Jews, Greeks and Chinese alike, gave a last deception
to the unhappy demiurges, who, aware of the uselessness and
ridiculousness of such violence, became discouraged, and fell into
an apathy, the progress of which has not been stopped from Noah's
time to our present day, wherein it is extreme. But I see I have
advanced too far. The inconvenience of these extensive subjects is
the impossibility of remaining within their limits.

"Our mind thrown into them resembles yonder sons of the suns, who
cross the whole of the universe in one single jump.

"Let us return to the earthly paradise, wherein the demiurge had
placed the two vases formed by his hand, Adam and Eve. They did not
live there alone, between the animals and plants. The spirits of the
air, created by the demiurges of the fire, were flowing over and
looking at them with a curiosity mixed with sympathy and pity. It
was exactly as Jehovah had foreseen. Let us hasten to say, to his
praise, he had relied on the genii of the fire, to whom we may now
give their true names of Elves and Salamanders, to ameliorate and
perfect his clay figures. In his prudence he may have said to
himself: 'My Adam and my Eve, opaque and cemented in clay, are in
want of air and light. I have failed to give them wings. But united
to Elves and Salamanders, the creations of a demiurge more powerful
and more subtle than myself, they will give birth to children,
equally originated by light and clay, and who in their turn will
have children still more luminous than themselves, till in the end
their issue will be equal in beauty to the sons and daughters of air
and fire.'

"It must be said he had neglected nothing to attract the eyes of
Sylphs and Salamanders in forming Adam and Eve. He had modelled the
woman in form of an amphora, with a harmony of curved lines quite
sufficient to make him recognised as the prince of geometers, and he
succeeded in amending the coarseness of the material by the
magnificent charm of the form. For modelling Adam he made use of a
less caressing, but more energetic, hand, forming his body with such
order, and in such perfect proportions, that, applied later by the
Greeks to their architecture, those same ordinances and measures
made the beauty of the temples.

"You see, my son, that Jehovah applied his best means to render his
creatures worthy of the aerial kisses he expected for them. I shall
not insist on the care he took with a view of making these unions
prolific. The harmony between the sexes is an ample proof of his
wisdom in this regard. And surely at the outset he had reason to
congratulate himself on his shrewdness and ability.

"I have said the Sylphs and Salamanders looked on Adam and Eve with
that curiosity, sympathy and tenderness which are the first
ingredients of love. They approached them, and fell into the clever
traps Jehovah had disposed and spread intentionally in the body and
on the belly of these two amphorae.

"The first man and the first woman enjoyed during centuries the
delicious embraces of the genii of the air, which conserved them in
eternal youth.

"Such was their lot, and such could still be ours. Why was it that
the parents of the human species, fatigued by celestial luxury,
should try to find criminal enjoyments with one another?

"But what could you expect, my son? Kneaded of clay they had a taste
for mud. Alas! they became acquainted with one another in the same
way as they had known the genii.

"And that was what the demiurge had expressly forbidden them.
Afraid, and with reason, that they would produce between them
children as clumsy as themselves, terrestrial and heavy, he forbade
them, under severest penalties, to approach each other. Such is the
sense of Eve's words: 'But of the fruit of the tree which is in the
midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither
shall ye touch it lest ye die.' For you well understand, my son,
that the apple which tempted wretched Eve was not the fruit of an
apple-tree; that was an allegory the sense of which I have explained
to you. Although imperfect, and sometimes violent and capricious,
Jehovah was too intelligent a demiurge to be offended about an apple
or a pomegranate. One has to be a bishop or a Capuchin to support
such extravagant imaginations. And the proof that the apple was what
I said, is that Eve was stricken by a punishment suitable to her
fault. She had not been told 'You will digest laboriously,' but it
was said to her 'You'll give birth in pain'; for logic sake what
connection can be established, I beg of you, between an apple and
difficult confinement? On the other hand, the suffering is correctly
applied if the fault has been such as I showed you.

"That is, my son, the truthful explanation of original sin. It will
teach you your duty, which is, to keep away from women. To follow
this bent is fatal. All children born by those means are imbecile
and miserable."

I was stupefied, and exclaimed:

"But, sir, could children be born in another way?"

"Happily, some are born in another way," was his reply; "a
considerable number by the union of men with genii of the air. And
such are intelligent and beautiful. By such means were born the
giants of whom Hesiod and Moses speak. Thus also Pythagoras was
born, to whose bodily formation his mother, a Salamander, had
contributed a thigh of pure gold. Such also Alexander the Great,
said to have been the son of Olympias and a serpent; Scipio
Africanus, Aristomenes of Messina, Julius Caesar, Porphyry, the
Emperor Julian, who re-established the oath of fire abolished by
Constantine the Apostate, Merlin the enchanter, child of a Sylph and
a nun daughter of Charlemagne; Saint Thomas Aquinas, Paracelsus and,
but recently, M. Van Helmont."

I promised M. d'Asterac, as such were the facts, that I would be
willing to lend myself to the friendship of a Salamander, if one
were to be found obliging enough to wish for me. He assured me that
I should meet not one but a score or more, between whom I should
have my free choice. And less by longing for the adventure than to
give him pleasure, I asked the philosopher how it is possible to
enter into communication with these aerial persons.

"Nothing easier," he replied. "All that's wanted is a glass ball,
the use of which I'll explain to you. I have always at home a pretty
good number of such balls, and in my study I'll very soon give you
all necessary enlightenment. But, for to-day, my son, enough is said
of it."

He rose, and walked in the direction of the ferry, where the
ferryman waited for us, lying outstretched on his back and snoring
at the moon. As soon as we had reached the opposite shore he quickly
went on, and was soon lost in the darkness.

CHAPTER XIV

Visit to Mademoiselle Catherine--The Row in the Street and my
Dismissal.

A confused sentiment as of a dream remained with me after this long
conversation, but the thoughts of Catherine became keener. In
despite of the sublimities I had been listening to, I was overcome
by a powerful desire to see her, although I had not had any supper.
The ideas of philosophy had not sufficiently penetrated me to cause
anything like a disgust at that pretty girl. I was resolved to
follow my good fortune to its end before becoming the prey of one of
those beautiful furies of the air, who do not want any human rival.
My only fear was that Catherine, at so late an hour, had become
tired of waiting for me. So running along the river bank, and
passing the royal bridge at a gallop, I stormed into the Rue du Bac.
Within a single minute I had reached the Rue de Grenelle, where I
heard shouting mixed up with the clashing of swords. The noise came
out of the very house Catherine had described to me. In front of it,
on the pavement, shadows and lanterns were visible, and voices to be
heard.

"Help, Jesus! I'm being murdered!... fall on the Capuchin! Forward!
Spike him!... Jesus, Mary, help me!... Look on the pretty favourite
lover! On him! On him! Spike him, rascals, spike him hard!"

The windows of the adjoining houses were opened, heads in night-caps
appeared.

Suddenly all this noise and bustle passed before me like a hunt in
the forest, and I recognised Friar Ange running away at such a speed
that his sandals hammered on his behind, while three long devils of
lackeys, armed like Swiss guards, followed him closely, larding him
with the points of their javelins. Their master, a young gentleman,
thick-set and ruddy-faced, continued to encourage them by voice and
gesture, just as he would have done with dogs:

"Fall on! Fall on! Spike! The beast is tough!"

As he came close to me, I said:

"Oh! sir, have you no pity?"

"Sir," he replied, "it's easily seen that yonder Capuchin has not
caressed your mistress, and you have not surprised madam, whom you
see here, in the arms of this stinking beast. One cannot say
anything about her financier, because one has manners. But a
Capuchin cannot be borne. Burn the brazen-faced hussy!"

And he showed me Catherine under the doorway, clad in nothing but a
chemise, her eyes glistening with tears, wringing her hands, more
beautiful than ever, and murmuring in a dying voice, which cut deep
into my soul:

"Don't kill him! It's Friar Ange, the little friar!"

The rascally lackeys returned, announcing that they had given up the
pursuit at the appearance of the watch, but not without driving half
a finger deep their pikes in the holy man's behind. The night-caps
vanished from the windows, which were closed again, and whilst the
young nobleman talked to his followers, I went up to Catherine,
whose tears began to dry in the pretty folds of her smile. She said
to me:

"The poor friar is safe, but I trembled for him. Men are terrible.
When they love you they will not listen to anything."

"Catherine," I said, with no slight grudge, "did you make me come
here for no other purpose than to listen to the quarrels of your
friends? Alas! I have no right to take part in them."

"You would have had, M. Jacques," she said, "you should have had, if
you had wanted."

"But," I continued, "you are the most courted lady in Paris. You
never mentioned yonder young gentleman."

"I had no occasion to think of him. He came quite unexpectedly."

"And he surprised you with Friar Ange?"

"He fancied he saw things which did not occur. He is hot-headed and
does not want to listen to any reason."

The half-opened chemise disclosed under transparent laces a breast
swollen like a beautiful fruit and adorned like a budding rose. I
took her in my arms and covered her bosom with kisses.

"Heavens!" she exclaimed, "in the street! Before M. d' Anquetil, who
sees us."

"Who is M. d'Anquetil?"

"Pardi! he is the murderer of Friar Ange. Who else do you fancy he
may be?"

"True, Catherine, no others are wanted. Your friends surround you in
sufficient numbers."

"M. Jacques, do not insult me, if you please."

"I do not insult you, Catherine. I acknowledge your charms, to which
I should like to render the same homage that others do."

"M. Jacques, what you have now said smells odiously of the cookshop,
of that old codger who is your father."

"Not so very long ago, Mam'selle Catherine, you were mighty glad to
smell its cooking-stove."

"Fie! the villain! the mean rascal! He outrages a woman!"

And now she began to squeak and squeal, and M d'Anquetil left his
servants, came up to us, and pushed her into the house, calling her
a cheat and a rake, went into the passage behind her, and slammed
the door in my face.

CHAPTER XV

In the Library with M. Jerome Coignard--A Conversation on Morals--
Taken to M. d'Asterac's Study--Salamanders again--The Solar Powder--
A Visit and its Consequences.

The thought of Catherine occupied my mind all the week following
that vexatious adventure. Her image glittered on the leaves of the
folios over which I bent in the library, close to my dear tutor; so
much so that Plotinus, Olympiodorus, Fabricius, Vossius spoke of
nothing else to me than a tiny damsel in a lace chemise. These
visions rendered me lazy. But, indulgent to others, as to himself,
M. Jerome Coignard had a kind smile for my trouble and distraction.

"Jacques Tournebroche," he said to me, one day, "are you not struck
by the variations in morals during the course of the centuries? The
books in this admirable Asteracian collection witness to the
uncertainties of mankind on this subject. If I reflect upon it, my
son, it is to put into your mind that solid and salutary idea that
no good morals are to be found outside religion, and that the maxims
of the philosophers, who pretend to institute a natural morality,
are nothing but whims and babblings of foolish trash. The
rationality of good morals is not to be found in nature, which in
itself is indifferent, ignorant of good or evil. It is in the divine
word, which is not to be trespassed against without after regret.
The laws of humanity are based on utility, and that can only be an
apparent and illusory utility, for nobody knows naturally what is
useful to mankind, nor what is really appropriate to them. And we
must not forget that our habits contain a good moiety of articles
which are of prejudice alone. Upheld by the menace of chastisement,
human laws may be eluded by cunning and dissimulation. Every man
capable of reflection stands above them. Really they are nothing but
booby traps.

"It is not the same thing, my boy, with laws divine. They are
indefeasible, unavoidable and lasting. Their absurdity is in
appearance only, and hides an inconceivable wisdom. If they wound
our reason, it is because they are superior to it, and agree with
the true issues of mankind, and not with the visible ends. It is
useful to observe them when one has the good luck to know them. Yet
I find no difficulty in confessing that the observance of those
laws, contained in the Decalogue and in the commandments of the
Church, is difficult at most times, even impossible without grace,
and that sometimes has to be waited for, because it is a duty to
hope. And therefore we are all miserable sinners.

"And that is where the dispositions of the Christian religion must
be admired, which founds salvation principally on repentance. It
must not be overlooked, my boy, that the greatest saints are
penitents, and, as repentance is proportioned to the sin, it is in
the greatest sinners that the material is found for the greatest
saints. I could illustrate this doctrine with scores of admirable
examples. But I have said enough to make you feel that the raw
material of sanctity is concupiscence, incontinencies, all
impurities of flesh and mind. After having collected the raw
material nothing signifies but to fashion it according it theologic
art and to model, so to say, a figure of penitence, which is a
matter of a few years, a few days, sometimes of a single moment
only, as is to be seen in the case of a perfect contrition. Jacques
Tournebroche, if you listen well to my sayings, you will not consume
yourself in miserable cares to become an honest man in a worldly
sense, and you'll exclusively study to satisfy divine justice."

I could not help feeling the elevated wisdom enshrined in the maxims
of my dear, good tutor; I was only afraid that these morals, should
they be exercised without discrimination, would carry man to a
disorderly life. I unfolded my doubts to M. Jerome Coignard, who
reassured me in the following terms:

"Jacobus Tournebroche, you do not take note of what I have just
expressly told you, to wit, that what you call disorder is only such
in the opinion of laymen and judges in law--ordinary and
ecclesiastical--and in its bearing on human laws, which are
arbitrary and transitory, and, in a word, to follow these laws is
the act of a silly soul. A sensible man does not pride himself on
acting according to the rules in force at the Chatelet and at the
gaol.

"He is uneasy about his salvation, and does not think himself
dishonoured by going to heaven by indirect ways as followed by the
greatest saints. If the blessed Pelagie had not followed the same
profession by which Jeannette, the hurdy-gurdy player you know,
earned her living, under the portico of the Church of Saint Benoit
le Betourne, that saint would not have been compelled to do full and
copious penitence; and it is extremely probable that, after having
lived in indifferent and banal chastity, she would not, at this very
moment speak of her, be playing the psaltery before the tabernacle
where the Holy of Holies reposes in his glory. Do you call disorder,
so fine a regulation of a predestinated life? Certainly not! Leave
such mean ways of speech to the Superintendent of Police, who after
his death will hardly find the smallest place behind the
unfortunates whom now he carries ignominiously to the spittel.
Beyond the loss of the soul and eternal damnation there can be no
other disorders, crimes or evils whatsoever in this perishable
world, where one and all is to be ruled and adjusted with regard to
a divine world. Confess, Tournebroche, my boy, that acts the most
reprehensible in the opinion of men can lead to a good end, and do
not try to reconcile the justice of men with the justice of God,
which alone is just, not in our sense but with finality. And now, my
boy, you'll greatly oblige me by looking into Vossius for the
signification of five or six rather obscure words which the
Panopolitan employs, and wherewith one has to do battle in the
darkness of that insidious manner which astonished even the willing
heart of Ajax, as reported by Homer, prince of poets and historians.
These ancient alchemists had a tough style. Manilius, may it not
displease M. d'Asterac, writes on the same subjects with more
elegance."

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