He leaned forward and,stretching out a thin,nervous hand,laid it on my knee.'What if they are right,though?'he muttered,his voice hoarse.'What if they are right,M.de Marsac?'
'Who right?'I asked roughly,drawing back afresh.
'The Sorbonne.'he repeated,his face red with excitement,his eyes peering uncannily into mine.'Don't you see,'he continued,pinching my knee in his earnestness,and thrusting his face nearer and nearer to mine,'it all turns on that?It all turns on that--salvation or damnation!Are they right?Are you right?
You say yes to this,no to that,you white-coats;and you say it lightly,but are you right?Are you right?Mon Dieu!'he continued,drawing back abruptly and clawing the air with impatience,'I have read,read,read!I have listened to sermons,theses,disputations,and I know nothing.I know no more than when I began.'
He sprang up and began to pace the floor,while I gazed at him with a feeling of pity.A very learned person once told me that the troubles of these times bred four kinds of men,who were much to be compassionated:fanatics on the one side or the other,who lost sight of all else in the intensity of their faith;men who,like Simon Fleix,sought desperately after something to believe,and found it not;and lastly,scoffers,who,believing in nothing,looked on all religion as a mockery.
He presently stopped walking--in his utmost excitement I remarked that he never forgot my mother,but trod more lightly when he drew near the alcove--and spoke again.'You are a Huguenot?'he said.
'Yes,'I replied.
'So is she,'he rejoined,pointing towards the bed.'But do you feel no doubts?'
'None,'I said quietly.
'Nor does she.'he answered again,stopping opposite me.You made up your mind--how?'
'I was born in the Religion,'I said.
'And you have never questioned it?'
'Never.'
'Nor thought much about it?'
'Not a great deal,'I answered.
'Saint Gris!'he exclaimed in a low tone.'And do you never think of hell-fire--of the worm which dieth not,and the fire which shall not be quenched?Do you never think of that,M.de Marsac?'
'No,my friend,never!'I answered,rising impatiently;for at that hour,and in that silent,gloomy room I found his conversation dispiriting.'I believe what I was taught to believe,and I strive to hurt no one but the enemy.I think little;and if I were you I would think less.I would do something,man--fight,play,work,anything but think!I leave that to clerks.'
'I am a clerk,'he answered.
'A poor one,it seems,'I retorted,with a little scorn in my tone.'Leave it,man.Work!Fight!Do something!'
'Fight?'he said,as if the idea were a novel one.'Fight?But there,I might be killed;and then hell-fire,you see!'
'Zounds,man!'I cried,out of patience with a folly which,to tell the truth,the lamp burning low,and the rain pattering on the roof,made the skin of my back feel cold and creepy.'Enough of this!Keep your doubts and your fire to yourself!And answer me,'I continued,sternly.'How came Madame de Bonne so poor?
How did she come down to this place?'
He sat down on his stool,the excitement dying quickly out of his face.'She gave away all her money,'he said slowly and reluctantly.It may be imagined that this answer surprised me.
'Gave it away?'I exclaimed.'To whom?And when?'
He moved uneasily on his seat and avoided my eye,his altered manner filling me with suspicions which the insight I had just obtained into his character did not altogether preclude.At last he said,'I had nothing to do with it,if you mean that;nothing.
On the contrary,I have done all I could to make it up to her.Ifollowed her here.I swear that is so,M.de Marsac.'
'You have not told me yet to whom she gave it,'I said sternly.
'She gave it,'he muttered,'to a priest.'
'To what priest?'
'I do not know his name.He is a Jacobin.'
'And why?'I asked,gazing incredulously at the student.'Why did she give it to him?Come,come!have a care.Let me have none of your Sorbonne inventions!'
He hesitated a moment,looking at me timidly,and then seemed to make up his mind to tell me.'He found out--it was when we lived in Paris,you understand,last June--that she was a Huguenot.It was about the time they burned the Foucards,and he frightened her with that,and made her pay him money,a little at first,and then more and more,to keep her secret.When the king came to Blois she followed his Majesty,thinking to be safer here;but the priest came too,and got more money,and more,until he left her--this.'
'This!'I said.And I set my teeth together.
Simon Fleix nodded,I looked round the wretched garret to which my mother had been reduced,and pictured the days and hours of fear and suspense through which she had lived;through which she must have lived,with that caitiff's threat hanging over her grey head!Ithought of her birth and her humiliation;of her frail form and patient,undying love for me;and solemnly,and before heaven,Iswore that night to punish the man.My anger was too great for words,and for tears I was too old.I asked Simon Fleix no more questions,save when the priest might be looked for again--which he could not tell me--and whether he would know him again--to which he answered,'Yes.'But,wrapping myself in my cloak,Ilay down by the fire and pondered long and sadly.
So,while I had been pinching there,my mother had been starving here.She had deceived me,and I her.The lamp flickered,throwing uncertain shadows as the draught tossed the strange window-curtain to and fro.The leakage from the roof fell drop by drop,and now and again the wind shook the crazy building,as though it would lift it up bodily and carry it away.
