The Last Fay

by Honoré de Balzac

  However, that being by the by, a matter concluded, let’s not talk about it anymore: then, he will get to the nub of the matter, and without making a fuss, beg you, Monseigneur, to give him the post of the tax-collector who is nothing but a dunce. Nevertheless, Monseigneur will do well to admit him to retirement, because the petitioner only wants the position of tax-collector and not to harm him in your mind; it will cost you nothing, Monseigneur, but a stroke of the pen; and the undersigned petitioner has the pleasure of reminding you that he found himself guarding His Excellency’s door before he was minister, when he saved him from the Cossacks, without which Monseigneur would not be His Excellency today.

  The petitioner dies not doubt Monseigneur’s sentiments of gratitude, with whom he has the honor to be, etc.

  Jacques Bontems.

  That done, he assembled the whole sum of his ideas to make a summary of the same genre for the commune’s lawsuit, and sent it to one of his former generals, recommending him to pass it on to a Councilor of State “in order,” he said, “to have the King issue an immediate decree.”

  After such dispatches, Jacques Bontems declared to Catherine’s father that within a month, he, Bontems, would be appointed tax-collector and that the commune’s lawsuit would be settled. The former beadle replied that Catherine would then become his wife, and Catherine uttered a sigh.

  Chapter VI

  The Pearl Fay

  Abel had ended up despairing of ever seeing a fay, and for three or four days he had even put away his books of enchantment, which he knew by heart, having finally resolved not to open them again.

  His soul, like those of people who begin to doubt something on which they have founded all their happiness, was delivered to an extremely sweet melancholy; he found a void within himself, thought about Catherine, and he had, in his meditations, all the elements of amour without being amorous. His mental activity dissolved in reveries devoid of object, which plunged him, by virtue of Catherine’s absence, into a kind of mental torpor. For several days, his very life was purely animal, and there was only one desire within him: that of having something on to which he could project the mass of sentiment that obsessed him.

  Those who have been twenty years old will understand that state of mind perfectly, and those who, at school, are turning these pages furtively, will not take long to discover it.

  One evening, after having contemplated the aspect of the sky for a long time, Abel addressed himself to the firmament in his Oriental language. “Clouds,” he said, “who often pause on the summits of mountains and deposit the djinni that refresh the earth, send to my cottage some frivolous sprite to instruct me, or prescribe me some difficult task into which I can put all my soul; precipitate me into a lake at the bottom of which I will find lions guarding a young fay sitting on a diamond, asleep for centuries by the order of a cruel enchanter. Star who seems to distil light, descend and give me a talisman for my life. Diving radiance that departs from the bosom of the Queen of the Night, guide me to the land where Farucknaz7 is to be found, where the roc deploys its wings, where the thousand golden columns of the palaces of the fays rise up.”

  To Caliban, who was listening to him without understanding, he said: “Oh, soon, perhaps tomorrow, I’ll dig up the fireplace, and we’ll go somewhere else; for the princes in my tales go out into the world, and that’s how they encounter fays, disguised as old beggar-women.” He added, however: “But how can I abandon the field where my mother lies? And Catherine, and you, Caliban, who can no longer walk?”

  Caliban kissed his hand.

  “I want to love!” Abel exclaimed. “I feel something here”—the indicated his heart—“that needs another being than me; my flowers, my cottage and my plants are no longer sufficient for me. I’m alone! O fay of amours, good fay who served the lutin prince so well, come to my aid!”

  He went back inside, and lay down sadly on his bed in the laboratory, and did not take long to fall into the most profound sleep, as did Caliban, who had a room some distance from his own.

  It was around midnight; the most profound silence reigned in nature entire, only troubled by the cool nocturnal breeze that was softly swaying the branches of the trees; a few owls were hooting in the distance; the moon was hidden by large clouds, allowing a profound obscurity to rule.

  Abel dreamed that a fay was about to appear; he heard in his dream the enchanting cords of an entirely aerial music, and in the midst of its sounds, he listened with the pure delight of a soul disengaged from the body, to the silvery voice of the fay who surged forth brilliant and clear from the bosom of a cloud of melody, light and dew as blue-tinted as the horizon of the sea.

  He woke up with a start, but the sweet music of the dream continued...

  Soon, it stopped.

  What a spectacle!

  In order to give an accurate idea of it, it would be necessary to paint in words the tableau of Endymion:8 to show Abel, just as handsome as the shepherd beloved by Diana, lying in that attitude, as gracious, and colored, like him, by the amorous glow that announces the goddess—but here, in the laboratory, the goddess had arrived!

  Stupefied, Abel has seen, emerging from the fireplace, the object of his dreams, a fay, but the prettiest of fays, the fay of amours!

  She is suspended in mid-air in the middle of a cloud of light as white as that of a star and as soft as daylight passed through muslin woven with designs. That light is produced by a bronze lamp, which the fay has left in the fireplace, and which Abel can no longer see. That lamp, antique in form, casts a glow that seems to be a celestial radiance, which illuminates the laboratory. Abel thinks that he is still dreaming; he abandons himself, craning his neck, like a mortal seeing paradise for the first time, to the delight of contemplating the individual whose celestial voice he has just heard.

  The song and the music have ceased. From the bosom of her throne of light, the fay seems to be insulting the earth, which she disdains to touch with her snowy feet. She is clad entirely in white, in a white fabric so dazzling that the image Abel had traced of a fay’s garments is surpassed.

  She had jet-black hair, dotted with pearls whose charming whiteness, softer than that of diamond, made her head resemble a tuft of verdure charged with a thousand dewdrops.

  A girdle of pearls circled a slender, light and voluptuous waist; a pearl necklace with fifteen rows was only distinguished with difficulty by Abel, because it seemed to be confused with the fay’s skin, so white was she; on her polished arms, delicate and satined, pearl bracelets gleamed; and her dress was embroidered with pearls. She was holding a wand of mother-of-pearl, and from the summit of her head a veil hung down at the back, so light that it seemed to be woven from the wind by the zephyrs themselves. That veil, milk-white, formed in its play a kind of cloud, in the bosom of which she was seated.

  That daughter of the air was petite, dainty, lively and light, but nothing can give an idea of her face, the finest effort of nature. It contained all characters: kindness alloyed with gentle pride, grandeur, attraction, amour, grace, and the indefinable charm that results from a desire to please. Her keen eyes, full of moist fire, had the dark circle that doubles their gleam, and they had the most astonishing expression of voluptuousness, almost aerial and vaporous, given by a broad, long and beautiful eyelid with long lashes, when it advances over the middle of the eye and seems to hide the pupil, in which all the burning fire of amour is visible.

  Her slender nose respired enjoyment; on her flowery cheek the gleam of a shiny apple was resplendent; and her mouth was smiling like an opening rosebud, allowing a glimpse of teeth rivaling the pearls of her attire. Her divine smile announced a thought as pure and fresh as her breath, and the elegant pose of her neck, which rose from the middle of the gracious curve of her shoulders like a milky column, indicated that she had studied majesty in the heavens. Her harmonious breasts, veiled as they were by an airy gauze, were devoured by Abel’s charmed gaze; in the silence of the night, he could hear the murmur of those ivory globes.


  To see all of that was the affair of a minute; he seemed fearful that his breath might cause the divine apparition to fly away, and he dared not look at the fay, whose eyes seemed to be stars of the heavens.

  The fay took pleasure in enjoying Abel’s astonishment, and her gaze was one of curious admiration. She lowered and raised her eyes by turns, until Abel, hearing the fay’s respiration, finally stopped doubting the reality of the brilliant creature. He prostrated himself, and, raising his angelic face, he said to her with enthusiasm, and with the voice of adoration: “You are doubtless the Pearl Fay?”

  She smiled, and nodded her head as a sign of approval. That gentle movement caused a large diamond in the middle of her pure forehead to glitter; Abel thought that the cloud of light trembled spasmodically, describing multiple circles, like the ripples of a stone thrown into limpid water.

  “You have heard my voice, then, beautiful Pearl Fay,” he continued, with a charming ingenuousness. “Take in your loving hands the reins of my life! Preside over my sentiments; I dedicate myself to you… if, that is, I am worthy of it—but the offering of a pure heart is, I believe, the most beautiful thing there is on the earth. Oh, come to my cottage sometimes; I shall seek tears of repentance for you, if it is your employment to collect them; I shall raise temples and altars to you; I shall live for you…but speak; I tremble that you might only be the daughter of a dream.”

  Raphael represents to us angels, seraphim, kneeling before the Eternal, and he has assembled human perfection in a posture that, in spite of its humility, shines with grace; their resplendent visages seem to cast a reflection over the earth, which they cover with the thousand curls of their golden hair: such was Abel before his fay.

  She admired him, and for a moment her lily complexion became paler and her blush more vivid; her eyes sparkled, and a magical expression strayed over her radiant face. When Abel had finished his plea, she agitated her head gently, and pronounced these words:

  “Abel, I shall see whether you are worthy of what you ask; in the meantime, I shall come to slip into your cottage like a moonbeam that spreads a slivery light and shines in the middle of the night. If you merit it, I shall be your friend, your star, and...”

  She stopped, as if she were fearful of making too great a promise.

  On hearing that angelic voice, which slid into his ear like the last sounds of a harp, and which had the softness, the harmony and the grace of them, Abel was dazed; the impact of that voice went straight to his heart, and he listened to it with his soul, for it appeared to emerge from that of the fay. The lovely music that had preceded the apparition was no sweeter than that soft chord.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed. “If, transported on a cloud, I hear the divine tones of the golden harps that, Catherine has told me, the cherubim play before God, I shall not have more pleasure than is given to me by a syllable pronounced by you! The bird that sings before dying, the nightingale, the golden crossbill,9 and a mother’s kiss are no softer. O Pearl Fay, are you not the queen of all the fays, as the pearl is the queen of the ocean?”

  The fay smiled, and intoxicated him by means of that smile.

  “If I were eternal,” he cried, forcefully, “one such smile every thousand years, and I would be happy! Ask for my head, with an executioner and his ax standing by, but smile at me again and I will die content…your smile would smile at me until nightfall; I would prefer death with that memory to life without you!”

  “Adieu, Abel!” she said, in a tender voice.

  Abel prostrated himself, and when he raised his head, the fay had disappeared as she had come, and although the young man strained his eyes to distinguish the place that she had occupied, he saw, to borrow Milton’s admirable expression, nothing but darkness visible, and heard nothing but silence. However, he distinguished in the distance a muffled sound like that of thunder, and in a reawakening of astonishment he ran out of the cottage. He climbed the hill, and toward the forest he perceived a luminous chariot flying away with the rapidity of a storm-cloud.

  He went back inside, but could not sleep until daybreak; he could still see the Pearl Fay and her cloud of light; he could hear that soft voice, and threw himself forward as if to seize the luminous foot that he had seen shining in a cothurne of silvery fabric; he rubbed his eyes, but he could not doubt.

  In daylight, he had the proof of the celestial apparition; his mother’s footstool was in front of the fireplace, and there were a few pearls thereon, detached from the fay’s robe. He investigated the hearth, and found at his feet the debris of an enormous bottle that his father had placed on the mantelpiece, on the label of which Abel remembered always have read the first word: Spirit...

  “That’s it,” he said to himself. “My father kept the fay enclosed in it, and her term of imprisonment finished last night.”

  Finally, he went inside the fireplace, and perceived that on one of its sides, his father, when he enlarged it with Caliban, had left a little staircase there, carved into the stone, and he saw more pearls on several of the steps.

  Then he ran to wake Caliban and told him about the fay’s coming.

  Old Caliban rejoiced, and when his young master had finished, he said to him: “Abel, I’m getting old and I’ll die soon. It’s necessary, in order to avoid the trouble of cultivating the garden, to mill the wheat and sow the vegetables, to ask your fay to have it done by goblins.”

  “If only she could make you live forever,” said Abel. “But fays don’t have that power.” That point was doubtful, though, and he promised to reopen the Cabinet des fées and look for examples. Then Caliban rejoiced, hoping that Abel might find a ticket to eternity for him on some forgotten page.

  Abel went out, and the first thing that struck his gaze was a white mass, a hundred paces from the cottage, that he was not accustomed to see there. He remembered that something else had existed in the same place before, but it was only after a full hour of meditation that he remembered that it was the enormous bush that had hidden Catherine the first time she had ventured on to the hill.

  He ran to it and discovered that the bush had been burned, uncovering an enormous stone around which it had grown, hiding it from all eyes. The stone was square, and he perceived bizarre characters traced on the table that covered the rustic monument. At the base of the square block was an extraordinarily large and vast flagstone, buried for many years under the ground. The earth had been dug up and the white slab, in the middle of which was a large iron ring, was now freed from everything that had hidden it for an exceedingly a long time, since the bush had been able to grow there.

  That rather considerable labor had been done without Abel being able to hear anything, and that reflection made him think that it was a trick of the pretty Pearl Fay, and that the monument and its hieroglyphic characters signified something very important.

  He lay down on the ground, and put his ear to the slab. He heard a muffled sound that might have been mistaken for that of goblins, but which was really produced by the same cause that makes the sound of the sea audible in seashells that children put to their ear.

  He stood up again and tried to make sense of the characters, but that was impossible, because they were too bizarre, although Abel was able to make out a few figures effaced by the hand of time.

  He was still gazing at the singular monument when he heard footfalls as light as those of a phantom. He advanced his head, thinking that it was the fay. He saw Catherine, who, in spite of her chagrin, was coming toward him cheerfully. Abel could not suppress a movement of disappointment on seeing that he was mistaken; that gesture did not escape Catherine’s eye.

  “What’s the matter?” she said to him, trembling like a winter leaf.

  “I thought,” he replied, with a soft smile that reassured Catherine momentarily, “that it was the fay...”

  “What fay?” she said, surprised.

  “The Pearl Fay,” Abel replied, his eyes sparkling with amour. “Oh, how beautiful she is! Why, what’s the matter, Cathe
rine?—you’re turning your eyes away.”

  “Yes,” she said, in a stifled voice. “I can’t look at yours when they have that expression…” and it isn’t for me, she thought.

  “What’s the matter, my little Catherine?” he said, softly. “You’re weeping. Are you suffering, then?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m suffering!” Catherine sobbed. She turned round and saw tears in his eyes. “You’re weeping too,” she said—and immediately, her tears seemed to dry up.

  “Can I see your pain without feeling it?” Abel replied. “Are you not my sister, since you’re the only person who has smiled at me without being my father, my mother or Caliban?”

  “Well,” said Catherine, hiding her disappointment, “what is this fay?”

  Then Abel, with all the fire of youth and all the fire of amour, gave her an animated and brilliant description of the celestial vision that he had had during the night. At every instant, the most energetic phrases of humans that the friction of civilization has not deteriorated, and who remain new, arrived on his inflamed lips, and informed only too well the unfortunate Catherine, who was still listening with pleasure to that sentence of death, like a repentant criminal who has need of torture.

  “Finally,” said Abel, in conclusion, pointing at the heavens, “it’s only beyond that iridescent sash that flowers as brilliant live and die; they come from the flower-bed of the gardens of your God, whom I love even more since he has permitted me to see the roses that bloom near his throne, and which bring therefrom a dew of light and perfumes, and charms of which nature down here has no examples. Yes, Catherine, the whiteness of a virgin lily, the thousand colors of the birds of the Orient, the soft song of swans, the odor of amber, the face of Mohammed’s houris…assemble all the forces of nature, and the masterpiece would still be beneath her...”