by George Moore
Héloïse stopped on seeing her uncle’s face darken, and to pass over an awkward moment she said: I will spend the hour before dinner by the river, watching the swallows floating up and down.
It must have been something in the temper of her voice that reminded Fulbert that he was not receiving his niece with the courtesy which she had a right to expect from him, and to make amends he proposed that they should go for a little walk before dinner. Dinner, he called to Madelon, will not be ready for nearly an hour, and on hearing that she hoped they would be back in three-quarters, he said: we shall have time to walk to the Cathedral and round the King’s Gardens. But come first to the river. So pleasant was the sunset that they walked bareheaded, admiring the stillness of the evening, unbroken except when a solitary rook flew overhead and cawed, or a long narrow leaf detached itself and fell through the branches of the willows into the stream. The Seine flows here almost silently, as it does at Argenteuil, said Héloïse; whispering as it goes by as if afraid that somebody should hear its secret. No river flows more silently: a deep, narrow stream, more suited for navigation than the Loire, the Canon answered her; however-dry the summer may be there is water enough in the Seine for the biggest boats to come up to Paris; the Seine is the source of much wealth to Paris. It was the Seine that brought us the rich merchants, and he pointed to the Lombard quarter, which he had already shown her from the room in which she had asked if she might sit and read. Few of those houses were built before thy schooldays, Héloïse, if I remember right; others are building, the city is extending on both sides, and it is by the Little Bridge that hundreds of students come to the Cathedral cloister to attend lectures. The left bank is known as the Latin quarter; because of the bad Latin that the students speak there, he added, laughing. And the bridge that we are now standing on is known as the Great Bridge — you may remember it. It allows the merchants to come to our services at Notre-Dame without enduring the hardship of the ferry. But, said Héloïse, the right bank has two churches, Saint-Germains-l’Auxerrois and Saint-Gervais. The Canon smiled, Héloïse thought a little ironically, and after complimenting her upon her memory he spoke of the selfishness of the prelacy of these two churches. It is hardly to be believed, he said, that men could be so selfish, yet a great deal of opposition was raised to the building of the bridge; the case of the ferryman was put forward, but the cause at the back, the real opposition to the bridge, was the fear that the bridge would rob the churches yonder of their congregations, a fear (again Héloïse saw the ironical smile appear upon her uncle’s lips) which has partly been justified by events. After all, uncle, the churches yonder would like to retain their congregations. Fulbert did not answer, and for some time they loitered listening to the whispering river, watching its eddies curling almost invisibly on the deep current, till that sense of sadness inseparable from a river turned them away from it, and they were glad to find themselves again in the rue des Chantres.
The Canon drew his hood over his head and bade Héloïse do likewise, and she admired the storeyed houses, now so visible against the sky, and the purple-robed ecclesiastics passing each other with ceremonious smiles and salutes. Is the street as full at all times as it is now? Héloïse asked. I never knew it quieter than it is now, the Canon replied. In the morning the cries of the tradespeople calling their wares keep one from sleep if one is not accustomed to noise. A group of students emerging suddenly from a wine-shop, singing and shouting and falling over each other, rough gambols that bewildered the peaceable passenger, provoked the Canon into mild expostulation. All countries send their students to us; Paris is becoming not only a centre of commerce but also of learning; but our students are not only boisterous, they are dangerous at nightfall — The anecdote which he was about to tell was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Notre-Dame, a long, low Romanesque church with round arches and two towers, and after expounding upon it in terms of admiration the Canon said: Paris is not only the centre of commerce and science; Paris is also the centre of Christianity, in one sense more even than Rome, for it was we that gathered an army to send into Palestine to win the Sepulchre of Our Lord from the Infidel. England came to the aid of Christendom later. Paris is the birthplace of ideas, he added, and they stood at gaze, seeing a city of a thousand cries projecting its grey profile into the sunset; a multitude of towers and spires and thronging roofs above streets so narrow that they were already in twilight. Paris has many churches, Héloïse said; I see them all around me. Not so many churches as cries, the Canon answered; but no city equals Paris in the beauty and the number of the churches that we see from where we stand. Grouped about Notre-Dame like chickens about a hen, Héloïse said, and approving the remark, the Canon compared the long, narrow island to the carcass of a stranded ship. And Héloïse said: but why stranded, uncle? For since commerce and science are collected in Paris it were surely a pity to represent Paris as a wreck. As a ship at anchor then, he answered, with a slight irritation in his voice, which Héloïse interpreted to mean that for the future she must not call his similes into question. To atone for her indiscretion she begged of him to tell her the names of the churches on the left bank, and whither led the Little Bridge. He answered that it led to the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève. How nobly, she said, it crowns the hill-top. In the plain about the hill the students find lodgings, for the city cannot contain them all, the Canon said; and they come into Paris by this bridge to attend the lectures of Champeaux, the great Realist, and Abélard, who — But that is another matter and one that would lead us from the pleasant contemplation of our churches. In the morning the air is alive with their bells, like larks singing aloft, I have often thought. The bells of Saint-Germains-l’Auxerrois and Saint-Gervais answer the bells of Notre-Dame, and the bells of Notre-Dame answer them, and in the distance are heard the bells of the old Abbey of Saint-Germains des Prés; nor is that all, for out of the dim west comes to us in the still morning the sound of the bells of the church of Saint-Victor; many other churches, too — fifteen in all. But it seems to me now, Héloïse, that if we remain talking about churches any longer we shall hear complaints from Madelon that all the trouble she has taken with the goose in thine honour has been wasted. The churches are tokens to every eye that Paris is a centre of religion, and having said that, Héloïse, let us return to our goose, for in this world little things are often as important as great; indeed, sometimes great things would not be accomplished without the help of little things, so let us give thanks for our goose.
And Héloïse, finding a cheerfulness in her uncle that she had not suspected, began to hope that her visit to Paris might not prove a failure after all. Be this as it may, the goose awaited them and hunger indisposed them from further chatter as they walked through the crowd of prelates and clerks that still filled the rue des Chantres.
We have not stayed away longer than we said we would, the Canon cried, throwing open the kitchen door. You have come back none too soon, Madelon answered. And none too late; I wouldn’t say that five minutes earlier — But five minutes to a goose — answered the Canon. Five minutes to a goose is as much as five minutes to a man, Madelon replied; and for Héloïse, who may not enjoy goose as much as we do, I should have liked to have had a plate of gudgeons, but if something isn’t done to catch them glittering birds for ever flying up and down the river, we shan’t know a plate of gudgeons when we see them.
Héloïse and I have no stomach for anything but the goose, so bring it quickly and tell us what thy tart is. If gudgeons are so rare that there are seldom any in the market, Madelon answered, we have a finer share of honey this year than for many a year past; the bees have been good to us if no one else has. The bees have always been good to men, the Canon answered, in the days of the great Virgil as to-day. He praised bees as no man has ever praised them before. And would have praised them again were he here to share with you the tart I have prepared for you, honey and cream, cream as good as I have ever whipped. Now what do you be saying to my goose? she asked, her little short arms akimbo
on her podgy hips, seeming to relish the goose as much as the Canon and his niece, who both had their mouths full. Be sure to fill thy mouth very full, niece, said the Canon, else thou’lt fail to get the taste of it. It is good, Madelon, as good as thyself, which is saying much. The Canon has returned to his humour, Madelon answered. The bird eats tender, don’t he? and Héloïse, after her long journey, must be hungry; so am I. Argenteuil and back is a long journey for the day, and my teeth will fasten lovingly on what you leave behind of that goose. We shall leave plenty, the Canon answered. But I don’t see thee drinking, Héloïse; and the goose must not allow us to forget the wine. Madelon filled their cups and said: now is there anything that you want? You have bread enough, and don’t neglect my spinach, for it was cooked in the finest butter, and the cauliflower too. I have done my best, but the best is not much when one has been away three parts of the day backwards and forwards to Argenteuil. All the same, I hope my supper will not fall short of the suppers they gave thee in the convent. Ah, they look after their bellies in those convents! and I must look to my honey tart. In a few minutes she was back again, the tart in her hands, proud of the show that it made on the table. I see my goose has received a hearty welcome from you both, but two legs remain, which will do well for Madelon, and there are pickings elsewhere. I am as hungry as you were, and will run away with the goose. Madelon’s pastry is excellent, the Canon said, his eyes filled with memories of tarts eaten in the years gone by. Hast thou ever eaten a better one? How flaky it is; wilt have some more? Héloïse would have liked a second helping but she thought her uncle might like a third, and conquered the temptation. There are nuts on the table, and apples and pears, but there is no fruit like grapes. Look at this bunch, the small, white sweet-water grapes that grow nowhere but in France; these have come up from Fontainebleau. And when each had finished a great bunch he said: they eat well, don’t they? Bread and grapes go well together, and none bakes better than Madelon. Do you always sup like to-day, uncle? Héloïse asked, and the Canon answered somewhat tartly that the supper she had eaten was prepared for her: let us go upstairs, he said.
So that he might better consider Madelon’s supper, the Canon lay back in his chair outstretched, his toes in the air, his fat, heavy hands clasped over his belly, and Héloïse bethought herself of his books as a safe subject for discussion, to be broached as soon as he was rested. He is not yet done with his supper, she said to herself, for the Canon had just roused himself from his chair and was returning to it from the table, whither he had gone for a handful of nuts and a tankard of wine; and he sat cracking and skinning the nuts and drinking large draughts in silence, till Héloïse began to think it would be wise for her to plead the fatigue of her journey and ask leave to retire to her room. Once more the Canon rose, and returning from the table to her, a full tankard in his hand, he began, to her very great surprise, to talk to her of her mother. Thou’rt like her in many ways, he said: in thy voice and gait. Jeanne was a good woman, he muttered, half to Héloïse and half to himself; a good woman, a very good woman. Wives usually love their husbands, but my mother loved hers more deeply than many women, and sacrificed all things to marry father. The words passed her lips incontinently, and no sooner were they gone from her than she held her breath, frightened, remembering that Madelon had told her that she must not speak of her father. So it was to her great surprise, and to his own, that Fulbert began to talk of his brother, like one whose mind has been relieved of a great weight. It seemed as if he almost enjoyed talking of Philippe, or was it, she asked herself, that he could not do else but to tell me of my father, or is it the wine that has loosened his tongue? Indifferent as to the cause of her uncle’s sudden loquacity, she listened eagerly to his telling of her family history, that some twenty years ago the Comte and Comtesse of an old Breton family came to him, Canon Fulbert, to ask him if he knew any doctor who would go and live in Brittany in special attendance on Madame la Comtesse, who was in delicate health. A valetudinarian is my wife, he said, and I answered him truthfully that the only doctor I knew was my own brother, a young man of great repute, one excellently well learned in every branch of his craft, but a young man who was once, I was careful to add, fond of hunting and falconry. These sports are out of his mind long since, so you need not be afraid that —— —— — And while I was looking for the words the Comte found them for me: afraid that your brother will be distracted from his duty towards the Comtesse by his love of hunting? Something of that kind was in my mind, no doubt, Comte, but —— —— I can’t recall what answer I made the Comte, but I am sure he answered me: your brother will be able to combine both science and sport, for in our forests there are wolves and boars, and I have hounds and peregrin falcons and goshawks in great numbers. Your brother will be appreciated by us both, Canon Fulbert, he said, for the Comtesse likes to hear that she is not as ill as she thinks she is from time to time. A woman’s imagination, you know, Canon; the confessional must have taught you much about women. That is how he spoke, and I told him that Philippe was fond of singing and playing the lute. Better and better, the Comte said, for the Comtesse loves music. I must meet your brother. It was not in the course of things that I should say nay to the Comte; but I could not put aside the thought that if Philippe were to follow the Comte to Brittany the end of it would be —
I didn’t know what the end would be, but scented danger, as well I might, Philippe being a young man and the Comtesse still a young woman, not yet forty. So I sought to dissuade him, saying that he would not be wise to abandon his patients for a sinecure; and many other things of the same kind I said, but to no avail. And now that I come to consider it after many years it seems to me that the Comte could not have failed to take heed of my warning if he hadn’t been what he was, a feeble man, altogether in his wife’s power and blind to the danger which I foresaw and which was not long in coming, for very soon, at the end of the year, it was plain to everybody that the Comtesse was in love with Philippe. But thy father, Héloïse, was not of the shameless sort who eat a man’s bread and betray him with his wife, and from what fell out afterwards it’s easy to guess how hard Philippe’s life must have been in the Castle, lute-playing and hawking with the Comtesse, always by her side, and her private physician at home, consulted upon ailments that did not exist and having to close his eyes to the one ailment which he could cure, her love of him. Philippe would have fallen — for sooner or later a man is bound to fall to a woman if she persists and no other woman comes to save him. The woman that came to save Philippe, Héloïse, was thy mother, the Comtesse’s own daughter. Now whether thy mother knew of the passionate story unravelling day by day before her eyes, or whether it was for love of thy father or a desire to save her mother, we shall never know. My belief is that woman never loved a man more truly than thy mother loved her husband and that she knew nothing of her mother’s shameless passion. The Coetlogons are great nobles, and my brother would not have spoken to Jeanne of his love for her had he not been told that he would be accepted if he did. I don’t know from whom he had the news, and it is no great matter; enough that he learnt it and that the marriage took place in a forest in a hermit’s hut. Once married always married (thou knowest that, Héloïse, for thou’rt well brought up), but thy grandmother didn’t think like that, not she, but of revenge only, and thy mother was put out of the Castle without money being given to her, in the dress that she wore and none other being allowed to her. The Canon could not continue the story without going to the table for more wine, and when he came back he began to tell of the lovers’ journey to Paris on foot and their arrival at his house. A poor creature thy grandfather, Héloïse, never daring to say nay to his wife, and believing her story, the old story of Potiphar’s wife. This is how it was, and the Duke of Brittany, Huet IV., to please the Comte expelled thy father from the duchy. Not altogether a bad man, the Duke, for when thou wast born, Héloïse, he tried to bring about a reconciliation. Thy grandfather would have been glad to see his daughter and his grandchild, but t
hy grandmother couldn’t forgive; a hard woman, Héloïse, thy grandmother was, a harlot at heart and in practice, too, and cruel in her lust. The Coetlogons, said she, that marry beneath them are no longer worthy of the name.
Thy mother proved herself a true Coetlogon by never complaining of her poverty, and — listen to me, Héloïse — I don’t believe she ever looked across the table at thy father putting the question to herself: was Philippe worth the sacrifice that I made for him? A good woman, as good as any I have known who parted from her husband, when he joined the standard to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the Infidel, telling him to go and do his duty, not an easy thing for a woman to say to a man like Philippe. Ah! to do one’s duty; I tried to do mine by thee, Héloïse, and hope that I did it. Now what was I saying? We were standing by this window watching the Seine flowing past, an emblem of our lives, when Philippe came to bid me good-bye; for, my dear Héloïse, we are but eddies in a great current; thou’rt too young to have thought of these things, but as we get on in life... Ah, well, thy father and I loved each other. Be to them as if they were thine own, he seemed to say. Why he didn’t speak the words I have no means of knowing; why should I? for thou must see that the emotion of parting with one’s brother is beyond words, and we parted without many words, never to see each other again. That is as God willed it. I loved thy father so dearly that it was painful to me to hear his name spoken; my friends respected my grief, it was never spoken in my presence, nor by me till now. And it was lest it might not be his will to see thee an abbess and head of a great community that I sent for thee, though I may be wronging my brother by thinking such a thing. A good Catholic, thy father, good son of the Church, laid down his life for it. Three learned women had joined the convent of Argenteuil, the Prioress, Mother Ysabeau and the nun that had a baby three years ago — her name has slipped out of my head — Sister Paula, Héloïse in terrupted. The Canon acquiesced that it was of her he was thinking. And my hope, he said, has always been that thou shouldst discover in thyself a vocation for the religious life, that I was doing thy father’s will in sending thee to Argenteuil. But one is never sure one is doing right; my point is —— —— —— — They could hear the low ripple of the Seine going by, and Fulbert did not break the silence, hoping that Héloïse would break it with the words: uncle, I have found the vocation that you would have me find, and hope that you will live long after I have been elected Prioress of the convent of Argenteuil. But Héloïse said nothing, and after trying to read her thoughts through her eyes the Canon continued: it may be thou hast not heard that it was thy father who pointed out the Spear to Raymond and jumped into the trench saying: all wounds shall be cured by its touch and all evils disappear. I didn’t know that my father was the finder of the Spear, and am overjoyed. The news that it was being brought to France in a ship reached the convent; we have often spoken about it as we sat at our work in the cloister. Asking thyself, perchance, Héloïse, why thine uncle never came to see thee, never sent thee a letter, and to all appearances had forgotten thee? No, uncle. Sometimes I did think it strange, but I think that I always knew that there were reasons. I’m glad of that, Héloïse; my anxiety to see thee a great abbess, perhaps of Sainte-Geneviève or some greater convent, kept me away, and the nuns writing to say that thou wast their best pupil; and perhaps I thought too much of thee as a great abbess, mayhap was too ambitious for thee.
