“My walk?” said Alberic uncertainly, halting the procession.
“And why not? Should not the spirit be mirrored in the body? It is the sign of an ingenuous soul. How long have you been in Paris?”
“Since Palm Sunday,” said Alberic. “And I must go to-morrow. But I could not take my leave without seeing our Nestor.” Gilles bowed. “And I had warm greetings for you from the Archbishop.”
“Raoul le Vert,” said Gilles reminiscently. “But I suppose he is white enough now. Well, tell him from me, if you have not already done so, what a distinguished scholastic he has got. Bless my soul,” he went on reflectively, “to think of you sitting in Gerbert’s chair.”
“I trust,” said Alberic, “that the doctrine taught from it will be a little sounder.”
“I am sure of it,” said Gilles. “Safer, at any rate. No mathematics in it. The common people used to say that the devil made Gerbert a brazen head that answered all inconvenient questions for him. Much better to have it on one’s own shoulders. Upon my word, Alberic, at this rate there will soon be an exodus from Paris to Rheims.”
“You flatter me, Gilles,” said Alberic. “Though indeed,” he went on, pouting his full lips, “if the lecture I heard a day or two ago is a specimen of the fare here, it is a stony pasture enough.”
A figure stepped out of the shadow. “You were unfortunate, Master Alberic,” said Pierre courteously. “Whom did you hear?”
“The great Abelard himself,” said Alberic. He chuckled. “A barren shallow wit. I always knew it. And would you believe it, the lecture I heard on Monday, word for word, was a lecture I heard him give three years ago at Laon, before Anselm silenced him.”
Pierre de Montboissier made a step forward, but an almost imperceptible movement of Gilles’ hand halted him.
“A marvellous memory yours, Alberic,” said Gilles blandly. “It may be—nay, it must be—the secret of your high success. Yet it must have been a rare lecture, for you to remember it after three years.”
“My memory is indeed tolerably good,” said Alberic. “But I have special reason to recall this one. It was the first he had the impudence to give, and a few of us went to hear him and take note of his impertinences. It was an unheard-of thing, for a young man, unlicensed, to lecture without permission, setting himself up in opposition to that good old man.”
“I am glad to hear the rights of it,” said Gilles smoothly. “I had always understood that he was challenged to it.”
“Challenged? Well, in a manner, yes,” said Alberic. “He had had the impudence to declare that a man needs no master in theology but Holy Writ and the Fathers and his own intelligence.”
“A very dangerous doctrine,” said Gilles. “The half of us would find our occupation gone. To whom did he say it? Not, I hope, to old Anselm, may God rest his soul. He would have had apoplexy.”
“It was not to Anselm direct,” admitted Alberic. “But he had absented himself from Anselm’s lectures, and some of us observed it and rebuked him for it.”
“I am glad,” said Gilles, “that he had so much grace. It is more than he showed to William here. Poor William; it was a good day for him when Abelard’s seat was empty. But after all, William was forty-five and a fresh man: it was fine exercise for him. Abelard has a kind of respect for age. He is very civil to myself. And so you challenged the barren rascal?”
“We did.”
“And he lectured, I suppose, to empty benches?”
“There are always lovers of novelty,” said Alberic. “And he drew the lighter sort, till Anselm silenced him.”
“That was not like that good old man,” said Gilles. “I never thought he looked beyond the first benches, and there, Alberic, he would see your earnest face. But I suppose you reported it to him?”
“We thought,” said Alberic uncomfortably, “myself and Lotulf of Novara——”
“I never liked Lombards,” said Gilles absentmindedly. “But I forget myself. So you chased him? And Paris got the leavings of Laon. What became of Lotulf?”
“He is with me,” said Alberic. “I had the good fortune to be able to retain him as my co-adjutor.”
“They transplant well,” said Gilles. “Like Jews. So you are still hunting in couples? Well, my friend Raoul is better off even than I thought. A pair of active hounds. And long may he be able to keep them in leash. Pierre, a cup of wine for Master Alberic. No, Alberic, I insist. It must be after Vespers, and anyhow you have travellers’ grace.”
Pierre moved to the dresser and came again, offering Master Alberic his cup with a faintly exaggerated courtesy.
“You are a student of Master Abelard?” said Alberic, eyeing him with distaste.
Pierre bowed. “I have that good fortune.”
Alberic looked him up and down.
“You are a monk of Cluny?”
“At Vézelay. I had leave from Cluny to hear Master Abelard for the winter.”
“If Cluny had been what it was,” said Alberic, “I doubt if you would have had it. But it has lifted up its soul to vanity and lies. When it knew the holy Hugh——”
“It knows the greatest master in Christendom, anyhow,” said Pierre. He was trembling.
“Well crowed, bantam,” said Gilles. “Now, Alberic, do not have your countenance suffused. May not this one be loyal to his master, as you to the good Anselm?”
“Loyalty where loyalty is due,” said Alberic. “But to a masterless man that climbed over the wall into the sheepfold, a wencher and a——”
“Pierre!” thundered Gilles. The boy’s arm had swung back for a resounding smack across the large, white face. It fell to his side, and he stood breathing hard and shivering like an over-ridden colt.
Alberic looked at him, his lips tight. “Perhaps you know,” he said, “if they teach you any canon law at Cluny, that that would have meant excommunication?”
Gilles raised his hand. “That will do, Alberic. Pierre, go now, but come and see me to-morrow, before you start on your journey. I have a little present for your Abbot, an Art of Writing that came to me from Monte Cassino. It might interest you too, Alberic.”
He lifted his hand in easy farewell to Pierre, as he talked. The young man made him a reverence, and without a look at Alberic, turned and walked across the room. The door latched behind him.
A whistle came from Alberic’s pursed lips.
“I trust,” said Gilles gravely, “you are grateful to me, Alberic. I feared for a few of those fine front teeth. Man, you would have gone down like a sack of oats.”
“He would have paid with a good many stripes for it,” said Alberic grimly. “And what midden was that cockerel reared on?”
“His father is the Sieur de Montboissier,” said Gilles. Alberic’s jaw dropped. “Doubtless it would have salved your hurt,” Gilles went on blandly, “to know that you had suffered at so exalted a hand. And if I am not mistaken, you will some day be telling the story in your cups that you once threatened excommunication to the Abbot of Cluny.”
“That one the Abbot of Cluny?”
“As soon, I think, as the abbacy is vacant and his years allow. But see here, Alberic, you called Peter Abelard what you meant for an ill name, though when the boy is older he will know how many of us deserve it. What did you mean?”
“If you do not know that, Gilles,” said Alberic, “you are the only man in Paris that does not. Except, they tell me, the poor old sheep, her uncle. It met me in the change house at Meaux. And they were singing a bawdy song under my window last night. They tell me it was one of his own. I wonder, Gilles, that you can see the old man’s innocence so grossly abused. I tried to hint something of it to him myself to-day.”
“You are sure,” said Gilles smoothly, “that you would not prefer to hint something of it to the culprit? For I am expecting him, after Vespers. If a brother be overtaken in a fault, restore such
an one in the spirit of meekness. Or would you rather wait for the support of your friend Lupus of Novara?”
“Lotulf,” said Alberic mechanically. He had risen, but already a swift foot was coming up the stair. The arras flew back, and Abelard was in the room, filling it with a curious vibration. With the wind that swept from the door, a flame leapt on the crumbling log, and danced on the three faces.
Gilles glanced from one to the other. “God, what a bladder of lard,” he thought. “And what a firebrand.”
Abelard had gazed for a moment blankly at the stranger. Then his face lit up with impish friendliness.
“Old Alberic!” said he, and reached out a hand to the doctor’s hood that hung from Alberic’s shoulders. “Well done, man. Rheims has got a good mastiff. And how is the terrier?”
“You speak in riddles, Master Abelard,” said Alberic.
“You know him, the little sharp-nosed friend, with pink eyes, like a ferret. He used to find the scent and you gave tongue. And mind you, Gilles, our Alberic has a good bell-mouthed bay. It is the great deep chest he has. But you’re putting on flesh, Alberic. And so, they tell me, am I.”
Alberic moistened his lips. “If you will excuse me, Gilles,” he said formally, “I shall take my leave. I am to sup with the Bishop to-night. I may take your greetings to the Archbishop? Master Abelard, your servant.”
Abelard swept his doctor’s cap to the knee. The procession formed, and moved out.
“Some men are born to be bishops,” said Abelard. “That one walks under his mitre already. But what a hill of suet!”
Gilles was wiping his hands on the skin that lay over his knees.
“You were spared that at least,” he said. “If godliness makes a man’s face to shine, I wish it did not also make his hands to sweat.”
Abelard did not answer. He stood leaning against the chimney, just as Pierre had stood, his foot tapping on the floor. The mischief had gone from his eyes, and left them dark and smouldering. “Lucifer,” thought Gilles, “but not the Light-bringer to-night. The Prince of Darkness.”
“What about a drink, Peter?” he said at last. “Or had you better eat first, if you have been fasting?”
Abelard looked up. “I have been fasting, sure enough,” he said, an odd undercurrent of bitterness in his voice. He crossed to the dresser, splashed out a cupful, and drank it at a gulp.
“That’s better,” he said, and came back to the fire. He was humming under his breath, the tune that was over all Paris:
“Set now your arms on mine,
Take we our pleasure,
O flower of all the world——”
“Stop that,” said Gilles.
Abelard smiled at him affectionately. “What do you suppose, Gilles,” said he, “was the idea of fasting? To keep down the body and bring it into subjection? Or to put an edge on every sense one has? For it seems to me that whatever the body lacks in vigour, the mind makes up for. And I begin to understand the rich temptations of the Desert Fathers. Lord, what an orgy of the mind they had!”
“See here, Peter,” said Gilles, “you had better go home, eat the heaviest meal you can put into you, read for a couple of hours, and go to your bed. For you are in the devil’s own mood this night.”
“Perhaps I am,” said Abelard. He sat down by the fire again, shuddering a little. “Perhaps I am.” He sat silent, brooding upon the fire. After a long time, he began to speak.
“I saw one man to-night,” he said, “that had been fasting long enough. I was coming out from Vespers. He was kneeling below the Crucifix, at the foot of the stairs to the rood-loft; and just as I was passing him, he crumpled up. I hauled him out to Grosse Margot’s and got a glass of wine into him before he knew, and when he came to, he could have spat it at me. Poor soul, I had broken a ten days’ fast on him. An Irishman, one of Malachy’s men from Armagh.”
Gilles sat silent. Better let him talk himself out.
“He was half delirious at first, muttering the same words over and over to himself. I could not make out the sense, but it was a good metre. And when I had comforted him a while, and told him that where the mind had not consented the body still kept its integrity, as with the holy virgins that by force lost their virginity—you are squeamish to-night, Gilles?—he got friendly enough. And I asked him what the metre was, and the words. So he translated me the Irish. It was a prayer, but he said if he had been rightly himself, he should not have been praying it till Good Friday.”
Abelard had risen and had gone across the room to the far window, faintly luminous now with the rising moon. He stood, looking out, his head resting against the central mullion, his arms stretched along the cross-beams. The long, black sleeves falling from either arm drooped like great wings. “God have mercy,” said Gilles to himself, “it’s a crucified Apollyon.”
He turned back to the room, still leaning against the central bar, but his arms by his side.
“Do you not want to hear it, Gilles?”
“Well?” It was all Gilles could do not to shout at him.
The arms went out again, the face bent forward, the eyes gleaming out of the white devil’s mask of the face.
“May some fruit from the Tree of Thy Passion
Fall on us this night.”
Gilles crossed himself. After a while he spoke.
“Go home, Abelard,” he said, as if he spoke to a child. “You are not yourself. And for God’s sake, eat your supper and go to bed.”
“I’ll go to bed,” said Abelard lightly. “I promise you that. I’ll go to bed. There, Gilles,” the mockery had slipped from his voice, “don’t fret. Man, you’d think I had been saying a Black Mass instead of a poor Irishman’s litany. I’ll eat my supper, and read a while, and go to bed. Shall I send Jehan up to you?”
“He will be here with my supper shortly,” said Gilles. “Will you stay and have it with me, Peter?”
Abelard shook his head. The faint smouldering came back to his eyes.
“I have lasted long enough,” he said. “I’ll be getting home. Good night, Gilles. Sleep.” He was gone.
Gilles sat sunk in his chair. “They say that Paradise and Calvary, Christ’s cross and Adam’s tree, stood in one place,” he muttered to himself. Slowly he got out of his chair, and crossed to where his stool was set below the crucifix, lowering himself painfully upon his gouty knees.
O Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world: have mercy upon us.
O Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world: have mercy upon us.
O Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world: receive our prayer.
Jehan, coming in with his dish of trout, stood gazing at a sight he had not seen for fifteen years.
The moon, two days past its Easter fullness, shone into the window of Heloise’s room, and across the bed, but her face was in shadow, and she was fast asleep. Abelard stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at her. A moment, a touch of the hand he could put out would wake her; but until then, what leagues she was away! He would not wake her: kneel by her for a while and lay down his head on the bed and feel the dear warmth of her so close. It might exorcise the devil that had seemed to enter into him with the Irishman’s litany:
“May some fruit from the Tree of Thy Passion
Fall on us this night.”
Yet the words were holy enough, holy with a mystery beyond even the Pange lingua gloriosi. Was it that for a soul like his even holiness was turned to poison? With a half-convulsive shiver he gripped her close.
She wakened: it was always her way to waken so, not sleepily, rubbing her eyes, but wide awake, with the clear depths gazing straight up at him. She was silent for a while, gazing so, and smiling. Then memory came into them.
“Dear, what is it? Are you ill?”
He shook his head.
“I could not sleep. I thought if I saw
you, sat by you for a while, I might go back to bed and sleep. I did not mean to wake you. Let me hold you, Heloise.”
She sat up and put her arms about him. He laid his head on her shoulder, with a sigh of content.
“Is that better?”
“That’s better. Oh, Heloise, hold me close.”
She held him closer; he was shivering, every moment more violently.
“Peter, you are ill. You have taken a chill with fasting, and it’s fever. Let me get up and get you a hot drink.”
“I am not ill. Oh, my love, my love. Let me have you, Heloise. If I do not have you to-night, something will take me from you. There is something abroad to-night. I felt it at Vespers in Notre Dame, and when the Irishman was raving. I shall lose you to-night if I do not have you and hold you against all the devils in hell——”
“Peter, hush! Dear love, it is Holy Week.”
“Holy Week! O God, don’t I know it, don’t I know it’s Holy Week?—
May some fruit from the Tree of Thy Passion
Fall——”
“Peter, hush!” She was kissing him to stop the wild torrent of blasphemous speech, and trembling too. Something of his madness was quivering in her blood. Now his kisses were raining upon her like a fiery hail. Hell fire it might be, but never had she known such burning ecstasy. She sank back, her arms outstretched to him.
Slowly the bar of moonlight crept across the floor. They lay cheek to cheek in a quiet trance: the moon itself was not more still. Heloise sighed, a little happy sigh: her eyelashes fluttered against his cheek, and he laughed softly and drew the coverlet closer round her. A cloud passed over the moon, and the room was full of a warm darkness. Outside a stair creaked. He started.
“What’s that?”
“Guibert,” she whispered. “He is always late to bed.”
“Are you sure?”
“I hear him every night that I am awake.”
The steps were mounting slowly, uncertain, dragging steps.
“He must be drunk to-night,” whispered Heloise. “Mostly he is lighter on his feet.”
Peter Abelard Page 8
