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The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

A >> Anatole France >> The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard



This Etext prepared by Brett Fishburne (bfish@atlantech.net)





The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

by Anatole France




Part I--The Log




December 24, 1849.


I had put on my slippers and my dressing-gown. I wiped away a tear
with which the north wind blowing over the quay had obscured my
vision. A bright fire was leaping in the chimney of my study.
Ice-crystals, shaped like fern-leaves, were sprouting over the
windowpanes and concealed from me the Seine with its bridges and
the Louvre of the Valois.

I drew up my easy-chair to the hearth, and my table-volante, and
took up so much of my place by the fire as Hamilcar deigned to allow
me. Hamilcar was lying in front of the andirons, curled up on a
cushion, with his nose between his paws. His think find fur rose
and fell with his regular breathing. At my coming, he slowly slipped
a glance of his agate eyes at me from between his half-opened lids,
which he closed again almost at once, thinking to himself, "It is
nothing; it is only my friend."

"Hamilcar," I said to him, as I stretched my legs--"Hamilcar, somnolent
Prince of the City of Books--thou guardian nocturnal! Like that
Divine Cat who combated the impious in Heliopolis--in the night of
the great combat--thou dost defend from vile nibblers those books
which the old savant acquired at the cost of his slender savings and
indefatigable zeal. Sleep, Hamilcar, softly as a sultana, in this
library, that shelters thy military virtues; for verily in thy person
are united the formidable aspect of a Tatar warrior and the slumbrous
grace of a woman of the Orient. Sleep, thou heroic and voluptuous
Hamilcar, while awaiting the moonlight hour in which the mice will
come forth to dance before the Acta Sanctorum of the learned
Bolandists!"

The beginning of this discourse pleased Hamilcar, who accompanied
it with a throat-sound like the song of a kettle on the fire. But
as my voice waxed louder, Hamilcar notified me by lowering his ears
and by wrinkling the striped skin of his brow that it was bad taste
on my part so to declaim.

"This old-book man," evidently thought Hamilcar, "talks to no purpose
at all while our housekeeper never utters a word which is not full
of good sense, full of significance--containing either the announcement
of a meal or the promise of a whipping. One knows what she says.
But this old man puts together a lot of sounds signifying nothing."

So thought Hamilcar to himself. Leaving him to his reflections, I
opened a book, which I began to read with interest; for it was a
catalogue of manuscripts. I do not know any reading more easy, more
fascinating, more delightful than that of a catalogue. The one
which I was reading--edited in 1824 by Mr. Thompson, librarian to
Sir Thomas Raleigh--sins, it is true, by excess of brevity, and
does not offer that character of exactitude which the archivists
of my own generation were the first to introduce into works upon
diplomatics and paleography. It leaves a good deal to be desired
and to be divined. This is perhaps why I find myself aware, while
reading it, of a state of mind which in nature more imaginative than
mine might be called reverie. I had allowed myself to drift away
this gently upon the current of my thoughts, when my housekeeper
announced, in a tone of ill-humor, that Monsieur Coccoz desired
to speak with me.

In fact, some one had slipped into the library after her. He was a
little man--a poor little man of puny appearance, wearing a thin
jacket. He approached me with a number of little bows and smiles.
But he was very pale, and, although still young and alert, he looked
ill. I thought as I looked at him, of a wounded squirrel. He
carried under his arm a green toilette, which he put upon a chair;
then unfastening the four corners of the toilette, he uncovered
a heap of little yellow books.

"Monsieur," he then said to me, "I have not the honour to be known
to you. I am a book-agent, Monsieur. I represent the leading
houses of the capital, and in the hope that you will kindly honour
me with your confidence, I take the liberty to offer you a few
novelties."

Kind gods! just gods! such novelties as the homunculus Coccoz showed
me! The first volume that he put in my hand was "L'Histoire de la
Tour de Nesle," with the amours of Marguerite de Bourgogne and the
Captain Buridan.

"It is a historical book," he said to me, with a smile--"a book of
real history."

"In that case," I replied, "it must be very tiresome; for all the
historical books which contain no lies are extremely tedious. I
write some authentic ones myself; and if you were unlucky enough to
carry a copy of any of them from door to door you would run the risk
of keeping it all your life in that green baize of yours, without ever
finding even a cook foolish enough to buy it from you."

"Certainly Monsieur," the little man answered, out of pure good-nature.

And, all smiling again, he offered me the "Amours d'Heloise et d'Abeilard";
but I made him understand that, at my age, I had no use for love-stories.

Still smiling, he proposed me the "Regle des Jeux de la Societe"--
piquet, bezique, ecarte, whist, dice, draughts, and chess.

"Alas!" I said to him, "if you want to make me remember the rules of
bezique, give me back my old friend Bignan, with whom I used to play
cards every evening before the Five Academies solemnly escorted him
to the cemetery; or else bring down to the frivolous level of human
amusements the grave intelligence of Hamilcar, whom you see on that
cushion, for he is the sole companion of my evenings."

The little man's smile became vague and uneasy.

"Here," he said, "is a new collection of society amusements--jokes
and puns--with a receipt for changing a red rose to a white rose."

I told him that I had fallen out with the roses for a long time, and
that, as to jokes, I was satisfied with those which I unconsciously
permitted myself to make in the course of my scientific labours.

The homunculus offered me his last book, with his last smile. He
said to me:

"Here is the Clef des Songes--the 'Key of Dreams'--with the explanation
of any dreams that anybody can have; dreams of gold, dreams of robbers,
dreams of death, dreams of falling from the top of a tower.... It
is exhaustive."

I had taken hold of the tongs, and, brandishing them energetically, I
replied to my commercial visitor:

"Yes, my friend; but those dreams and a thousand others, joyous or
tragic, are all summed up in one--the Dream of Life; is your little
yellow book able to give me the key to that?"

"Yes, Monsieur," answered the homunculus; "the book is complete, and
it is not dear--one franc twenty-five centimes, Monsieur."

I called my housekeeper--for there is no bell in my room--and said
to her:

"Therese, Monsieur Coccoz--whom I am going to ask you to show out--has
a book here which might interest you: the 'Key of Dreams.' I shall
be very glad to buy it for you."

My housekeeper responded:

"Monsieur, when one has not even time to dream awake, one has still
less time to dream asleep. Thank God, my days are just enough for my
work and my work for my days, and I am able to say every night,
'Lord, bless Thou the rest which I am going to take.' I never dream,
either on my feet or in bed; and I never mistake my eider-down coverlet
for a devil, as my cousin did; and, if you will allow me to give my
opinion about it, I think you have books enough here now. Monsieur
has thousands and thousands of books, which simply turn his head; and
as for me, I have just tow, which are quite enough for all my wants
and purposes--my Catholic prayer-book and my Cuisiniere Bourgeoise."

And with those words my housekeeper helped the little man to fasten
up his stock again within the green toilette.

The homunculus Coccoz had ceased to smile. His relaxed features took
such an expression of suffering that I felt sorry to have made fun
of so unhappy a man. I called him back, and told him that I had
caught a glimpse of a copy of the "Histoire d'Estelle et de Nemorin,"
which he had among his books; that I was very fond of shepherds and
shepherdesses, and that I would be quite willing to purchase, at a
reasonable price, the story of these two perfect lovers.

"I will sell you that book for one franc twenty-five centimes,
Monsieur," replied Coccoz, whose face at once beamed with joy. "It
is historical; and you will be pleased with it. I know now just
what suits you. I see that you are a connoisseur. To-morrow I will
bring you the Crimes des Papes. It is a good book. I will bring
you the edition d'amateur, with coloured plates."

I begged him not to do anything of the sort, and sent him away happy.
When the green toilette and the agent had disappeared in the
shadow of the corridor I asked my housekeeper whence this little
man had dropped upon us.

"Dropped is the word," she answered; "he dropped on us from the roof,
Monsieur, where he lives with his wife."

"You say he has a wife, Therese? That is marvelous! Women are
very strange creatures! This one must be a very unfortunate little
woman."

"I don't really know what she is," answered Therese; "but every
morning I see her trailing a silk dress covered with grease-spots
over the stairs. She makes soft eyes at people. And, in the name
of common sense! does it become a woman that has been received here
out of charity to make eyes and to wear dresses like that? For
they allowed the couple to occupy the attic during the time the roof
was being repaired, in consideration of the fact that the husband
is sick and the wife in an interesting condition. The concierge even
says that the pain came on her this morning, and that she is now
confined. They must have been very badly off for a child!"

"Therese," I replied, "they had no need of a child, doubtless. But
Nature had decided that they should bring one into the world; Nature
made them fall into her snare. One must have exceptional prudence
to defeat Nature's schemes. Let us be sorry for them and not blame
them! As for silk dresses, there is no young woman who does not like
them. The daughters of Eve adore adornment. You yourself, Therese--
who are so serious and sensible--what a fuss you make when you have
no white apron to wait at table in! But, tell me, have they got
everything necessary in their attic?"

"How could they have it, Monsieur?" my housekeeper made answer.
"The husband, whom you have just seen, used to be a jewellery-peddler--
at least, so the concierge tells me--and nobody knows why he stopped
selling watches. you have just seen that his is now selling
almanacs. That is no way to make an honest living, and I never will
believe that God's blessing can come to an almanac-peddler. Between
ourselves, the wife looks to me for all the world like a good-for-nothing--
a Marie-couche toi-la. I think she would be just as capable of
bringing up a child as I should be of playing the guitar. Nobody
seems to know where they came from; but I am sure they must have come
by Misery's coach from the country of Sans-souci."

"Wherever they have come from, Therese, they are unfortunate; and
their attic is cold."

"Pardi!--the roof is broken in several places and the rain comes
through in streams. They have neither furniture nor clothing. I
don't think cabinet-makers and weavers work much for Christians of
that sect!"

"That is very sad, Therese; a Christian woman much less well provided
for than this pagan, Hamilcar here!--what does she have to say?"

"Monsieur, I never speak to those people; I don't know what she says
or what she sings. But she sings all day long; I hear her from the
stairway whenever I am going out or coming in."

"Well! the heir of the Coccoz family will be able to say, like the
Egg in the village riddle: Ma mere me fit en chantant. ["My mother
sang when she brought me into the world."] The like happened in the
case of Henry IV. When Jeanne d'Albret felt herself about to be
confined she began to sing an old Bearnaise canticle:

"Notre-Dame du bout du pont,
Venez a mon aide en cette heure!
Priez le Dieu du ciel
Qu'il me delivre vite,
Qu'il me donne un garcon!

"It is certainly unreasonable to bring little unfortunates into the
world. But the thing is done every day, my dear Therese and all the
philosophers on earth will never be able to reform the silly custom.
Madame Coccoz has followed it, and she sings. This is creditable at
all events! But, tell me, Therese, have you not put the soup to boil
to-day?"

"Yes, Monsieur; and it is time for me to go and skim it."

"Good! but don't forget, Therese, to take a good bowl of soup out of
the pot and carry it to Madame Coccoz, our attic neighbor."

My housekeeper was on the point of leaving the room when I added,
just in time:

"Therese, before you do anything else, please call your friend the
porter, and tell him to take a good bundle of wood out of our stock
and carry it up to the attic of those Coccoz folks. See, above all,
that he puts a first-class log in the lot--a real Christmas log. As
for the homunculus, if he comes back again, do not allow either
himself or any of his yellow books to come in here."

Having taken all these little precautions with the refined egotism of
an old bachelor, I returned to my catalogue again.

With what surprise, with what emotion, with what anxiety did I therein
discover the following mention, which I cannot even now copy without
feeling my hand tremble:

"LA LEGENDE DOREE DE JACQUES DE GENES (Jacques de Voragine);--
traduction francaise, petit in-4.

"This MS. of the fourteenth century contains, besides the tolerably
complete translation of the celebrated work of Jacques de Voragine,
1. The Legends of Saints Ferreol, Ferrution, Germain, Vincent, and
Droctoveus; 2. A poem 'On the Miraculous Burial of Monsieur Saint-Germain
of Auxerre.' This translation, as well as the legends and the poem,
are due to the Clerk Alexander.

"This MS. is written upon vellum. It contains a great number of
illuminated letters, and two finely executed miniatures, in a rather
imperfect state of preservation:--one represents the Purification of
the Virgin, and the other the Coronation of Proserpine."

What a discovery! Perspiration moistened my forehead, and a veil seemed
to come before my eyes. I trembled; I flushed; and, without being
able to speak, I felt a sudden impulse to cry out at the top of my
voice.

What a treasure! For more than forty years I had been making a
special study of the history of Christian Gaul, and particularly of
that glorious Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, whence issued forth
those King-Monks who founded our national dynasty. Now, despite the
culpable insufficiency of the description given, it was evident to
me that the MS. of the Clerk Alexander must have come from the great
Abbey. Everything proved this fact. All the legends added by the
translator related to the pious foundation of the Abbey by King
Childebert. Then the legend of Saint-Droctoveus was particularly
significant; being the legend of the first abbot of my dear Abbey.
The poem in French verse on the burial of Saint-Germain led me
actually into the nave of that venerable basilica which was the
umbilicus of Christian Gaul.

The "Golden Legend" is in itself a vast and gracious work. Jacques
de Voragine, Definitor of the Order of Saint-Dominic, and Archbishop
of Genoa, collected in the thirteenth century the various legends of
Catholic saints, and formed so rich a compilation that from all the
monasteries and castles of the time there arouse the cry: "This is
the 'Golden Legend.'" The "Legende Doree" was especially opulent in
Roman hagiography. Edited by an Italian monk, it reveals its best
merits in the treatment of matters relating to the terrestrial
domains of Saint Peter. Voragine can only perceive the greater
saints of the Occident as through a cold mist. For this reason the
Aquitanian and Saxon translators of the good legend-writer were
careful to add to his recital the lives of their own national saints.

I have read and collated a great many manuscripts of the "Golden
Legend." I know all those described by my learned colleague,
M. Paulin Paris, in his handsome catalogue of the MSS. of the Biblotheque
du Roi. There were two among them which especially drew my attention.
One is of the fourteenth century and contains a translation by Jean
Belet; the other, younger by a century, presents the version of
Jacques Vignay. Both come from the Colbert collection, and were
placed on the shelves of that glorious Colbertine library by the
Librarian Baluze--whose name I can never pronounce without uncovering
my head; for even in the century of the giants of erudition, Baluze
astounds by his greatness. I know also a very curious codex in the
Bigot collection; I know seventy-four printed editions of the work,
commencing with the venerable ancestor of all--the Gothic of Strasburg,
begun in 1471, and finished in 1475. But no one of those MSS., no
one of those editions, contains the legends of Saints Ferreol,
Ferrution, Germain, Vincent, and Droctoveus; no one bears the name
of the Clerk Alexander; no one, in find, came from the Abbey of
Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Compared with the MS. described by
Mr. Thompson, they are only as straw to gold. I have seen with my
eyes, I have touched with my fingers, an incontrovertible testimony
to the existence of this document. But the document itself--what
has become of it? Sir Thomas Raleigh went to end his days by the
shores of the Lake of Como, whither he carried with him a part of
his literary wealth. Where did the books go after the death of that
aristocratic collector? Where could the manuscript of the Clerk
Alexander have gone?

"And why," I asked myself, "why should I have learned that this
precious book exists, if I am never to possess it--never even to
see it? I would go to seek it in the burning heart of Africa, or
in the icy regions of the Pole if I knew it were there. But I do
not know where it is. I do not know if it be guarded in a triple-
locked iron case by some jealous biblomaniac. I do not know if it
be growing mouldy in the attic of some ignoramus. I shudder at the
thought that perhaps its tore-out leaves may have been used to cover
the pickle-jars of some housekeeper."



August 30, 1850


The heavy heat compelled me to walk slowly. I kept close to the
walls of the north quays; and, in the lukewarm shade, the shops of
the dealers in old books, engravings, and antiquated furniture drew
my eyes and appealed to my fancy. Rummaging and idling among these,
I hastily enjoyed some verses spiritedly thrown off by a poet of the
Pleiad. I examined an elegant Masquerade by Watteau. I felt, with
my eye, the weight of a two-handed sword, a steel gorgerin, a
morion. What a thick helmet! What a ponderous breastplate--
Seigneur! A giant's garb? No--the carapace of an insect. The
men of those days were cuirassed like beetles; their weakness was
within them. To-day, on the contrary, our strength is interior, and
our armed souls dwell in feeble bodies.

...Here is a pastel-portrait of a lady of the old time--the face,
vague like a shadow, smiles; and a hand, gloved with an openwork
mitten, retains upon her satiny knees a lap-dog, with a ribbon about
its neck. That picture fills me with a sort of charming melancholy.
Let those who have no half-effaced pastels in their own hearts laugh
at me! Like the horse that scents the stable, I hasten my pace as
I near my lodgings. There it is--that great human hive, in which
I have a cell, for the purpose of therein distilling the somewhat
acrid honey of erudition. I climb the stairs with slow effort.
Only a few steps more, and I shall be at my own door. But I divine,
rather than see, a robe descending with a sound of rustling silk.
I stop, and press myself against the balustrade to make room. The
lady who is coming down is bareheaded; shi is young; she sings; her
eyes and teeth gleam in the shadow, for she laughs with lips and
eyes at the same time. She is certainly a neighbor, and a very
familiar one. She holds in her arms a pretty child, a little boy--
quite naked, like the son of a goddess; he has a medal hung round
his neck by a little silver chain. I see him sucking his thumb and
looking at me with those big eyes so newly opened on this old universe.
The mother simultaneously looks at me in a sly, mysterious way; she
stops--I think blushes a little--and holds out the little creature
to me. The baby has a pretty wrinkle between wrist and arm, a pretty
wrinkle about his neck, and all over him, from head to foot, the
daintiest dimples laugh in his rosy flesh.

The mamma shows him to me with pride.

"Monsieur," she says, "don't you think he is very pretty--my little
boy?"

She takes one tiny hand, lifts it to the child's own lips, and,
drawing out the darling pink fingers again towards me, says,

"Baby, throw the gentleman a kiss."

Then, folding the little being in her arms, she flees away with the
agility of a cat, and is lost to sight in a corridor which, judging
by the odour, must lead to some kitchen.

I enter my own quarters.

"Therese, who can that young mother be whom I saw bareheaded on the
stairs just now, with a pretty little boy?"

And Therese replies that it was Madame Coccoz.

I stare up at the ceiling, as if trying to obtain some further
illumination. Therese then recalls to me the little book-peddler who
tried to sell me almanacs last year, while his wife was lying in.

"And Coccoz himself?" I asked.

I was answered that I would never see him again. The poor little
man had been laid away underground, without my knowledge, and,
indeed, with the knowledge of very few people, on a short time after
the happy delivery of Madame Coccoz. I leaned that his wife had
been able to console herself: I did likewise.

"But, Therese," I asked, "has Madame Coccoz got everything she needs
in that attic of hers?"

"You would be a great dupe, Monsieur," replied my housekeeper, "if
you should bother yourself about that creature. They gave her notice
to quit the attic when the roof was repaired. But she stays there
yet--in spite of the proprietor, the agent, the concierge, and the
bailiffs. I think she has bewitched every one of them. She will
leave the attic when she pleases, Monsieur; but she is going to leave
in her own carriage. Let me tell you that!"

Therese reflected for a moment; and then uttered these words:

"A pretty face is a curse from Heaven."

"Then I ought to thank Heaven for having spared me that curse. But
here! put my hat and cane away. I am going to amuse myself with a
few pages of Moreri. If I can trust my old fox-nose, we are going
to have a nicely flavoured pullet for dinner. Look after that
estimable fowl, my girl, and spare your neighbors, so that you and
your old master may be spared by them in turn."

Having thus spoken, I proceeded to follow out the tufted ramifications
of a princely genealogy.




May 7, 1851



I have passed the winter according to the ideal of the sages, in
angello cum libello; and now the swallows of the Quai Malaquais
find me on their return about as when they left me. He who lives
little, changes little; and it is scarcely living at all to use up
one's days over old texts.

Yet I feel myself to-day a little more deeply impregnated than ever
before with that vague melancholy which life distils. The economy
of my intelligence (I dare scarcely confess it to myself!) has
remained disturbed ever since that momentous hour in which the
existence of the manuscript of the Clerk Alexander was first revealed
to me.

It is strange that I should have lost my rest simply on account of
a few old sheets of parchment; but it is unquestionably true. The
poor man who has no desires possesses the greatest of riches; he
possesses himself. The rich man who desires something is only a
wretched slave. I am just such a slave. The sweetest pleasures--
those of converse with some one of a delicate and well-balanced
mind, or dining out with a friend--are insufficient to enable me
to forget the manuscript which I know that I want, and have been
wanting from the moment I knew of its existence. I feel the want
of it by day and by night: I feel the want of it in all my joys
and pains; I feel the want of it while at work or asleep.

I recall my desires as a child. How well I can now comprehend the
intense wishes of my early years!

I can see once more, with astonishing vividness, a certain doll
which, when I was eight years old, used to be displayed in the
window of an ugly little shop of the Rue de Seine. I cannot tell
how it happened that this doll attracted me. I was very proud of
being a boy; I despised little girls; and I longed impatiently for
the day (which alas! has come) when a strong beard should bristle
on my chin. I played at being a soldier; and, under the pretext
of obtaining forage for my rocking-horse, I used to make sad havoc
among the plants my poor mother delighted to keep on her window-sill.
Manly amusements those, I should say! And, nevertheless, I was
consumed with longing for a doll. Characters like Hercules have
such weaknesses occasionally. Was the one I had fallen in love with
at all beautiful? No. I can see her now. She had a splotch of
vermilion on either cheek, short soft arms, horrible wooden hands,
and long sprawling legs. Her flowered petticoat was fastened at
the waist with two pins. Even now I cans see the balck heads of
those two pins. It was a decidedly vulgar doll--smelt of the
faubourg. I remember perfectly well that, child as I was then,
before I had put on my first pair of trousers, I was quite conscious
in my own way that this doll lacked grace and style--that she was
gross, that she was course. But I loved her in spite of that; I
loved her just for that; I loved her only; I wanted her. My soldiers
and my drums had become as nothing in my eyes, I ceased to stick
sprigs of heliotrope and veronica into the mouth of my rocking-horse.
That doll was all the world to me. I invented ruses worthy of a
savage to oblige Virginie, my nurse, to take me by the little shop
in the Rue de Seine. I would press my nose against the window until
my nurse had to take my arm and drag me away. "Monsieur Sylvestre,
it is late, and your mamma will scold you." Monsieur Sylvestre in
those days made very little of either scoldings or whippings. But
his nurse lifted him up like a feather, and Monsieur Sylvestre
yielded to force. In after-years, with age, he degenerated, and
sometimes yielded to fear. But at that time he used to fear nothing.

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