And upon this, he flung up his cap and cracked his fingers like castanets.
The archdeacon looked at him with a gloomy air.
“Jehan, you have no soul!”
“In that case, according to Epicurus, I lack an unknown quantity composed of unknown qualities.”
“Jehan, you must think seriously of reform.”
“Oh, come!” cried the student, gazing alternately at his brother and at the alembics on the stove; “is everything crooked here,—ideas as well as bottles?”
“Jehan, you are on a very slippery road. Do you know where you are going?”
“To the tavern,” said Jehan.
“The tavern leads to the pillory.”
“It’s as good a lantern as any other, and perhaps it was the one with which Diogenes found his man.”
“The pillory leads to the gallows.”
“The gallows is a balance, with a man in one scale and the whole world in the other. It is a fine thing to be the man.”
“The gallows leads to hell.”
“That’s a glorious fire.”
“Jehan, Jehan, you will come to a bad end!”
“I shall have had a good beginning.”
At this moment the sound of footsteps was heard on the stairs.
“Silence!” said the archdeacon, putting his finger to his lip: “Here comes Master Jacques. Listen, Jehan,” he added in a low voice; “take care you never mention what you may see and hear here. Hide yourself quickly under that stove, and don’t dare to breathe.”
The student crawled under the stove; there, a capital idea occurred to him.
“By the way, brother Claude, I want a florin for holding my breath.”
“Silence! you shall have it.”
“Then give it to me.”
“Take it!” said the archdeacon, angrily, flinging him his purse.
Jehan crept farther under the stove, and the door opened.
CHAPTER V
The Two Men Dressed in Black The person who entered wore a black gown and a gloomy air. Our friend Jehan （who, as may readily be supposed, had so disposed himself in his corner that he could see and hear everything at his good pleasure） was struck, at the first glance, by the extreme melancholy of the newcomer’s face and attire. Yet a certain amiability pervaded the countenance, albeit it was the amiability of a cat or a judge,—a sickly amiability. The man was very grey, wrinkled, bordering on sixty years; had white eyebrows, hanging lip, and big hands. When Jehan saw that he was a mere nobody,—that is, probably a doctor or a magistrate, and that his nose was very far away from his mouth, a sure sign of stupidity,—he curled himself up in his hiding-place, in despair at having to pass an indefinite length of time in so uncomfortable a position and in such poor company.
Meantime, the archdeacon did not even rise from his chair to greet this person. He signed to him to be seated on a stool near the door, and after a few moments’ silence, which seemed the continuation of a previous meditation, he said in a somewhat patronizing tone, “Good-morning, Master Jacques.”
“Your servant, master,” replied the man in black.
In the two ways of pronouncing,—on the one hand that “Master Jacques,” and on the other that distinctive “master,”—there was the difference that there is between domine and domne. It bespoke the greeting of teacher and pupil.
“Well,” resumed the archdeacon after a fresh pause, which Master Jacques took care not to break, “have you succeeded?”
“Alas! master,” said the other, with a sad smile, “I am still blowing away. As many ashes as I choose; but not a particle of gold.”
Dom Claude made an impatient gesture. “I’m not talking about that, Master Jacques Charmolue, but about the trial of your sorcerer, Marc Cenaine,—wasn’t that what you called him?—the butler to the Court of Accounts. Does he confess his magic? Was the rack successful?”
“Alas! no,” replied Master Jacques, still with the same sad smile, “we have not that consolation. The man is as hard as flint; we might boil him at the Pig-market before he would say a word. And yet, we have spared nothing to get at the truth; all his bones are out of joint already; we have left no stone unturned. As the old comic author, Plautus says:— ‘Advorsum stimulos, laminas, crucesque, compedesque, Nervos, catenas, carceres, numellas, pedicas, boias.‘cr
All in vain; the man is terrible indeed. I can’t make him out!”
“You’ve not found anything new at his house?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Master Jacques, fumbling in his purse; “this parchment. There are words written on it which we cannot comprehend. And yet the criminal lawyer, Philippe Lheulier, knows a little Hebrew, which he picked up in that affair of the Jews in the Rue Kantersten at Brussels.”