“Master Jacques,” he cried, “do not interfere with the work of Fate!”
The attorney turned in alarm; he felt as if iron pincers had seized his arm. The priest’s eye was fixed, wild, and flaming, and was still fastened upon the horrible little group of the spider and the fly.
“Oh, yes,” added the priest in a voice which seemed to come from his very entrails, “this is a universal symbol. The insect flies about, is happy, is young; it seeks the spring sun, the fresh air, freedom; oh, yes, but it runs against the fatal web; the spider appears,—the hideous spider! Poor dancing-girl! poor predestined fly! Master Jacques, do not interfere! it is the hand of Fate! Alas! Claude, you are the spider. Claude, you are the fly as well! You flew abroad in search of learning, light, and sun; your only desire was to gain the pure air, the broad light of eternal truth; but in your haste to reach the dazzling window which opens into the other world,—the world of intellect, light, and learning,—blind fly! senseless doctor! you failed to see that subtle spider’s web woven by Fate between the light and you; you plunged headlong into it, wretched fool! and now you struggle in its meshes, with bruised head and broken wings, in the iron grasp of destiny. Master Jacques, Master Jacques, let the spider do its work!“14 “I assure you,” said Charmolue, looking at him uncomprehend ingly, ”I will not touch it. But for mercy’s sake, master, let go my arm! Your hand is like a pair of pincers.”
The archdeacon did not hear him. “Oh, madman!” he resumed, without taking his eyes from the window. “And if you could have broken this dreadful web with your frail wings, do you think you could have reached the light? Alas! how could you have passed that pane of glass beyond it,—that transparent obstacle, that crystal wall harder than iron, which separates all philosophy from truth? Oh, vanity of science! How many sages have flown from afar to bruise their heads against it! How many contending systems have rushed pell-mell against that everlasting pane of glass!”
He ceased speaking. These last ideas, which had insensibly diverted his thoughts from himself to science, seemed to have calmed him. Jacques Charmolue completely restored him to a sense of reality by asking him this question: “Come, master, when are you going to help me to make gold? I long for success.”
The archdeacon shook his head with a bitter smile: “Master Jacques, read Michel Psellus, ‘Dialogues de Energia et Operatione D?monum.’cu Our work is not altogether innocent.”
“Not so loud, master! I fear you are right,” said Charmolue. “But I must needs dabble a little in hermetics, being only the king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court, at a salary of thirty Tours crowns a year. But speak lower.”
At this moment the sound of champing and chewing proceeding from under the stove, attracted Charmolue’s anxious ear.
“What was that?” he asked.
It was the student, who, greatly cramped and much bored in his hiding-place, had contrived to find an old crust of bread and a bit of mouldy cheese, and had set to work to devour them without more ado, by the way of consolation and of breakfast. As he was ravenously hungry, he made a great deal of noise, and smacked his lips loudly over every mouthful as to give the alarm to the lawyer.
“It is my cat,” said the archdeacon, hastily, “feasting under there upon some mouse.”
This explanation satisfied Charmolue.
“Indeed, master,” he replied with a respectful smile, “every philosopher has had his familiar animal. You know what Servius says: ‘Nullus enim locus sine genio est.’”cv
But Dom Claude, who feared some fresh outbreak from Jehan, reminded his worthy disciple that they had certain figures on the porch to study together; and the two left the cell, to the great relief of the student, who began seriously to fear that his knees would leave their permanent mark upon his chin.
CHAPTER VI
The Effect Produced by Seven Oaths in the Public Square The Deum laudamus!” cried Master Jehan, as he stepped from his hiding-place; ”the two screech-owls have gone. Och! och! Hax! pax! max! the fleas! the mad dogs! the devil! I’ve had enough of their talk! My head rings like a belfry. Mouldy cheese into the bargain! Now, then! let us be off; let us take our big brother’s purse, and convert all these coins into bottles!”
He cast a look of tenderness and admiration into the interior of the precious purse, adjusted his dress, wiped his boots, dusted his poor shoulder-pads all grey with ashes, whistled a tune, frisked about, looked to see if there was nothing left in the cell which he might carry off, scraped up a few glass charms and trinkets from the top of the stove, thinking he might pass them off upon Isabeau la Thierrye for jewels, then gave a push to the door, which his brother had left ajar as a final favor, and which he left open in his turn as a final piece of mischief, and hopped down the winding stairs as nimbly as a bird.