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Luxury - Gluttony: Two of the Seven Cardinal Sins
CHAPTER III
While these events were transpiring on the boulevard, and a little before half after seven had sounded, another scene was taking place in the interior of the convent garden. Sister Prudence, the mother superior, and Dolores Salcedo were walking in the garden, notwithstanding the advanced hour of the evening.
Dolores, a brunette of charming appearance, united in herself the rare and bewitching perfections of Spanish beauty. Hair of a blue black, which, when uncoiled, dragged upon the floor; a pale complexion warmed by the sun of the South; large eyes, by turns full of fire and languid sweetness; a little mouth as red as the bud of the pomegranate steeped in dew; a delicate and voluptuous form, tapering fingers, and an Andalusian foot and ankle, completed her list of charms. As to the exquisite grace of her figure and gait, one must, to have any idea of it, have seen the undulating movements of the beautiful senoras of Seville or Cadiz, when, speaking with their eyes or playing with their fans, they slowly promenade, a beautiful summer evening, on the marble floor of the Alameda.
Dolores accompanied Sister Prudence. Walking and talking, the two women approached the wall behind which Captain Horace and his sailor had stopped.
"You see, my dear daughter," said the mother superior to Dolores, "I grant you all you desire, and, although the rules of the house forbid promenades in the garden after nightfall, I have consented to stay here until half-past seven o'clock, our supper hour, which will soon sound."
"I thank you, madame," said Dolores, with a slight Spanish accent, and in a voice deliciously resonant. "I feel that this promenade will do me good."
"You must call me mother and not madame, my dear daughter, I have already told you that it is the custom here."
"I will conform to it, if I can, madame."
"Again!"
"It is difficult to call a person mother who is not your mother," said Dolores, with a sigh.
"I am your spiritual mother, my dear daughter; your mother in God, as you are, as you will be, my daughter in God; because you will leave us no more, you will renounce the deceitful pleasures of a perverse and corrupt world, you will have here a heavenly foretaste of eternal peace."
"I begin to discover it, madame."
"You will live in prayer, silence, and meditation."
"I have no other desire, madame."
"Well, well, my dear daughter, after all, what will you sacrifice?"
"Oh, nothing, absolutely nothing!"
"I like that response, my dear daughter; really, it is nothing, less than nothing, these wicked and worldly passions which cause us so much sorrow and throw us in the way of perdition."
"Just Heaven! it makes me tremble to think of it, madame."
"The Lord inspires you to answer thus, my dear daughter, and I am sure now that you can hardly understand how you have been able to love this miscreant captain."
"It is true, madame, I was stupid enough to dream of happiness and the joys of family affection; criminal enough to find this happiness in mutual love and hope to become, like many others, a devoted wife and tender mother; it was, as you have told me, an offence to Heaven. I repent my impious vows, I comprehend all that is odious in them; you must pardon me, madame, for having been wicked and silly to such a degree."
"It is not necessary to exaggerate, my dear daughter," said Sister Prudence, struck with the slightly ironical accent with which Dolores had uttered these last words. "But," added she, observing the direction taken by the young girl, "what is the good of returning to this walk? It will soon be the hour for supper; come, my dear daughter, let us go back to the house."
"Oh, madame, do you not perceive that sweet odour on this side of the grove?"
"Those are a few clusters of mignonette. But come, it is getting cool; I am not sixteen like you, my dear daughter, and I am afraid of catching cold."
"Just one moment, please, that I may gather a few of these flowers."
"Go on, then, you must do everything you wish, my dear daughter; stop, the night is clear enough for you to see this mignonette ten steps away; go and gather a few sprigs and return."
Dolores, letting go the arm of the mother superior, went rapidly toward the clusters of flowers.
At this moment half-past seven o'clock sounded.
"Half-past seven," murmured Dolores, trembling and turning her ear to listen, "he is there, he will come!"
"My dear daughter, it is the hour for supper," said the mother superior, walking on ahead of the canon's niece. "Stop, do you not hear the clock? Quick! quick! come, it will take ten minutes to reach the house, for we are at the bottom of the garden."
"Here I am, madame," replied the young girl, running before the mother superior, who said to her, with affected sweetness:
"Oh, you foolish little thing, you run like a frightened fawn."
Suddenly Dolores shrieked, and fell on her knees.
"Great God!" cried Sister Prudence, running up to her, "what is the matter, dear daughter? Why did you scream? What are you on your knees for?"
"Ah, madame!"
"But what is it?"
"What pain!"
"Where?"
"In my foot, madame, I have sprained my ankle. Oh, how I suffer! My God, how I suffer!"
"Try to get up, my dear child," said the mother, approaching Dolores with a vague distrust, for this sprain seemed to her quite unnatural.
"Oh, impossible, madame, I cannot make a movement."
"But try, at least."
"I wish I could."
And the young girl made a show of wishing to stand up, but she fell again on her knees, with a shriek that could be heard on the other side of the garden wall.
Then Dolores said, with a groan:
"You see, madame, it is impossible for me to move. I pray you return to the house, and tell some one to come for me with a chair or a litter. Oh, how I suffer! My God, how I suffer! For pity's sake, madame, go back quick to the house; it is so far, I shall never be able to drag myself there."
"Mademoiselle," cried the mother superior, "I am not your dupe! You have no more of a sprain than I have, it is an abominable falsehood! You wish, I know not for what reason, to send me away, and remain alone in the garden. Ah, indeed you make me repent of my condescension."
The light noise of a few pebbles falling across the boughs of the trees attracted the attention of the mother superior and Dolores, who, radiant with delight, leaped up with a bound, exclaiming:
"There he is!"
"Of whom are you speaking, unhappy girl?"
"Of Captain Horace, madame," said Dolores, curtseying with mock reverence. "He is coming to carry me away."
"What impudence! Ah, you think that in spite of me — "
"We are at the bottom of the garden, madame; cry, call, nobody will hear you."
"Oh, what horrible treason!" cried the mother superior. "But it is impossible! The men on guard have not dared leave the boulevard since nightfall."
"Horatio!" cried Dolores, in a clear, silvery voice. "My Horatio!"
"Shameless creature!" cried Sister Prudence, in desperation, rushing forward to seize Dolores by the arm. But the Spanish girl, nimble as a gazelle, with two bounds was out of the reach of Sister Prudence, whose limbs, stiffened by age, refused to lend themselves to gymnastic exercise; and already overcome, she cried, wringing her hands:
"Oh, those miserable patrols! They have not been on guard. I would cry, but they would not hear me at the convent. To run there is to leave this wretched girl here alone! Ah, I understand too late why this serpent wished to prolong our walk."
"Horatio," cried Dolores a second time, holding herself at a distance from the mother superior, "my dear Horatio!"
"Descend!" cried a ringing male voice which seemed to come from the sky.
This celestial voice was no other than that of Captain Horace, giving the signal to his faithful Sans-Plume to descend something.
The mother superior and Dolores, notwithstanding the difference of the emotions which agitated them, raised their eyes simultaneously when they heard the voice of Captain Horace.
But let us recall the situation of the walk and garden in order to explain the miracle about to be manifested to the sight of the recluse.
Two of the largest branches of the trees on the boulevard outside extended like a gibbet, so to speak, above and beyond the coping of the convent wall. The night was so clear that Dolores and the mother superior saw, slowly descending, sustained by cords, an Indian hammock in the bottom of which Captain Horace was extended, throwing with his hand a shower of kisses to Dolores.
When the hammock was within two feet of the earth, the captain called, in a ringing voice: "Stop!"
The hammock rested motionless. The captain leaped out of it, and said to the young girl:
"Quick, we have not a moment to lose! Dear Dolores, get into this hammock at once and do not be afraid."
"You will kill me first, villain!" cried the mother superior, throwing herself upon the young girl, whom she held within her arms, at the same time crying out, "Help! help!"
At this moment lights could be seen coming and going at a distance from the bottom of the garden.
"Here comes somebody at last!" screamed Sister Prudence, redoubling her cries of "Help! help!"
"Madame," said the captain, "let loose Dolores immediately!" And he forcibly withdrew the young girl from the obstinate embrace, holding Sister Prudence until Dolores could spring into the hammock. Seeing her safely seated there, the captain called:
"Ho there! Hoist."
And the hammock rose rapidly, so light was the weight of the young girl.
Sister Prudence, thoroughly enraged, and thinking that help would come perhaps too late, for the lights were still distant, screamed louder than ever, and threw herself on the hammock, to hold it down; but the captain drew her arm familiarly within his own, and, in spite of her struggles, held her like a vice.
"Dolores," said the captain, "do not be afraid, my love. When you reach the large branches, yield yourself without fear to the motion which will draw the hammock outside the wall. Sans-Plume is on the other side, and he is watching everything. Tell him, as soon as you reach the earth, to throw me the knotted rope, and hold it well on the outside."
"Yes, my Horatio," said Dolores, who was already eight or ten feet above the earth; "be calm, our love doubles my courage."
And the young mocker, leaning out of the hammock, said, with a laugh;
"Good evening, Sister Prudence, good evening!"
"You will be damned, accursed creature," said the mother superior.
"But you, you wretch! you shall not escape me," added she, holding on with desperate and convulsive anger to the captain's arm.
"They are coming, and you will be taken."
In fact, the lights were becoming more and more visible, and the captain could distinctly hear the voices of persons calling:
"Sister Prudence! Sister Prudence!"
The arrival of this aid increased the strength of the mother superior, who still clinched the arm of Horace. She was beginning to embarrass the sailor quite seriously; he could not resort to violence to escape this aged woman. In the meanwhile, the lights and the voices came nearer and nearer, and Sans-Plume, occupied, no doubt, in assuring the safe descent of Dolores on the other side of the wall, had not yet thrown the rope, his only means of flight. Then wishing, at any cost, to extricate himself from the grasp of the sister, the captain said to her:
"I pray you, madame, release me."
"Never, villain. Help, help!"
"Then pardon me, madame, because you force me to it. I am going to dance with you an infernal waltz, a riotous polka."
"A polka with me! You dare!"
"Come, madame, since you insist upon it we must. Keep time to the air. Tra, la, la, la."
And joining the act to the words, the merry sailor passed the arm that was free around the bony waist of Sister Prudence, and carried her with him, singing his refrain and whirling her around with such rapidity that, at the end of a few seconds, bewildered, dizzy, and suffocated, she could only gasp the syllables:
"Ah, help — help — you — wretch! He — takes — my — breath! Help — help!"
And soon overcome by the rapid whirling, Sister Prudence felt her strength failing. The captain saw her about to faint on his arms, and only had time to lay her gently on the grass.
"Ho!" at this moment cried Sans-Plume on the other side of the wall, as he threw over the knotted rope to the captain.
"The devil, it is high time!" said the captain, rushing after the rope, for the lights and the persons who carried them were no more than fifty steps distant.
Armed with pitchforks and guns, they approached the mother superior, who had recovered sufficiently to point over the wall as she said:
"There he is getting away!"
One of the men, armed with a gun, guided by her gesture, saw the captain, who, thanks to his agility as a sailor, had just gained the crest of the wall.
The man fired his gun, but missed his aim.
"You! You!" cried he to another man armed like himself. "There he is on the top of the wall reaching for the branches of that tree, — fire!"
The second shot was fired just at the moment when Captain Horace, astride one of the branches projecting over the garden, was approaching the trunk of the tree, by means of which he meant to descend on the outside. Scarcely had the second shot been fired, when Horace made a sudden leap, stopped a moment, and then disappeared in the thick foliage of the trees.
"Run! run outside!" cried Sister Prudence, still panting for breath. "There is still time to catch them!"
The orders of the mother superior were executed, but when they arrived on the boulevard outside, Dolores, the captain, and Sans-Plume had disappeared. They found nothing but the hammock, which was lying a few steps from the spy, who, enveloped in his bag, dolefully uttering smothered groans at the bottom of the ditch.
CHAPTER IV
Eight days after the abduction of Dolores Salcedo by Captain Horace, Abbé Ledoux, in bed, received the visit of his physician.
The invalid, lying in a soft bed standing in the alcove of a comfortable apartment, had always a fat and ruddy face; his triple chin descended to the collar of a fine shirt made of Holland cloth, and the purple brilliancy of the holy man's complexion contrasted with the immaculate whiteness of his cotton cap, bound, according to the ancient custom, with an orange-coloured ribbon. Notwithstanding these indications of plethoric health, the abbé, his head propped on his pillow in a doleful manner, uttered from time to time the most plaintive groans, while his hand, small and effeminate, was given to his physician, who was gravely feeling his pulse.
Doctor Gasterini, — such was the name of the physician, — although seventy-five years old, did not look sixty. Tall and erect, as well as lean and nervous, with a clear complexion and rosy lips, the doctor, when he smiled with his pleasant, elegant air, disclosed thirty-two teeth of irreproachable whiteness, which seemed to combine the polish of ivory with the sharp durability of steel; a forest of white hair, naturally curled, encircled the amiable and intelligent face of the doctor. Dressed always in black, with a certain affectation, he remained faithful to the tradition of small-clothes made of silk cloth, with shoe buckles of gold, and silk stockings, which clearly delineated his strong, sinewy legs.
Doctor Gasterini was holding delicately between his thumb and his index finger — whose rosy polished nails might have been the envy of a pretty woman — the wrist of his patient, who religiously awaited the decision of his physician.
"My dear abbé," said the doctor, "you are not at all sick."
"But, doctor — "
"You have a soft, pliant skin, and sixty-five pulsations to the minute. It would be impossible to find conditions of better health."
"But, again, doctor, I — "
"But, again, abbé, you are not sick. I am a good judge, perhaps."
"And I tell you, doctor, that I have not closed my eyes the whole night. Madame Siboulet, my housekeeper, has been on her feet constantly, — she gave me several times some drops made by the good sisters."
"Stuff!"
"And orange flower distilled at the Sacred Heart."
"The devil!"
"Yes, doctor, you may laugh; none of these remedies have given me relief. I have done nothing but turn over and over all night long in my bed. Alas, alas! I am not well. I have an excitement, an insupportable weariness."
"Perhaps, my dear abbé, you experienced yesterday some annoyance, some contradiction, and as you are very obstinate, very conceited, very spiteful — "
"I?"
"You."
"Doctor, I assure you — "
"This annoyance, I tell you, might have put you in a diabolical humour; for I know no remedy which can prevent these vexations. As to being ill, or even indisposed, you are not the least so in the world, my dear abbé."
"Then why did I ask you to come to see me this morning?"
"You ought to know that better than I, my dear abbé; nevertheless, I suspect the unusual motive which has made you desire my visit."
"That is rather hard."
"No, not very hard, for we are old acquaintances, and I know all your tricks, my dear abbé."
"My tricks! — you know my tricks?"
"You contrive excellent ones, sometimes, — but to return to our subject, I believe that, under a pretext of sickness which really does not exist, you have sent for me to learn from me, directly or indirectly, something which is of interest to you."
"Come, doctor, that is rather a disagreeable pleasantry."
"Wait, my dear abbé. In my youth I was physician to the Duke d'Otrante, when he was minister of police. He enjoyed, like you, perfect health, yet there was scarcely a day that he did not exact a visit from me. I was unsophisticated then, and, although well equipped in my profession, I had need of patrons, so, notwithstanding my visits to his Excellency seemed unnecessary, I went to his house regularly every day, about the hour he made his toilet, and we conversed. The minister was very inquisitive, and as I was professionally thrown with persons of all conditions, he, with charming good nature, plied me with questions concerning my patients. I responded with all the sincerity of my soul. One day I arrived, as I have told you, at the minister's house, when he had just completed his toilet, the very moment when a journeyman barber, the most uncleanly-looking knave I had ever seen in my life, had finished shaving him.
"'M. duke,' said I to the minister, after the barber had departed, 'how is it that, instead of being shaved by one of your valets, you prefer the services of these frightful journeyman barbers whom you change almost every fortnight?'
"'My dear,' replied the duke in a confidential tone, "'you cannot imagine how much one can learn about all sorts of people and things, when one knows how to set such fellows as that prattling.' Was this confession an amusement or a blunder on the part of this great man, or, rather, did he think me too silly to comprehend the full significance of his words? I do not know; but I do know that this avowal enlightened me as to the real intention of his Excellency in having me chat with him so freely every morning. After that, I responded with much circumspection to the questions of the cunning chief, who knew so well how to put in practice the transcendent maxim, 'The best spies are those who are spies without knowing it.'"
"The anecdote is interesting, as are all that you tell, my dear doctor," replied the abbé, with repressed anger, "but I swear to you that your allusion is entirely inapplicable, and that, alas! I am very sick."
"Forty years yet of such illness, and you will become a centenarian, my dear abbé," said the doctor, rising and preparing to take his leave.
"Oh, what a man! what a man!" cried the abbé. "Do listen to me, doctor, you have a heart of bronze; can you abandon a poor sick man in this manner? Give me five minutes!"
"So be it; let us chat if you wish it, my dear abbé. I have a quarter of an hour at your disposal; you are a man of mind, I cannot better employ the time given to this visit."
"Ah, doctor, you are cruel!"
"If you wish a more agreeable physician, address some others of my fraternity. You will find them eager to give their attention to the celebrated preacher, Abbé Ledoux, the most fashionable director of the Faubourg St. Germain — for, in spite of the Republic, or, for reason of the Republic, there is more than ever a Faubourg St. Germain, and, under every possible administration, the protection of Abbé Ledoux would be a lofty one."
"No, doctor, I want no other physician than you, terrible man that you are! Just see the confidence you inspire in me. It seems to me your presence has already done me good, — it calms me."
"Poor dear abbé, what confidence! It is touching; that certainly proves that it is only faith which saves."
"Do not speak of faith," said the abbé, affecting anger pleasantly. "Be silent, you pagan, materialist, atheist, republican, for you are and have been all, at your pleasure."
"Oh, oh, abbé, what an array of fine words!"
"You deserve them, wicked man; you will be damned, do you hear? — more than damned!"
"God may will it that we may meet each other some day, my poor abbé."
"I, damned?"
"Eh, eh."
"Do I abandon myself as you do to the brutality of all my appetites? Go, — you are a perfect Sardanapalus!"
"Flatterer! but then it is your manner. You reproach an old Lovelace for the enormities of which he would like to be guilty, and in the meantime you know that he has none of them; but it is all the same, your reproaches delight him, they render him cheerful; then he confesses all sorts of sins, of which, alas! he is incapable, poor man, and you have the air of giving a last pretext to his decaying imbecility."
"Fie! fie! doctor, the serpent had no more malignity than you."
"You reproach the broken-down politician, the powerless man of state, not less furiously, for his dark intrigues to overthrow the political world, — Europe, perhaps. Then with what unction the poor man relishes your reproaches! Everybody flies him like a pest when he opens his mouth to bore them with his politics; but what good fortune for him to unveil to you his Machiavellian projects for the advantage of the destinies of Europe, and to find a patient listener to the ravings of his old age."
"Yes, yes, jest, jeer, ridicule, you rascally doctor! You wish to excuse yourself by reviling others."
"Let us see, abbé, let us make an examination of conscience. Our professions will be inverted; I, the physician for the body, am going to ask a consultation with you, the physician for the soul."
"And you will have precious need of this consultation."
"Of what do you accuse me, abbé?"
"In the first place, you are a glutton, like Vitellius, Lucullus, the Prince of Soubise, Talleyrand, D'Aigrefeuille, Cambacérès, and Brillat-Savarin all together."
"A flatterer always! You reproach me for my only great and lofty quality."
"Ah, come now, doctor, do you take me for an oyster with your frivolous talk?"
"Take you for an oyster? How conceited you are! Unfortunately, I cannot make a comparison so advantageous to you, abbé. It would be a heresy, an anachronism. Good oysters (and others are not counted as existing) do not give the right to discuss them until about the middle of November, and we are by no means there."
"This, doctor, may be very witty, but it does not convince me in the least that gluttony is, in you or any other person, a quality."
"I will convince you of it."
"You?"
"I, my dear abbé."
"That would be rather difficult. And how?"
"Give me your evening on the twentieth of November and I will prove that — "
But interrupting himself, the doctor added:
"Come now, my dear abbé, what are you constantly looking at there by the side of that door?"
The holy man, thus taken unawares, blushed to his ears, for he had listened to the doctor with distraction, impatiently turning his eyes toward the door as if he expected a person who had not arrived; but after the first moment of surprise the abbé did not seem disconcerted, and replied:
"What door do you speak of, doctor? I do not know what you mean."
"I mean that you frequently look on this side as if you expected the appearance of some one."
"There is no one in the world, dear doctor, except you, who could have such ideas. I was entirely absorbed in your sophistical but intelligent conversation."
"Ah, abbé, abbé, you overwhelm me!"
"You wish, in a word, doctor, to prove to me that gluttony is a noble, sublime passion, do you not?"
"Sublime, abbé, that is the word, sublime, — if not in itself at least in its consequences; above all, in the interest of agriculture and commerce."
"Come, doctor, that is a paradox. Agriculture and commerce are sustained as other things are."
"It is not a paradox, it is a fact, yes, a fact, and if it is demonstrated to you positively, mathematically, practically, and economically, what can you say? Will you still doubt it?"
"I will doubt, or rather I will believe this abomination less than ever."
"How, in spite of evidence, abbé?"
"Because of evidence, if so be that this evidence can ever exist, for it is by just such means of these pretended evidences, these perfidious appearances, that the bad spirit leads us into the most dangerous snares."
"What, abbé, the devil! I am not a seminarian whom you are preparing to take the bands. You are a man of mind and of knowledge. When I talk reason to you, talk reason to me, and not of the devil and his horns."
"But, pagan, idolater that you are, do you not know that gluttony is perhaps the most abominable of the seven capital sins?"
"In the first place, abbé, I pray you do not calumninate like that the seven capital sins, but speak of them with the deference which is their due. I have found them profoundly respected in general and in particular."
"Indeed, it is not only gluttony that he glorifies, — he pushes his paradox to the glorification of the seven capital sins!"
"Yes, dear abbé, all the seven, considered from a certain point of view."
"That is monomania."
"Will you be convinced, abbé?"
"Of what?"
"Of the possible excellence, — of the conditional existence of the worldly and philosophical excellence of the seven capital sins."
"Really, doctor, do you take me for a child?"
"Give me your evening on the twentieth of November; you will be convinced."
"Come now, doctor, why always the twentieth of November?"
"That is for me a prophetic day, and more, it is the anniversary of my birth, my dear abbé, so give me your evening on that day and you will not regret having come."
"Very well, then, the twentieth of November, if my health — "
"Permits you, — well understood, my dear abbé; but my experience tells me that you will be able to drag yourself to see me on that day."
"What a man. He is capable of giving me a perfect example, in his big own damned person, of the seven capital sins."
At this moment the door opened.
It was on this door, more than once, that the glances of Abbé Ledoux had been turned with secret and growing impatience, during his conversation with the doctor.
