This preference appeared singular to me and I conceived as much surprise as disgust at it. But I was not the disciple of M. Jérôme Coignard for nothing. This incomparable teacher had formed my mind to meditate. I recalled to myself the satyrs one can see in gardens carrying off nymphs, and reflected that if Catherine was made like a nymph, those satyrs, at least as they are represented to us, are as horrible as yonder Capuchin. And I concluded that I ought not to be so very much astonished by what I had just seen. My vexation, however, was not dissipated by my reason, doubtless because it had not its source there. These meditations got me along through the shadows of the night and the mud of the thaw to the road of Saint Germain, where I met M. Jérôme Coignard, who was returning home to the Cross of the Sablons after having supped in town.
“My boy,” he said, “I have conversed of Zosimus and the gnostics at the table of a very learned ecclesiastic, quite another Peiresc. The wine was coarse and the fare but middling, but nectar and ambrosia floated through the discourse.”
Then my dear tutor spoke of the Panopolitan with an inconceivable eloquence. Alas! I listened badly, thinking of that drop of moonlight which had this very night fallen on the lips of Catherine the lacemaker.
At last he came to a stop and I asked on what foundation the Greeks had established the liking of the nymphs for satyrs. My teacher was so widely learned that he was always ready to reply to all questions. He told me:
“That liking is based on a natural sympathy. It is lively but not so ardent as the liking of the satyrs for the nymphs, with which it corresponds. The poets have observed this distinction very well. Concerning it I’ll narrate you a singular adventure I have read in a MS. belonging to the library of the Bishop of Séez. It was (I still have it before my eyes) a collection in folio, written in a good hand of last century. This is the singular fact reported in it. A Norman gentleman and his wife took part in a public entertainment, disguised, he as a satyr, she as a nymph. By Ovid it is known with what ardour the satyrs pursue the nymphs; that gentleman had read the ‘Metamorphoses.’ He entered so well into the spirit of his disguise that nine months after, his wife presented him with a baby whose forehead was horned and whose feet were those of a buck. It is not known what became of the father beyond that he had the common end of all creatures, to wit, that he died, and that beside that capriped he left another younger child, a Christian one and of human form. This younger son went to law claiming that his brother should not get a part of the deceased father’s inheritance for the reason that he did not belong to the species redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. The Parliament of Normandy, sitting at Rouen, gave a verdict in his favour, which was duly recorded.”
I asked my teacher if it was possible that a disguise could have such an effect on nature and if the shape of the child could follow that of a garment. M. Jérôme Coignard advised me not to believe it.
“Jacques Tournebroche, my son,” he said, “remember always that a good mind repels all that is contrary to reason, except in matters of faith, wherein it is convenient to believe implicitly. Thank God! I have never erred about the dogmas of our very holy religion, and I trust to find myself in the same disposition in the article of death.”
Conversing in this manner we arrived at the castle. The roof seemed in a red glow in the dark. Out of one in dark shadows. We heard the roaring of the fire, like fiery rain under the dense smoke wherewith the sky was veiled. We both believed the flames to be devouring the building. My good tutor tore his hair and moaned:
“My Zosimus, my papyrus, my Greek MSS.! Help! Help! my Zosimus!”
Running up the great lane over puddles of water reflecting the glare of the fire, we crossed the park buried in dark shadows. We heard the roaring of the fire, which filled the sombre staircase. Two at a time we ran up the steps, stopping now and again to listen whence came that appalling noise.