Memoirs of a Physician (36 page)

Therese grumblingly replied that all that was no rea-son for allowing the dinner to cool; and that, moreover, a man ought noj to be such a soft chicken-hearted wretch as to be frightened at the least noise.

Kousseau could make no reply to this last argument, which he himself had so frequently stated in other terms.

Therese added, that these philosophers, these imagina-

MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN. 267

five people, were all the same, that they always talked very grandly in their writings ; they said that they feared nothing ; that God and man were very little to them > but, at the slightest barking of the smallest poodle, they cried ” Help ! ” at the least f everishness they exclaimed, ” Oh, heavens, I am dead.”

This was one of Therese’s favorite themes, that which most excited her eloquence, and to which Bousseau, who was naturally timid, found it most difficult to reply. Eousseau, therefore, pursued his own thoughts to the sound of this discordant music thoughts which were certainly well worth Therese’s, notwithstanding the abuse the latter showered so plentifully on him.

” Happiness,” said he, ” is composed of perfume and music ; now, noise and odor are conventional things. Who can prove that the onion smells less sweet than the rose, or the peacock sings less melodiously than the nightin-gale?”

After which axiom, which might pass for an excellent paradox, they sat down to table.

After dinner, Eousseau did not as usual sit down to his harpischord. He paced up and down the apartment and stopped a hundred times to look out of the window, apparently studying the physiogonomy of the Eue Plastriere. Therese was forthwith seized with one of those fits of jealousy which peevish that is to say, the least really jealous people in the world often indulge in for the sake of opposition. For if there is a disagreeable affectation in the world, it is the affectation of a fault ; the affectation of virtue may be tolerated.

Therese, who held Eousseau’s age, complexion, mind, and manners in the utmost contempt who thought him old, sickly, and ugly did not fear that any one should run off with her husband ; she never dreamed that other women might look upon him with different eyes from herself. But as the torture of jealousy is woman’s most dainty punishment, Therese sometimes indulged herself in this treat. Seeing Eousseau, therefore, approaching the win-dow so frequently, and observing his dreaming and rest-Jess air, she said :

268 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.

” Very good ; I understand your agitation you have just left some one.”

Rousseau turned to her with a startled look which served as an additional proof of the truth of her suspicions.

” Some one you wish to see again ‘ she continued.

” What do you say ? ” asked Eousseau.

” Yes, we make assignations, it seems.”

” Oh ! ” said Eousseau, comprehending that Therese was jealous ” an assignation ! You are mad, Therese.”

“I know perfectly well that it would be madness in you,” said she ; ” but you are capable of any folly. Go go, with your papier-mache complexion, your palpitations and your coughs go, and make conquests. It is one way of getting on in the world.”

” But, Therese, you know there is not a word of truth in what you are saying,” said Rousseau, angrily ; ” let me think in peace.”

” You are a libertine,” said Therese, with the utmost seriousness.

Rousseau reddened as if she had hit the truth, or as if he had received a compliment.

Therese forthwith thought herself justified in putting on a terrible countenance, turning the whole household upside down, slamming the doors violently, and playing with Rousseau’s tranquillity, as children with those metal rings which they shut up in a box and shake to make a noise. Rousseau took refuge in his closet ; this uproar had rather confused his ideas.

He reflected that there would doubtless be some danger in not being present at the mysterious ceremony of which the stranger had spoken at the corner of the quai.

” If there are punishments for traitors, there will also be punishments for the lukewarm or careless,” thought he. ” Now I have always remarked that great dangers mean in reality nothing, just like loud threats. The cases in which either are productive of any result are extremely rare; but petty revenges, underhand attacks, mystifica-tions, and other such small coin these we must be on our guard against. Some day the masonic brothers may repay my contempt by stretching a string across my

MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN. 269

staircase ; I shall stumble over it and break a leg or the six or eight teeth I have left. Or else they will have a stone ready to fall upon iny head when I am passing under a scaffolding ; or, better still, there may be some pamphleteer belonging to the fraternity, living quite near me, upon the same floor, perhaps, looking from his windows into my room. That is not impossible, since the reunions take place even in the Eue Plastriere. Well ! this wretch will write stupid lampoons on me, which will make me ridiculous all over Paris. Have I not enemies everywhere ? “

A moment afterward Eousseau’s thoughts took a different turn.

” Well,” said he to himself, ” but where is courage ? where is honor? Shall I be afraid of myself? Shall I see in my glass only the face of a coward a slave ? No, it shall not be so. If the whole world should combine to ruin me if the very street should fall upon me I will go. What pitiable reasoning does fear produce? Since I met this man, I have been continually turning in a circle of absurdities. I doubt every one, and even myself. That is not logical I know myself. I am not an enthusiast ; if I thought I saw wonders in this projected association, it is because there are wonders in it. Who will say I may not be the regenerator of the human race, I who am sought after, I whom on the faith of my writings the mysterious agents of an unlimited power have eagerly consulted? Shall I retreat when the time has come to follow up my word, to substitute practise for theory ?. “

Eousseau became animated.

” What can be more beautiful. Ages roll on ; the people rise out of their brutishness; step follows step into the darkness, hand follows hand into the shadows; the immense pyramid is raised, upon the summit of which, as its crowning glory, future ages shall place the bust of Eousseau, citizen of Geneva, who risked his liberty, his life, that he might act as he had spoken that he might be faithful to his motto : Vitam impendere vero.”

Thereupon Eousseau, in a fit of enthusiasm, seated himself at his harpsichord, and exalted his imagination

270 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.

by the loudest, the most sonorous, and most warlike melodies he could call forth from its sounding cavity.

Night closed in. Therese, wearied with her vain endeavors to torment her captive, had fallen asleep upon her chair. Rousseau, with a beating heart, took his new coat as if to go out on a pleasure excursion, glanced for a moment in the glass at the play of his black eyes, and he was charmed to find that they were sparkling and expressive.

He grasped his knotted stick in his hand, and slipped out of the room without awakening Therese. But when he arrived at the foot of the stairs, and had drawn back the bolt of the street door, Eousseau paused and looked out, to assure himself as to the state of the locality.

No carriage was passing; the street, as usual, was full of idlers gazing at one another, as they do at this day, while many stopped at the shop windows to ogle the pretty girls. A newcomer would therefore be quite unnoticed in such a crowd. Eousseau plunged into it; he had not far to go. A ballad-singer with a cracked violin was stationed before the door which had been pointed out to him. This music, to which every true Parisian ear is extremely sensitive, filled the street with echoes which repeated the last bars of the air sung by the violin or by the singer himself. Nothing could be more unfavorable, therefore, to the free passage along the street than the crowd gathered at this spot, and the passers-by were obliged to turn either to the right or left of the group. Those who turned to the left took the center of the street, those to the right brushed along the side of the house indicated, and vice versa.

Rousseau remarked that several of these passers-by disappeared on the way as if they had fallen into some trap. He concluded that these people had come with the same purpose as himself, and determined to imitate their maneuver. It was not difficult to accomplish. Having stationed himself in the rear of the assembly of listeners, as if to join their number, he watched the first person whom he saw entering the open alley. More timid than they,

MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN. 271

probably because he had more to risk, he waited until a particularly favorable opportunity should present itself.

He did not wait long. A cabriolet which drove along the street divided the circle, and caused the two hemi-spheres to fall back upon the houses on either side. Rousseau thus found himself driven to the very entrance of the passage; he had only to walk on. Our philosopher observed that all the idlers were looking at the cabriolet and had turned their backs on the house; he took advantage of this circumstance, and disappeared in the dark passage.

After advancing a few steps he perceived a lamp, beneath which a man was seated quietly, like a stair-keeper after the day’s business was over, and read, or seemed to read, a newspaper. At the sound of Rousseau’s footsteps this man raised his head and visibly placed his finger upon his breast, upon which the lamp threw a strong light. Rousseau replied to this symbolic gesture by raising his finger to his lips.

The man then immediately rose, and, pushing open a door at his right hand, which door was so artificially concealed in the wooden panel of which it formed a part as to be wholly invisible, he showed Rousseau a very steep staircase, which descended underground. Rousseau entered, and the door closed quickly but noiselessly after him.

The philosopher descended the steps slowly, assisted by his cane. He thought it rather disrespectful that the brothers should cause him, at this his first interview, to run the risk of breaking his neck or his legs.

But the stairs, if steep, was not long. Rousseau counted seventeen steps, and then felt as if suddenly plunged into a highly heated atmosphere.

The moist heat proceeded from the breath of a considerable number of men who were assembled in the low hall. Rousseau remarked that the walls were tapestried with red and white drapery, on which figures of various implements of labor, rather symbolic doubtless than real, were depicted. A single lamp hung from the vaulted ceiling, and threw a gloomy light upon the faces of those present, who were conversing with one another on the wooden

2T2 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.

benches, and who wore the appearance of honest and respectable citizens.

The floor was neither polished nor carpeted, but was covered with a thick mat of plaited rushes, which dead-ened the sound of the footsteps. Kousseau’s entrance, therefore, produced no sensation.

Xo one seemed to have remarked it.

Five minutes previously Rousseau had longed for nothing so much as such an entrance; and yet, when he had entered, he felt annoyed that he had succeeded so well. He saw an unoccupied place on one of the back benches, and installed himself as modestly as possible on this seat, behind-all the others.

He counted thirty-three heads in the assembly. A desk, placed upon a platform, seemed to wait for a president.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE HOUSE IX THE RUE tLASTRIERE.

ROUSSEAU remarked that the conversation of those present was very cautious and reserved. Many did not open their lips; and scarcely three or four couples exchanged a few words.

Those who did not speak endeavored even to conceal their faces, which was not difficult thanks to the great body of shadow cast by the platform of the expected president. The refuge of these last, who seemed to be the timid individuals of the assembly, was behind this platform. But in return, two or three members ,of this corpo-ration gave themselves a great deal of trouble to recognize their colleagues. They came and went, talked among themselves, and frequently disappeared through a door be-fore which was drawn a black curtain ornamented with red flames.

In a~“short time a bell was rung. A man immediately rose from the end of the bench upon which he was seated, and where he was previously confounded with the other freemasons, and took his place upon the platform.

MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN. 273

After making some signs with the hands and fingers, which were repeated by all those present, and adding a last sign more explicit than the others, he declared the sitting commenced.

This man was entirely unknown to Bousseau. Beneath the exterior of a working-man in easy circumstances, he concealed great presence of mind, aided by an elocution as flowing as could have been wishecl for in an orator.

His speech was brief and to the point. He declared that the lodge had been assembled to proceed to the election of a new brother.

” You will not be surprised,” said he, ” that we have assembled you in a place where the usual trials cannot be attempted. These trials have seemed useless to the chiefs; the brother whom we are to receive to-day is one of the lights of contemporary philosophy a thoughtful spirit who will be devoted to us from conviction, not from fear. One who has discovered all the mysteries of nature and of the human heart cannot be treated in the same manner as the simple mortal from whom we demand the help of his arm, his will, and his gold. In order to have the co-operation of his distinguished mind, of his honest and energetic character, his promise and his assent are sufficient.”

The speaker, when he had concluded, looked round to mark the effect of his words.

Upon Eousseau the effect had been magical; the Genevese philosopher was acquainted with the preparatory mysteries of freemasonry, and looked upon them with the repugnance natural to enlightened minds. The concessions, absurd because they were useless, which the chiefs required from the candidates, this simulating fear when every one knew there was nothing to fear, seemed to him to be the acme of puerility and senseless superstition.