The Revolt of the Angels

who among us shall boast of his wisdom? The foresight of man is short, and his prudence is forever being baffled. The blows of fate are ineluctable; no man shall evade his doom. There is no counsel, no caution that avails against destiny. Hapless as we are, the same blind force which regulates the courses of atom and of star fashions universal order from our vicissitudes. Our ill-fortune is necessary to the harmony of the Universe. It was the day for the binder, a day which the revolving seasons brought round twice a year, beneath the sign of the Ram and the sign of the Scales. That day, ever since morning, Monsieur Sariette had been making things ready for the binder. He had laid out on the table as many of the newly purchased paper-bound volumes as were deemed worthy of a permanent binding or of being put in boards, and also those books whose binding was in need of repair, and of all these he had drawn up a detailed and accurate list. Punctually at five o’clock, old Amédée, the man from Léger-Massieu’s, the binder in the Rue de l’Abbaye, presented himself at the d’Esparvieu library and, after a double check had been carried out by Monsieur Sariette, thrust the books he was to take back to his master into a piece of cloth which he fastened into knots at the four corners and hoisted on to his shoulder. He then saluted the librarian with the following words, “Good night, all!” and went downstairs.

Everything went off on this occasion as usual. But Amédée, seeing the Lucretius on the table, innocently put it into the bag with the others, and took it away without Monsieur Sariette’s perceiving it. The librarian quitted the home of the Philosophers and Globes in entire forgetfulness of the book whose absence had been causing him such horrible anxiety all day long. Some people may take a stern view of the matter and call this a lapse, a defection of his better nature. But would it not be more accurate to say that fate had decided that things should come to pass in this manner, and that what is called chance, and is in fact but the regular order of nature, had accomplished this imperceptible deed which was to have such awful consequences in the sight of man? Monsieur Sariette went off to his dinner at the Quatre Évêques, and read his paper La Croix. He was tranquil and serene. It was only the next morning when he entered the abode of the Philosophers and Globes that he remembered the Lucretius. Failing to see it on the table he looked for it everywhere, but without success. It never entered his head that Amédée might have taken it away by mistake. What he did think was that the invisible visitant had returned, and he was mightily disturbed.

The unhappy curator, hearing a noise on the landing, opened the door and found it was little Léon, who, with a gold-braided kepi stuck on his head, was shouting “Vive la France” and hurling dusters and feather-brooms and Hippolyte’s floor polish at imaginary foes. The child preferred this landing for playing soldiers to any other part of the house, and sometimes he would stray into the library. Monsieur Sariette was seized with the sudden suspicion that it was he who had taken the Lucretius to use as a missile and he ordered him, in threatening tones, to give it back. The child denied that he had taken it, and Monsieur Sariette had recourse to cajolery.

“Léon, if you bring me back the little red book, I will give you some chocolates.”

The child grew thoughtful; and in the evening, as Monsieur Sariette was going downstairs, he met Léon, who said:

“There’s the book!”

And, holding out a much-torn picture-book called The Story of Gribouille, demanded his chocolates.

A few days later the post brought Maurice the prospectus of an enquiry agency managed by an ex-employee at the Prefecture of Police; it promised celerity and discretion. He found at the address indicated a moustached gentleman morose and careworn, who demanded a deposit and promised to find the individual.

The ex-police official soon wrote to inform him that very onerous investigations had been commenced and asked for fresh funds. Maurice gave him no more and resolved to carry on the search himself. Imagining, not without some likelihood, that the angel would associate with the wretched, seeing that he had no money, and with the exiled of all nations⁠—like himself, revolutionaries⁠—he visited the lodging-houses at St. Ouen, at la Chapelle, Montmartre, and the Barrière d’Italie. He sought him in the dosshouses, public-houses where they give you plates of tripe, and others where you can get a sausage for three sous; he searched for him in the cellars at the Market and at Père Momie’s.

Maurice visited the restaurants where nihilists and anarchists take their meals. There he came across men dressed as women, gloomy and wild-looking youths, and blue-eyed octogenarians who laughed like little children. He observed, asked questions, was taken for a spy, had a knife thrust into him by a very beautiful woman, and the very next day continued his search in beer-houses, lodging-houses, houses of ill-fame, gambling-halls down by the fortifications, at the receivers of stolen goods, and among the apaches.

Seeing him thus pale, harassed, and silent, his mother grew worried.

“We must find him a wife,” she said. “It is a pity that Mademoiselle de la Verdelière has not a bigger fortune.”

Abbé Patouille did not hide his anxiety.

“This child,” he said, “is passing through a moral crisis.”

“I am more inclined to think,” replied Monsieur René d’Esparvieu, “that he is under the influence of some bad woman. We must find him an occupation which will absorb him and flatter his vanity. I might get him appointed Secretary to the Committee for the Preservation of Country Churches, or Consulting Counsel to the Syndicate of Catholic Plumbers.”

XVII

Wherein we learn