“Don’t be afraid to lean over,” said Carhaix. “Now tell me, monsieur, how do you like my foster children?”
But Durtal was hardly heeding. He felt uneasy, here in space, and as if drawn toward the gaping chasm, whence ascended, from time to time, the desultory clanging of the bell, which was still swaying and would be some time in returning to immobility.
He recoiled.
“Wouldn’t you like to pay a visit to the top of the tower?” asked Carhaix, pointing to an iron stair sealed into the wall.
“No, another day.”
They descended and Carhaix, in silence, opened a door. They advanced into an immense storeroom, containing colossal broken statues of saints, scaly and dilapidated apostles, Saint Matthew legless and armless, Saint Luke escorted by a fragmentary ox, Saint Mark lacking a shoulder and part of his beard, Saint Peter holding up an arm from which the hand holding the keys was broken off.
“There used to be a swing in here,” said Carhaix, “for the little girls of the neighbourhood. But the privilege was abused, as privileges always are. In the dusk all kinds of things were done for a few sous. The curate finally had the swing taken down and the room closed up.”
“And what is that over there?” inquired Durtal, perceiving, in a corner, an enormous fragment of rounded metal, like half a gigantic skullcap. On it the dust lay thick, and in the hollow the meshes on meshes of fine silken web, dotted with the black bodies of lurking spiders, were like a fisherman’s hand net weighted with little slugs of lead.
“That? Ah, monsieur!” and there was fire in Carhaix’s mild eyes, “that is the skull of an old, old bell whose like is not cast these days. The ring of that bell, monsieur, was like a voice from heaven.” And suddenly he exploded, “Bells have had their day!—As I suppose Des Hermies has told you.—Bell ringing is a lost art. And why wouldn’t it be? Look at the men who are doing it nowadays. Charcoal burners, roofers, masons out of a job, discharged firemen, ready to try their hand at anything for a franc. There are curates who think nothing of saying, ‘Need a man? Go out in the street and pick up a soldier for ten sous. He’ll do.’ That’s why you read about accidents like the one that happened lately at Notre Dame, I think. The fellow didn’t withdraw in time and the bell came down like the blade of a guillotine and whacked his leg right off.
“People will spend thirty thousand francs on an altar baldachin, and ruin themselves for music, and they have to have gas in their churches, and Lord knows what all besides, but when you mention bells they shrug their shoulders. Do you know, M. Durtal, there are only two men in Paris who can ring chords? Myself and Père Michel, and he is not married and his morals are so bad that he can’t be regularly attached to a church. He can ring music the like of which you never heard, but he, too, is losing interest. He drinks, and, drunk or sober, goes to work, then he bowls up again and goes to sleep.
“Yes, the bell has had its day. Why, this very morning, Monsignor made his pastoral visit to this church. At eight o’clock we sounded his arrival. The six bells you see down here boomed out melodiously. But there were sixteen up above, and it was a shame. Those extras jangled away haphazard. It was a riot of discord.”
Carhaix ruminated in silence as they descended. Then, “Ah, monsieur,” he said, his watery eyes fairly bubbling, “the ring of bells, there’s your real sacred music.”
They were now above the main door of the building and they came out into the great covered gallery on which the towers rest. Carhaix smiled and pointed out a complete peal of miniature bells, installed between two pillars on a plank. He pulled the cords, and, in ecstasies, his eyes protruding, his moustache bristling, he listened to the frail tinkling of his toy.
And suddenly he relinquished the cords.
“I once had a crazy idea,” he said, “of forming a class here and teaching all the intricacies of the craft, but no one cared to learn a trade which was steadily going out of existence. Why, you know we don’t even sound for weddings any more, and nobody comes to look at the tower.
“But I really can’t complain. I hate the streets. When I try to cross one I lose my head. So I stay in the tower all day, except once in the early morning when I go to the other side of the square for a bucket of water. Now my wife doesn’t like it up here. You see, the snow does come in through all the loopholes and it heaps up, and sometimes we are snowbound with the wind blowing a gale.”
They had come to Carhaix’s lodge. His wife was waiting for them on the threshold.
“Come in, gentlemen,” she said. “You have certainly earned some refreshment,” and she pointed to four glasses which she had set out on the table.
The bell-ringer lighted a little briar pipe, while Des Hermies and Durtal each rolled a cigarette.
“Pretty comfortable place,” remarked Durtal, just to be saying something. It was a vast room, vaulted, with walls of rough stone, and lighted by a semicircular window just under the ceiling. The tiled floor was badly covered by an infamous carpet, and the furniture, very simple, consisted of a round dining-room table, some old bergère armchairs covered with slate-blue Utrecht velours, a little stained walnut sideboard on which were several plates and pitchers of Breton faience, and opposite the sideboard a
