Les Misérables Page 13

  CHAPTER VI--WHO GUARDED HIS HOUSE FOR HIM

  The house in which he lived consisted, as we have said, of a groundfloor, and one story above; three rooms on the ground floor, threechambers on the first, and an attic above. Behind the house was agarden, a quarter of an acre in extent. The two women occupied thefirst floor; the Bishop was lodged below. The first room, opening on thestreet, served him as dining-room, the second was his bedroom, and thethird his oratory. There was no exit possible from this oratory, exceptby passing through the bedroom, nor from the bedroom, without passingthrough the dining-room. At the end of the suite, in the oratory, therewas a detached alcove with a bed, for use in cases of hospitality.The Bishop offered this bed to country curates whom business or therequirements of their parishes brought to D----

  The pharmacy of the hospital, a small building which had been addedto the house, and abutted on the garden, had been transformed intoa kitchen and cellar. In addition to this, there was in the garden astable, which had formerly been the kitchen of the hospital, and inwhich the Bishop kept two cows. No matter what the quantity of milk theygave, he invariably sent half of it every morning to the sick people inthe hospital.

  _"I am paying my tithes,"_ he said.

  His bedroom was tolerably large, and rather difficult to warm in badweather. As wood is extremely dear at D----, he hit upon the idea ofhaving a compartment of boards constructed in the cow-shed. Here hepassed his evenings during seasons of severe cold: he called it his_winter salon_.

  In this winter salon, as in the dining-room, there was no otherfurniture than a square table in white wood, and four straw-seatedchairs. In addition to this the dining-room was ornamented with anantique sideboard, painted pink, in water colors. Out of a similarsideboard, properly draped with white napery and imitation lace, theBishop had constructed the altar which decorated his oratory.

  His wealthy penitents and the sainted women of D---- had more than onceassessed themselves to raise the money for a new altar for Monseigneur'soratory; on each occasion he had taken the money and had given it tothe poor. "The most beautiful of altars," he said, "is the soul of anunhappy creature consoled and thanking God."

  In his oratory there were two straw prie-Dieu, and there was anarm-chair, also in straw, in his bedroom. When, by chance, he receivedseven or eight persons at one time, the prefect, or the general, or thestaff of the regiment in garrison, or several pupils from the littleseminary, the chairs had to be fetched from the winter salon in thestable, the prie-Dieu from the oratory, and the arm-chair from thebedroom: in this way as many as eleven chairs could be collected for thevisitors. A room was dismantled for each new guest.

  It sometimes happened that there were twelve in the party; the Bishopthen relieved the embarrassment of the situation by standing in frontof the chimney if it was winter, or by strolling in the garden if it wassummer.

  There was still another chair in the detached alcove, but the straw washalf gone from it, and it had but three legs, so that it was of serviceonly when propped against the wall. Mademoiselle Baptistine had also inher own room a very large easy-chair of wood, which had formerly beengilded, and which was covered with flowered pekin; but they had beenobliged to hoist this bergère up to the first story through the window,as the staircase was too narrow; it could not, therefore, be reckonedamong the possibilities in the way of furniture.

  Mademoiselle Baptistine's ambition had been to be able to purchase a setof drawing-room furniture in yellow Utrecht velvet, stamped with a rosepattern, and with mahogany in swan's neck style, with a sofa. But thiswould have cost five hundred francs at least, and in view of the factthat she had only been able to lay by forty-two francs and ten sous forthis purpose in the course of five years, she had ended by renouncingthe idea. However, who is there who has attained his ideal?

  Nothing is more easy to present to the imagination than the Bishop'sbedchamber. A glazed door opened on the garden; opposite this was thebed,--a hospital bed of iron, with a canopy of green serge; in theshadow of the bed, behind a curtain, were the utensils of the toilet,which still betrayed the elegant habits of the man of the world: therewere two doors, one near the chimney, opening into the oratory; theother near the bookcase, opening into the dining-room. The bookcase wasa large cupboard with glass doors filled with books; the chimney was ofwood painted to represent marble, and habitually without fire. In thechimney stood a pair of firedogs of iron, ornamented above with twogarlanded vases, and flutings which had formerly been silveredwith silver leaf, which was a sort of episcopal luxury; above thechimney-piece hung a crucifix of copper, with the silver worn off, fixedon a background of threadbare velvet in a wooden frame from which thegilding had fallen; near the glass door a large table with an inkstand,loaded with a confusion of papers and with huge volumes; before thetable an arm-chair of straw; in front of the bed a prie-Dieu, borrowedfrom the oratory.

  Two portraits in oval frames were fastened to the wall on each side ofthe bed. Small gilt inscriptions on the plain surface of the cloth atthe side of these figures indicated that the portraits represented,one the Abbé of Chaliot, bishop of Saint Claude; the other, the AbbéTourteau, vicar-general of Agde, abbé of Grand-Champ, order of Cîteaux,diocese of Chartres. When the Bishop succeeded to this apartment, afterthe hospital patients, he had found these portraits there, and had leftthem. They were priests, and probably donors--two reasons for respectingthem. All that he knew about these two persons was, that they hadbeen appointed by the king, the one to his bishopric, the other to hisbenefice, on the same day, the 27th of April, 1785. Madame Magloirehaving taken the pictures down to dust, the Bishop had discovered theseparticulars written in whitish ink on a little square of paper, yellowedby time, and attached to the back of the portrait of the Abbé ofGrand-Champ with four wafers.

  At his window he had an antique curtain of a coarse woollen stuff, whichfinally became so old, that, in order to avoid the expense of a new one,Madame Magloire was forced to take a large seam in the very middleof it. This seam took the form of a cross. The Bishop often calledattention to it: "How delightful that is!" he said.

  All the rooms in the house, without exception, those on the groundfloor as well as those on the first floor, were white-washed, which is afashion in barracks and hospitals.

  However, in their latter years, Madame Magloire discovered beneath thepaper which had been washed over, paintings, ornamenting the apartmentof Mademoiselle Baptistine, as we shall see further on. Before becominga hospital, this house had been the ancient parliament house of theBourgeois. Hence this decoration. The chambers were paved in red bricks,which were washed every week, with straw mats in front of all the beds.Altogether, this dwelling, which was attended to by the two women, wasexquisitely clean from top to bottom. This was the sole luxury which theBishop permitted. He said, _"That takes nothing from the poor."_

  It must be confessed, however, that he still retained from his formerpossessions six silver knives and forks and a soup-ladle, whichMadame Magloire contemplated every day with delight, as they glistenedsplendidly upon the coarse linen cloth. And since we are now paintingthe Bishop of D---- as he was in reality, we must add that he had saidmore than once, "I find it difficult to renounce eating from silverdishes."

  To this silverware must be added two large candlesticks of massivesilver, which he had inherited from a great-aunt. These candlesticksheld two wax candles, and usually figured on the Bishop's chimney-piece.When he had any one to dinner, Madame Magloire lighted the two candlesand set the candlesticks on the table.

  In the Bishop's own chamber, at the head of his bed, there was a smallcupboard, in which Madame Magloire locked up the six silver knives andforks and the big spoon every night. But it is necessary to add, thatthe key was never removed.

  The garden, which had been rather spoiled by the ugly buildings whichwe have mentioned, was composed of four alleys in cross-form, radiatingfrom a tank. Another walk made the circuit of the garden, and skirtedthe white wall which enclosed it. These alleys left behin
d them foursquare plots rimmed with box. In three of these, Madame Magloirecultivated vegetables; in the fourth, the Bishop had planted someflowers; here and there stood a few fruit-trees. Madame Magloire hadonce remarked, with a sort of gentle malice: "Monseigneur, you who turneverything to account, have, nevertheless, one useless plot. It would bebetter to grow salads there than bouquets." "Madame Magloire," retortedthe Bishop, "you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as theuseful." He added after a pause, "More so, perhaps."

  This plot, consisting of three or four beds, occupied the Bishopalmost as much as did his books. He liked to pass an hour or two there,trimming, hoeing, and making holes here and there in the earth, intowhich he dropped seeds. He was not as hostile to insects as a gardenercould have wished to see him. Moreover, he made no pretensions tobotany; he ignored groups and consistency; he made not the slightesteffort to decide between Tournefort and the natural method; he took partneither with the buds against the cotyledons, nor with Jussieu againstLinnæus. He did not study plants; he loved flowers. He respected learnedmen greatly; he respected the ignorant still more; and, without everfailing in these two respects, he watered his flower-beds every summerevening with a tin watering-pot painted green.

  The house had not a single door which could be locked. The door of thedining-room, which, as we have said, opened directly on the cathedralsquare, had formerly been ornamented with locks and bolts like the doorof a prison. The Bishop had had all this ironwork removed, and this doorwas never fastened, either by night or by day, with anything except thelatch. All that the first passer-by had to do at any hour, was to giveit a push. At first, the two women had been very much tried by thisdoor, which was never fastened, but Monsieur de D---- had said to them,"Have bolts put on your rooms, if that will please you." They had endedby sharing his confidence, or by at least acting as though they sharedit. Madame Magloire alone had frights from time to time. As for theBishop, his thought can be found explained, or at least indicated, inthe three lines which he wrote on the margin of a Bible, "This is theshade of difference: the door of the physician should never be shut, thedoor of the priest should always be open."

  On another book, entitled _Philosophy of the Medical Science_, he hadwritten this other note: "Am not I a physician like them? I also have mypatients, and then, too, I have some whom I call my unfortunates."

  Again he wrote: "Do not inquire the name of him who asks a shelter ofyou. The very man who is embarrassed by his name is the one who needsshelter."

  It chanced that a worthy curé, I know not whether it was the curé ofCouloubroux or the curé of Pompierry, took it into his head to askhim one day, probably at the instigation of Madame Magloire, whetherMonsieur was sure that he was not committing an indiscretion, to acertain extent, in leaving his door unfastened day and night, at themercy of any one who should choose to enter, and whether, in short,he did not fear lest some misfortune might occur in a house so littleguarded. The Bishop touched his shoulder, with gentle gravity, andsaid to him, _"Nisi Dominus custodierit domum, in vanum vigilant quicustodiunt eam," Unless the Lord guard the house, in vain do they watchwho guard it._

  Then he spoke of something else.

  He was fond of saying, "There is a bravery of the priest as well asthe bravery of a colonel of dragoons,--only," he added, "ours must betranquil."