The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard | Page 7

century and contains a translation by
Jean Belet; the other, younger by a century, presents the version of
Jacques Vignay. Both come from the Colbert collection, and were
placed on the shelves of that glorious Colbertine library by the
Librarian Baluze--whose name I can never pronounce without
uncovering my head; for even in the century of the giants of erudition,
Baluze astounds by his greatness. I know also a very curious codex in
the Bigot collection; I know seventy-four printed editions of the work,
commencing with the venerable ancestor of all--the Gothic of Strasburg,
begun in 1471, and finished in 1475. But no one of those MSS., no one
of those editions, contains the legends of Saints Ferreol, Ferrution,
Germain, Vincent, and Droctoveus; no one bears the name of the Clerk
Alexander; no one, in find, came from the Abbey of
Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Compared with the MS. described by Mr.

Thompson, they are only as straw to gold. I have seen with my eyes, I
have touched with my fingers, an incontrovertible testimony to the
existence of this document. But the document itself--what has become
of it? Sir Thomas Raleigh went to end his days by the shores of the
Lake of Como, whither he carried with him a part of his literary wealth.
Where did the books go after the death of that aristocratic collector?
Where could the manuscript of the Clerk Alexander have gone?
"And why," I asked myself, "why should I have learned that this
precious book exists, if I am never to possess it--never even to see it? I
would go to seek it in the burning heart of Africa, or in the icy regions
of the Pole if I knew it were there. But I do not know where it is. I do
not know if it be guarded in a triple- locked iron case by some jealous
biblomaniac. I do not know if it be growing mouldy in the attic of some
ignoramus. I shudder at the thought that perhaps its tore-out leaves may
have been used to cover the pickle-jars of some housekeeper."

August 30, 1850
The heavy heat compelled me to walk slowly. I kept close to the walls
of the north quays; and, in the lukewarm shade, the shops of the dealers
in old books, engravings, and antiquated furniture drew my eyes and
appealed to my fancy. Rummaging and idling among these, I hastily
enjoyed some verses spiritedly thrown off by a poet of the Pleiad. I
examined an elegant Masquerade by Watteau. I felt, with my eye, the
weight of a two-handed sword, a steel gorgerin, a morion. What a thick
helmet! What a ponderous breastplate-- Seigneur! A giant's garb?
No--the carapace of an insect. The men of those days were cuirassed
like beetles; their weakness was within them. To-day, on the contrary,
our strength is interior, and our armed souls dwell in feeble bodies.
...Here is a pastel-portrait of a lady of the old time--the face, vague like
a shadow, smiles; and a hand, gloved with an openwork mitten, retains
upon her satiny knees a lap-dog, with a ribbon about its neck. That
picture fills me with a sort of charming melancholy. Let those who
have no half-effaced pastels in their own hearts laugh at me! Like the

horse that scents the stable, I hasten my pace as I near my lodgings.
There it is--that great human hive, in which I have a cell, for the
purpose of therein distilling the somewhat acrid honey of erudition. I
climb the stairs with slow effort. Only a few steps more, and I shall be
at my own door. But I divine, rather than see, a robe descending with a
sound of rustling silk. I stop, and press myself against the balustrade to
make room. The lady who is coming down is bareheaded; shi is young;
she sings; her eyes and teeth gleam in the shadow, for she laughs with
lips and eyes at the same time. She is certainly a neighbor, and a very
familiar one. She holds in her arms a pretty child, a little boy-- quite
naked, like the son of a goddess; he has a medal hung round his neck
by a little silver chain. I see him sucking his thumb and looking at me
with those big eyes so newly opened on this old universe. The mother
simultaneously looks at me in a sly, mysterious way; she stops--I think
blushes a little--and holds out the little creature to me. The baby has a
pretty wrinkle between wrist and arm, a pretty wrinkle about his neck,
and all over him, from head to foot, the daintiest dimples laugh in his
rosy flesh.
The mamma shows him to me with pride.
"Monsieur," she says, "don't you think he is very pretty--my