The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard | Page 8

little boy?"
She takes one tiny hand, lifts it to the child's own lips, and, drawing out
the darling pink fingers again towards me, says,
"Baby, throw the gentleman a kiss."
Then, folding the little being in her arms, she flees away with the
agility of a cat, and is lost to sight in a corridor which, judging by the
odour, must lead to some kitchen.
I enter my own quarters.
"Therese, who can that young mother be whom I saw bareheaded on
the stairs just now, with a pretty little boy?"
And Therese replies that it was Madame Coccoz.

I stare up at the ceiling, as if trying to obtain some further illumination.
Therese then recalls to me the little book-peddler who tried to sell me
almanacs last year, while his wife was lying in.
"And Coccoz himself?" I asked.
I was answered that I would never see him again. The poor little man
had been laid away underground, without my knowledge, and, indeed,
with the knowledge of very few people, on a short time after the happy
delivery of Madame Coccoz. I leaned that his wife had been able to
console herself: I did likewise.
"But, Therese," I asked, "has Madame Coccoz got everything she needs
in that attic of hers?"
"You would be a great dupe, Monsieur," replied my housekeeper, "if
you should bother yourself about that creature. They gave her notice to
quit the attic when the roof was repaired. But she stays there yet--in
spite of the proprietor, the agent, the concierge, and the bailiffs. I think
she has bewitched every one of them. She will leave the attic when she
pleases, Monsieur; but she is going to leave in her own carriage. Let me
tell you that!"
Therese reflected for a moment; and then uttered these words:
"A pretty face is a curse from Heaven."
"Then I ought to thank Heaven for having spared me that curse. But
here! put my hat and cane away. I am going to amuse myself with a
few pages of Moreri. If I can trust my old fox-nose, we are going to
have a nicely flavoured pullet for dinner. Look after that estimable fowl,
my girl, and spare your neighbors, so that you and your old master may
be spared by them in turn."
Having thus spoken, I proceeded to follow out the tufted ramifications
of a princely genealogy.

May 7, 1851

I have passed the winter according to the ideal of the sages, in angello
cum libello; and now the swallows of the Quai Malaquais find me on
their return about as when they left me. He who lives little, changes
little; and it is scarcely living at all to use up one's days over old texts.
Yet I feel myself to-day a little more deeply impregnated than ever
before with that vague melancholy which life distils. The economy of
my intelligence (I dare scarcely confess it to myself!) has remained
disturbed ever since that momentous hour in which the existence of the
manuscript of the Clerk Alexander was first revealed to me.
It is strange that I should have lost my rest simply on account of a few
old sheets of parchment; but it is unquestionably true. The poor man
who has no desires possesses the greatest of riches; he possesses
himself. The rich man who desires something is only a wretched slave.
I am just such a slave. The sweetest pleasures-- those of converse with
some one of a delicate and well-balanced mind, or dining out with a
friend--are insufficient to enable me to forget the manuscript which I
know that I want, and have been wanting from the moment I knew of
its existence. I feel the want of it by day and by night: I feel the want of
it in all my joys and pains; I feel the want of it while at work or asleep.
I recall my desires as a child. How well I can now comprehend the
intense wishes of my early years!
I can see once more, with astonishing vividness, a certain doll which,
when I was eight years old, used to be displayed in the window of an
ugly little shop of the Rue de Seine. I cannot tell how it happened that
this doll attracted me. I was very proud of being a boy; I despised little
girls; and I longed impatiently for the day (which alas! has come) when
a strong beard should bristle on my chin. I played at being a soldier;
and, under the pretext of obtaining forage for my rocking-horse, I used
to make sad havoc among the plants my poor mother delighted to keep
on her window-sill. Manly amusements those, I should say! And,

nevertheless, I was consumed with longing for a doll.