Charles Nodier

“ You are the sole repository of this treasure, which I will ask you to give me back once your art has reproduced it. I have not wanted to deprive of its presence completely those minds favoured by heaven who know how to view the concepts of genius, but I have waited, to multiply the copies of it, the moment I could turn to a great printer. You know now, wise Aldo, what I expect of you: a masterpiece worthy of your name and capable just by itself of perpetuating your memory through ages to come. When this gold has been used up, I will bring more. ”

“ Luck of the Bean-rows tramped on and on, taking huge strides like a five-foot giant, and staring left and right at the strange things he saw by the way. He had never dreamed that the world was so big and so full of wonders. ”

“ Alone among our affections, it seems to grow and get stronger with time, while other loves burn so brightly and are spent so quickly in our hearts of ash. Nevertheless she loved Raymond as much as she could love anyone, but a day came when she saw that Raymond no longer loved her. That day made her foresee the even more atrocious day when she would be quite abandoned by the man for whom she herself had abandoned the honours of the altar, and that dreaded day also came. Beatrix now found herself, alas, with no-one to turn to on earth or in heaven. ”

“ Endowed with all the advantages that augur for a happy future: youth, ingenio, knowledge and already glory, you nonetheless abandon yourself to the languor of a mysterious sadness, you are consumed by a secret care, you neglect the works on which your reputation is based, you flee from a world that seeks you out in order to hide in almost opaque solitude days that so much success should make resplendent and, finally, if the rumours that are circulating are worthy of credence, you are on the point of breaking entirely with human society and retiring to a monastery. ”

“ With a few rare and conspicuous exceptions, women are anti-bibliophiles or book-haters. A book in their eyes is merely a newspaper: they crease and crumple it as they turn its leaves. Lacking a paper-knife to cut the edges, they use a card, a pin, or even a hair-pin. If a rare book is under discussion, they appear more interested in the smallest trifle than in all the first editions that exist. They prefer a scrap of ribbon to the most exquisite binding. ”

“ After that, the whole of Beatrix's life went by like a single day, like that day in the future that is promised to the Lord's elect, without boredom, without regret, without fear, without any emotions, for sensitive hearts cannot wholly do without them, other than those of piety towards God and charity towards Man. She lived for a century without seeming to have aged, for only the soul's bad passions add years to the body. The life of the good is an eternal youth. ”

“ I loved her without remembering that she was, of all aristocrats, the noblest, of all the affluent, the most affluent and that I was only Francesco Colonna, the unknown pupil of Bellini, and that all my efforts to be happy in my work would only ever lead me to the acquisition of a sterile reputation. Such is the effect of that passion that dazzles, that blinds, that kills. ”

“ What does the whole world matter—my world which was made up of no more than a cabin, a bean field—which you, little green pea,” and he untied the last of the caskets from its case, “will never bring back to me. The sweet days of boyhood return no more!
57“Go, little green pea, go whither the will of God may carry you, and bring forth what you are destined to bring, to the glory of your mistress. All is over and done with—my old parents, the cabin, the bean field and Pea-Blossom. Go, little green pea, far and far away.” ”

“ I know one bibliophile of this sort (and could tell you his name if I chose) who has spent fifty years of his hardworking life in building up a library, and in selling his library in order to live. There is a bibliophile for you, and I warn you that he is one of the last of the species. Today, it is love of money that prevails; books no longer offer the slightest interest.
The opposite of the bibliophile is the bibliophobe. Our great gentlemen of the political and banking worlds, our great statesmen, our great men of letters, are for the most part bibliophobes. ”

“ The pure joys of affection add to life twofold, threefold, fourfold. What tenderness there is in having a friend who worships you, who enhances each moment with ever new causes for pleasure, who only lives to cherish you or please you. The innocent caresses of pretty children, so fresh, gracious, happy to be alive, and that a barbarous whim would then have sent into oblivion! This is what you have lost! This is what you would have lost, Beatrix, if blind obstinacy keeps you in the abyss you have plunged in! ”

“ Francesco looked at her as if to seek in Polia's eyes if her mouth had not betrayed her thought.
"You know better than anyone," Polia went on, "that I have pledged my troth elsewhere and that my decision to do so is irrevocable. But I must forgive your suspicions for yours is guaranteed by the oath that binds you to an altar and I have never given you a guarantee like that. Listen, Francesco. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day you made your first vows, and it will be during the last morning mass that you will render them even more binding and more sacred by renewing them before the Lord. ”

“ She was often to be seen stretched out in front of the tabernacle, breathing out to her divine patron prayers that were interspersed with sobs, or wetting the space around the altar with her tears, and the celestial Virgin smiled no doubt, from the top of her eternal throne, at that happy and tender mistake on the part of the innocent, for the Holy Virgin loved Beatrix and liked to be loved by her. Besides, she had perhaps discerned in Beatrix's heart that she always would be loved by her. ”

“ That is why your field now brings you in what will buy you a pretty kingdom, if you know when you have enough. As for me, who have paid dearly for my care of others, I have not one wretched lean rat on the hooks of the larder against daylight, for now at night, with my eyes grown so dim in your service, I can scarcely see where I am going. So I called to you, generous Luck of the Bean-rows, to beg of you one of those good quart measures of beans hanging from your staff. It will keep me alive till my oldest son comes of age, and on his loyalty to you you may reckon. ”

“ I myself saw this noble appeal to French urbanity bring 150 francs at an auction sale where our bibliophobe, the man of wealth, had entered it in the hope of catching some collector’s fancy, and I have no doubt that this small capital has by now been tripled in hands so discreet and knowing. All of which goes to show that a favor withheld is no more lost than one that is granted! ”

“ The artist and the poet are everywhere the same. Everywhere they have success and glory, but beyond an arm of the sea the woman who is rich and titled who has known how to shake off these vain privileges of birth is no more than a woman. If this woman came to say to you: I renounce my greatness, I abandon my fortune, I am ready to become even humbler and poorer than you, and to commit to your charge, as to my sole source of support, the whole of my life's destiny, what would you say to that, Francesco? ”

“ Whether this modest tribute really pleased the divine mother of Jesus or whether a special pleasure, which it is difficult to define, is reserved for the least outpouring of a tender heart to the object of its affection, never had the soul of the chatelaine been as open to more ineffable emotions than those she felt that mild evening. She promised herself, with a joy that was ingenuous, to go back every day to the bush in bloom in order to daily bring back a fresh garland. ”

“ The harmless, deliciously enjoyable fever of the bibliophile becomes, in the bibliomaniac, an acute malady bordering on delirium. Once it has reached that fatal stage of paroxysm it loses all contact with the intelligence and resembles any other mania. I do not know whether or not the phrenologists, who have discovered so many absurdities, have as yet localized the collector’s instinct—developed to such a high degree in some poor devils of my acquaintance—within the box of bone which houses our poor brain. ”

“ So, with his weeding-hook in his hand as usual, he passed out of the magic circle, to make the round of his tent and see that all was quiet.
No sooner had he reached the limit of the grounds—a narrow ravine washed out by running water that a kid might have cleared at a bound—than he was brought to a standstill by such a shiver as a brave man feels, for the most valiant has his moments of fright which he can master only by his resolute will. ”

“ Just before she had said this Francesco had opened his downcast eyes. He dared to look at Polia. He drank in her words avidly. "Ah!" he cried. "As God is my witness, my soul has no secret that does not belong to you."
"Your soul has a secret," replied Polia, "a secret that besets your friends and that certain people among those you love best may find it of use to fathom. ”

“ The best of husbands may give the key of his safe to his wife, but he must not give her, even for one moment, the key of his library. A woman should never be left alone with a book, and such in fact should be the rule with all married book-lovers.
Nodier said that, after woman, books are the most delightful things in the world. Why do not women comprehend this, and increase their influence by their appreciation of books?
Following the bibliomaniac who hoards, and the bibliophile who collects, according to the very correct terms of Nodier, come the amateurs of the old book-cult. ”

“ Why had the Virgin Mary left it? What new resting place had she chosen? We may doubtless guess. The blessed mother of Jesus preferred the modest shadow of her favourite bushes to the dazzle of an earthly dwelling. She had gone back, in the midst of the coolness of the woods, to taste the peace of solitude and the sweet exhalations of the flowers. All the people who lived in the castle went there at dusk and found her there, even more resplendent than she had been the previous night. They fell on their knees in respectful silence.
"Potent queen of angels!" ”

“ In that age of ignorance from which we have now had the good fortune to emerge, the publisher was, in general, a man capable of appreciating the books he published; he printed them on good solid paper, supple and resonant, and, when they were sufficiently important, had them bound in sound moisture-proof leather, well-glued and stoutly sewn. If by chance the volume found its way to the second-hand book-stall, that did not spell its ruin. Whether of sheep-skin, calf, or parchment, the binding—blanched and hardened in the sun ”

“ Architecture, on the other hand, which raises monuments to the gods, solemn intermediaries between earth and heaven, took up the greater part of his thoughts, but he did not look for its laws and marvels in the gigantic creations of contemporary art, the bizarre and often grotesque whims and fancies of a fantasy, lacking, according to him, the outward grace of reason and taste. Carried forward by the motion of the Renaissance, which was by then starting to make itself felt in Italy, Francesco only still belonged as far as faith went to this modern world renewed by Christianity. ”

“ There is Luck of the Bean-rows now, who has done so much to make us comfortable that we can spend the few years that are left us in peace and without labour. In making him heir to all we own we have given him only what is already his; and we should be thankless indeed if we did not try to secure him a more becoming position in life than that of a bean-merchant. ”

“ Polia dei Poli, whom I have just mentioned, was then in the palazzo of the Pisani family, where Leonora had decided her to come to spend the mad weeks of the Carnival. Eight years younger than her cousin, and more beautiful than Leonora was herself, Polia, dedicated, as were a great number of young ladies of noble birth, to serious studies, profited from her sojourn in the capital of the scholarly world to improve herself in areas of knowledge today quite alien to her sex, and the habit of these solemn meditations had imparted to her face something cold and austere which passed for pride. ”

“ After that she gazed one last time at the tabernacle, cried out in terror and fled.
The following night a coach whisked away at high speed from the convent the handsome wounded knight and a young nun in breach of her vows who accompanied him.
The first year that succeeded this event was almost entirely given over to the exaltation of a love requited. The world itself for Beatrix was a new experience of pleasures that were inexhaustible. Love multiplied around her all the means of seduction able to perpetuate her error and encompass her loss. ”

“ Civilization has reached the most unexpected of its ages, the age of paper. Now that everyone writes books, no one shows any particular eagerness to buy them. Besides, our young authors are well on [8] the way to building up whole libraries for themselves out of their own works. They need only be left to their own devices.
If we were to subdivide the species book collector into its various classes, the top-most rank in the whole subtle and capricious family should without doubt be given to the bibliophile. ”

“ I don’t care a chick pea either for your kingdom or yourself.’”
“But do tell me,” cried Luck of the Bean-rows, indignantly, “in what hole this king of the crickets is skulking. I will quickly hoe him out and fling him bound hand and foot to your mercy. And yet,” he continued, as he rested his head on his hand, “I can understand his desperation. But is it not my duty, princess, to escort you to your realm and protect you from pursuit?” ”

“ But why throw into a heart that is peaceful and happy pains that one is hardly capable of bearing oneself? Either my passion will be rejected, as I suppose, and what will I have gained from having this sad intuition confirmed, or it will be mutual and I will have to suffer for both of us. What am I saying: suffer for both of us? My despair is my life since I have found in myself enough strength to live with it. Hers would have killed me already."
"You take your suppositions too far, Francesco," Polia replied buoyantly. ”

“ What grievous twist of fate has let me see you again, chained by the links of a life which is not made for you, and cut off, without any going back, from that brilliant world that you were the principal ornament of? ”

“ Polia was about to return to Treviso, and her cousin multiplied around her the various festivities that might enhance her sojourn in Venice and make it harder for her to leave. One day had been taken up by gondola outings on the Grand Canal and on that broad and deep arm of it that separates the Serenissima from the solitude of its Lido. But Francesco had not been overlooked in Leonora Pisani's invitations, and the letter which he had had from her contained such amiable and touching reproaches as to his long absence that for him to refuse would have been inconceivable. ”

“ Innocence, modesty, youth, beauty, love, those roses in life that only flower once, and, in addition, conscience that compensates for all other losses! The jewels that had formerly adorned her, the impious tributes that debauchery pays to crime, provided her, for a time, with a resource too apt to dwindle. ”

“ Thoughts of love ran through his mind, but at twelve years of age, love does not keep one awake; and Pea-Blossom, of whom he had had only a glimpse, had left him with no more than the impression of a delightful dream, the enchantment of which could only return in sleep. Another good reason for going to sleep if you have remembrances like mine.
The Luck of the Bean-rows, however, was too cautious to yield to these idle fancies until he had made sure that all was safe outside the pavilion, the very splendour of which was likely to attract all the 48thieves and vagabonds for miles round. ”

“ I would a thousand times rather have the horrid sorrow that consumes me than the shameful reputation of an adventurer rebuffed by the world and made rich by love!"
"I had not finished," Polia broke in. "You are overscrupulous, but I understand your scruple and share it. The world as it goes demands odd sacrifices and one would perhaps be asked of you by reason of your character, but a character of the same calibre as yours might answer with a different sort of denial. Greatness and fortune are accidents of fate one can get rid of if one wants to. ”

“ I have lived in this convent for more than sixteen years, and I have never known anyone in charge of looking after the holy basilica apart from Sister Beatrix. Being as you are determined to perform an act of worship for Our Lady, while I'm making a bed up for you, go, my sister, go to the foot of the tabernacle. You will find Beatrix there already, and you will recognize her easily, for divine goodness has allowed her not to lose in ageing a single one of her youthful graces. ”

“ I loved a woman who would be universally recognizable were I to depict the rare qualities that she is clothed with, combining with beauty all the perfections of intelligence and soul, and that heaven seems only to have entrusted to earth to remind us of the ineffable joy of the condition we have lost. ”

“ Beatrix did not go back down to the choir without emotion. She went back to see her companions whose faith she had betrayed, and who had aged, immune to reproach, in the practice of an austere duty. She slid among her sisters lowering her head, and ready to humble herself at the first shout to announce her fault. ”

“ It was the day that Francesco was to present his book to Polia. He stood up to the blow that had just struck him, went to her palazzo and stopped on the threshold of her apartment. "Come, my brother," said Polia when she saw him. "Come to communicate to us these secret wonders of your art, a true treasure that Christian humility refuses to the world, and which is to be confided only to us." At the same time she shooed away her women and her servants, and Francesco was alone with her. ”

“ The sister custodian at that time was called Beatrix. Eighteen years old at most, she had scarcely been told how pretty she was, for she had entered Our Lady's house when she was only fifteen, as pure and unspoilt as her flowers.
There is a happy or disastrous age at which a young girl's heart understands that it was created to love, and Beatrix had reached it. ”

“ He accustomed himself after only a few days to divide his time between the duties of a religious and the leisured labour of an artist, at times painting those pure and naive frescos which may still be admired in the monastery of the Dominicans, though the cavalier arrogance of modern art has let them deteriorate, at times writing down in a book, the favourite object of his studies, all the impressions susceptible to him because of his talent and above all of his love. ”

“ You condemned yourself, you poor, dear child, to long days of boredom, bitterness, disgust that no pleasure henceforth will be able to assuage the long sadness of! It is however so sweet to love, so sweet to be loved, so sweet to live again through what one loves in the objects that one loves! ”

“ The first thought of a wretch is to die. That thought is as commodious as it is natural because it answers all questions and remedies all inconveniences. But might not this desperate death, far from hastening to bring about the day when I may draw nearer to her in a better world, separate me from her forever? ”

“ A woman knelt at her side was raising her head carefully, and staring at her with anxious curiosity, waiting for her to come round completely.
"God be praised," said the good sister at the convent gate, "for having sent to us so early in the day an act of mercy to perform and a sadness to alleviate! It's a happy omen for the glorious feast of the Holy Virgin that we celebrate today! But how is it, my dear child, that you did not think to pull on the bell or to use the knocker? At no time would your sisters in Jesus Christ not have been ready to receive you. Well, there we are! ”

“ What right would I have to accept the perks of a high position that society denies me? With what impudence could I take my seat at the banquet of fortune, I who have only obscurity and misery as my prerogatives? ”

“ A year went by in these sweet works mixed with sweet illusions, and Francesco had just put the finishing touches to his work, when the most distressing and heartbreaking news came through the walls where the Dominicans were. The young Antonio Grimani, later admiral and doge of Venice, but already the most brilliant of its nobles and its highest hope, had just asked for the hand of Polia in marriage, and, it was added, the hand of Polia had been granted to him. ”