Sylvestre

“ In the heart of Pol, Sylvestre Ker saw pride of strength and gross cupidity; in the spot where should have been the heart of Matheline, he saw Matheline, and nothing but Matheline, in adoration before Matheline.
"I have seen enough," said Sylvestre Ker.
"Then," replied Satan, "listen!" And immediately the sacred music resounded in the ears of the young tenant of the tower as plainly as though he was in the church of Plouharnel. They were singing the Sanctus: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts! The heavens and the earth are full of Thy glory. Hosanna in the highest! ”

“ Sylvestre Ker will not go!"
Not a spirit from within flew out, while all the outside spirits entered, muttering, chattering, laughing,—
"Yes, yes, yes, yes! No, no, no, no!" And I believe they fought.
At the same time the sound of a cavalcade advancing was heard on the flinty road that passed before the tower; and Sylvestre Ker recognized the long procession of the monks of Ruiz, led by the grand abbot, Gildas the Wise, arrayed in cope and mitre, with his crozier in his hand, going to the Mass of Plouharnel, as the convent chapel was being rebuilt. ”

“ One can never tell how a "chance" may develop. Professor Sylvestre was well off, and kind of heart. He had no children of [209] his own, and he was devoted, above all other things, to the interest of science. He saw the making of a first-rate naturalist in Jean Cardilliac, with his quick eyes, his close observation, his real interest in finding out and making sure. ”

“ You would only have twelve months to wait to go with your mother to another Christmas Mass."
"I have promised," said Sylvestre.
"That is nothing: if your mother loves you truly, she will forgive you."
"If she loves me!" cried Sylvestre Ker. "Oh, yes, she loves me with her whole [Pg 91] heart."
Some chestnuts still remained, and Bihan shelled one while he said,—
"Certainly, certainly, mothers always love their children; but Matheline is not your mother. You are one-eyed, you are lame, and you have sold your little patrimony to buy your furnaces. Nothing remains of it. ”

“ To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything. Nothing exists except that which is imagined. I am imaginary. That is what it is to exist, I should think! I am dreamed of, and I appear. Everything is only dream; and as nobody ever dreams about you, Sylvestre Bonnard, it is YOU who do not exist. ”

“ But even were it otherwise, Sylvestre, where would be the wrong?"
"Wrong? No wrong at all; but I should be anxious for you; I should be afraid. See here, my friend. I know you well. You are a born man of letters, a dreamer, an artist in your way. You have to help you on entering the redoubtable lists of love neither foresight, nor a cool head, nor determination. You are guided solely by your impressions; by them you rise or fall. You are no more than a child." ”

“ She summoned the servant-girl, who looked much more hurried and scared than before, and who vanished with the order to go and tell Mademoiselle Alexandre that Monsieur Sylvestre Bonnard, Member of the Institute, was waiting to see her in the parlour.
Mademoiselle Prefere had barely time to confide in me that she had the most profound respect for all decisions of the Institute—whatever they might be—when Jeanne appeared, out of breath, red as a poppy, with her eyes very wide open, and her arms dangling helplessly at her sides—charming in her artless awkwardness. ”

“ When, lo, and behold! a huge old ram, which had been browsing on the salt grass, tossed back his two horns, and, fuming at the nostrils, bleated as loud as the stags cry when chased, and rushed in the direction of Matheline's voice; for, as every one knows, the rams become furious if laughter is heard in their meadow. [Pg 81]
He ran quickly, but Sylvestre Ker ran still faster, and arrived the first by the girl, so that he received the shock of the ram's butting while protecting her with his body. ”

“ But whence came those golden ringlets that mingled with Josserande's black hair, and which shone in the sunlight above his mother's snowy locks? And that laugh, oh! that silvery laugh of youth, which prevented Sylvestre Ker from hearing, in his pious recollections, the calm, grave voice of his mother. Whence did it come?
Seven years! Pol h [Pg 93] ad said. "Where is the girl who can wait seven years?" and these words floated in the air. Never had the son of Martin Ker heard such strange voices amid the roaring of the ocean, nor in the rushing winds of the forest of the Druids. ”

“ It is the personality of Monsieur Bergeret that sheds its sunset kindness over the sordid phases of French political and social life presented in the famous series. It is the charm of Sylvestre Bonnard that makes an idyll of the story of his crime. It is Doctor Trublet in Histoire Comique who gives humanity to the fantastic adventure. It is Maître Jérôme Coignard whom we love unreservedly in La Rôtisserie de la Reine Pédauque. No writer is more personal. No writer views human affairs from a more impersonal standpoint. ”

“ Dreamers make no confidences; they shrivel up into themselves and are caught away on the four winds of heaven. Politics drive them mad; gossip fails to interest them; the sorrows they create have no remedy save the joys that they invent; they are natural only when alone, and talk well only to themselves.
The only man who can put up with this moody contrariety of mine is Sylvestre Lampron. He is nearly twenty years older than I. That explains his forbearance. Besides, between an artist like him and a dreamer like myself there is only the difference of handiwork. ”

“ The Voice.— (From without) :
⁠Sylvester
The hour has come!
Sylvester:
⁠Hour of my victory!
Over th' inveterate adversary age.
Is the door bolted fast? Who trys the bolt?
Lenore:— (Looking thro' the key-hole)
Only I see a slim and dusky hand
That fingers at the latch!
Sylvester:
⁠Pile up the fire!
Only an hour to the dawning, God,
To die a dog's death in a dumb despair
With the Elixir brimming at my lips,
Never! I set my will against the Fiend's!
The Voice:
The hour has come Sylvester.
Sylvester.— (Stooping over the fire) :
⁠I prevail! ”

“ Tho' yellow ruffs with Mistress Turner died,
I wager we shall see them spring again.
Avis:
I go to lay the supper against to-night
Who knows what guests may gather round the board?
⁠ (She retires laughing, right.)
⁠ (Sylvester enters from Garden.)
Madam Pomeroy:
Give you good morrow Master Sylvester!
How goes the great work? Still the furnace burns.
You, if a man may, should th' elixir find,
And yet the years go by, it 'scapes you still,
But Age comes on you, and the fire burns low!
Sylvester:
Aye, 'Vita Ignis, Corpus Lignum Est.'
Life is the fire and the fuel are we! ”

“ Sylvester at times! As I see him sitting with clouded brow in the midst of so much that ought to charm and enliven him, I ask myself if the advantages of wealth compensate for all this care and anxiety. But I notice he is much more cheerful now than when I first came. Ona says he is in danger of losing the air of melancholy reserve which made him look so distinguished, but I think we can spare a little of such doubtful distinguishment for the sake of the smiles with which he now and then indulges us. ”

“ Sylvester turned from her jewel-casket and calmly surveyed his face. It was fixed and formal, the face he turned to his servants and sometimes—to his wife. “No,” said she, with a light little gesture as though she were speaking of the most trivial matter. “In one respect at least, papa is like an angel, his visits are few and far between.”
Mr. Sylvester’s eye-brows drew heavily together. For a man with a smile of strange sweetness, he could sometimes look very forbidding. ”

“ Sylvester, you have offered me your love and the refuge of your home; if you say that in your judgment the counsel of all true friends would be for me to accept this love, then my hand is yours and with it my heart; a heart that only hesitates because it would fain be sure it has the smile of heaven upon its every prompting.”
“Paula!” ”

“ Sylvester began by giving his protégé a commission to paint his mother's portrait, and before this work was finished a very appreciable degree of intimacy had sprung up between the Sylvester family and the young painter, who found no difficulty in gratifying a woman-of-the-world's passion for small-talk and fashionable intelligence—judiciously culled from the columns of the daily newspapers with the art of a practised wielder of the scissors and paste-brush. ”

“ While the good woman was cleaning the frying-pan, after having passed it over the fire to warm it, Sylvie unfastened from her belt a little key of wrought steel and showed it to me in triumph.
I followed her swiftly up the wooden staircase that led to the room above. Oh youth, and holy age! Who could sully by an evil thought the purity of first love in this shrine of hallowed memories? The portrait of a young man of the good old times, with laughing black eyes and rosy lips, hung in an oval gilt frame at the head of the rustic bed. ”

“ Sylvester? If any one had seen the abandon with which he yielded to her caresses and returned them, he would have understood why this child should have loved him with such extraordinary affection. He kissed her forehead, he kissed her cheek, and seemed never weary of smoothing down her bright and silky curls. She reminded him of Geraldine. She had the same blue eyes and caressing ways. ”

“ Whatever the reason, it was clear that when they were seated at the table, partaking of the meal, it was Captain Saltonstall that had the best attention from every member of the household, (and the best of the dish,) from all save old Sylvester, who held himself erect, as usual, and impartial in the matter.
"The ways of Providence are strange," said old Sylvester. "Out of darkness he brings marvellous light, and from the frivolous acorn he spreads the branches wide in the air, which are a shelter, and a solace, and a shadowy play-ground to our youth and old age. ”

“ Lenore:
When all is done, Sylvester? Nay, alas!
All is not done, our term of living sped,
There is a Judgment still to be endured,
And endless dolour or gladness yet to be.
Sylvester:
Your God may rule His heaven, but here on earth
I know two Gods, two dull unheeding Gods,
Invidious Time and cruel Circumstance,
Who ride the poor man with a double spur
Desire and Hunger, and the rich man drive
With pointed goad of dull Satiety,
Or longing for things unattainable.
To rule those Gods one must be young and strong. ”

“ Sylvester. And struck by an appeal which in spite of his abhorrence of the man at his side, woke every instinct of fatherhood within him, he searched with his glance the long row of windows before them. But before his eye had travelled half way across the building, he felt the man at his side quiver with sudden agony, and following the direction of his glance, saw a wan, little countenance looking down upon them from a window almost opposite to where they stood.
“It is my boy!” shrieked the man, and in his madness would have leaped from the casement, if Mr. Sylvester had not prevented him. ”

“ By every wild throb of her heart at the sound of his voice in her ear, by every out-reaching of her soul to enter into his every mood, by the deep sensation of rest she felt in his presence, and the uneasy longing that absorbed her in his absence, she knew that she loved Mr. Sylvester as she never could his younger, blither, and perhaps nobler rival. Each word spoken by him lay treasured in her heart of hearts. When she thought of manly beauty, his face and figure started upon her from the surrounding shadows, making all romance possible and poetry the truest expression of the human soul. ”

“ You would think that Sylvester reigned in sylvan shades, among the trees, not at Rome nor among men, and that he was driven out by winter rains and cold, not by men!
Who that is at all widely read, does not know what Roman kings, what consuls, what dictators, what tribunes of the people, what censors, what aediles were chosen? Of such a large number of men in times so long past, none escapes us. ”

“ Those who had been faithful from the outset stopped him on the threshold, and one voice—one only—was raised to beg admittance for him—the voice of Sylvester, bound to the monarch by old ties of friendship! ”

“ Sylvester as much as every one else loves him. And he is not alone in this. Almost every day I hear some remark made of a nature complimentary to my benefactor’s character or ability. Even Mr. Stuyvesant who so seldom appears to notice us girls, once interrupted a conversation between Cicely and myself to inquire if Mr. Sylvester was quite well. ”

“ Sylvester dropped her hand and turned towards the mantle-piece. It was April as I have said, and there was no fire in the grate, but he posed his foot on the fender and looked sadly down at the empty hearthstone.
“Paula,” said he after a space of pregnant silence, “it had to come. The veil of the temple must be rent in every life. Evil is too near us all for us to tread long upon the flowers without starting up the adders that hide beneath them. You had to have your first look into the cells of darkness, and perhaps it is best you had it here and now. ”

“ I know you love the baby; do you think, dear boy,—now, really, do you think you could be father to it? Consider this well. You are young, thoughtless, well-meaning enough: but dare you take upon yourself the functions of guide, genius or guardian to one so young and guileless? Could you be the mentor to this Telemachus? Think of the temptations of [metropolis] . Look at the question well, and let me know speedily. I've got him as far as this place, and he's kicking up an awful row in the hotel-yard, and rattling his chain like a maniac. Let me know by telegraph at once. Sylvester. ”