"A reproach?" said Rodin, shrugging his shoulders; "a reproach? You shall be the judge.Do you know what I wrote about you, some six weeks ago? Here it is: `Father d'Aigrigny has excellent qualities.He will be of much service to me'--and from to-morrow I shall employ you very actively, added Rodin, by way of parenthesis--`but he is not great enough to know how to make himself little on occasion.' Do you understand?"
"Not very well," said Father d'Aigrigny, blushing.
"So much the worse for you," answered Rodin; "it only proves that I was right.Well, since I must tell you, I have been wise enough to play the most foolish part for six whole weeks.Yes, I have chatted nonsense with a grisette--have talked of liberty, progress, humanity, emancipation of women, with a young, excited girl; of Napoleon the Great, and all sorts of Bonapartist idolatry, with an old, imbecile soldier; of imperial glory, humiliation of France, hopes in the King of Rome, with a certain marshal of France, who, with a heart full of adoration for the robber of thrones, that was transported to Saint-Helena, has a head as hollow and sonorous as a trumpet, into which you have only to blow some warlike or patriotic notes, and it will flourish away of itself, without knowing why or how.More than all this, I have talked of love affairs with a young tiger.When I told you it was lamentable to see a man of any intelligence descend, as I have done, to all such petty ways of connecting the thousand threads of this dark web, was I not right? Is it not a fine spectacle to see the spider obstinately weaving its net?--to see the ugly little black animal crossing thread upon thread, fastening it here, strengthening it there, and again lengthening it in some other place? You shrug your shoulders in pity; but return two hours after--
what will you find? The little black animal eating its fill, and in its web a dozen of the foolish flies, bound so securely, that the little black animal has only to choose the moment of its repast."
As he uttered those words, Rodin smiled strangely; his eyes, gradually half closed, opened to their full width, and seemed to shine more than usual.The Jesuit felt a sort of feverish excitement, which he attributed to the contest in which he had engaged before these eminent personages, who already felt the influence of his original and cutting speech.
Father d'Aigrigny began to regret having entered on the contest.He resumed, however, with ill-repressed irony: "I do not dispute the smallness of your means.I agree with you, they are very puerile--they are even very vulgar.But that is not quite sufficient to give an exalted notion of your merit.May I be allowed to ask--"
"What these means have produced?" resumed Rodin, with an excitement that was not usual with him."Look into my spider's web, and you will see there the beautiful and insolent young girl, so proud, six weeks ago, of her grace, mind, and audacity--now pale, trembling, mortally wounded at the heart."
"But the act of chivalrous intrepidity of the Indian prince, with which all Paris is ringing," said the princess, "must surely have touched Mdlle.de Cardoville."
"Yes; but I have paralyzed the effect of that stupid and savage devotion, by demonstrating to the young lady that it is not sufficient to kill black panthers to prove one's self a susceptible, delicate, and faithful lover."
"Be it so," said Father d'Aigrigny; "we will admit the fact that Mdlle.
de Cardoville is wounded to the heart."
"But what does this prove with regard to the Rennepont affair?" asked the cardinal, with curiosity, as he leaned his elbows on the table.
"There results from it," said Rodin, "that when our most dangerous enemy is mortally wounded, she abandons the battlefield.That is something, I should imagine."
"Indeed," said the princess, "the talents and audacity of Mdlle.de Cardoville would make her the soul of the coalition formed against us."
"Be it so," replied Father d'Aigrigny, obstinately; "she may be no longer formidable in that respect.But the wound in her heart will not prevent her from inheriting."
"Who tells you so?" asked Rodin, coldly, and with assurance."Do you know why I have taken such pains, first to bring her in contact with Djalma, and then to separate her from him?"
"That is what I ask you," said Father D'Aigrigny; "how can this storm of passion prevent Mdlle.de Cardoville and the prince from inheriting?"
"Is it from the serene, or from the stormy sky, that darts the destroying thunderbolt?" said Rodin, disdainfully."Be satisfied; I shall know where to place the conductor.As for M.Hardy, the man lived for three things: his workmen, his friend, his mistress.He has been thrice wounded in the heart.I always take aim at the heart; it is legal and sure."
"It is legal, and sure, and praiseworthy," said the bishop; "for, if I understand you rightly, this manufacturer had a concubine; now it is well to make use of an evil passion for the punishment of the wicked."
"True, quite true," added the cardinal; "if they have evil passion for us to make use of it, it is their own fault."
"Our holy Mother Perpetue," said the princess, "took every means to discover this abominable adultery."
"Well, then, M.Hardy is wounded in his dearest affections, I admit,"
said Father d'Aigrigny, still disputing every inch of ground; "ruined too in his fortune, which will only make him the more eager after this inheritance."
The argument appeared of weight to the two prelates and the princess; all looked at Rodin with anxious curiosity.Instead of answering he walked up to the sideboard, and, contrary to his habits of stoical sobriety, and in spite of his repugnance for wine, he examined the decanters, and said:
"What is there in them?"
"Claret and sherry," said the hostess, much astonished at the sudden taste of Rodin, "and--"
