The Amethyst Ring. Anatole France
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the words of the child rang out in the imposing silence.
“Was the Blessed Virgin very beautiful?” again questioned Madame de Brécé.
“Yes, Madame. But one eye and one cheek were missing, because I had not prayed long enough.”
“Had she a crown upon her head?” asked M. Lerond, who, as an ex-member of the magistracy, was inquisitive and fond of asking questions.
Honorine hesitated, and then, with a cunning look, replied:
“Her crown was on one side.”
“Right or left?” asked M. Lerond.
“Right and left,” answered Honorine.
Madame de Brécé intervened:
“What do you mean, my child, that it was first on the right and then on the left? Isn’t that what you mean?” But Honorine would not answer.
She was in the habit sometimes of indulging in obstinate silences, standing, as now, with lowered eyes, rubbing her chin on her shoulder and fidgeting. They stopped questioning her, and she slipped out and away, when the Duke began forthwith to explain her case.
Honorine Porrichet, the daughter of a small farmer who had lived all his life at Brécé and had fallen into the direst poverty, had always been a sickly child. Her intelligence had developed so slowly and tardily, that at first she was looked upon as an idiot. The Curé used to reproach her for her wild disposition and the habit she had of hiding in the woods; he did not like her. But some enlightened priests who saw and questioned her could find in her nothing evil. She frequented churches, and would linger there lost in dreams unusual in a child of her age. Her zeal grew at the approach of her first communion. At that time she fell a victim to consumption, and the doctors gave her up. Dr. Cotard, among others, said there was no hope for her. When the new oratory of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles was inaugurated by Monseigneur Charlot, Honorine assiduously frequented it. She fell into ecstasies when there, and saw visions. She saw the Blessed Virgin, who said to her, “I am Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles!” One day Mary approached her, and, laying a finger upon her throat, told her she was cured.
“It was Honorine herself who came back with this remarkable story,” added the Duke, “and she related it several times with the utmost simplicity. People have said that her story was never twice the same; what is certain, however, is that any inconsistency on her part only concerned the minor details of the narrative. What is also certain is that she suddenly ceased to suffer from the disease that was killing her. The doctors who examined and sounded her immediately after the miraculous apparition found nothing wrong either with the bronchial tubes or the lungs. Dr. Cotard himself confessed that he could make nothing of the cure.”
“What do you think of these facts?” said M. Lerond to the Abbé.
“They are worthy of attention,” replied the priest, “and give rise, in all honest observers, to more than one reflexion. It would certainly be impossible to study them too assiduously. I can say no more. I should certainly never put aside such interesting and consoling facts with bold contempt like M. Lantaigne, neither should I dare, like M. de Goulet, to call them miracles. I reserve my opinion.”
“In Honorine Porrichet’s case,” said the Duke, “we must consider both the remarkable cure, which I am right in saying was directly opposed to medical knowledge, and the visions which she declares to be vouchsafed to her. Now you are aware, M. l’Abbé, that when the girl’s eyes were photographed, during one of her trances, the negatives obtained by the photographer, of whose good faith there is not the shadow of a doubt, contained the figure of the Blessed Virgin, imprinted upon the pupil of the eye. Certain persons whose evidence can be relied on swear to having seen the photographs, and to having distinguished, with the aid of a strong magnifying-glass, the statue of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles.”
“These facts are worthy of notice,” repeated the Abbé, “worthy of the most careful attention. But one must be able to suspend judgment, and not rush to premature conclusions. Let us not, like the unbelievers, form hasty conclusions, prompted by passion. In the matter of miracles, the Church exercises the greatest caution; she requires proofs, indisputable proofs.”
M. Lerond asked whether it were possible to obtain the photographs which portrayed the image of the Blessed Virgin in the eyes of little Honorine Porrichet, and the Duke promised to write on the subject to the photographer, whose studio, he thought, was in the Place Saint-Exupère.
“Anyhow,” put in Madame de Brécé, “little Honorine is a very good, nice little girl. She must be under the special protection of Providence, for her parents, who are overcome with illness and want, have abandoned her. I have made inquiries, and understand that her conduct is good.”
“That is more than can be said of all the village girls of her age,” added the dowager duchess.
“That is only too true,” said the Duke. “The peasant classes are growing more and more demoralized. I will tell you of some terrible instances, General, but as for little Honorine, she is innocence itself.”
While the foregoing conversation was being held on the threshold of the church, Honorine had rejoined Isidore in the copses of La Guerche. He was lying on a bed of dead leaves, waiting impatiently, partly because he thought she would bring him something to eat, or some coppers, partly because he loved her, for she was his sweetheart. It was he who had seen the ladies and gentlemen from the château on their way to the church, and had immediately sought out Honorine, to give her time to reach the church before them, and to fall into a trance.
“What have they given you?” he demanded. “Let me see.”
And, as she had brought nothing, he struck her, but without hurting her very much. In return she scratched and bit him, then said:
“What’s that for?”
“Swear that they didn’t give you anything!” he said.
She swore, and, having sucked away the blood that was trickling down their thin arms, they were reconciled. Then, for the want of something better to do, they fell back upon the pleasure that each was able to bestow upon the other.
Isidore, whose mother was a widow, a bad woman given to drink, had no recognized father. He spent all his time in the woods, and nobody bothered about him. Although he was two years younger than Honorine, he was well versed in the practices of love, about the only need in his life of which he found no lack, under the trees of La Guerche, Lénonville, and Brécé. His love-making with Honorine was only by way of killing time, and for want of something better to do. Occasionally Honorine would be roused to a certain amount of interest, but she could not attach much importance to such commonplace, everyday actions, and a rabbit, a bird, or an uncommon-looking insect, would often be enough to change the entire current of their thoughts.
M. de Brécé returned to the château with his guests. The cold walls of the hall bristled with the evidences of massacre; antlers of deer, heads of young stags and of old veterans, which, in spite of the taxidermist’s care, were moth-eaten, and retained in their staring glass eyes something of the agonized sweat of a creature at bay, equivalent to human tears.
Horns, antlers, bleached bones, severed heads, trophies, by means of which the victims honoured their illustrious slayers, the noblemen of France, and Bourbons of Naples and Spain. Under the great staircase stood a sort of amphibious chariot, shaped like a boat, the body of which could be removed, and was used for the purpose of crossing rivers when hunting. It was looked upon as sacred, because it had once been used by exiled kings.
The Abbé Guitrel carefully placed his big cotton umbrella beneath the black visage of a ferocious wild boar, and led the way through a door on the left, flanked by two tortured-looking caryatides by Ducereau, to a drawing-room, where the three Brécé ladies, who had been the first to return, were already sitting with their friend and neighbour, Madame de Courtrai.
Dressed in black, owing to the interminable series of deaths in their own and the Royal Family, they sat there, nunlike and rustic in their extreme simplicity, chatting