The Queen Pedauque eBook

Letting us out, with a friendly smile M. d’Asterac spoke as follows: 

“Well knowing what to think of the devil and the Other, I willingly consent to speak of them with persons who believe in them.  The devil and the Other are, as it were, characters; one may speak of them just as of Achilles and Thersites.  Be assured, gentlemen, if the devil is like what he is said to be, he does not live in so subtle an element as fire.  It is wholly wrong to place so villainous a beast in the sun.  But as I had the honour to say, Master Tournebroche, to the Capuchin so dear to your mother, I reckon that the Christians slander Satan and his demons.  That in some unknown world there may exist beings still worse than man is possible, but hardly conceivable.  Certainly, if such exist, they inhabit regions deprived of light, and if they are burning, it would be in ice, which, as a fact, causes the same smarting pain, and not in illustrious flames among the fiery daughters of the stars.  They suffer because they are wicked, and wickedness is an evil; but they can only suffer from chilblains.  With regard to your Satan, gentlemen, who is a horror for your theologians, I do not consider him to be despicable, if I judge him by all you say of him, and, should he peradventure exist, I would think him to be, not a nasty beast, but a little Sylph, or at least a Gnome, and a metallurgist a trifle mocking but very intelligent.”

My tutor stopped his ears with his fingers and took to flight so as not to hear anything more.

“What impiety, Tournebroche, my boy,” he exclaimed, when we reached the staircase.  “What blasphemies!  Have you felt all the odium in the maxims of that philosopher?  He pushes atheism to a joyous frenzy, which makes me wonder.  But this indeed renders him almost innocent, for being apart from all belief, he cannot tear up the Holy Church like those who remain attached to her by some half-severed, still bleeding limb.  Such, my son, are the Lutherans and the Calvinists, who mortify the Church till a separation occurs.  On the contrary, atheists damn themselves alone, and one may dine with them without committing a sin.  That’s to say, that we need not have any scruple about living with M. d’Asterac, who believes neither in God nor devil.  But did you see, Tournebroche, my boy, the handful of little diamonds at the bottom of the wooden bowl?—­the number of which apparently he did not know, and which seemed to be of pure water.  I have my doubts about the opal and the sapphires, but those diamonds looked genuine.”  When we reached our chambers we wished each other a very good-night.

CHAPTER XI

The Advent of Spring and its Effects—­We visit Mosaide

Up till springtime my tutor and myself led a regular and secluded life.  All the mornings we were at work shut up in the gallery, and came back here after dinner as if to the theatre.  Not as M. Jerome Coignard used to say, to give ourselves in the manner of gentlemen and valets a paltry spectacle, but to listen to the sublime, if contradictory, dialogues of the ancient authors.