Читать книгу Farewell My Only One - Antoine Audouard - Страница 16

VII

I knew that Heloise’s uncle said Mass every Friday evening at the chapel of Saint-Julien, where the apse opens out at the far end of the Close, above the Seine, as if suspended between sky, stone and water. People said it was the very place where the saint’s boat had landed, with the leper aboard, and that sometimes Jesus returned at night in the guise of a beggar to contemplate men and to grieve over the fact that they were not better. Over the years the rock had subsided and the nave was inclining: if it tilted any further it would end up slipping into the Seine, dragging along the saints, the just and those who were not.

With its unusual nave, its low vault, the paucity of light and that very humble way it had of suggesting that men should huddle together, it was a chapel dating from the time of the first Christians – not one of those splendid vessels such as Cluny, not the great mountain that was being built at Chartres – but a simple boat that listed while the disciples doubted and Jesus slept; you could weep all alone in there and no one would hear you apart from the God of the humble and the afflicted, the God of the wretched whom one entreats in a low voice.

I stood in the darkness listening to Mass, allowing the spirits of generations past, who had been born and had died here, to permeate through me, mingling in my memory the prayers of both the dead and the living.

Fulbert’s words – he’s a heavy, plump man whose eyes, which are as blue as those of his niece, express unexpected anxiety – droned away inside my head without my being able to understand what they meant; I was lost in the song of a crow that had come to seek shelter, in the sounds that came up from the river, and in the buffeting wind, which made the haulers groan and pull all the harder; I was that beggar who waits but who will receive nothing.

Heloise was listening to her uncle, her head bowed as if he were Paul the apostle, her blue cloak thrown over her shoulders. Her pure, slightly husky voice rose to sing a psalm – yet again that Song of Songs which the awesome Crusaders of the True Faith had never stopped intoning.

Behold, you are beautiful, my love;

behold you are beautiful;

your eyes are doves.

Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved,

Truly lovely.

Our couch is green.

Heloise turned towards me, recognising me. I had grown pale, so striking was her beauty, and it was with some difficulty that I became accustomed to her very soft, oval-shaped face, her eyes that gleamed with intelligence and tenderness, an expression that I knew to be animated, alert, and possibly amused, should there be anything to laugh about, but which I could also imagine gripped in the concentration of study.

The Mass was over.

Heloise took her uncle’s arm graciously and the stout man smiled – the smile of a large, fat, good, ruddy-faced man, who eats pork and drinks good wine every day – and the top of his skull shone.

I was wearing a golden-yellow tunic and a velvet cloak of the same colour, embroidered with wild flowers, red, white, and yellow too. I looked like a vision of spring in autumn. I drew near. He glanced at me with a kindly but anxious look.

‘I am sent by my master Peter Abelard, philosopher, theologian, master of the Notre-Dame school . . .’ I said to Fulbert, trying not to look at Heloise.

‘I know who Peter Abelard is,’ replied Fulbert respectfully.

‘Most important of all, this is the man who saved my life, Uncle,’ said Heloise.

‘So it’s you!’

‘. . . author of a treatise on the Trinity and the divine unity, former master of the schools of Sainte-Geneviève, of Melun, of Créteil, pupil of William of Champeaux and Anselm of Laon . . .’

Heloise looked puzzled. I tried not to catch her eye. We left the church through the crypt situated in the north arm of the church: the west door was open to the breezes from the river.

As I explained my business (and it was another me, speaking with ease and conviction, while I, huddled up at the pit of my heart, felt nothing but shame), the canon led me through the narrow streets of the Close to his house. By the time we reached his front door I had still not understood whether he was flattered, worried, or tempted . . . He spoke to me about what was happening in Paris, about the Comte de Meulan’s raid, the finances of the chapterhouse, the archdeacon’s ambitions, Garlande’s mischief, about the importance of the school and a dispute about a prebend. Whenever I returned to the subject in hand, he avoided me with the agility of a juggler.

Even though she was walking behind us, I could sense Heloise’s eyes staring at me. Finally, just as we were shuffling about outside her door, I could hold back no longer.

‘What shall I tell my master?’

‘You will tell him that his proposal does me more honour than I can say.’

‘But what else?’

‘You will tell your master,’ Heloise’s calm voice intervened, ‘that my uncle’s house is full and that there is no price – for all his prestige and attributes – that can be paid for the favour he is asking.’

‘Heloise!’

‘You will tell your master to make his own requests, instead of sending a poor student . . .’

‘Heloise!’

The canon turned pink, almost choking.

‘You will tell your master,’ he broke in, ‘that I willingly accept and that my niece’s lessons can begin tomorrow. You will tell him that I insist he should have total freedom to teach as he thinks fit and that his methods shall be mine. You will tell him that if his knowledge has to be taught by strokes of a cane, then he can cane her! You will tell him that I want her to be the most educated and most perfect woman in this kingdom and that I will give up my own prebend and my place in the chapterhouse for that . . .’

‘But your niece is opposed to this . . .’

‘I have spoken!’

‘But your house is full . . .’

He gestured impatiently. Heloise pushed open the door of the house and shut it violently in our faces.

‘She doesn’t want to,’ I said.

‘She will want to.’

I left him to his reveries, convinced that his niece was going to be given lessons by Aristotle. My legs scarcely carried me; I set off on my way, however, taking grim pleasure in pursuing my task to the end.

She caught me by surprise just as I was walking past the baptistery of Saint-Jean-le-Rond, at the very spot where we had spoken the first time. She was dressed in black and a dove was flying about above her head.

‘Why did you do that?’

‘He asked me to.’

‘Are you more base than I thought?’

‘More stupid, anyway.’

‘William, I don’t understand . . .’

‘Honestly, I don’t know why I’ve always preferred asking questions to replying to them . . . I remember that Adam’s real troubles began when Yahweh asked him: “Where are you?”’

I made this last remark with as much frivolity as I could muster. She gazed at me for a moment. There was more surprise than pain in her eyes. My heart was beating as if it would break. I think that if she had asked me one more question, the dyke would have given way. Her gaze scanned the cathedral square, which was once more crowded with stallholders and bogus masters, then returned to me.

‘William, I don’t know who you are or what you want. You saved my life and that’s enough for me. Now I want your promise.’

‘My promise . . .’

‘Your promise that you will me do me no harm,’ she said at last, with forced self-assurance. ‘And your promise that you will not leave me either.’

‘I will stay with you.’

Then I began mumbling with emotion and I shot off like an arrow, leaving her lost for words.

‘Where are you, fool?’ I kept saying to myself as I staggered around. Like Adam, I could do nothing but reply: ‘Lord, I was frightened and I hid.’

‘Were you successful?’

I had calmed my restless heart by going to pray in the little church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. Peter the Child’s house was now quiet and I had found the master resting on a bed of leaves, his eyes closed; the lines that ran across his cheeks and his forehead had almost vanished.

‘Well, are you going to tell me?’

I knew very well that my silence would not exhaust his patience, but I was finding it hard to speak.

‘Tell me if she loves me.’

‘I don’t know whether she does. Her uncle certainly does.’

‘He’s a bit of a simpleton, isn’t he? That’s what Garlande told me.’

He hardly ever mentioned the name of his protector, the archdeacon who had become Louis VI’s chancellor and was aiming still higher.

‘He loves his niece and there’s something rather crafty and obstinate about his stupidity that makes him less simple-minded than the others.’

‘Don’t be so subtle, you’re wearying me. What did he say about my proposal, is he pleased, does he want to accept?’

‘He wants you to cane her to make her understand . . . He knows that philosophers never know what time it is and he realises that lessons will sometimes have to take place at night.’

‘It’s worthy of the trap Jacob played on Esau. And what about her, what did she say?’

‘She doesn’t want to.’

‘Why?’

‘You must ask her.’

‘It doesn’t matter. She will want to. You must speak to her.’

She will want . . . First Fulbert, now Peter . . . She’ll want: men who make decisions over women’s heads. I could bear it no longer. I punched the bench on which I was sitting.

‘You must speak to her yourself.’

‘Calm down. Very well, you’re right, I’ll speak to her. But the thing is . . .’

‘What?’

‘The fact is, I don’t know. These are things I’ve never spoken about.’

I could not prevent myself bursting out laughing.

‘Don’t make fun of me . . . What do I know about women? My mother Lucy, my sister Denise, the classical heroines, Dinah, the daughter of Jephthah . . .’

‘Do I know any more than you do? Let your heart speak!’

I needed, moreover, to lend him my heart, to feed him the phrases that came to my lips.

‘William, I don’t know what my heart is.’

He said this in all seriousness, calmly, like a man who had never thought about the matter and who was getting ready to tackle it in the way one confronted universals.

‘All you have to do is compose a song.’

‘A song?’

‘Petrus habet Heloïssam. That would be amusing.’

A feeling of gloomy irony gripped my insides. Petrus habet Heloïssam. Sing, you ass – or remain silent for ever. Sing – and know your own heart. He stood up and started to chant.

‘Petrus habet . . . Petrus habet . . .’

I walked over to the steps that ran down to our garden. His eyes were closed and he was preoccupied.

‘William, don’t leave!’

‘What is it now?’

‘Do I irritate you?’

‘Haven’t I done enough for you today?’

And against my own inclinations, haven’t I done enough . . . and against hers . . . He was going through these motions once again, and I was beginning to know this sort of behaviour rather well: first of all he would let his dark eyes gaze into mine as if he had never seen me before, as if he were discovering me for the first time, looking at me admiringly, as though I were some wonder of nature; the dark eyes of innocence, the trusting eyes of a friend. Then he would come up to me and put his hand on my shoulder, a powerful hand that was gentle and insistent. His gaze would not leave me until he felt that I was weakening, that my anger had subsided and that he had control of my confused feelings. Only then did he speak.

‘William, my friend, I think you are my only friend.’

I sighed. I wanted to believe him: it was good to be the only friend of the greatest philosopher in the world.

‘What I am telling you, I cannot tell anyone else. Believe me: my enemies would not imagine how innocent I am . . . My spirit wanders freely in the world of the mind – it is king at the Court of Kings. But my body is that of a bear who leaves his cave and discovers the light of the sun, the curious human dance, the snares along the roads. I stand erect and I fight with my paws, I look fearsome and in a moment of panic I can probably wound or kill; but my heart is filled with apprehension and terror. Are you still willing to help me?’

He released my shoulder and he stared into the fireplace where nothing was burning. He was close to tears and his fervour was winning me over. I was no longer frightened to be with him and I was no longer angry. Petrus habet Heloïssam. Peter had chosen Heloise, Peter loved Heloise without knowing her and without knowing how to love: may she be his.