Angelique - Part 2. Marriage in Toulouse Chapter 5 - Read online

THE VISITOR ARRIVED COVERED WITH DUST. He was travelling on horseback and had come from Lyons by way of Nimes. He was a rather tall man of about thirty-five years. He started to talk Italian, changed to Latin, of which Angelique had little knowledge, and finished by speaking in German.
In that tongue, which was familiar to Angelique, the Comte introduced the traveller.
“Professor Bernalli of Geneva is doing me the great honour of coming to talk to me of the scientific problems which for many years now have been the subject of correspondence between us.”
The stranger bowed with a very Italian flourish and protested profusely. His abstract arguments and formulas were certain to bore a charming lady whose mind surely ran to more light-hearted topics. Prompted neither by bravado nor genuine curiosity, Angelique asked to be allowed to be present at their discussions. However, to be discreet, she sat down in the comer of a casement window that overlooked the courtyard.
It was winter, but the cold was dry and the sim was shining. From the yard came the scent of copper braziers, around which the footmen were warming themselves. Angelique, with a piece of embroidery work on her knees, strained an ear towards the conversation of the two men, who were facing each other across the fire-place, where a small log-fire was smoulder¬ing.
They spoke of people whose names were completely unknown to her:
the English philosopher Bacon, Descartes, the'French engineer Blondel, who seemed to arouse both men’s indignation, for, they said, he had treated Galileo’s theories as sterile paradoxes. From all this Angfihque eventually gathered that the new arrival was a fervent supporter of Descartes, whom her husband, on the contrary, was attacking.
Seated in the depths of his tapestry arm-chair in the casual pose he liked best Joffrey de Peyrac seemed as nonchalant as when he was discussing the rhymes of a sonnet with some ladies. His insouciant attitude was a con¬trast to that of his interlocutor, whose passionate interest in this dialogue kept him bolt upright on the edge of his stool.
‘‘I’d be tempted to regard you as a madman,” said the Italian at one point, “and yet something deep within me approves of what you say. Your theory would be the climax of my studies on liquids in motion. Ah! I certainly don’t regret this perilous journey which has afforded me the priceless joy of talking to a great scientist. But take care, my friend! If I myself, whose words never compared with yours for boldness, am considered a heretic and am forced to exile myself to Switzerland, what may happen to you?”
“Pah!” said the Comte, “I do not seek to convince anyone, unless they have minds versed in science and are able to understand me. I have not even the ambition to write down and publish the results of my work. I devote myself to it for pleasure, as I take pleasure in versifying songs with lovely ladies. I am living quietly in my palace at Toulouse, so who would want to come and harm me?”
“The eyes of power are everywhere,” declared Bemalli, looking disillusioned and glancing round the room.
At this very instant, Angelique thought she heard a very slight sound not far from her, and it seemed to her as if the hangings over one of the doorways had moved. It gave her a disagreeable feeling. From then on she listened to the men’s conversation with only one ear. Her eyes fastened unconsciously on the face of Jeffrey de Peyrac. The darkness that filled the room in the early winter dusk softened the nobleman’s dis¬figured features. His black eyes alone shone with a passionate glow, and his teeth sparkled in the smile which accompanied even his gravest words. Angelique felt her heart stir.
When Bernalli had retired to dress for dinner, Angelique closed the window. The footmen placed torches on the table while a maid was stoking up the fire. Joffrey de Peyrac rose and went over to the window- recess where his wife was sitting.
“You are very silent, my dear. Did you fall asleep listening to us talk?”
“No, on the contrary, I was very much interested,” said Angflique slowly, and for the first time her eyes did not shrink away from her husband. “I don't pretend I understood everything, but I confess I care more for this kind of discussion than for the verses of those ladies and their pages.”
Joffrey de Peyrac placed a foot on the step of the embrasure and leaned down to consider Angelique with attention.
“You are a curious little woman. I believe you are beginning to become more tractable, but you haven't ceased to surprise me. I've used all sorts of seductions to conquer the women I desired, but it never before occurred to me to make use of mathematics.”
Angelique could not help laughing, while a blush rose to her cheeks. She lowered her eyes to her needlework in some confusion. To change the subject, she asked;
“So you devote yourself to experiments in physics in that laboratory which Kouassi-Ba guards so jealously?”
“Yes and no. I have some measuring instruments, but I use my laboratory principally for chemical research on metals such as gold and silver.”
“Alchemy,” repeated Angelique with awe, and the vision of Gilles de Retz's casde passed before her eyes. “Why do you always want gold and silver?” she inquired with sudden fervour. “It is as if you sought them everywhere, not only in your laboratory, but in Spain, in England and even in the little lead-mine my family owns in Poitou. . . . AndMolmes told me that you also have a gold-mine in the mountains of the Pyrenees. Why do you want so much gold?”
“Much gold and silver is needed, Madame, in order to be free. And note what Master Andre le Chapelain says at the head of his manuscript The Art of Love: ‘To occupy yourself with love, you must have no worries about material subsistence.' ”
“Don't imagine you'll win me with gifts and wealth,” retorted Angelique, recoiling fiercely.
“I don't imagine anything, my darling. I am waiting for you. I sigh. ‘Every lover must pale in the presence of his beloved.' I pale. Do you think I have not paled enough? I know that it is recommended to minstrels to kneel to their lady, but that's a position my leg finds in¬convenient. Forgive me. Oh, you can be sure I may say like Bernard de Ventadour, the divine poet: ‘The torments of love which the beauty whose slave I am causes me will surely make me die.' I am dying, Madame.”
Angllique shook her head, laughing.
“I don't believe you. You don't look as if you're dying. . . . You shut yourself up in your laboratory, or else you hasten to the homes of the precious ladies of Toulouse in order to guide their poetic compositions.”
“Can it be that you miss me, Madame?”
She hesitated, a smile on her lips, anxious to maintain the tone of light banter.
“I miss distractions, and you are distraction and variety personified.”
She resumed her needlework. She no longer knew whether she liked or feared the way in which Joffrey de Peyrac sometimes looked at her during these jocular jousts for which their life in society gave them numerous occasions. All at once he dropped his irony, and in the ensuing silence she had the impression of falling under a strange, enveloping, all-consuming influence. She felt naked, her small breasts pressed against her lace bodice. She wanted to close her eyes.
‘He is taking advantage of my disarmed distrust in order to cast a spell over me/ she thought to herself with a little shiver of fear and delight.
Joffrey de Peyrac was attractive to women. Angelique could not deny it, and that which had been a cause of amazement to her during the first days, was becoming more understandable. Certain troubled expressions, certain flutterings among her pretty women-friends as the faltering step of the limping nobleman could be heard approaching in the corridors, had not escaped her. He had only to appear for a thrill to pass through the feminine gathering. He knew how to talk to women. He found caustic and gentle words, knew how to address a lady in a way that made her feel that she had been singled out among all the others. Angelique bridled like a restive horse under the cajoling voice. With a feeling of light-headcd- ness, she recalled the confidences of her old nurse: “He entices young women with strange songs . . .”
When Bernalli reappeared, Angelique rose to meet him. She brushed against the Comte de Peyrac in passing and had a fleeting regret that his hand had not reached out to take her by the waist.