 Section 17 of Library of World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 4. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michelle Busquet. Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 4 by Julian Hawthorne, Editor. Section 17. The Conscript by Honoré de Balzac. The Inner Self. By a phenomenon of vision or of locomotion has been known at times to abolish space in its two modes of time and distance. The one intellectual, the other physical. History of Louis Lambert. On a November evening in the year 1793, the principal citizens of Carentin were assembled in Madame de Day's drawing room. Madame de Day held this réception every night of the week, but an unwanted interest attached to this evening's gathering, owing to certain circumstances which would have passed altogether unnoticed in a great city, though in a small country town they excited the greatest curiosity. For two days before, Madame de Day had not been at home to her visitors, and on the previous evening her door had been shut on the ground of indisposition. Two such events at any ordinary time would have produced in Carentin the same sensation that Paris knows on nights when there is no performance at the theatres. Existence is, in some sort, incomplete. But in those times when the least indiscretion on the part of an aristocrat might be a matter of life and death, this conduct of Madame de Day's was likely to bring about the most disastrous consequences for her. Her position in Carentin ought to be made clear if the reader is to appreciate the expression of keen curiosity and cunning fanaticism on the countenances of these Norman citizens, and, what is of most importance, the part that the Lady played among them. Many a one during the days of the Revolution has doubtless passed through a crisis as difficult as hers at that moment, and the sympathies of more than one reader will fill in all the colouring of the picture. Madame de Day was the widow of a Lieutenant-General, a Knight of the Orders of Saint Michael and of the Holy Ghost. She had left the court when the emigration began and taken refuge in the neighbourhood of Carentin where she had largest states, hoping that the influence of the reign of terror would be but little felt there. Her calculations, based on a thorough knowledge of the district, proved correct. The Revolution made little disturbance in lower Normandy. Formerly, when Madame de Day had spent any time in the country, her circle of acquaintance had been confined to the noble families of the district. But now, from politic motives, she opened her house to the principal citizens and to the revolutionary authorities of the town, endeavouring to touch and gratify their social pride without arousing either hatred or jealousy. Gracious and kindly, possessed of the indescribable charm that wins goodwill without loss of dignity or effort to pay court to any, she had succeeded in gaining universal esteem. The discreet warnings of exquisite tact enabled her to steer a difficult course among the exacting claims of this mixed society without wounding the overweening self-love of Parbenu on the one hand or the susceptibilities of her old friends on the other. She was about thirty-eight years of age and still preserved, not the fresh, high-coloured beauty of the Bas-Normande, but a fragile loveliness of what may be called an aristocratic type. Her figure was lissom and slender, her features delicate and clearly cut. The pale face seemed to light up and live when she spoke, but there was a quiet and devout look in the great dark eyes for all their graciousness of expression, a look that seemed to say that the springs of her life lay without her own existence. In her early girlhood she had been married to an elderly and jealous soldier. Her false position in the midst of a gay court had doubtless done something to bring a veil of sadness over a face that must once have been bright with the charms of quick-pulsed life and love. She had been compelled to set constant restraint upon her frank impulses and emotions at an age when a woman feels rather than thinks, and the depths of passion in her heart had never been stirred. In this lay the secret of her greatest charm, a youthfulness of the inmost soul, betrayed at times by her face and a certain tinge of innocent wistfulness in her ideas. She was reserved in her demeanor, but in her bearing and in the tones of her voice there was still something that told of girlish longings directed toward a vague future. Before very long the least susceptible fell in love with her and yet stood somewhat in awe of her dignity and hybrid manner. Her great soul, strengthened by the cruel ordeals through which she had passed, seemed to set her too far above the ordinary level, and these men weighed themselves and instinctively felt that they were found wanting. Such a nature demanded an exalted passion. Moreover, Madame de Day's affections were concentrated in one sentiment, a mother's love for her son. All the happiness and joy that she had not known as a wife she had found later in her boundless love for him. The coquetry of a mistress, the jealousy of a wife mingled with the pure and deep affection of a mother. She was miserable when they were apart and nervous about him while he was away. She could never see enough of him and lived through and for him alone. Some idea of the strength of this type may be conveyed to the masculine understanding by adding that this was not only Madame de Day's only son, but all she had of kith or kin in the world, the one human being on earth bound to her by all the fears and hopes and joys of her life. The late comp de Day was the last of his race and she, his wife, was the sole heiress and descendant of her house. So worldly ambitions and family considerations, as well as the noblest cravings of the soul, combined to heighten in the countess a sentiment that is strong in every woman's heart. The child was all the dearer because only with infinite care had she succeeded in rearing him to man's estate. Medical science had predicted his death a score of times, but she had held fast to her presentiments and her hopes and had known the inexpressible joy of watching him pass safely through the perils of infancy, of seeing his constitution strengthen in spite of the decrees of the faculty. Thanks to her constant care, the boy had grown up and developed so favorably that at twenty years of age he was regarded as one of the most accomplished gentlemen at the court of Versailles. One final happiness that does not always come from a mother's efforts was hers. Her son worshipped her. In between these two there was the deep sympathy of kindred souls. If they had not been bound to each other already by a natural and sacred tie, they would instinctively have felt for each other a friendship that is rarely met with between two men. At the age of eighteen the young count had received an appointment as a sublutinent in a regiment of dragoons and had made it a point of honor to follow the emigrant princes into exile. Then Madame Dede faced the dangers of her cruel position. She was rich, noble, and the mother of an emigrant. With the one desire to look after her son's great fortune she had denied herself the happiness of being with him. And when she read the rigorous laws in virtue of which the Republic was daily confiscating the property of emigrants at Cananton, she congratulated herself on the courageous course that she had taken. Was she not keeping watch over the wealth of her son at the risk of her life? Later, when news came of the horrible executions ordered by the Convention, she slept, happy in the knowledge that her own treasure was in safety, out of reach of peril, far from the scaffolds of the Revolution. She loved to think that she had followed the best course, that she had saved her darling and her darling's fortunes, and to this secret thought she made such concessions as the misfortunes of the times demanded, without compromising her dignity or her aristocratic tenets, and enveloped her sorrows in reserve and mystery. She had foreseen the difficulties that would be set her at Cananton. Did she not tempt the scaffold by the very fact of going thither to take a prominent place? Yet, sustained by a mother's courage, she succeeded in winning the affection of the poor, ministering without distinction to everyone in trouble, and made herself necessary to the well-to-do by providing amusements for them. The Procurator of the Commune might be seen at her house. The Mayor, the President of the District, and the Public Prosecutor, and even the judges of the Revolutionary Tribunals went there. The four first named gentlemen were none of them married, and each paid court to her in the hope that Madame de Day would take him for her husband, either from fear of making an enemy or from a desire to find a protector. The Public Prosecutor, once an attorney at Can, and the Countess's man of business, did what he could to inspire love by a system of devotion and generosity, a dangerous game of cunning. He was the most formidable of all her suitors. He alone knew the amount of the large fortune of his some-time client, and his fervor was inevitably increased by the cupidity of greed and by the consciousness that he wielded an enormous power, the power of life and death in the District. He was still a young man, and, owing to the generosity of his behavior, Madame de Day was unable as yet to estimate him truly. But, in despite of the danger of matching herself against Norman Cunning, she used all the craft and inventiveness that nature has bestowed on women to play off the rival suitors one against another. She hoped, by gaining time, to emerge safe and sound from her difficulties at last, for at that time royalists in the provinces flattered themselves with a hope, daily renewed, that the moral would see the end of the revolution, a conviction that proved fatal to many of them. In spite of difficulties, the Countess had maintained her independence with considerable skill, until the day when, by an inexplicable want of prudence, she took occasion to close her salon. So deep and sincere was the interest that she inspired, that those who usually filled her drawing-room felt a lively anxiety when the news was spread. Then, with the frank curiosity characteristic of provincial manners, they went to inquire into the misfortune, grief, or illness that had befallen Madame de Day. To all these questions Brigitte, the housekeeper, answered with the same formula. Her mistress was keeping her room and would see no one, not even her own servants. The almost claustral lives of dwellers in small towns fosters a habit of analysis and conjectural explanation of the business of everybody else. So strong is it that when everyone had exclaimed over poor Madame de Day, without knowing whether the lady was overcome by joy or sorrow, each one began to inquire into the causes of her sudden seclusion. If she were ill, she would have sent for the doctor, said Gossip No. 1. Now the doctor has been playing chess in my house all day. He said to me, laughing, that in these days there is only one disease, and that, unluckily, it is incurable. The joke was hazarded discreetly. Women and men, elderly folk and young girls, forthwith betook themselves to the vast fields of conjecture. Everyone imagined that there was some secret in it, but every head was busy with the secret. Next day the suspicions became malignant. Everyone lives in public in a small town, and the women kind were the first to find out that Brigitte had laid in an extra stock of provisions. The thing could not be disputed. Brigitte had been seen in the marketplace betimes that morning, and, wonderful to relate, she had bought the one hair to be had. The whole town knew that Madame de Day did not care for game. Brigitte had become a starting point for endless conjectures. Elderly gentlemen, taking their constitutional, noticed a sort of suppressed bustle in the Countess's house. The symptoms were the more apparent because the servants were at evident pains to conceal them. The manservant was beating a carpet in the garden. Only yesterday no one would have remarked the fact, but today everybody began to build romances upon that harmless piece of household stuff. Everyone had a version. On the following day, that on which Madame de Day gave out that she was not well, the magnets of Carantan went to spend the evening at the mayor's brother's house. He was a retired merchant, a married man, a strictly honorable soul. Everyone respected him, and the Countess held him in high regard. There all the rich widow's suitors were feigned to invent more or less probable fictions, each one thinking the while how to turn to his own advantage the secret that compelled her to compromise herself in such a manner. The public prosecutor spun out a whole drama to bring Madame de Day's son to her house of a night. The mayor had a belief in a priest who had refused the oath, a refugee from Lavandé, but this left him not a little embarrassed how to account for the purchase of a hair on a Friday. The president of the district had strong leanings toward a Chouin chief, or a Vendéan leader, hotly pursued. Others voted for a noble escaped from the prisons of Paris. In short, one in all suspected that the Countess had been guilty of some piece of generosity that the law of those days defined as a crime, an offence that was likely to bring her to the scaffold. The public prosecutor, moreover, said, in a low voice, that they must hush the matter up and try to save the unfortunate lady from the abyss toward which she was hastening. If you spread reports about, he added, I shall be obliged to take cognizance of the matter and to search the house, and then!" He said no more, but everyone understood what was left unsaid. The Countess's real friends were so much alarmed for her that on the morning of the third day the procurateur syndic of the commune made his wife write a few lines to persuade Madame de Day to hold her lycée, as usual, that evening. The old merchant took a bolder step. He called that morning upon the lady. Strong in the thought of the service he meant to do her, he insisted that he must see Madame de Day and was amazed beyond expression to find her out in the garden, busy gathering the last autumn flowers in her borders to fill the vases. She has given refuge to her lover, no doubt, thought the old man, and struck with pity for the charming woman before him. The Countess's face wore a strange look that confirmed his suspicions. Deeply moved by the devotion so natural to women, but that always touches us because all men are flattered by the sacrifices that any woman makes for any one of them, the merchant told the Countess of the gossip that was circulating in the town and showed her the danger that she was running. He wound up at last with saying that if there are some of our public functionaries who are sufficiently ready to pardon a piece of heroism on your part so long as it is a priest that you wish to save, no one will show you any mercy if it is discovered that you are sacrificing yourself to the dictates of your heart. At these words Madame de Day gazed at her visitor with a wild excitement in her manner that made him tremble, old though he was. Come in, she said, taking him by the hand to bring him to her room, and as soon as she had assured herself that they were alone she drew a soiled, torn letter from her bodice. Read it, she cried, with a violent effort to pronounce the words. She dropped as if exhausted into her armchair. While the old merchant looked for his spectacles and wiped them, she raised her eyes and for the first time looked at him with curiosity. Then, in an uncertain voice, I trust in you, she said softly. Why did I come but to share in your crime, the old merchant said simply. She trembled. For the first time since she had come to the little town her soul found sympathy in another soul. A sudden light dawned, meantime, on the old merchant. He understood the Countess's joy and her frustration. Her son had taken part in the Granville expedition. He wrote to his mother from his prison and the letter brought her a sad, sweet hope. Feeling no doubts as to his means of escape, he wrote that within three days he was sure to reach her, disguised. The same letter that brought these weighty tidings was full of heart-rending farewells in case the writer should not be in Carinthine by the evening of the third day, and he implored his mother to send a considerable sum of money by the bearer, who had gone through dangers innumerable to deliver it. The paper shook in the old man's hands. And today is the third day, cried Madame de Day. She sprang to her feet, took back the letter, and walked up and down. You have set to work, imprudently, the merchant remarked, addressing her. Why did you buy provisions? Why, he may come in dying of hunger, worn out with fatigue, and... she broke off. I am sure of my brother the old merchant went on. I will engage him in your interests. The merchant, in this crisis, recovered his old business shrewdness, and the advice that he gave Madame de Day was full of prudence and wisdom. After the two had agreed together as to what they were to do and say, the old merchant went on various ingenious pretexts to pay visits to the principal houses of Carinthine, announcing wherever he went that he had just been to see Madame de Day, and that, in spite of her indisposition, she would receive that evening. Matching his shrewdness against Norman Witt's in the cross-examination he underwent in every family as to the Countess's complaint, he succeeded in putting almost everyone who took an interest in the mysterious affair upon the wrong scent. His very first call worked wonders. He told, in the hearing of a gaudy old lady, how that Madame de Day had all but died of an attack of gout in the stomach. How that the illustrious tranchin had recommended her in such a case to put the skin from a live hair on her chest to stop in bed and keep perfectly still. The Countess, he said, had lain in danger of her life for the past two days, but after carefully following out Tranchin's singular prescription, she was now sufficiently recovered to receive visitors that evening. This tale had an immense success in Carinthine. The local doctor, a royalist, Impetto, added to its effect by gravely discussing the specific. Suspicion, nevertheless, had taken too deep root in a few perverse or philosophical minds to be entirely dissipated. So it fell out that those who had the right of entry into Madame de Day's drawing-room hurried thither at an early hour, some to watch her face, some out of friendship, but the more part attracted by the fame of the marvellous cure. Down the Countess seated in a corner of the great chimney-piece in her room, which was almost as modestly furnished as similar apartments in Carinthine, for she had given up the enjoyment of luxuries to which she had formerly been accustomed, for fear of offending the narrow prejudices of her guests, and she had made no changes in her house. The floor was not even polished. She had left the old somber hangings on the walls, had kept the old-fashioned country furniture, burned tallow candles, had fallen in with the ways of the place, and adopted provincial life without flinching before its cast-iron narrowness, its most disagreeable hardships. But knowing that her guests would forgive her for any prodigality that conduced to their comfort, she left nothing undone where their personal enjoyment was concerned. Her dinners, for instance, were excellent. She even went so far as to affect avarice to recommend herself to these sordid natures, and had the ingenuity to make it appear that certain concessions to luxury had been made at the instance of others to whom she had graciously yielded. Towards seven o'clock that evening, therefore, the nearest approach to polite society that Kanantan could boast was assembled in Madame de Day's drawing-room in a wide circle about the fire. The old merchant's sympathetic glances sustained the mistress of the house through this ordeal, with no strength of mind, she underwent the curious scrutiny of her guests and bore with their trivial prosings. Every time there was a knock at the door, at every sound of footsteps in the street, she hid her agitation by raising questions of absorbing interest to the countryside. She led the conversation on to the burning topic of the quality of various ciders, and was so well seconded by her friend who shared her secret that her guests forgot to watch her, and her face wore its wanted look. Her self-possession was unshaken. The public prosecutor and one of the judges of the revolutionary tribunal kept silence, however, noting the slightest change that flickered over her features, listening through the noisy talk to every sound in the house. Several times they put awkward questions which the Countess answered with wonderful presence of mind, so brave as a mother's heart. Madame de Day had drawn her visitors into little groups, had made parties of wist, Boston, or reverses, and sat talking with some of the young people. She seemed to be living completely in the present moment and played her part like a consummate actress. She elicited a suggestion of Lotto and saying that no one else knew where to find the game, she left the room. My good Brigitte, I cannot breathe she cried, brushing away the tears that sprang to her eyes that glittered with fever, sorrow, and impatience. She had gone up to her son's room and was looking round it. He does not come, she said. Here I can breathe and live. A few minutes more and he will be here for he is alive. I am sure that he is alive. My heart tells me so. Do you hear nothing, Brigitte? Oh, I would give the rest of my life to know whether he is still in prison or in the country. I would rather not think. Once more she looked to see that everything was in order. A bright fire blazed on the hearth. The shutters were carefully closed. The furniture shone with cleanliness. The bed had been made after a fashion that showed that Brigitte and the Countess had given their minds to every trifling detail. It was impossible not to read her hopes in the dainty and thoughtful preparations about the room. The tenderest caresses seemed to pervade the air in the scent of flowers. None but a mother could have foreseen the requirements of a soldier and arranged so completely for their satisfaction. A dainty meal, the best of wine, clean linen, slippers, no necessary, no comfort was lacking for the weary traveller and all the delights of home heaped upon him should reveal his mother's love. Oh, Brigitte cried the Countess with a heart-rending inflection in her voice. She drew a chair to the table as if to strengthen her illusions and realize her longings. Ah, Madame, he is coming. He is not far off. I haven't a doubt that he is living and on his way, Brigitte answered. I put a key in the Bible and held it on my fingers while Cotton read the Gospel of Saint John and the key did not turn, Madame. Is that a certain sign? The Countess asked. He is still alive. I would stake my salvation on it. God cannot be mistaken. If only I could see him here in the house in spite of the danger. Poor Miss Your Ghost, cried Brigitte. I expect he is tramping along the lanes. And that is eight o'clock striking now, cried the Countess in terror. She was afraid that she had been too long in the room where she felt sure that her son was alive. All those preparations made for him meant that he was alive. She went down, but she lingered a moment in the peristyle for any sound that might waken the sleeping echoes of the town. She smiled at Brigitte's husband who was standing there on guard. The man's eyes looked stupid with the strain of listening to the faint sounds of the night. She stared into the darkness seeing her son in every shadow everywhere, but it was only for a moment. Then she went back to the drawing-room with an assumption of the spirits and began to play lotto with the little girls. But from time to time she complained of feeling unwell and went to sit in her great-chair by the fireside. So things went in Madame de Day's house and in the minds of those beneath her roof. Meanwhile, on the road from Paris to Cherbourg, a young man dressed in the inevitable brown carmagnol of those days was plotting his way toward Carantan. When the first levies were made there was little or no discipline kept up. The exigencies of the moment scarcely admitted of soldiers being equipped at once and it was no uncommon thing to see the roads thronged with conscripts in their ordinary clothes. The young fellows went ahead of their company to the next halting place or lagged behind it. It depended upon their fitness to bear the fatigues of a long march. This particular wayfarer was in considerable way in advance of a company of conscripts on the way to Cherbourg whom the mayor was expecting to arrive every hour for it was his duty to distribute their billets. The young man's footsteps were still firm as he trudged along and his bearings seemed to indicate that he was no stranger to the rough life of a soldier. The moon shone on the pastureland about Carantan, but he had noticed no snow over the country and doubtless the fear of being overtaken by a storm had quickened his pace in spite of his weariness. The wallet on his back was almost empty and he carried a stick in his hand cut from one of the high thick box hedges that surround most of the farms in Lower Normandy. As the solitary wayfarer came into Carantan the gleaming moonlit outlines of its towers stood out for a moment with the ghostly effect against the sky. He met no one in the silent streets that rang with the echoes of his own footsteps and was obliged to ask the way to the mayor's house of a weaver who was working late. The magistrate was not far to seek and in a few minutes the conscript was sitting on a stone bench in the mayor's porch waiting for his billet. He was sent for, however, and confronted with that functionary who scrutinized him closely. The magistrate soldier was a good-looking young man who appeared to be of gentle birth. There was something aristocratic in his bearing and signs in his face of intelligence developed by a good education. What is your name, asked the mayor, eyeing him shrewdly. Julien Jussieux answered the conscript. From, queried the official, and an incredulous smile stole over his features, from Paris. Some rats must be a good way behind, remarked the Norman in sarcastic tones. I am three leagues ahead of the battalion. Some sentiment attracts you to Carintin, of course, citizen conscript, said the mayor astutely. All right, all right, he added with a wave of the hand, seeing that the young man was about to speak. We know where to send you. There, off with you, Jussieux, and he handed over a billet. There was a tinge of irony in the stress the magistrate laid on the last two words while he held out a billet on Madame de Day. The conscript read the direction curiously. He knows quite well that he has not far to go, and when he gets outside he will very soon cross the marketplace, the mayor said to himself, as the other went out. He is uncommonly bold, but if somebody else had asked to see his papers, it would have been all up with him. The clocks in Carintin struck half-past nine as he spoke. Lanterns were being lit in Madame de Day's anti-chamber. Servants were helping their masters and mistresses into sabbots, great coats, and clashes. The card players settled their accounts and everybody went out together after the fashion of all little country towns. It looks as if the prosecutor meant to stop, said a lady who noticed that that important personage was not in the group in the marketplace where they all took leave of one another before going their separate ways home. And, as a matter of fact, that redoubtable functionary was alone with the Countess who waited trembling till he should go. There was something appalling in their long silence. Citoyen, he said at last, I am here to see that the laws of the Republic are carried out. Madame de Day shuddered, have you nothing to tell me? Nothing, she answered in amazement. Ah, Madame, cried the prosecutor sitting down beside her and changing his tone. At this moment, for lack of a word, one of us, you or I, may carry our heads to the scaffold. I have watched your character, your soul, your manner too closely to share the error into which you have managed to lead your visitors tonight. You are expecting your son. I could not doubt it. The Countess made an involuntary sign of denial, but her face had grown white and drawn with the struggle to maintain the composure that she did not feel, and no tremor was lost on the merciless prosecutor. Very well, the revolutionary official went on, receive him, but do not let him stay under your roof after seven o'clock tomorrow morning, for tomorrow, as soon as it is light, I shall come with a denunciation that I will have made out, and she looked at him and the dull misery in her eyes would have softened the tiger. I will make it clear that the denunciation was false by making a thorough search, he went on in a gentle voice. My report shall be such that you will be safe from any subsequent suspicion. I shall make mention of your patriotic gifts, your civicism, and all of us will be safe. Fearful of a trap, sat motionless, her face afire, her tongue frozen, a knock at the door rang through the house. Oh! cried the terrified mother, falling upon her knees. Save him! Save him! Yes, let us save him! returned the public prosecutor, and his eyes grew bright as he looked at her. If it costs us our lives! Lost! she wailed. The prosecutor raised her politely. Madame! he said, with a flourish of eloquence. To your own free will alone I would owe— Madame! he is! cried Brigitte, thinking that her mistress was alone. At the sight of the public prosecutor the old servant's joy-flushed countenance became haggard and impassive. Who is it, Brigitte? the prosecutor asked kindly, as if he too were in the secret of the household. A conscript that the mayor has sent here for a night's logic the woman replied, holding out the billet. So it is, said the prosecutor, when he had read the slip of paper. A battalion is coming here tonight, and he went. The countess's need to believe in the faith of her some-time attorney was so great that she dared not entertain any suspicion of him. She fled upstairs. She felt scarcely strength enough to stand. She opened the door and sprang, half dead with fear, into her son's arms. Oh, my child, my child! she sobbed, covering him with almost frenzied kisses. Madame! said a stranger's voice. Oh, it is not he, she cried, shrinking away in terror, and she stood face to face with the conscript, gazing at him with haggard eyes. Oh, Saint-Bendieu! How like he is! cried Brigitte. There was silence for a moment. Even the stranger trembled at the sight of Madame de Day's space. Ah, Miss Year, she said, leaning on the arm of Brigitte's husband, feeling for the first time the full extent of a sorrow that had all but killed her at its first threatening. Ah, Miss Year, I cannot stay to see you any longer. Permit my servants to supply my place and to see that you have all that you want. She went down to her own room. Brigitte and the old serving man half carrying her between them. The housekeeper set her mistress in a chair and broke out. What, Madame, is that man to sleep in Monsieur August's bed and wear Monsieur August slippers and eat the pasty that I made for Monsieur August? Why, if they were to guillotine me for it, I—Brigitte! cried Madame de Day. Brigitte said no more. Hold your tongue, chatterbox. Set her a husband in a low voice. Do you want to kill Madame? A sound came from the conscript's room as he drew his chair to the table. I shall not stay here, cried Madame de Day. I shall go into the conservatory. I shall hear better there if anyone passes in the night. She still wavered between the fear that she had lost her son and the hope of seeing him once more. That night was hideously silent. Once, for the Countess, there was an awful interval when the battalion of conscripts entered the town and the men went by, one by one, to their lodgings. Every footfall, every sound in the street raised hopes to be disappointed. But it was not for long the dreadful quiet succeeded again. Toward morning the Countess was forced to return to her room. Brigitte, ever keeping watch over her mistress's movements, did not see her come out again. And when she went she found the Countess lying there dead. I expect she heard that conscript, cried Brigitte, walking about Monsieur Auguste's room whistling that accursed Marseillais of there while he dressed as if he had been in a stable. That must have killed her. But it was a deeper and more solemn emotion and doubtless some dreadful vision that had caused Madame de Day's death. For at the very hour when she died at Canantan her son was shot in Le Morbillon. This tragical story may be added to all the instances on record of the workings of sympathies uncontrolled by the laws of time and space. These observations, collected with scientific curiosity by a few isolated individuals, will one day serve as documents on which to base the foundations of a new science which hitherto has lacked its man of genius. End of Section 17 Recording by Michel Bousquet, Oakham, Massachusetts Section 18 of Library of World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 4 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Darvinia Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories Volume 4 by Julian Hawthorne Editor Section 18 Zadeig the Babylonian by Voltaire Part 1 The Blind of One Eye There lived at Babylon in the reign of King Moabdar, a young man named Zadeig, of a good natural disposition, strengthened and improved by education. Though rich and young, he had learned to moderate his passions. He had nothing stiff or affected in his behaviour. He did not pretend to examine every action by the strict rules of reason, but was always ready to make proper allowances for the weakness of mankind. It was a matter of surprise that notwithstanding his sprightly wit, he never exposed by his railery those vague, incoherent and noisy discourses, those rash censures, ignorant decisions, coarse jests, and all that empty jingle of words which at Babylon went by the name of conversation. He had learned, in the first book of Zoroaster, that self-love is a football swelled with wind, from which, when pierced, the most terrible tempests issued forth. Zadig never boasted of his conquests among the women, nor affected to entertain a contemptible opinion of the fair sex. He was generous and never afraid of obliging the ungrateful, remembering the grand precept of Zoroaster. When thou eatest give to the dogs should they even bite thee. He was as wise as it is possible for man to be, for he sought to live with the wise. Instructed in the sciences of the ancient Chaldeans he understood the principles of natural philosophy, such as they were then supposed to be, and knew as much of metaphysics as hath ever been known in any age—that is, little or nothing at all— he was firmly persuaded, notwithstanding the new philosophy of the times, that the year consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days hours, and that the sun was in the centre of the world. But when the principal magi told him, with haughty and contemptuous air, that his sentiments were of a dangerous tendency, and that it was to be an enemy to the State to believe that the sun revolved round its own axis, and that the year had twelve months, he held his tongue with great modesty and meekness. Possessed as he was of great riches, and consequently of many friends, blessed with a good constitution, a handsome figure, a mind just and moderate, and a heart noble and sincere, he fondly imagined that he might easily be happy. He was going to be married to Samira, who in point of beauty, birth and fortune was the first match in Babylon. He had a real and virtuous affection for this lady, and she loved him with the most passionate fondness. The happy moment was almost arrived that was to unite them forever in the bands of wedlock. When happening to take a walk together toward one of the gates of Babylon, under the palm trees that adorn the banks of the Euphrates, they saw some men approaching, armed with sabers and arrows. These were the attendants of young Orkan, the minister's nephew, whom his uncle's creatures had flattered into an opinion that he might do everything with impunity. He had none of the graces nor virtues of Zadig, but thinking himself a much more accomplished man, he was enraged to find that the other was preferred before him. This jealousy, which was merely the effect of his vanity, made him imagine that he was desperately in love with Samira, and accordingly he resolved to carry her off. The ravishers seized her. In the violence of the outrage they wounded her and made the blood flow from her person, the sight of which would have softened the tigers of Mount Imus. She pierced the heavens with her complaints. She cried out, My dear husband, they tear me from the man I adore. Regardless of her own danger she was only concerned for the fate of her dear Zadig, in the meantime defended himself with all the strength that courage and love could inspire. Assisted only by two slaves he put the ravishers to flight and carried home Samira, insensible and bloody as she was. On opening her eyes and beholding her deliverer O Zadig! said she, I loved thee formerly as my intended husband. I now love thee as the preserver of honour and my life. Never was heart more deeply affected than that of Samira. Never did a more charming mouth express more moving sentiments in those glowing words inspired by a sense of the greatest of all favours and by the most tender transports of a lawful passion. Her wound was slight and was soon cured. Zadig was more dangerously wounded. An arrow had pierced him near his eye and penetrated to a considerable depth. Samira wearied heaven with her prayers for the recovery of her lover. Her eyes were constantly bathed in tears. She anxiously waited the happy moment when those of Zadig should be able to meet hers. But an abscess growing on the wounded eye gave everything to fear. A messenger was immediately dispatched to Memphis for the great physician Hermes who came with a numerous retinue. He visited the patient and declared that he would lose his eye. He even foretold the day and hour when this fatal event would happen. Had it been the right eye said he, I could easily have cured it. But the wounds of the left eye are incurable. All Babylon lamented the fate of Zadig and admired the profound knowledge of Hermes. In two days the abscess broke of its own accord and Zadig was perfectly cured. Hermes wrote a book to prove that it ought not to have been cured. Zadig did not read it, but as soon as he was able to go abroad he went to pay a visit to her in whom all his hopes of happiness were centred and for whose sake alone he wished to have eyes. Samira had been in the country for three days past. He learned on the road that that fine lady, having openly declared that she had an unconquerable aversion to one-eyed men, had the night before given her hand to Orkin. At this news he fell speechless to the ground. His sorrow brought him almost to the brink of the grave. He was long indisposed, but reason at last got the better of his affliction and the severity of his fate to console him. Since, said he, I have suffered so much from the cruel caprice of a woman educated at court I must now think of marrying the daughter of a citizen. He pitched upon Azora a lady of the greatest prudence and of the best family in town. He married her and lived with her for three months in all the delights of the most tender union. He only observed that she had a little levity and was too fast to find that those young men who had the most handsome persons were likewise possessed of most wit and virtue. The nose. One morning Azora returned from a walk in a terrible passion and uttering the most violent exclamations. What aileth thee, said he, my dear spouse? What is it that can thus have discomposed thee? She, thou wouldst be as much enraged as I am, had still seen what I have just beheld. I have been to comfort the young widow Koshru, who within these two days hath raised a tomb to her young husband near the rivulet that washes the skirts of this meadow. She vowed to heaven in the bitterness of her grief to remain at this tomb while the water of the rivulet should continue to run near it. Well, said Zadeig, she is an excellent woman and loved her husband with the most sincere affection. Ah, replied Azora, didst thou but know in what she was employed when I went to wait upon her? In what, pray beautiful Azora, was she turning the course of the rivulet? Azora broke out into such long invectives and loaded the young widow with such bitter that Zadeig was far from being pleased with this ostentation of virtue. Zadeig had a friend named Kador, one of those young men in whom his wife discovered more probity and merit than in others. He made him his confidant and secured his fidelity as much as possible by a considerable present. Azora, having passed two days with a friend in the country, returned home on the third. The servants told her with tears in their eyes that her husband died suddenly the night before, that they were afraid to send her an account of this mournful event, and that they had just been depositing his corpse in the tomb of his ancestors at the end of the garden. She wept, she tore her hair and swore she would follow him to the grave. In the evening Kador begged leave to wait upon her and his tears with hers. Next day they wept less and dined together. Kador told her that his friend had left him the greatest part of his estate, and that he should think himself extremely happy in sharing his fortune with her. The lady wept, fell into a passion, and at last became more mild and gentle. They sat longer at supper than at dinner. They now talked with greater confidence. Azor appraised the deceased but owned that he had many failings from which Kador was free. During supper Kador complained of a violent pain in his side. The lady, greatly concerned and eager to serve him caused all kinds of essences to be brought, with which she anointed him to try if some of them might not possibly ease him of his pain. She lamented that the great Hermes was not still in Babylon. She even condescended to touch the side in which Kador felt such exquisite pain. "'Aren't thou subject to this cruel disorder?' said she to him with a compassionate air. "'It sometimes brings me,' replied Kador, to the brink of the grave, and there is but one remedy that can give me relief, and that is to apply to my side the nose of a man who is lately dead.' "'A strange remedy indeed,' said Azorah. "'Not more strange,' replied he, than the satchels of Arnon against the apoplexy. This reason added to the great merit of the young man, at last determined the lady. "'After all,' says she, when my husband shall cross the bridge Chinavar in his journey to the other world, the angel Azrael will not refuse him a passage because his nose is a little shorter in the second life than it was in the first. She then took a razor, went to her husband's tomb, bedewed it with her tears, and drew near to cut off the nose of Zadig, whom she found extended at full length in the tomb. Zadig arose, putting back the razor with the other. "'Madam,' said he, don't exclaim so violently against young Khosru, the project of cutting off my nose is equal to that of turning the course of a rivulet. The dog and the horse.' Zadig found by experience that the first month of marriage, as it is written in the Book of Zend, is the moon of honey, and that the second month of Wormwood. He was some time after obliged to repudiate Azorah, who became too difficult to be pleased, and he then sought for happiness in the study of nature. No man said he can be happier than a philosopher who reads in this great book which God had placed before our eyes. The truths he discovers are his own. He nourishes and exalts his soul. He lives in peace. Nothing from men, and his tender spouse will not come to cut off his nose. Possessed of these ideas he retired to a country house on the banks of the Euphrates. There he did not employ himself in calculating how many inches of water flow in a second of time under the arches of a bridge, or whether there fell a cube line of rain in the month of the mouse, more than in the month of the sheep. He never dreamed of making silk of cobwebs or porcelain of broken bottles, but he chiefly studied the properties of plants and animals, and soon acquired a sagacity that made him discover a thousand differences where other men see nothing but uniformity. One day as he was walking near a little wood he saw one of the Queen's eunuchs running toward him, followed by several officers who appeared to be in great perplexity and who ran to and fro like men distracted, eagerly searching for something they had lost of great value. Young man said the first eunuch, has thou seen the Queen's dog? It is a female, replied Zadig. Thou art in the right, returned the first eunuch. It is a very small she spaniel, added Zadig. She has lately welped, looks on the left forefoot and has very long ears. Thou hast seen her, said the first eunuch, quite out of breath. No, replied Zadig, I have not seen her, nor did I so much as know that the Queen had a dog. Exactly at the same time, by one of the common freaks of fortune, the finest horse in the King's stable had escaped from the jockey in the plains of Babylon. The principal huntsman and all the other officers ran after him with as much eagerness and anxiety as the first eunuch had done after the spaniel. The principal huntsman addressed himself to Zadig, and asked him if he had not seen the King's horse passing by. He is the fleetest horse in the King's stable, replied Zadig. He is five feet high, with very small hoofs, and a tail three feet and a half wide. The studs on his bit are gold of twenty-three carats and his shoes are silver of eleven penny weights. What way did he take? Where is he? demanded the chief huntsman. I have not seen him, replied Zadig, and never heard talk of him before. The principal huntsman and the first eunuch never doubted but that Zadig had stolen the King's horse in the spaniel. They therefore had him conducted before the assembly of the Grand Desterham, who condemned him to the naut, and to spend the rest of his days in Siberia. Hardly was the sentence passed when the horse and the spaniel were both found. The judges were reduced to the disagreeable necessity of reversing their sentence, but they condemned Zadig to pay four hundred ounces he had not seen what he had seen. This fine he was obliged to pay, after which he was permitted to plead his cause before the council of the Grand Desterham when he spoke to the following effect. Ye stars of justice, abyss of sciences, mirrors of truth, who have the weight of lead, the hardness of iron, the splendor of the diamond, and many properties of gold. Since I am permitted to speak before this august assembly I swear to you by Ormades that I have never seen the queen's respectable spaniel, nor the sacred horse of the king of kings. The truth of the matter was as follows. I was walking toward the little wood where I afterwards met the venerable eunuch and the most illustrious chief huntsman. I observed on the sand the traces of an animal, and pleasantly perceived them to be those of a little dog. The light and long furrows impressed on little eminences of sand between the marks of the paws, plainly discovered that it was a female, whose dugs were hanging down, and that therefore she must have whelped a few days before. Other traces of a different kind that always appeared to have gently brushed the surface of the sand near the marks of the forefeet showed me that she had very long ears. And as I remarked that there was always a slighter impression made on the sand by one foot than the other three, I found that the spaniel of our august queen was a little lame, if I may be allowed the expression. With regard to the horse of the king of kings, you will be pleased to know that, walking in the lanes of this wood, I observed the marks of a horse's shoes all at equal distances. This must be a horse, said I to myself, that gallops excellently. The dust on the trees in the road that was but seven feet wide was a little brushed off at the distance of three feet and a half from the middle of the road. This horse, said I, has a tail three feet and a half long, which being whisked to the right and left has swept away the dust. I observed under the trees an arbor five feet in height that the leaves of the branches were newly fallen, from whence I inferred that the horse had touched them, and that he must therefore be five feet high. As to his bit, it must be gold of twenty-three carats, for he had rubbed its bosses against a stone which I knew to be a touchstone and which I have tried. In a word, from the marks made by his shoes on flints of another kind, I concluded that he was shod with silver eleven deniers fine. All the judges admired Zadig for his acute and profound discernment. The news of this speech was carried even to the king and queen. Nothing was talked of but Zadig in the anti-chambers, the chambers, and the cabinet, and though many of the magi were of opinion that he ought to be burned as a sorcerer, the king ordered his officers to restore him the four hundred ounces of gold which he had been obliged to pay. The register, the attorneys, and bailiffs, went to his house with great formality to carry him back his four hundred ounces. They only retained three hundred and ninety-eight of them to defray the expenses of justice, and their servants demanded their fees. Zadig saw how extremely dangerous it sometimes is to appear too knowing, and therefore resolved that on the next occasion of the like nature he would not tell what he had seen. Such an opportunity soon offered. A prisoner of state made his escape and passed under the window of Zadig's house. Zadig was examined and made no answer, but it was proved that he had looked at the prisoner from this window. For this crime he was condemned to pay five hundred ounces of gold. And, according to the polite custom of Babylon, he thanked his judges for their indulgence. Great God, he said to himself, what a misfortune it is to walk in a wood through which the queen's spaniel or the king's horse has passed. How dangerous to look out from a window! And how difficult to be happy in this life. The envious man. Zadig resolved to comfort himself by philosophy and friendship for the evils he had suffered from fortune. He had in the suburbs of Babylon a house elegantly furnished, in which he assembled all the arts and all the pleasures worthy the pursuit of a gentleman. In the morning his library was open to the learned. In the evening his table was surrounded by good company. But he soon found what very dangerous guests these men of letters are. A warm dispute arose on one of Zoroaster's laws which forbids the eating of a griffin. Why, said some of them, prohibit the eating of a griffin if there is no such an animal in nature? There must necessarily be such an animal, said the others, since Zoroaster forbids us to eat it. Zadig would feign have reconciled them by saying if there are no griffins we cannot possibly eat them and thus either way we shall obey Zoroaster. A learned man who had composed thirteen volumes on the properties of the griffin and was besides the chief Thurgite hastened a way to accuse Zadig before one of the principal magi named Yibor, the greatest blockhead and therefore the greatest fanatic among the Kaldians. This man would have impaled Zadig to do honors to the son and would then have recited the breviary of Zoroaster with greater satisfaction. The friend Cador a friend is better than a hundred priests went to Yibor and said to him give the son and the griffins beware of punishing Zadig he is a saint he has griffins in his inner court and does not eat them and his accuser is a heretic who dares to maintain that rabbits have cloven feet and are not unclean. Well, said Yibor shaking his bald pate we must impale Zadig for having thought contemptuously of griffins for having spoken disrespectfully of rabbits. Cador hushed up the affair by means of a maid of honor with whom he had a love affair and who had great interest in the college of the magi. Nobody was impaled. This levity occasioned a great murmuring among some of the doctors who from thence predicted the fall of Babylon. Upon what does happiness depend? said Zadig he is persecuted by everything in the world even on account of beings that have no existence. He cursed those men of learning and resolved for the future to live with none but good company. He assembled at his house the most worthy man and the most beautiful ladies of Babylon. He gave them delicious suppers often preceded by concerts of music and always animated by polite conversation from which he knew how to banish that effectation of wit which is the surest method of preventing it entirely and of spoiling the pleasure of the most agreeable society. Neither the choice of his friends nor that of the dishes was made by vanity for in everything he preferred the substance to the shadow and by these means he procured that real respect to which he did not aspire. Opposite to his house lived one Arameses a man whose deformed countenance was but a faint picture of his still more deformed mind. His heart was a mixture of malice, pride and envy. Having never been able to succeed in any of his undertakings he revenged himself on all around him by loading them with the blackest calamities. Rich as he was he found it difficult to procure a set of flatterers. The rattling of the chariots that entered Zadig's court in the evening filled him with uneasiness. The sound of his praises enraged him still more. He sometimes went to Zadig's house and sat down at table without being desired where he spoiled all the pleasure of the company as the harpies are said to infect the vians they touch. It happened that one day he gave an entertainment to a lady who instead of accepting it went to sup with Zadig. At another time he was talking with Zadig at court. A minister of state came up to them and invited Zadig to supper without inviting Arameses. The most implacable hatred has seldom a more solid foundation. This man who in Babylon was called the envious resolved to ruin Zadig because he was called the happy. The opportunity of doing mischief occurs a hundred times in a day and that of doing good but once a year as saith the wise Zoroaster. The envious man went to see Zadig who was walking in his garden with two friends and a lady to whom he said many gallant things without any other intention than that of saying them. The conversation turned upon a war which the king had just brought to a happy conclusion against the prince of Herkenia, his vassal. Zadig, who had signalized his courage in this short war bestowed great praises on the king but greater still on the lady. He took out his pocket-book and wrote four lines extempore which he gave to this amiable person to read. His friends begged they might see them but modesty or rather a well-regulated self-love would not allow him to grant their request. He knew that extemporary verses are never approved of by any but the person in whose honour they are written. He therefore tore into the leaf on which he had wrote them and threw both the pieces into a thicket of rose-bushes which the company sought for them in vain. A slight shower falling soon after obliged them to return to the house. The envious man who stayed in the garden continued the search till at last he found a piece of the leaf. It had been torn in such a manner that each half of a line formed a complete sense and even a verse of a shorter measure. But what was still more surprising were the short verses were found to contain the most injurious reflections on the king. They ran thus to flagrant crimes his crown he owes to peaceful times the worst of foes. The envious man was now happy for the first time of his life. He had it in his power to ruin a person of virtue and merit. Filled with this fiend-like joy he found means to convey to the king the satire written by the hand of Zadig who, together with the lady and his two friends, was thrown into prison. His trial was soon finished without his being permitted to speak for himself. As he was going to receive his sentence the envious man threw himself in his way and told him with a loud voice that his verses were good for nothing. Zadig did not value himself on being a good poet. But it filled him with inexpressible concern to find that he was condemned for high treason and that the fair lady and his two friends were confined in prison for a crime of which they were not guilty. He was not allowed to speak because his writing spoke for him. Such was the law of Babylon. Accordingly he was conducted to the place of execution through an immense crowd of spectators who durst not ventured to express their pity for him, but who carefully examined his countenance to see if he died with a good grace. His relations alone were inconsolable for they could not succeed to his estate. Three-fourths of his wealth were confiscated into the king's treasury and the other fourth was given to the envious man. Just as he was preparing for death the king's parrot flew from its cage and alighted on a rose-bush in Zadig's garden. A peach had been driven thither by the wind from a neighbouring tree and had fallen on a piece of the written leaf of the pocket-book to which it stuck. The bird carried off the peach and the paper and laid them on the king's knee. The king took up the paper with great eagerness and read the words and seemed no sense and seemed to be the endings of verses. He loved poetry and there was always some mercy to be expected from a prince of that disposition. The adventure of the parrot set him a thinking. The queen, who remembered what had been written on the piece of Zadig's pocket-book caused it to be brought. They compared the two pieces together and found them correctly. They then read the verses as Zadig had wrote them. Tyrants are prone to flagrant crimes, to clemency his crown he owes, to concord and to peaceful times. Love only is the worst of foes. The king gave immediate orders that Zadig should be brought before him and that his two friends and the lady should be set at liberty. Zadig fell prostrate on the ground before the king and queen, humbly begged their pardon for having made such bad verses and spoke with so much propriety, wit, and good sense that their majesties desired they might see him again. He did himself that honour and insinuated himself still farther into their good graces. They gave him all the wealth of the envious man, but Zadig restored him back and this instance of generosity gave no other pleasure to the envious man than that of having preserved his estate. The king's esteem for Zadig increased every day. He admitted him into all his parties of pleasure and consulted him in all affairs of state. From that time the queen began to regard him with an eye of tenderness that might one day prove dangerous to the king, her August comfort, to Zadig and to the kingdom in general. Zadig now began to think that happiness was not so unattainable as he had formerly imagined. The Generous The time now arrived for celebrating a grand festival which returned every five years. It was a custom in Babylon solemnly to declare at the end of every five years which of the citizens had performed the most generous action. The grandees in the Magi were the judges. The first satrap who was charged with the government of the city published the most noble actions that had passed under his administration. The competition was decided by votes and the king pronounced the sentence. People came to this solemnity of the earth. The conqueror received from the monarch's hand a golden cup adorned with precious stones his majesty at the same time making him this compliment. Receive this reward of thy generosity and may the gods grant me many subjects like to thee. This memorable day being come the king appeared on his throne surrounded by the grandees the Magi and the deputies of all nations that came to these games where glory was acquired not by the swiftness of horses nor by strength of body but by virtue. The first satrap recited with an audible voice such actions as might entitle the authors of them to this invaluable prize. He did not mention the greatness of soul with which Zadig had restored the envious man his fortune because it was not judged to be an action worthy of disputing the prize. He first presented a judge who having made a citizen lose a considerable cause by a mistake for which after all he was not accountable had given him the whole of his own estate which was just equal to what the other had lost. He next produced a young man who, being desperately in love with a lady whom he was going to marry, had yielded her up to his friend whose passion for her had almost brought him to the brink of the grave and at the same time had given him the lady's fortune. He afterwards produced a soldier who in the wars of Hursania had given a still more noble instance of generosity a party of the enemy having seized his mistress he fought in her defence with great intrepidity at that very instant he was informed that another party at the distance of a few paces were carrying off his mother he therefore left his mistress with tears in his eyes and flew to the assistance of his mother at last he returned to the dear object of his love and found her expiring he was just going to plunge his sword in his own bosom but his mother remonstrating against such a desperate deed and telling him that he was the only support of her life he had the courage to endure to live the judges were inclined to give the prize to the soldier but the king took up the discourse and said the action of the soldier and those of the other two was very great but they have nothing in them surprising yesterday Zadig performed an action that filled me with wonder I had a few days before disgraced Coreb my minister and favourite I complained of him in the most violent and bitter terms all my courtiers assured me that I was too gentle and seemed to vie with each other in speaking ill of Coreb I asked Zadig what he thought of him and he had the courage to commend him I have read in our histories of many people who have atoned for an error by the surrender of their fortune who have resigned a mistress or preferred a mother to the object of their affection but never before did I hear of a courtier who spoke favourably of a disgraced minister that laboured under the displeasure of his sovereign I give to each of those whose generous actions have been now recited twenty thousand pieces of gold but the cup I give to Zadig may it please your majesty said Zadig thyself alone deserved the cup thou hast performed an action of all others the most uncommon and meritorious since notwithstanding thy being a powerful king thou wast not offended at thy slave when he presumed to oppose thy passion the king and Zadig were equally the object of admiration the judge who had given his estate to his client the lover who had resigned his mistress to a friend and the soldier who had preferred the safety of his mother to that of his mistress the king's presence and saw their names enrolled in the catalogue of generous men Zadig had the cup and the king acquired the reputation of a good prince which he did not long enjoy the day was celebrated by feasts that lasted longer than the law enjoined and the memory of it is still preserved in Asia Zadig said now I am happy at last but he found himself fatally deceived the minister the king had lost his first minister and chose Zadig to supply his place all the ladies in Babylon applauded the choice for since the foundation of the empire there had never been such a young minister but all the courtiers were filled with jealousy and vexation the envious man in particular was troubled with a spitting of blood and a prodigious inflammation in his nose Zadig, having thanked the king and queen for their goodness went likewise to thank the parrot beautiful bird said he tis thou that has saved my life and made me first minister the queen's spaniel and the king's horse did me a great deal of mischief but thou hast done me much good upon such slender threads as these do the fates of mortals hang but, added he this happiness perhaps will vanish very soon soon, replied the parrot Zadig was somewhat startled at this word but as he was a good natural philosopher and did not believe parrots to be prophets he quickly recovered his spirits and resolved to execute his duty to the best of his power he made everyone feel the sacred authority of the laws but no one felt the weight of his dignity he never checked the deliberation of the diran and every vizier might give his opinion without the fear of incurring the minister's displeasure when he gave judgment it was not he that gave it the rigor of which, however whenever it was too severe he always took care to soften and when laws were wanting the equity of his decisions was such as might easily have made them pass for those of Zoroaster it is to him that the nations are indebted for this grand principle to wit that it is better to run the risk of sparing the guilty than to condemn the innocent he imagined that laws were made as well to secure the people from the suffering of injuries as to restrain them from the commission of crimes his chief talent consisted in discovering the truth which all men seek to obscure this great talent he put in practice from the very beginning of his administration a famous merchant of Babylon who died in the Indies he divided his estate equally between his two sons after having disposed of their sister in marriage and left a present of 30,000 pieces of gold to that son who should be found to have loved him best the eldest raised a tomb to his memory the youngest increased his sister's portion by giving her part of his inheritance everyone said that the eldest son loved his father best and the youngest his sister and that the 30,000 pieces belonged to the eldest Zadig sent for both of them the one after the other to the eldest he said thy father is not dead he is recovered of his last illness and is returning to Babylon God be praised replied the young man but his tomb cost me a considerable sum Zadig afterwards said the same to the youngest God be praised said he I will go and restore to my father all that I have but I could wish that he would leave my sister what I have given her thou shalt restore nothing replied Zadig and thou shalt have the 30,000 pieces for thou art the son who loves his father best End of section 18