you brought?" he asked a cowherd who stood before him.
"The water you requested."
"From?"
"From the pasturage beyond Bretem's wood."
"Ah yes. Bring it here, bring it here. Henri!" The Abbe shouted for his storekeeper. "Henri, bring a cruet." The slow-moving fellow who had delivered the gift to the Page cottage made his way to the table. The Abbe poked his hand out of the coffin-confessional and grabbed the vessel, filled it with the liquid from the cowherd's wineskin, stoppled it, and scribbled a tag.
Old Antoine, the watch-finisher, came next. He offered a variation on a good cylinder escapement. The Abbe, again tremendously pleased, accepted it in lieu of a year's rent. One by one, the locals moved to the table and added their unexpected finds: speckled eggs for the Abbe's vitelline investigations, a pannier filled with cut and bundled ilex wood no thicker than a finger, a boar's head, an unusually shaped bird's nest, the leg of a fallow deer, a female stickleback big with spawn and packed in wet moss. The largest offering was not placed on the table. It brayed in the corner and then urinated prodigiously, to the general amusement of those present. Throughout the procession, the Abbe responded with offerings of his own. He gave away jarred orangemusks, which are neither oranges nor musks but a kind of pear sweeter than most others. He kept a store of them in the bottom of his unique chair.
The Abbe saved the most eagerly awaited encounter for last. He motioned to the woman holding a basket of herbs and accompanied by a youth whose free hand, mangled but exposed, clutched a crimson-ribboned sketch folder. The woman placed the basket on the table, and Claude handed the Abbe the drawing. For a very long time, the Abbe stared intently, moving his spectacles to and from the work. Claude's foot tapped violently. The donkey's release had stimulated his own desire to pass water. He was too distracted to hear the Abbe suggest that the following week he take up a residential position in the mansion house. Madame Page accepted for Claude without hesitation. Claude was ebullient when the session ended, not because destiny had been redirected but because his bladder was granted relief.
4 The Nautilus
Claude returned TO the mansion house as agreed, seven days after the session. Depopulated, the great hall lacked the exuberance of the previous Tuesday. Traces of quarter day were minimal — the tangy smell of donkey urine, and a trail of grease and congealed blood plotting the movement of a boar's head from the Abbe's table to, Claude supposed, the kitchen. The table, now cleared of the various payments in kind, held nothing but note-rolls and books. The Abbe sat in the coffin-confessional reading a treatise, his head and hand emerging on occasion to dip a quill and take down an observation.
Unsure of the proper form of introduction, Claude scraped his boot lightly against the floor to catch the notice of his new employer. There was no response. He cleared his throat. No response again. The Abbe continued to move between note-roll and treatise. The jerky intensity of his gestures suggested he should not be disturbed, so Claude waited in silence. He allowed his mind to wander over the conflicting information he had gathered in the last few days, information on the character of the man who now sat before him.
The charcoal burner said one thing, Rochat the baker something else, while the proprietor of the Red Dog, Gaston, had still a third version of the life of the Count of Tournay. The derelict Catholics in the community were quick to praise, the more devout even quicker to condemn. This much Claude concluded: the Abbe was not, like so many abbes of the period, the degenerate son of a degenerate institution. Or, if he was, the nature of that degeneration was too special to lapse into cliche. He was not susceptible to fine clothes, blandness, sycophancy, or women. At least, not local women. Catherine, the mansion-house scullion, a
"The water you requested."
"From?"
"From the pasturage beyond Bretem's wood."
"Ah yes. Bring it here, bring it here. Henri!" The Abbe shouted for his storekeeper. "Henri, bring a cruet." The slow-moving fellow who had delivered the gift to the Page cottage made his way to the table. The Abbe poked his hand out of the coffin-confessional and grabbed the vessel, filled it with the liquid from the cowherd's wineskin, stoppled it, and scribbled a tag.
Old Antoine, the watch-finisher, came next. He offered a variation on a good cylinder escapement. The Abbe, again tremendously pleased, accepted it in lieu of a year's rent. One by one, the locals moved to the table and added their unexpected finds: speckled eggs for the Abbe's vitelline investigations, a pannier filled with cut and bundled ilex wood no thicker than a finger, a boar's head, an unusually shaped bird's nest, the leg of a fallow deer, a female stickleback big with spawn and packed in wet moss. The largest offering was not placed on the table. It brayed in the corner and then urinated prodigiously, to the general amusement of those present. Throughout the procession, the Abbe responded with offerings of his own. He gave away jarred orangemusks, which are neither oranges nor musks but a kind of pear sweeter than most others. He kept a store of them in the bottom of his unique chair.
The Abbe saved the most eagerly awaited encounter for last. He motioned to the woman holding a basket of herbs and accompanied by a youth whose free hand, mangled but exposed, clutched a crimson-ribboned sketch folder. The woman placed the basket on the table, and Claude handed the Abbe the drawing. For a very long time, the Abbe stared intently, moving his spectacles to and from the work. Claude's foot tapped violently. The donkey's release had stimulated his own desire to pass water. He was too distracted to hear the Abbe suggest that the following week he take up a residential position in the mansion house. Madame Page accepted for Claude without hesitation. Claude was ebullient when the session ended, not because destiny had been redirected but because his bladder was granted relief.
4 The Nautilus
Claude returned TO the mansion house as agreed, seven days after the session. Depopulated, the great hall lacked the exuberance of the previous Tuesday. Traces of quarter day were minimal — the tangy smell of donkey urine, and a trail of grease and congealed blood plotting the movement of a boar's head from the Abbe's table to, Claude supposed, the kitchen. The table, now cleared of the various payments in kind, held nothing but note-rolls and books. The Abbe sat in the coffin-confessional reading a treatise, his head and hand emerging on occasion to dip a quill and take down an observation.
Unsure of the proper form of introduction, Claude scraped his boot lightly against the floor to catch the notice of his new employer. There was no response. He cleared his throat. No response again. The Abbe continued to move between note-roll and treatise. The jerky intensity of his gestures suggested he should not be disturbed, so Claude waited in silence. He allowed his mind to wander over the conflicting information he had gathered in the last few days, information on the character of the man who now sat before him.
The charcoal burner said one thing, Rochat the baker something else, while the proprietor of the Red Dog, Gaston, had still a third version of the life of the Count of Tournay. The derelict Catholics in the community were quick to praise, the more devout even quicker to condemn. This much Claude concluded: the Abbe was not, like so many abbes of the period, the degenerate son of a degenerate institution. Or, if he was, the nature of that degeneration was too special to lapse into cliche. He was not susceptible to fine clothes, blandness, sycophancy, or women. At least, not local women. Catherine, the mansion-house scullion, a
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