"-
troubled
about the parrot.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v10 - Emp to Fro
The street
urchins watched him through chinks in the wall, and threw stones
which fell on the wretched bed where he lay groaning, shaken by
catarrh; with his hair very long, his eyelids inflamed, and on his
arm a tumor larger than his head. She took him linen, tried to
clean the squalid hole, dreamed of establishing him in her bake-
house in some way that would not trouble Madame. When the
cancer had gathered, she bandaged it every day. Sometimes she
brought him cake, or placed him in the sun on a bunch of straw;
and the poor old man, driveling and trembling, thanked her with
his dying voice, feared to lose her, and stretched out his hands
to her when he saw her going away. He died, and she ordered
a mass for the repose of his soul.
That very day a great joy came to her. Just at dinner-time
Madame de Larsonnière's colored man arrived, with the parrot in
his cage, and perch, chain, and padlock. A note from the Bar-
oness informed Madame Aubain that her husband had been pro-
moted to a prefecture. They were going away that evening, and
she begged Madame Aubain to accept the bird as a remembrance
and with her respects.
He had long busied the imagination of Félicité, for he came
from America and thus recalled Victor; so she had often asked
the negro about the bird. Once she had said, "How happy
Madame would be to have him!
The negro had repeated this speech to his mistress, and as
she could not take the parrot with her, she thus disposed of it.
He was called Loulou. His body was green, the ends of his
wings pink, his forehead blue, and his throat gilded.
But he had a tiresome mania for biting his perch, pulling out
his feathers, and scattering water from his bath, so that he an-
noyed Madame Aubain, and she gave him to Félicité.
She attempted to teach him, and soon he was able to repeat,
"Fine fellow! Your servant, sir! I salute you, Mary! "
He was
placed near the door, and several people expressed surprise that
he did not answer to the name of Jacquot, like other parrots.
They called him a ninny and a blockhead, which names were like
dagger-thrusts to Félicité! Strange obstinacy of Loulou, who
would not speak when any one was looking!
Nevertheless, he was fond of company; for on Sunday
when the Mademoiselles Rochefeuille, M. De Houppeville, and
some new-comers-Onfroy the apothecary, M. Varin, and Captain
## p. 5827 (#415) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5827
Mathieu- had their game of cards, he beat the window-panes
with his wings and chattered so furiously that it was impossible
to speak.
Bourais's face seemed to amuse him greatly. As soon as he
saw it, he began to laugh, to laugh with all his might. The
outbursts of his voice escaped into the court, echo repeated them,
the neighbors coming to their windows laughed too; so that to
avoid being seen by the parrot, M. Bourais used to creep along
the wall, holding up his hat to screen his profile until he reached.
the river and entered by the garden door. His glances at the
bird lacked affection.
Once Loulou, having buried his head in the butcher-boy's
basket, received a fillip, after which he always tried to pinch him
through his shirt. Fabu threatened to wring his neck, although
he was not a cruel fellow, in spite of his great whiskers and the
tattooing on his arms. On the contrary, he had rather a liking
for the parrot, so that in his jovial humor he wanted to teach
him to swear. Félicité, frightened at this behavior, placed Lou-
lou in the kitchen. His little chain was taken off, and he wan-
dered about the house.
When he went down-stairs he rested the curve of his beak
on the step and raised first his right claw and then the left, and
she feared these gymnastics would make him dizzy.
He fell ill,
and could not speak or eat. There was a thick spot under his
tongue such as chickens sometimes have, and she cured him by
tearing this out with her nails. One day M. Paul was rash
enough to blow the smoke of a cigar in his nostrils. Another
time, when Madame Lormeau was teasing him with the end of
her parasol, he snatched off the ferule. At last he lost him-
self.
She had placed him on the grass to refresh him, left him a
moment, and when she returned,- no parrot! At first she looked
for him in the bushes, on the bank of the stream, on the roofs,
without heeding her mistress, who was calling, "Be careful! You
are mad! » Finally she visited all the gardens of Pont l'Évegne;
and she stopped the passers. "Perhaps you have seen my par-
rot somewhere? " and to those who did not know him she gave
a description. All at once she thought she saw something green
flying low down behind the mills. But when she reached the top
of the bank, it was gone. A peddler assured her that he had
just seen him in Mother Simonne's shop at Saint Mélaine. She
## p. 5828 (#416) ###########################################
5828
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
hurried there, but they did not know what she was talking about.
At last she went home, exhausted, her shoes in rags, sick at
heart; and seated near Madame in the middle of the bench, she
was telling all her adventures, when a light weight fell on her
shoulder, Loulou! Where the mischief had he been? Prom-
enading in the suburbs, perhaps.
She found this hard to get over; or rather, she never did get
over it.
-
In consequence of a chill she had a sore throat, and soon after
an ear-ache. Three years later she was deaf, and talked very
loud even in church. Although her sins might have been pro-
claimed to all the corners of the diocese without disgrace to her
or harm to the world, still the priest judged it advisable to hear
her confession only in the vestry.
Illusory murmurings began to trouble her. Her mistress often
said to her, "Good Heavens! how stupid you are! " and she
answered, "Yes, Madame," looking around her as if for some-
thing.
The little circle of her ideas kept on narrowing; and the
chiming of the bells, the lowing of the cattle, no longer existed
for her. All the beings about her worked with the silence of
phantoms. One sound only now reached her ears,- -the voice of
the parrot.
As if to divert her, he mimicked the tic-tac of the turnspit,
the shrill cry of the fish-man, the saw of the carpenter who lived
opposite; and when the bell rang he imitated Madame Aubain,—
<< Félicité! the door! the door! "
――――――
They held dialogues together, he uttering to satiety the three
sentences of his repertory, and she answering with words as
meaningless, but in which her heart overflowed. In her isolation
Loulou was almost a son, a lover. He scaled her fingers, nibbled
her lips, clung to her fichu; and as she bent her forehead toward
him, shaking her head as nurses do, the broad flaps of her cap
and his wings vibrated together.
When the clouds gathered and the thunder rumbled, he uttered
cries, remembering perhaps the showers of his native forests.
The dripping of water excited his frenzy; he flew madly about,
went up to the ceiling, upset everything, and flew through the
window to dabble in the garden. Then he returned quickly to
one of the andirons, and hopping to dry his feathers, showed
now his tail and now his beak.
## p. 5829 (#417) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5829
One morning of the terrible winter of 1837, when she had
placed him before the fireplace on account of the cold, she found
him dead in the middle of his cage, his head down, and his claws
in the iron bars. Doubtless a congestion had killed him. She
believed that he had been poisoned with parsley, and without the
slightest proof she suspected Fabu.
She wept so much that her mistress said, "Well! have him
stuffed. "
She consulted the apothecary, who had always been kind to
the bird. He wrote to Havre: a certain Fellacher undertook
the task. But as packages were sometimes lost from the stage,
she decided to carry the bird herself as far as Honfleur.
Leafless apple-trees were ranged along the way. Ice covered
the ditches. Dogs barked about the farms; and her hands under
her mantle, with her little black sabots and her light basket, she
hurried along in the middle of the street.
She crossed the forest, passed Haut-Chêne, and reached Saint-
Gatien. Behind her in a cloud of dust and precipitated upon her
by the descent, a mail-coach came flashing along on a gallop.
Seeing this woman who did not trouble herself to get out of the
way, the driver stood up under the hood, and the postilion called
too, while the four horses, whom he could not hold in, increased
their speed. The first two grazed her; with a pull at the reins
the driver jerked them to one side, but furious, he raised his
arm with his great whip, and as he flew past he dealt her such
a blow that she fell on her back.
Her first movement, when she had regained consciousness, was
to open her basket. Happily Loulou had not been hurt. She
felt her right cheek burning, and when she put her hand to it
she found that blood was flowing.
She sat down on a stone and mopped her face with her
handkerchief. Then she ate a crust of bread which she had
taken the precaution to put in her basket, and comforted herself
by looking at her bird.
When she reached the height of Ecquemauville she saw the
lights of Honfleur sparkling in the night like a quantity of stars;
farther off the sea stretched confusedly. Then a weakness seized
her; and all the misery of her childhood, the deception of her
first love, her nephew's departure, Virginie's death, came back to
her one after another, like the waves of the tide, mounting to
her throat and stifling her.
## p. 5830 (#418) ###########################################
5830
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Then she wished to see the captain of the boat; and without
telling him what she was sending, she commended it to his
care.
Fellacher kept the parrot for a long time. He always prom-
ised it for the next week, but after six months he announced that
he had sent a case, and thus put an end to the uncertainty. It
began to seem as if Loulou would never return. "They must
have stolen him! " she was beginning to think.
At last he arrived,- magnificent, erect on the branch of a
tree which was screwed into a mahogany base, one foot in the
air, his head on one side, and biting a nut, which in his love of
effect the taxidermist had gilded.
She shut him in her room. This place, to which she did not
often admit people, looked like both a chapel and a bazar, it was
so full of religious objects and of oddities. In fault of a stand,
Loulou was established on a part of the chimney-piece which
protruded into the room. Every morning when she woke up she
saw him in the early light, and without sorrow and full of tran-
quillity she recalled his vanished days and insignificant actions to
their least details.
Not communicating with any one, she lived in the torpor of a
somnambulist. The processions of Corpus Christi reanimated
her. Then she went to the neighbors to beg candlesticks and
straw mats for the altar which was raised in the street.
In church she always looked at the picture of the Holy Ghost,
and thought it like her parrot. This resemblance impressed her
all the more in an image by Épinal, representing the baptism of
our Lord. With his purple wings and emerald body, it was a
true portrait of Loulou. She bought it and hung it instead of
the Count D'Artois, so that in the same glance she could see
both. They were associated in her thoughts; the parrot seemed
sanctified by this connection to the Holy Ghost, who thus became
more living and intelligible to her. The Father could not have
chosen a dove to announce him, since that bird has no voice,
but rather one of Loulou's ancestors. And as Félicité prayed
she looked at the image, but from time to time she turned a
little toward her bird.
She wanted to join the Sisters of the Virgin, but Madame
Aubain dissuaded her.
In the month of March 1853 Madame Aubain had a sudden
pain in her breast; her tongue seemed covered with smoke;
## p. 5831 (#419) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5831
leeches could not calm the oppression, and on the ninth evening
she died at exactly the age of seventy-two.
Félicité wept for her as masters are not wept. That Madame
should die before her, troubled her mind and seemed contrary to
the order of things,— inadmissible and monstrous.
Ten days later (the time to come from Besançon) the heirs
arrived. The daughter-in-law searched the drawers, chose some
furniture, and sold the remainder. Then they returned to the
registry office.
Madame's arm-chair, her centre-table, her foot-stove, the eight
chairs, were gone. The places where the engravings had hung
showed in yellow squares on the walls. They had carried off
the two beds with their mattresses, and none of Virginie's be-
longings remained in the cupboard! Félicité climbed up-stairs,
drunk with grief.
The next day there was a sign on the door, and the apothe-
cary cried in her ear that the house was for sale.
She tottered and had to sit down.
What troubled her most was the thought of leaving her room,
so convenient for poor Loulou. Covering him with an anguished
look, she implored the Holy Ghost, and fell into the idolatrous
habit of kneeling before the parrot while she said her prayers.
Sometimes the sun, coming in at the dormer window, fell on his
glass eye, and it sparkled with a luminous ray which threw her
into ecstasy.
Her mistress had left her an income of three hundred and
eighty francs. The garden supplied her with vegetables. As to
clothes, she had enough for the rest of her life, and she econo-
mized lights by going to bed with the dark.
In order to avoid the broker's shop, where some of Madame's
old furniture was displayed, she scarcely ever went out. After
her dizzy turn she dragged one leg, and as her strength grew
less, Mother Simonne, who was bankrupt in her little grocery,
came every morning to cut wood and draw water.
Her eyes grew weaker. She no longer opened the blinds.
Thus many years passed, and the house was neither rented nor
sold. In the fear that she might be sent away, Félicité never
asked for any repairs. The shingles were rotting on the roof.
All one winter her bolster was wet. After Easter she spit blood.
Then Mother Simonne brought a doctor. Félicité wanted to
know what she had. But in her deafness only one word came
## p. 5832 (#420) ###########################################
5832
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
to her "pneumonia. " It was familiar to her, and she answered
gently:-
--
―――――
"Ah! like Madame," finding it natural to follow her mistress.
The time for the street altars was drawing near.
One was always placed on the shore, a second before the post-
office, the third near the middle of the street. There were rival-
ries as to the position of this last, and finally the parishioners
selected the court of Madame Aubain.
The fever and oppression increased. Félicité mourned that
she could not do anything for the altar. If she only had some-
thing to put on it! Then she thought of the parrot. The neigh-
bors objected that it was not fitting. But the priest gave her
permission, and this made her so happy that she begged him to
accept Loulou, her one treasure, after her death.
From Tuesday to Saturday, the eve of Corpus Christi, she
coughed oftener. That evening her face was drawn, her lips
stuck to her gums, she vomited; and the next day, feeling her-
self very low, she summoned a priest.
Three kind women were with her when she received extreme
unction. Then she declared that she must speak to Fabu.
He came in his Sunday clothes, ill at ease in this mournful
atmosphere.
"Forgive me," she said, trying to hold out her arm. "I
thought you killed him. ”
What did she mean by such nonsense? To suspect a man
like him of murder! —and he grew angry and was going to storm.
"She has lost her mind, that's plain enough. "
From time to time Félicité talked to visions. The good
women went away. Mother Simonne breakfasted.
A little later she took Loulou and carried him to Félicité.
"Come, say good-by to him! "
He was no longer a body: the worms were eating him; one
of his wings was broken, the tow was bursting out of his breast.
But blind now, she kissed his head and held him against her
cheek. Then Mother Simonne took him back to the altar.
The odor of summer came from the pastures; flies were buzz-
ing. The sun made the river sparkle and warmed the slates.
Mother Simonne, who had returned, was calmly sleeping.
The church bells woke her. Félicité's delirium left her. As
she thought about the procession, she saw it as clearly as if she
had followed it.
## p. 5833 (#421) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5833
T
All the school-children, the choristers, and the firemen were
walking on the sidewalks, while in the middle of the street the
Swiss with his halberd came first, then the beadle with a great
cross, the schoolmaster watching the boys, the nun anxious
about her little girls; three of the prettiest looking like angels
with their curled hair, throwing rose-leaves in the air; the dea-
con with outstretched arms leading the music; and two censer-
swingers turning toward the Holy Sacrament at every step,
as four vestrymen carried it along under a red velvet canopy;
then the priest in his fine chasuble. A crowd of people pressed
on behind between the white cloths hung along the houses, and
thus they reached the shore.
Félicité's temples were damp with a cold sweat. Mother
Simonne wiped it off with a linen cloth, telling herself that some
day she too must go through this.
The murmur of the crowd grew plainer, was very strong for
a moment, and then began to die away.
A discharge of guns shook the windows. The postilions
Félicité rolled her eyes and said in the
were saluting the Host.
lowest possible tone:-
"Is he all right?
"- troubled about the parrot.
Her final agony began. A death-rattle shook her more and
more. There were bubbles of foam in the corners of her mouth,
and her whole body trembled.
Soon they could hear the music again, the clear voices of
the children and the deep voices of men. At intervals all were
quiet, and the sound of footsteps, deadened by the flowers,
seemed like cattle on the turf.
The clergy entered the court, and Mother Simonne climbed
on a chair, so that she could look down upon the altar from the
little round window.
Green wreaths were hung on the altar, which was adorned
with English lace. In the middle was a little box containing
relics; two orange-trees stood in the corners; and along the front
were ranged silver candlesticks and china vases with sunflowers,
lilies, peonies, foxgloves, and bunches of hydrangea. This mass
of sparkling color sloped down from the highest stage to the
carpet, and was prolonged on the pavement; and there were
curiosities to attract the attention. A bird in silver-gilt had a
crown of violets; pendants of Alençon gems sparkled from the
moss; two Chinese screens displayed their landscapes. Loulou,
## p. 5834 (#422) ###########################################
5834
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
hidden behind the roses, showed only his blue crest like a bit of
lapis lazuli.
The vestrymen, the choristers, and the children ranged them-
selves along three sides of the court. The priest slowly mounted
the steps and set upon the lace his large golden sun, which
sparkled as he did so. All knelt down. There was a solemn
silence. And the censers, swinging freely, slipped up and down
their slender chains.
A blue vapor mounted to Félicité's room. She breathed it in
with a mystical sensuality, and then closed her eyelids. Her lips
were smiling. Her heart beat more and more slowly, more
gently and uncertainly like a spring which is growing exhausted,
like an echo which is sinking away; and as she breathed for the
last time, she seemed to see in the opening heavens a gigantic
parrot hovering above her head.
SALAMMBO PREPARES FOR HER JOURNEY
From Salammbô›
IT
T WAS the season when the doves of Carthage migrated to the
mountain of Eryx in Sicily, there nesting about the temple
of Venus. Previous to their departure, during many days,
they sought each other, and cooed to reunite themselves; finally
one evening they flew, driven by the wind, and this large white
cloud glided in the heaven, very high above the sea.
The horizon was crimson. They seemed gradually to descend
to the waves, then disappear as though swallowed up, and falling
of their own accord into the jaws of the sun. Salammbô, who
watched them disappear, lowered her head. Taanach, believing
that she surmised her mistress's grief, tenderly said:-
"But mistress, they will return. ”
"Yes, I know it. "
"And you will see them again. ”
"Perhaps! " Salammbô said, as she sighed.
She had not confided to any one her resolution, and for its
discreet accomplishment she sent Taanach to purchase in the
suburbs of Kinisdo (instead of requiring them of the stewards)
all the articles it was necessary she should have: vermilion, aro-
matics, a linen girdle, and new garments. The old slave was
## p. 5835 (#423) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5835
amazed by these preparations, without daring to ask any ques-
tions; and so the day arrived, fixed by Schahabarim, when Sa-
lammbô must depart.
Toward the twelfth hour she perceived at the end of the
sycamores an old blind man, whose hand rested on the shoulder
of a child who walked before him, and in the other hand he held
against his hip a species of cithara made of black wood.
The eunuchs, the slaves, the women, had been scrupulously
sent away; no one could possibly know the mystery that was
being prepared.
Taanach lighted in the corners of the room four tripods full
of strobus and cardamom; then she spread out great Babylonian
tapestries and hung them on cords all round the room,- for
Salammbô did not wish to be seen even by the walls. The
player of the kinnor waited crouching behind the door, and the
young boy, standing up, applied his lips to a reed flute. In
the distance the street clamor faded, the violet shadows length-
ened before the peristyles of the temples, and on the other side,
of the gulf the base of the mountain, the olive-fields, and the
waste yellow ground indefinitely undulated till finally lost in a
bluish vapor; not a single sound could be heard, and an in-
describable oppression pervaded the air.
Salammbô crouched on the onyx step on the edge of the
porphyry basin; she lifted her wide sleeves and fastened them
behind her shoulders, and began her ablutions in a methodical
manner, according to the sacred rites.
Next Taanach brought to her an alabaster phial containing
something liquid, yet coagulated; it was the blood of a black
dog, strangled by barren women on a winter's night in the ruins
of a sepulchre. She rubbed it on her ears, her heels, and the
thumb of her right hand; and even the nail remained tinged a
trifle red, as if she had crushed a berry.
The moon rose; then, both at once, the cithara and the flute
commenced to play. Salammbô took off her earrings, laid aside
her necklace, bracelets, and her long white simarra; unknotted
the fillet from her hair, and for some minutes shook her tresses
gently over her shoulders to refresh and disentangle them.
The music outside continued; there were always the same three
notes, precipitous and furious; the strings grated, the flute was
high-sounding and sonorous. Taanach marked the cadence by
striking her hands; Salammbô, swaying her entire body, chanted
## p. 5836 (#424) ###########################################
5836
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
her prayers, and one by one her garments fell around her on the
floor.
The heavy tapestry trembled, and above the cord that sus-
tained it the head of the Python appeared. He descended slowly,
like a drop of water trickling along a wall, and glided between
the stuffs spread out, then poised himself on his tail; he lifted
himself perfectly straight up, and darted his eyes, more brilliant
than carbuncles, upon Salammbô.
A shudder of cold, or her modesty perhaps, at first made her
hesitate. But she recalled the order of Schahabarim, so she went
forward; the Python lowered himself, alighting upon the nape of
her neck in the middle of his body, allowing his head and tail
to hang down like a broken necklace, and the two ends trailed
on the floor. Salammbô rolled them around her sides, under her
arms, between her knees; then taking him by the jaw, she drew
his little triangular mouth close to her teeth; and with half-
closed eyes she bent back under the moon's rays. The white
light seemed to enshroud her in a silvery fog; the tracks of her
wet feet shone on the stones; stars twinkled in the depths of the
water; the Python tightened against her his black coils speckled
with spots of gold. Salammbô panted under this too heavy
weight; her loins gave way, she felt that she was dying; the
Python patted her thighs softly with his tail: then the music
ceased, and he fell down.
Taanach drew near to Salammbô, and after arranging two
candelabra, of which the lights burned in two crystal globes
filled with water, she tinted with henna the inside of the hands
of her mistress, put vermilion on her cheeks, antimony on her
eyelids, and lengthened her eyebrows with a mixture of gum,
musk, ebony, and crushed flies' feet.
Salammbô, sitting in a chair mounted with ivory, abandoned
herself to the care of her slave. But the soothing touches, the
odor of the aromatics, and the fasts she had kept, enervated her;
she became so pale that Taanach paused.
"Continue! " said Salammbô; and as she drew herself up in
spite of herself, she felt all at once reanimated. Then an impa-
tience seized her; she urged Taanach to hasten, and the old
slave growled :-
"Well, well, mistress!
You have no one waiting for
you elsewhere! "
"Yes! " responded Salammbô:
((
some one waits for me. "
## p. 5837 (#425) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5837
Taanach started with surprise, and in order to know more
she said:
―
"What do you order me to do, mistress, if you should remain
away ? »
――――
Do not go!
But Salammbô sobbed, and the slave exclaimed: -
"You suffer! What is the matter with you?
Take me! When you were a little one and wept, I held you to
my heart and suckled you, and made you laugh. Now I am old!
I can do nothing for you! You do not love me any more! You
hide your troubles from me; you disdain your nurse! With
fondness and vexation the tears coursed down her face, in the
scars of her tattooing.
>>
"No! " said Salammbô; "no: I love you; be comforted! "
Taanach, with a smile like the grimace of an old monkey,
recommenced her task. Following the directions of the priest,
Salammbô ordered her slave to make her magnificent. Taanach
complied, with a barbaric taste full of elaboration and ingenuity.
Over a first fine wine-colored tunic she placed a second one,
embroidered with birds' plumes. Golden scales were fastened to
her hips; from her wide girdle flowed the folds of her blue,
silver-starred petticoat-trousers. Then Taanach adjusted an am-
ple robe of rare stuff from the land of the Seres, white, varie-
gated with green stripes. She attached over Salammbô's shoulders
a square of purple, made heavy at the hem with beads of sandas-
trum; and on the top of all these vestments she arranged a
black mantle with a long train. Then she contemplated her, and
proud of her work, she could not keep from saying:-
"You will not be more beautiful on the day of your nup-
tials! "
"My nuptials! " repeated Salammbô in a reverie, as she leaned
her elbow on the ivory chair.
Taanach held up before her mistress a copper mirror, wide
and long enough for her to view herself completely. She stood
up, and with a light touch of one finger put back a curl that
dropped too low on her forehead. Her hair was powdered with
gold, crimped in front, hanging down her back in long twists,
terminating in pearls. The light from the candelabra heightened
the color on her cheeks, the gold throughout her garments, and
the whiteness of her skin. She wore around her waist, on her
arms, hands, and feet, such a profusion of jewels that the mirror,
reflecting like a sun, flashed back prismatic rays upon her; and
## p. 5838 (#426) ###########################################
5838
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Salammbô stood beside Taanach, leaning and turning around on
all sides to view herself, smiling at the dazzling effect.
She walked to and fro, embarrassed by the time that she needs
must tarry.
Suddenly the crow of a cock was heard. She quickly pinned
over her hair a long yellow veil, passed a scarf around her neck,
and buried her feet in blue leather buskins, saying to Taanach:
"Go, see under the myrtles if there is not a man with two
horses. "
Taanach had scarcely re-entered before Salammbô descended
the stairway of the galleys.
་ Mistress! " called out the slave. Salammbô turned around
and placed one finger on her lips, in sign of discretion and
silence.
Taanach crept quietly the length of the prows as far as the
base of the terrace, and in the distance by the moonlight she
distinguished in the cypress avenue a gigantic shadow, moving
obliquely to the left of Salammbô: this was a foreboding of
death.
Taanach went back to her room, threw herself on the floor,
tore her face with her finger-nails, pulled out her hair, and uttered
shrill yells at the top of her voice.
Finally the thought came to her that some one might hear;
then she was quiet, and sobbed very low, with her head between
her hands and her face laid flat on the stones.
THE SACRIFICE TO MOLOCH
From Salammbô›
A
SECTION of the wall of the temple of Moloch was removed,
in order to pull the brazen god through without disturbing
the ashes on the altar. As soon as the sun rose, the sacred
slaves of the temple pushed him to the square of Khamoûn.
He moved backwards, sliding over cylinders; his shoulders
overtopped the walls; from the farthest point the Carthaginians
who perceived him fled with speed, for it was impossible to con-
template the Baal with impunity, save in the exercise of his
wrath.
An odor of aromatics was wafted through the streets. All the
temples were thrown open simultaneously, and tabernacles upon
## p. 5839 (#427) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5839
Great
chariots, or on litters which pontiffs carried, issued forth.
plumes of feathers nodded at their corners, and rays flashed from
their pointed spires, terminated by globes of crystal, gold, silver,
or copper.
These were the Canaanite Baalim, reproductions of the su-
preme Baal, returning towards their essence to humble them-
selves before his power, and be lost in his splendor. The canopy
of Melkarth, of fine purple, sheltered a flame of bitumen oil;
while upon that of Khamoûn, which was of hyacinth color, was
erected an ivory phallus bordered with a circle of gems: between
the curtains of Eschmoûn, blue as the ether, a Python slept,
describing a circle as it bit its tail; and the Dii-Pataci, held in
the arms of their priests, their heels dragging on the ground,
resembled large babies in swaddling-clothes.
The brazen statue continued to move towards the square of
Khamoun. The Rich, carrying sceptres with emerald apples,
started from the far end of Megara; the Elders, crowned with
diadems, assembled in Kinisdo; and the masters of finance, the
governors of provinces, merchants, soldiers, sailors, and the
numerous horde employed at funerals, all displaying the insignia
of their magistracy or the instruments of their vocations, con-
verged towards the tabernacles that descended from the Acropo-
lis between the colleges of pontiffs.
In deference to Moloch, they were all bedecked with their
most splendid jewels. Diamonds sparkled over their black ap-
parel; but their rings, now too wide, loosely fell from their
emaciated hands, and nothing could be more lugubrious than
that silent concourse, where brilliant earrings struck against pal-
lid faces, and where gold tiaras encircled foreheads wrinkled by
an atrocious despair.
Finally the Baal attained the centre of the square.
His pon-
tiffs made an inclosure with trellises to keep back the multitude,
and remained themselves at his feet, surrounding him.
The priests of Khamoûn, in reddish woolen robes, aligned
before their temple under the columns of the portico; those
of Eschmoûn, in white linen mantles, with collars of the heads
of hoopoes, wearing conical tiaras, established themselves on
the steps of the Acropolis; the priests of Melkarth, in violet
tunics, took their position on the western side; the priests of the
Abaddirs, swathed in bands of Phrygian stuffs, placed themselves
on the eastern side; and ranged on the southern side with the
## p. 5840 (#428) ###########################################
5840
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
necromancers, all covered with tattooings, were the howlers in
patched mantles, the priests of the Dii-Pataci, and the Yidonim,
who divined the future by placing a bone of a dead body in
their mouths. The priests of Ceres, habited in blue robes, had
prudently stopped in Satheb Street, intoning in a low voice a
thesmophorion in Megarian dialect.
Meantime a fire of aloe, cedar, and laurel wood burned be-
tween the legs of the Colossus. His long wings buried their
points in the flame; the unguents with which he had been rubbed
now trickled like sweat over his brazen limbs. About the round
stone upon which his feet rested, children, enveloped in black
veils, formed a motionless circle; and his inordinately long arms.
allowed the palms of his hands to reach down to them, as if to
seize this crown and convey it to the sky.
The Rich, the Elders, the women, and in fact the entire mul-
titude, thronged behind the priests and on the terraces of the
houses. The large painted stars revolved no longer; the taber-
nacles were placed on the ground, and the smoke from the cen-
sers rose on high perpendicularly, like gigantic trees spreading
their bluish boughs to the centre of the azure. Many of the
spectators fainted; others became inert and petrified in their
ecstasy; an infinite agony pressed heavily upon their hearts.
The clamors one by one died out, and the people of Carthage
panted in silence, absorbed in the terror of their desire.
At last the high priest of Moloch passed his right hand be-
neath the children's veils, and pulled out a lock of hair from
each of their foreheads, which he threw into the flames. Then
the men in red mantles intoned a sacred hymn:-
"Homage to thee, O Sun! King of the two Zones! Creator,
self-begotten! Father and Mother! Father and Son! God and
Goddess! Goddess and God! " and their voices were lost in the
explosion of countless instruments, sounding all together to
smother the cries of the victims. The scheminith with eight
strings, the kinnor with ten, and the nebel with twelve, all
twanged, whistled, and thundered forth. Enormous leather bot-
tles stuck full of tubes emitted a sharp rolling noise; the tam-
bourines, beaten with all possible force, resounded with heavy,
rapid blows; and despite the fury of the clarions, the salsalim
clicked like the wings of locusts.
The sacred slaves with a long hook opened the seven com-
partments ranged in the body of the Baal. Into the highest
―
## p. 5841 (#429) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5841
division farina was introduced; into the second, two turtle-doves;
into the third, an ape; into the fourth, a ram; into the fifth, a
lamb; and into the sixth, as they did not possess an ox, a tanned
hide from the sanctuary was substituted; the seventh aperture
remained gaping.
Before a human victim should be offered, it was deemed best
to test the arms of the god. Slender chainlets, passing from the
fingers over his shoulders, descended at the back, which men
pulled downward, raising to the height of his elbows his two
open hands, that in approaching each other came opposite his
belly. They worked them several times successively with little.
jerks. Then the musical instruments were hushed, and the fire
roared fiercely.
The pontiffs of Moloch walked to and fro on the large stone
slab, examining the multitude.
The first offering must be an individual sacrifice, an oblation
perfectly voluntary, which would be effectual to incite others.
But no one came forward, and the seven alleys leading from the
barrier to the Colossus remained completely empty. To stimu-
late the people, the priests pulled from their girdles little stilet-
tos, with which they slashed their faces. The Devotees, who
had been stretched on the ground outside, were introduced into
the inclosure, and a packet of horrible irons was thrown to them:
each one chose his torture. They passed spits through their
breasts, slit their cheeks, put upon their heads crowns of thorns;
then they enlaced their arms together, and surrounding the child-
ren, they formed another great circle, ever contracting and ex-
panding. Having reached the balustrade, they threw themselves
back, only to eddy outwards again, continually attracting to them.
the crowd, by the vertigo of their movements, full of blood and
cries.
Gradually the people, thus incited, came into the end of the
alleys, and threw into the flames pearls, gold vases, cups, all their
treasures, and flambeaux.
These offerings became more and more splendid, and kept
multiplying. Presently a man who staggered, a man pale and
hideous from terror, pushed forward a child; then could be dis-
tinguished between the hands of the Colossus a little black mass-
it sank into the dark opening. The priests leaned over the edge
of the large slab, and a new chant burst out, celebrating the joys
of death and the renascence of eternity.
X-366
## p. 5842 (#430) ###########################################
5842
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
The children mounted up slowly, and as the smoke rose in
lofty whirling masses, they seemed from afar to disappear in a
cloud. Not one moved. All had been securely bound hand and
foot, and the dark drapery prevented them from seeing anything,
and from being recognized.
Hamilcar, in a red mantle like that of the priests of Moloch,
remained near the Baal, standing before the great toe of his right
foot. When the fourteenth child was put in, all the people saw
that he made a demonstrative gesture of horror, but quickly
resuming his attitude of composure, he crossed his arms, and
gazed on the ground. On the other side of the Colossus the
grand pontiff likewise remained motionless, bowing his head, upon
which was an Assyrian mitre, and observing on his breast the
gold plaque covered with prophetic stones, which threw out iri-
descent lights as the flames struck across them. He grew pale
and abstracted.
Hamilcar inclined his head, and they were both so near the
pyre that the hem of their robes in rising from time to time
swept it.
Moloch's brazen arms moved more rapidly; they no longer
paused. Each time a child was placed upon them, the priests of
Moloch extended their hands over the victim to charge upon it
the sins of the people, vociferating:-
"These are not men, but oxen! " and the multitude around
repeated, "Oxen! Oxen! " The Devotees screamed out, "Lord!
eat! " and the priests of Proserpine, conforming in terror to Car-
thage's need, mumbled their Eleusinian formula: "Pour forth
rain! conceive! " No sooner were the victims placed on the verge
of the aperture than they vanished, like a drop of water on a
red-hot plate, and whiffs of white smoke curled up through the
scarlet glow.
Yet the appetite of the god was not appeased; he still wanted
more. In order to supply him, the children were piled on his
hands, and were retained there by a great chain.
In the beginning, Devotees tried to count them, in order to
note if the total number corresponded to the days of the solar
year; but now so many were piled on that it was impossible to
distinguish them during the dizzy movements of those horrible.
arms. All this lasted a long time, until nightfall. Then the
interior divisions gave a most sombre glare. For the first time,
the burning flesh was visible. Some people even fancied that
they recognized hair, limbs, and entire bodies.
## p. 5843 (#431) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5843
The day fell; clouds gathered over the head of the Baal. The
pyre, now flameless, made a pyramid of glowing embers that
reached to his knees; and all crimson, like a giant covered with
blood, with head bent backward, he seemed to reel under the
weight of his intoxication. According as the priests urged haste,
the frenzy of the people augmented; as the number of victims
decreased, some cried out to spare them, others that Moloch must
have more. It seemed as though the walls, with their masses of
spectators, would crumble beneath the yells of horror and of
mystic voluptuousness. Then came into the alleys some faithful
ones, dragging their children, who clung to them; and they beat
the little hands to make them loose their hold, that they might
deliver them to the red men.
Occasionally the musicians paused from sheer exhaustion; and
in the lull could be heard the screams of mothers and the crack-
ling of the grease spattering on the coals. The mandrake-drinkers
crept on all-fours around the Colossus, roaring like tigers. The
Yidonim prophesied; the Devotees chanted with their cleft lips.
The railings were broken, for now all wanted to participate in
the sacrifice; and fathers whose children were deceased cast into
the yawning furnace their effigies, toys, and preserved bones.
Those who possessed knives rushed upon the others; they cut
each other's throats in their voracious rage, maddened by the
holocaust. The sacred slaves, with bronze winnowing-baskets,
took from the edge of the stone slab the fallen cinders, which
they tossed high in the air, that the sacrifice should be dispersed
over the entire city, and attain to the region of the stars.
The tumultuous noise and vast illumination had attracted the
Barbarians to the very foot of the walls. Climbing upon the ruins
of the helepolis, they looked on, gaping with horror.
urchins watched him through chinks in the wall, and threw stones
which fell on the wretched bed where he lay groaning, shaken by
catarrh; with his hair very long, his eyelids inflamed, and on his
arm a tumor larger than his head. She took him linen, tried to
clean the squalid hole, dreamed of establishing him in her bake-
house in some way that would not trouble Madame. When the
cancer had gathered, she bandaged it every day. Sometimes she
brought him cake, or placed him in the sun on a bunch of straw;
and the poor old man, driveling and trembling, thanked her with
his dying voice, feared to lose her, and stretched out his hands
to her when he saw her going away. He died, and she ordered
a mass for the repose of his soul.
That very day a great joy came to her. Just at dinner-time
Madame de Larsonnière's colored man arrived, with the parrot in
his cage, and perch, chain, and padlock. A note from the Bar-
oness informed Madame Aubain that her husband had been pro-
moted to a prefecture. They were going away that evening, and
she begged Madame Aubain to accept the bird as a remembrance
and with her respects.
He had long busied the imagination of Félicité, for he came
from America and thus recalled Victor; so she had often asked
the negro about the bird. Once she had said, "How happy
Madame would be to have him!
The negro had repeated this speech to his mistress, and as
she could not take the parrot with her, she thus disposed of it.
He was called Loulou. His body was green, the ends of his
wings pink, his forehead blue, and his throat gilded.
But he had a tiresome mania for biting his perch, pulling out
his feathers, and scattering water from his bath, so that he an-
noyed Madame Aubain, and she gave him to Félicité.
She attempted to teach him, and soon he was able to repeat,
"Fine fellow! Your servant, sir! I salute you, Mary! "
He was
placed near the door, and several people expressed surprise that
he did not answer to the name of Jacquot, like other parrots.
They called him a ninny and a blockhead, which names were like
dagger-thrusts to Félicité! Strange obstinacy of Loulou, who
would not speak when any one was looking!
Nevertheless, he was fond of company; for on Sunday
when the Mademoiselles Rochefeuille, M. De Houppeville, and
some new-comers-Onfroy the apothecary, M. Varin, and Captain
## p. 5827 (#415) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5827
Mathieu- had their game of cards, he beat the window-panes
with his wings and chattered so furiously that it was impossible
to speak.
Bourais's face seemed to amuse him greatly. As soon as he
saw it, he began to laugh, to laugh with all his might. The
outbursts of his voice escaped into the court, echo repeated them,
the neighbors coming to their windows laughed too; so that to
avoid being seen by the parrot, M. Bourais used to creep along
the wall, holding up his hat to screen his profile until he reached.
the river and entered by the garden door. His glances at the
bird lacked affection.
Once Loulou, having buried his head in the butcher-boy's
basket, received a fillip, after which he always tried to pinch him
through his shirt. Fabu threatened to wring his neck, although
he was not a cruel fellow, in spite of his great whiskers and the
tattooing on his arms. On the contrary, he had rather a liking
for the parrot, so that in his jovial humor he wanted to teach
him to swear. Félicité, frightened at this behavior, placed Lou-
lou in the kitchen. His little chain was taken off, and he wan-
dered about the house.
When he went down-stairs he rested the curve of his beak
on the step and raised first his right claw and then the left, and
she feared these gymnastics would make him dizzy.
He fell ill,
and could not speak or eat. There was a thick spot under his
tongue such as chickens sometimes have, and she cured him by
tearing this out with her nails. One day M. Paul was rash
enough to blow the smoke of a cigar in his nostrils. Another
time, when Madame Lormeau was teasing him with the end of
her parasol, he snatched off the ferule. At last he lost him-
self.
She had placed him on the grass to refresh him, left him a
moment, and when she returned,- no parrot! At first she looked
for him in the bushes, on the bank of the stream, on the roofs,
without heeding her mistress, who was calling, "Be careful! You
are mad! » Finally she visited all the gardens of Pont l'Évegne;
and she stopped the passers. "Perhaps you have seen my par-
rot somewhere? " and to those who did not know him she gave
a description. All at once she thought she saw something green
flying low down behind the mills. But when she reached the top
of the bank, it was gone. A peddler assured her that he had
just seen him in Mother Simonne's shop at Saint Mélaine. She
## p. 5828 (#416) ###########################################
5828
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
hurried there, but they did not know what she was talking about.
At last she went home, exhausted, her shoes in rags, sick at
heart; and seated near Madame in the middle of the bench, she
was telling all her adventures, when a light weight fell on her
shoulder, Loulou! Where the mischief had he been? Prom-
enading in the suburbs, perhaps.
She found this hard to get over; or rather, she never did get
over it.
-
In consequence of a chill she had a sore throat, and soon after
an ear-ache. Three years later she was deaf, and talked very
loud even in church. Although her sins might have been pro-
claimed to all the corners of the diocese without disgrace to her
or harm to the world, still the priest judged it advisable to hear
her confession only in the vestry.
Illusory murmurings began to trouble her. Her mistress often
said to her, "Good Heavens! how stupid you are! " and she
answered, "Yes, Madame," looking around her as if for some-
thing.
The little circle of her ideas kept on narrowing; and the
chiming of the bells, the lowing of the cattle, no longer existed
for her. All the beings about her worked with the silence of
phantoms. One sound only now reached her ears,- -the voice of
the parrot.
As if to divert her, he mimicked the tic-tac of the turnspit,
the shrill cry of the fish-man, the saw of the carpenter who lived
opposite; and when the bell rang he imitated Madame Aubain,—
<< Félicité! the door! the door! "
――――――
They held dialogues together, he uttering to satiety the three
sentences of his repertory, and she answering with words as
meaningless, but in which her heart overflowed. In her isolation
Loulou was almost a son, a lover. He scaled her fingers, nibbled
her lips, clung to her fichu; and as she bent her forehead toward
him, shaking her head as nurses do, the broad flaps of her cap
and his wings vibrated together.
When the clouds gathered and the thunder rumbled, he uttered
cries, remembering perhaps the showers of his native forests.
The dripping of water excited his frenzy; he flew madly about,
went up to the ceiling, upset everything, and flew through the
window to dabble in the garden. Then he returned quickly to
one of the andirons, and hopping to dry his feathers, showed
now his tail and now his beak.
## p. 5829 (#417) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5829
One morning of the terrible winter of 1837, when she had
placed him before the fireplace on account of the cold, she found
him dead in the middle of his cage, his head down, and his claws
in the iron bars. Doubtless a congestion had killed him. She
believed that he had been poisoned with parsley, and without the
slightest proof she suspected Fabu.
She wept so much that her mistress said, "Well! have him
stuffed. "
She consulted the apothecary, who had always been kind to
the bird. He wrote to Havre: a certain Fellacher undertook
the task. But as packages were sometimes lost from the stage,
she decided to carry the bird herself as far as Honfleur.
Leafless apple-trees were ranged along the way. Ice covered
the ditches. Dogs barked about the farms; and her hands under
her mantle, with her little black sabots and her light basket, she
hurried along in the middle of the street.
She crossed the forest, passed Haut-Chêne, and reached Saint-
Gatien. Behind her in a cloud of dust and precipitated upon her
by the descent, a mail-coach came flashing along on a gallop.
Seeing this woman who did not trouble herself to get out of the
way, the driver stood up under the hood, and the postilion called
too, while the four horses, whom he could not hold in, increased
their speed. The first two grazed her; with a pull at the reins
the driver jerked them to one side, but furious, he raised his
arm with his great whip, and as he flew past he dealt her such
a blow that she fell on her back.
Her first movement, when she had regained consciousness, was
to open her basket. Happily Loulou had not been hurt. She
felt her right cheek burning, and when she put her hand to it
she found that blood was flowing.
She sat down on a stone and mopped her face with her
handkerchief. Then she ate a crust of bread which she had
taken the precaution to put in her basket, and comforted herself
by looking at her bird.
When she reached the height of Ecquemauville she saw the
lights of Honfleur sparkling in the night like a quantity of stars;
farther off the sea stretched confusedly. Then a weakness seized
her; and all the misery of her childhood, the deception of her
first love, her nephew's departure, Virginie's death, came back to
her one after another, like the waves of the tide, mounting to
her throat and stifling her.
## p. 5830 (#418) ###########################################
5830
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Then she wished to see the captain of the boat; and without
telling him what she was sending, she commended it to his
care.
Fellacher kept the parrot for a long time. He always prom-
ised it for the next week, but after six months he announced that
he had sent a case, and thus put an end to the uncertainty. It
began to seem as if Loulou would never return. "They must
have stolen him! " she was beginning to think.
At last he arrived,- magnificent, erect on the branch of a
tree which was screwed into a mahogany base, one foot in the
air, his head on one side, and biting a nut, which in his love of
effect the taxidermist had gilded.
She shut him in her room. This place, to which she did not
often admit people, looked like both a chapel and a bazar, it was
so full of religious objects and of oddities. In fault of a stand,
Loulou was established on a part of the chimney-piece which
protruded into the room. Every morning when she woke up she
saw him in the early light, and without sorrow and full of tran-
quillity she recalled his vanished days and insignificant actions to
their least details.
Not communicating with any one, she lived in the torpor of a
somnambulist. The processions of Corpus Christi reanimated
her. Then she went to the neighbors to beg candlesticks and
straw mats for the altar which was raised in the street.
In church she always looked at the picture of the Holy Ghost,
and thought it like her parrot. This resemblance impressed her
all the more in an image by Épinal, representing the baptism of
our Lord. With his purple wings and emerald body, it was a
true portrait of Loulou. She bought it and hung it instead of
the Count D'Artois, so that in the same glance she could see
both. They were associated in her thoughts; the parrot seemed
sanctified by this connection to the Holy Ghost, who thus became
more living and intelligible to her. The Father could not have
chosen a dove to announce him, since that bird has no voice,
but rather one of Loulou's ancestors. And as Félicité prayed
she looked at the image, but from time to time she turned a
little toward her bird.
She wanted to join the Sisters of the Virgin, but Madame
Aubain dissuaded her.
In the month of March 1853 Madame Aubain had a sudden
pain in her breast; her tongue seemed covered with smoke;
## p. 5831 (#419) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5831
leeches could not calm the oppression, and on the ninth evening
she died at exactly the age of seventy-two.
Félicité wept for her as masters are not wept. That Madame
should die before her, troubled her mind and seemed contrary to
the order of things,— inadmissible and monstrous.
Ten days later (the time to come from Besançon) the heirs
arrived. The daughter-in-law searched the drawers, chose some
furniture, and sold the remainder. Then they returned to the
registry office.
Madame's arm-chair, her centre-table, her foot-stove, the eight
chairs, were gone. The places where the engravings had hung
showed in yellow squares on the walls. They had carried off
the two beds with their mattresses, and none of Virginie's be-
longings remained in the cupboard! Félicité climbed up-stairs,
drunk with grief.
The next day there was a sign on the door, and the apothe-
cary cried in her ear that the house was for sale.
She tottered and had to sit down.
What troubled her most was the thought of leaving her room,
so convenient for poor Loulou. Covering him with an anguished
look, she implored the Holy Ghost, and fell into the idolatrous
habit of kneeling before the parrot while she said her prayers.
Sometimes the sun, coming in at the dormer window, fell on his
glass eye, and it sparkled with a luminous ray which threw her
into ecstasy.
Her mistress had left her an income of three hundred and
eighty francs. The garden supplied her with vegetables. As to
clothes, she had enough for the rest of her life, and she econo-
mized lights by going to bed with the dark.
In order to avoid the broker's shop, where some of Madame's
old furniture was displayed, she scarcely ever went out. After
her dizzy turn she dragged one leg, and as her strength grew
less, Mother Simonne, who was bankrupt in her little grocery,
came every morning to cut wood and draw water.
Her eyes grew weaker. She no longer opened the blinds.
Thus many years passed, and the house was neither rented nor
sold. In the fear that she might be sent away, Félicité never
asked for any repairs. The shingles were rotting on the roof.
All one winter her bolster was wet. After Easter she spit blood.
Then Mother Simonne brought a doctor. Félicité wanted to
know what she had. But in her deafness only one word came
## p. 5832 (#420) ###########################################
5832
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
to her "pneumonia. " It was familiar to her, and she answered
gently:-
--
―――――
"Ah! like Madame," finding it natural to follow her mistress.
The time for the street altars was drawing near.
One was always placed on the shore, a second before the post-
office, the third near the middle of the street. There were rival-
ries as to the position of this last, and finally the parishioners
selected the court of Madame Aubain.
The fever and oppression increased. Félicité mourned that
she could not do anything for the altar. If she only had some-
thing to put on it! Then she thought of the parrot. The neigh-
bors objected that it was not fitting. But the priest gave her
permission, and this made her so happy that she begged him to
accept Loulou, her one treasure, after her death.
From Tuesday to Saturday, the eve of Corpus Christi, she
coughed oftener. That evening her face was drawn, her lips
stuck to her gums, she vomited; and the next day, feeling her-
self very low, she summoned a priest.
Three kind women were with her when she received extreme
unction. Then she declared that she must speak to Fabu.
He came in his Sunday clothes, ill at ease in this mournful
atmosphere.
"Forgive me," she said, trying to hold out her arm. "I
thought you killed him. ”
What did she mean by such nonsense? To suspect a man
like him of murder! —and he grew angry and was going to storm.
"She has lost her mind, that's plain enough. "
From time to time Félicité talked to visions. The good
women went away. Mother Simonne breakfasted.
A little later she took Loulou and carried him to Félicité.
"Come, say good-by to him! "
He was no longer a body: the worms were eating him; one
of his wings was broken, the tow was bursting out of his breast.
But blind now, she kissed his head and held him against her
cheek. Then Mother Simonne took him back to the altar.
The odor of summer came from the pastures; flies were buzz-
ing. The sun made the river sparkle and warmed the slates.
Mother Simonne, who had returned, was calmly sleeping.
The church bells woke her. Félicité's delirium left her. As
she thought about the procession, she saw it as clearly as if she
had followed it.
## p. 5833 (#421) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5833
T
All the school-children, the choristers, and the firemen were
walking on the sidewalks, while in the middle of the street the
Swiss with his halberd came first, then the beadle with a great
cross, the schoolmaster watching the boys, the nun anxious
about her little girls; three of the prettiest looking like angels
with their curled hair, throwing rose-leaves in the air; the dea-
con with outstretched arms leading the music; and two censer-
swingers turning toward the Holy Sacrament at every step,
as four vestrymen carried it along under a red velvet canopy;
then the priest in his fine chasuble. A crowd of people pressed
on behind between the white cloths hung along the houses, and
thus they reached the shore.
Félicité's temples were damp with a cold sweat. Mother
Simonne wiped it off with a linen cloth, telling herself that some
day she too must go through this.
The murmur of the crowd grew plainer, was very strong for
a moment, and then began to die away.
A discharge of guns shook the windows. The postilions
Félicité rolled her eyes and said in the
were saluting the Host.
lowest possible tone:-
"Is he all right?
"- troubled about the parrot.
Her final agony began. A death-rattle shook her more and
more. There were bubbles of foam in the corners of her mouth,
and her whole body trembled.
Soon they could hear the music again, the clear voices of
the children and the deep voices of men. At intervals all were
quiet, and the sound of footsteps, deadened by the flowers,
seemed like cattle on the turf.
The clergy entered the court, and Mother Simonne climbed
on a chair, so that she could look down upon the altar from the
little round window.
Green wreaths were hung on the altar, which was adorned
with English lace. In the middle was a little box containing
relics; two orange-trees stood in the corners; and along the front
were ranged silver candlesticks and china vases with sunflowers,
lilies, peonies, foxgloves, and bunches of hydrangea. This mass
of sparkling color sloped down from the highest stage to the
carpet, and was prolonged on the pavement; and there were
curiosities to attract the attention. A bird in silver-gilt had a
crown of violets; pendants of Alençon gems sparkled from the
moss; two Chinese screens displayed their landscapes. Loulou,
## p. 5834 (#422) ###########################################
5834
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
hidden behind the roses, showed only his blue crest like a bit of
lapis lazuli.
The vestrymen, the choristers, and the children ranged them-
selves along three sides of the court. The priest slowly mounted
the steps and set upon the lace his large golden sun, which
sparkled as he did so. All knelt down. There was a solemn
silence. And the censers, swinging freely, slipped up and down
their slender chains.
A blue vapor mounted to Félicité's room. She breathed it in
with a mystical sensuality, and then closed her eyelids. Her lips
were smiling. Her heart beat more and more slowly, more
gently and uncertainly like a spring which is growing exhausted,
like an echo which is sinking away; and as she breathed for the
last time, she seemed to see in the opening heavens a gigantic
parrot hovering above her head.
SALAMMBO PREPARES FOR HER JOURNEY
From Salammbô›
IT
T WAS the season when the doves of Carthage migrated to the
mountain of Eryx in Sicily, there nesting about the temple
of Venus. Previous to their departure, during many days,
they sought each other, and cooed to reunite themselves; finally
one evening they flew, driven by the wind, and this large white
cloud glided in the heaven, very high above the sea.
The horizon was crimson. They seemed gradually to descend
to the waves, then disappear as though swallowed up, and falling
of their own accord into the jaws of the sun. Salammbô, who
watched them disappear, lowered her head. Taanach, believing
that she surmised her mistress's grief, tenderly said:-
"But mistress, they will return. ”
"Yes, I know it. "
"And you will see them again. ”
"Perhaps! " Salammbô said, as she sighed.
She had not confided to any one her resolution, and for its
discreet accomplishment she sent Taanach to purchase in the
suburbs of Kinisdo (instead of requiring them of the stewards)
all the articles it was necessary she should have: vermilion, aro-
matics, a linen girdle, and new garments. The old slave was
## p. 5835 (#423) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5835
amazed by these preparations, without daring to ask any ques-
tions; and so the day arrived, fixed by Schahabarim, when Sa-
lammbô must depart.
Toward the twelfth hour she perceived at the end of the
sycamores an old blind man, whose hand rested on the shoulder
of a child who walked before him, and in the other hand he held
against his hip a species of cithara made of black wood.
The eunuchs, the slaves, the women, had been scrupulously
sent away; no one could possibly know the mystery that was
being prepared.
Taanach lighted in the corners of the room four tripods full
of strobus and cardamom; then she spread out great Babylonian
tapestries and hung them on cords all round the room,- for
Salammbô did not wish to be seen even by the walls. The
player of the kinnor waited crouching behind the door, and the
young boy, standing up, applied his lips to a reed flute. In
the distance the street clamor faded, the violet shadows length-
ened before the peristyles of the temples, and on the other side,
of the gulf the base of the mountain, the olive-fields, and the
waste yellow ground indefinitely undulated till finally lost in a
bluish vapor; not a single sound could be heard, and an in-
describable oppression pervaded the air.
Salammbô crouched on the onyx step on the edge of the
porphyry basin; she lifted her wide sleeves and fastened them
behind her shoulders, and began her ablutions in a methodical
manner, according to the sacred rites.
Next Taanach brought to her an alabaster phial containing
something liquid, yet coagulated; it was the blood of a black
dog, strangled by barren women on a winter's night in the ruins
of a sepulchre. She rubbed it on her ears, her heels, and the
thumb of her right hand; and even the nail remained tinged a
trifle red, as if she had crushed a berry.
The moon rose; then, both at once, the cithara and the flute
commenced to play. Salammbô took off her earrings, laid aside
her necklace, bracelets, and her long white simarra; unknotted
the fillet from her hair, and for some minutes shook her tresses
gently over her shoulders to refresh and disentangle them.
The music outside continued; there were always the same three
notes, precipitous and furious; the strings grated, the flute was
high-sounding and sonorous. Taanach marked the cadence by
striking her hands; Salammbô, swaying her entire body, chanted
## p. 5836 (#424) ###########################################
5836
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
her prayers, and one by one her garments fell around her on the
floor.
The heavy tapestry trembled, and above the cord that sus-
tained it the head of the Python appeared. He descended slowly,
like a drop of water trickling along a wall, and glided between
the stuffs spread out, then poised himself on his tail; he lifted
himself perfectly straight up, and darted his eyes, more brilliant
than carbuncles, upon Salammbô.
A shudder of cold, or her modesty perhaps, at first made her
hesitate. But she recalled the order of Schahabarim, so she went
forward; the Python lowered himself, alighting upon the nape of
her neck in the middle of his body, allowing his head and tail
to hang down like a broken necklace, and the two ends trailed
on the floor. Salammbô rolled them around her sides, under her
arms, between her knees; then taking him by the jaw, she drew
his little triangular mouth close to her teeth; and with half-
closed eyes she bent back under the moon's rays. The white
light seemed to enshroud her in a silvery fog; the tracks of her
wet feet shone on the stones; stars twinkled in the depths of the
water; the Python tightened against her his black coils speckled
with spots of gold. Salammbô panted under this too heavy
weight; her loins gave way, she felt that she was dying; the
Python patted her thighs softly with his tail: then the music
ceased, and he fell down.
Taanach drew near to Salammbô, and after arranging two
candelabra, of which the lights burned in two crystal globes
filled with water, she tinted with henna the inside of the hands
of her mistress, put vermilion on her cheeks, antimony on her
eyelids, and lengthened her eyebrows with a mixture of gum,
musk, ebony, and crushed flies' feet.
Salammbô, sitting in a chair mounted with ivory, abandoned
herself to the care of her slave. But the soothing touches, the
odor of the aromatics, and the fasts she had kept, enervated her;
she became so pale that Taanach paused.
"Continue! " said Salammbô; and as she drew herself up in
spite of herself, she felt all at once reanimated. Then an impa-
tience seized her; she urged Taanach to hasten, and the old
slave growled :-
"Well, well, mistress!
You have no one waiting for
you elsewhere! "
"Yes! " responded Salammbô:
((
some one waits for me. "
## p. 5837 (#425) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5837
Taanach started with surprise, and in order to know more
she said:
―
"What do you order me to do, mistress, if you should remain
away ? »
――――
Do not go!
But Salammbô sobbed, and the slave exclaimed: -
"You suffer! What is the matter with you?
Take me! When you were a little one and wept, I held you to
my heart and suckled you, and made you laugh. Now I am old!
I can do nothing for you! You do not love me any more! You
hide your troubles from me; you disdain your nurse! With
fondness and vexation the tears coursed down her face, in the
scars of her tattooing.
>>
"No! " said Salammbô; "no: I love you; be comforted! "
Taanach, with a smile like the grimace of an old monkey,
recommenced her task. Following the directions of the priest,
Salammbô ordered her slave to make her magnificent. Taanach
complied, with a barbaric taste full of elaboration and ingenuity.
Over a first fine wine-colored tunic she placed a second one,
embroidered with birds' plumes. Golden scales were fastened to
her hips; from her wide girdle flowed the folds of her blue,
silver-starred petticoat-trousers. Then Taanach adjusted an am-
ple robe of rare stuff from the land of the Seres, white, varie-
gated with green stripes. She attached over Salammbô's shoulders
a square of purple, made heavy at the hem with beads of sandas-
trum; and on the top of all these vestments she arranged a
black mantle with a long train. Then she contemplated her, and
proud of her work, she could not keep from saying:-
"You will not be more beautiful on the day of your nup-
tials! "
"My nuptials! " repeated Salammbô in a reverie, as she leaned
her elbow on the ivory chair.
Taanach held up before her mistress a copper mirror, wide
and long enough for her to view herself completely. She stood
up, and with a light touch of one finger put back a curl that
dropped too low on her forehead. Her hair was powdered with
gold, crimped in front, hanging down her back in long twists,
terminating in pearls. The light from the candelabra heightened
the color on her cheeks, the gold throughout her garments, and
the whiteness of her skin. She wore around her waist, on her
arms, hands, and feet, such a profusion of jewels that the mirror,
reflecting like a sun, flashed back prismatic rays upon her; and
## p. 5838 (#426) ###########################################
5838
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Salammbô stood beside Taanach, leaning and turning around on
all sides to view herself, smiling at the dazzling effect.
She walked to and fro, embarrassed by the time that she needs
must tarry.
Suddenly the crow of a cock was heard. She quickly pinned
over her hair a long yellow veil, passed a scarf around her neck,
and buried her feet in blue leather buskins, saying to Taanach:
"Go, see under the myrtles if there is not a man with two
horses. "
Taanach had scarcely re-entered before Salammbô descended
the stairway of the galleys.
་ Mistress! " called out the slave. Salammbô turned around
and placed one finger on her lips, in sign of discretion and
silence.
Taanach crept quietly the length of the prows as far as the
base of the terrace, and in the distance by the moonlight she
distinguished in the cypress avenue a gigantic shadow, moving
obliquely to the left of Salammbô: this was a foreboding of
death.
Taanach went back to her room, threw herself on the floor,
tore her face with her finger-nails, pulled out her hair, and uttered
shrill yells at the top of her voice.
Finally the thought came to her that some one might hear;
then she was quiet, and sobbed very low, with her head between
her hands and her face laid flat on the stones.
THE SACRIFICE TO MOLOCH
From Salammbô›
A
SECTION of the wall of the temple of Moloch was removed,
in order to pull the brazen god through without disturbing
the ashes on the altar. As soon as the sun rose, the sacred
slaves of the temple pushed him to the square of Khamoûn.
He moved backwards, sliding over cylinders; his shoulders
overtopped the walls; from the farthest point the Carthaginians
who perceived him fled with speed, for it was impossible to con-
template the Baal with impunity, save in the exercise of his
wrath.
An odor of aromatics was wafted through the streets. All the
temples were thrown open simultaneously, and tabernacles upon
## p. 5839 (#427) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5839
Great
chariots, or on litters which pontiffs carried, issued forth.
plumes of feathers nodded at their corners, and rays flashed from
their pointed spires, terminated by globes of crystal, gold, silver,
or copper.
These were the Canaanite Baalim, reproductions of the su-
preme Baal, returning towards their essence to humble them-
selves before his power, and be lost in his splendor. The canopy
of Melkarth, of fine purple, sheltered a flame of bitumen oil;
while upon that of Khamoûn, which was of hyacinth color, was
erected an ivory phallus bordered with a circle of gems: between
the curtains of Eschmoûn, blue as the ether, a Python slept,
describing a circle as it bit its tail; and the Dii-Pataci, held in
the arms of their priests, their heels dragging on the ground,
resembled large babies in swaddling-clothes.
The brazen statue continued to move towards the square of
Khamoun. The Rich, carrying sceptres with emerald apples,
started from the far end of Megara; the Elders, crowned with
diadems, assembled in Kinisdo; and the masters of finance, the
governors of provinces, merchants, soldiers, sailors, and the
numerous horde employed at funerals, all displaying the insignia
of their magistracy or the instruments of their vocations, con-
verged towards the tabernacles that descended from the Acropo-
lis between the colleges of pontiffs.
In deference to Moloch, they were all bedecked with their
most splendid jewels. Diamonds sparkled over their black ap-
parel; but their rings, now too wide, loosely fell from their
emaciated hands, and nothing could be more lugubrious than
that silent concourse, where brilliant earrings struck against pal-
lid faces, and where gold tiaras encircled foreheads wrinkled by
an atrocious despair.
Finally the Baal attained the centre of the square.
His pon-
tiffs made an inclosure with trellises to keep back the multitude,
and remained themselves at his feet, surrounding him.
The priests of Khamoûn, in reddish woolen robes, aligned
before their temple under the columns of the portico; those
of Eschmoûn, in white linen mantles, with collars of the heads
of hoopoes, wearing conical tiaras, established themselves on
the steps of the Acropolis; the priests of Melkarth, in violet
tunics, took their position on the western side; the priests of the
Abaddirs, swathed in bands of Phrygian stuffs, placed themselves
on the eastern side; and ranged on the southern side with the
## p. 5840 (#428) ###########################################
5840
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
necromancers, all covered with tattooings, were the howlers in
patched mantles, the priests of the Dii-Pataci, and the Yidonim,
who divined the future by placing a bone of a dead body in
their mouths. The priests of Ceres, habited in blue robes, had
prudently stopped in Satheb Street, intoning in a low voice a
thesmophorion in Megarian dialect.
Meantime a fire of aloe, cedar, and laurel wood burned be-
tween the legs of the Colossus. His long wings buried their
points in the flame; the unguents with which he had been rubbed
now trickled like sweat over his brazen limbs. About the round
stone upon which his feet rested, children, enveloped in black
veils, formed a motionless circle; and his inordinately long arms.
allowed the palms of his hands to reach down to them, as if to
seize this crown and convey it to the sky.
The Rich, the Elders, the women, and in fact the entire mul-
titude, thronged behind the priests and on the terraces of the
houses. The large painted stars revolved no longer; the taber-
nacles were placed on the ground, and the smoke from the cen-
sers rose on high perpendicularly, like gigantic trees spreading
their bluish boughs to the centre of the azure. Many of the
spectators fainted; others became inert and petrified in their
ecstasy; an infinite agony pressed heavily upon their hearts.
The clamors one by one died out, and the people of Carthage
panted in silence, absorbed in the terror of their desire.
At last the high priest of Moloch passed his right hand be-
neath the children's veils, and pulled out a lock of hair from
each of their foreheads, which he threw into the flames. Then
the men in red mantles intoned a sacred hymn:-
"Homage to thee, O Sun! King of the two Zones! Creator,
self-begotten! Father and Mother! Father and Son! God and
Goddess! Goddess and God! " and their voices were lost in the
explosion of countless instruments, sounding all together to
smother the cries of the victims. The scheminith with eight
strings, the kinnor with ten, and the nebel with twelve, all
twanged, whistled, and thundered forth. Enormous leather bot-
tles stuck full of tubes emitted a sharp rolling noise; the tam-
bourines, beaten with all possible force, resounded with heavy,
rapid blows; and despite the fury of the clarions, the salsalim
clicked like the wings of locusts.
The sacred slaves with a long hook opened the seven com-
partments ranged in the body of the Baal. Into the highest
―
## p. 5841 (#429) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5841
division farina was introduced; into the second, two turtle-doves;
into the third, an ape; into the fourth, a ram; into the fifth, a
lamb; and into the sixth, as they did not possess an ox, a tanned
hide from the sanctuary was substituted; the seventh aperture
remained gaping.
Before a human victim should be offered, it was deemed best
to test the arms of the god. Slender chainlets, passing from the
fingers over his shoulders, descended at the back, which men
pulled downward, raising to the height of his elbows his two
open hands, that in approaching each other came opposite his
belly. They worked them several times successively with little.
jerks. Then the musical instruments were hushed, and the fire
roared fiercely.
The pontiffs of Moloch walked to and fro on the large stone
slab, examining the multitude.
The first offering must be an individual sacrifice, an oblation
perfectly voluntary, which would be effectual to incite others.
But no one came forward, and the seven alleys leading from the
barrier to the Colossus remained completely empty. To stimu-
late the people, the priests pulled from their girdles little stilet-
tos, with which they slashed their faces. The Devotees, who
had been stretched on the ground outside, were introduced into
the inclosure, and a packet of horrible irons was thrown to them:
each one chose his torture. They passed spits through their
breasts, slit their cheeks, put upon their heads crowns of thorns;
then they enlaced their arms together, and surrounding the child-
ren, they formed another great circle, ever contracting and ex-
panding. Having reached the balustrade, they threw themselves
back, only to eddy outwards again, continually attracting to them.
the crowd, by the vertigo of their movements, full of blood and
cries.
Gradually the people, thus incited, came into the end of the
alleys, and threw into the flames pearls, gold vases, cups, all their
treasures, and flambeaux.
These offerings became more and more splendid, and kept
multiplying. Presently a man who staggered, a man pale and
hideous from terror, pushed forward a child; then could be dis-
tinguished between the hands of the Colossus a little black mass-
it sank into the dark opening. The priests leaned over the edge
of the large slab, and a new chant burst out, celebrating the joys
of death and the renascence of eternity.
X-366
## p. 5842 (#430) ###########################################
5842
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
The children mounted up slowly, and as the smoke rose in
lofty whirling masses, they seemed from afar to disappear in a
cloud. Not one moved. All had been securely bound hand and
foot, and the dark drapery prevented them from seeing anything,
and from being recognized.
Hamilcar, in a red mantle like that of the priests of Moloch,
remained near the Baal, standing before the great toe of his right
foot. When the fourteenth child was put in, all the people saw
that he made a demonstrative gesture of horror, but quickly
resuming his attitude of composure, he crossed his arms, and
gazed on the ground. On the other side of the Colossus the
grand pontiff likewise remained motionless, bowing his head, upon
which was an Assyrian mitre, and observing on his breast the
gold plaque covered with prophetic stones, which threw out iri-
descent lights as the flames struck across them. He grew pale
and abstracted.
Hamilcar inclined his head, and they were both so near the
pyre that the hem of their robes in rising from time to time
swept it.
Moloch's brazen arms moved more rapidly; they no longer
paused. Each time a child was placed upon them, the priests of
Moloch extended their hands over the victim to charge upon it
the sins of the people, vociferating:-
"These are not men, but oxen! " and the multitude around
repeated, "Oxen! Oxen! " The Devotees screamed out, "Lord!
eat! " and the priests of Proserpine, conforming in terror to Car-
thage's need, mumbled their Eleusinian formula: "Pour forth
rain! conceive! " No sooner were the victims placed on the verge
of the aperture than they vanished, like a drop of water on a
red-hot plate, and whiffs of white smoke curled up through the
scarlet glow.
Yet the appetite of the god was not appeased; he still wanted
more. In order to supply him, the children were piled on his
hands, and were retained there by a great chain.
In the beginning, Devotees tried to count them, in order to
note if the total number corresponded to the days of the solar
year; but now so many were piled on that it was impossible to
distinguish them during the dizzy movements of those horrible.
arms. All this lasted a long time, until nightfall. Then the
interior divisions gave a most sombre glare. For the first time,
the burning flesh was visible. Some people even fancied that
they recognized hair, limbs, and entire bodies.
## p. 5843 (#431) ###########################################
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5843
The day fell; clouds gathered over the head of the Baal. The
pyre, now flameless, made a pyramid of glowing embers that
reached to his knees; and all crimson, like a giant covered with
blood, with head bent backward, he seemed to reel under the
weight of his intoxication. According as the priests urged haste,
the frenzy of the people augmented; as the number of victims
decreased, some cried out to spare them, others that Moloch must
have more. It seemed as though the walls, with their masses of
spectators, would crumble beneath the yells of horror and of
mystic voluptuousness. Then came into the alleys some faithful
ones, dragging their children, who clung to them; and they beat
the little hands to make them loose their hold, that they might
deliver them to the red men.
Occasionally the musicians paused from sheer exhaustion; and
in the lull could be heard the screams of mothers and the crack-
ling of the grease spattering on the coals. The mandrake-drinkers
crept on all-fours around the Colossus, roaring like tigers. The
Yidonim prophesied; the Devotees chanted with their cleft lips.
The railings were broken, for now all wanted to participate in
the sacrifice; and fathers whose children were deceased cast into
the yawning furnace their effigies, toys, and preserved bones.
Those who possessed knives rushed upon the others; they cut
each other's throats in their voracious rage, maddened by the
holocaust. The sacred slaves, with bronze winnowing-baskets,
took from the edge of the stone slab the fallen cinders, which
they tossed high in the air, that the sacrifice should be dispersed
over the entire city, and attain to the region of the stars.
The tumultuous noise and vast illumination had attracted the
Barbarians to the very foot of the walls. Climbing upon the ruins
of the helepolis, they looked on, gaping with horror.
