Speaker 1: Canon Alberick's scrap Book by m R. James. Saint Bertrand
de Commande is a decayed town on the spurs of
the Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse and still nearer
to Bagnier de Lauchamp. It was the site of a
bishopric until the Revolution and has a cathedral which is
visited by a certain number of tourists. In the spring
of eighteen eighty three an Englishman arrived at this old
world place. I can hardly dignify it with the name
of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He
was a Cambridge man who had come specially from Toulouse
to see Saint Bertrand's church, and had left two friends
who were less keen archaeologists than himself, and their hotel
at Toulouse, and a promise to join him on the
following morning. Half an hour at the church would satisfy them,
and all three could then pursue their journey in the
direction of Ousche. But our Englishman had come early on
the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill
a note book and to use several dozen plates in
the process of describing and photographing every corner of the
wonderful Church that dominates the little hill of Command. In
order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary
to monopolize the verger of the church for the day.
The verger or sacristan I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate
as it may be, was accordingly sent for by the
somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge,
And when he came the Englishman found him an unexpectedly
interesting object of study. It was not in the personal
appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man that the
interest lay. For he was precisely like dozens of other
church guardians in France, but in a curious furtival rather
hunted and oppressed air which he had. He was perpetually
half glancing behind him. The muscles of his back and
shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual nervous contraction,
as if he were expecting every moment to find himself
in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew
whether to put him down as a man haunted by
a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience,
or as an unbearably hen pecked her husband. The probabilities,
when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea, but
still the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable
persecutor even than a termagant wife. However, the Englishman, let
us call him Denistone, was soon too deep in his
note book and too busy with his camera to give
more than an occasional glance to the Sacristan. Whenever he
did look at him, he found him at no great distance,
either huddling himself back against the wall or crouching in
one of the gorgeous stools. Denistoone became rather fidgety after
a while, mingled suspicions that he was keeping the old
man from his dejeny, though he was regarded as likely
to make away with Saint Bertrand's ivory crozying or with
the dusty stuffed crocodile that hangs over the font began
to torment him. Won't you go home? He said? At last,
I am quite well able to finish my notes alone.
You can lock me in if you like. I shall
want at least two hours more here, and it must
be cold for you isn't it good? Heavens, said the
little man, whom the suggestion seemed to throw into a
state of unaccountable terror. Such a thing cannot be thought
of for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church. No, No,
two hours, three hours. All will be the same to me.
I have breakfasted. I am not at all cold, with
many thanks to Monsieur. Very well, my little man, quoth
Deniston to himself. You have been warned, and you must
take the consequences before the expiration of the two hours.
The stalls, the enormous dilapidated organ, the quiet screen of
Bishop John de Moolian, the remnants of glass and tapestry,
and the objects in the treasure chamber had been well
and truly examined. The sacristan still keeping at denistuone's heels,
and every now and then whipping round as if he
had been stung, when one or other of the strange
noises that trouble a large empty building fell on his ear.
Curious noises they were sometimes. Once, Deniston said to me,
I could have sworn I heard a thin metallic voice
laughing high up in the tower. I darted an inquiring
glance at my Sacristan. He was white to the lips.
It is he that is, It is no one. The
door is locked, was all he said, and we looked
at each other for a full minute. Another little incident
puzzled Denistoon a good deal. He was examining a large,
dark picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a
series illustrating the miracles of Saint Bertrand. The composition of
the picture is well nigh and decipherable, but there is
a Latin legend below which runs, thus, caliite s bertrandis
le bravit hominem quem diabolus diu volibat strangulaire how Saint
Bertram delivered a man whom the devil long sought to strangle.
Denistoon was turning to the Sacristan with a smile and
a jocular remark of some sort on his lips, but
he was confounded to see the old man on his knees,
gazing at the picture with the eye of a suppliant
and agony, his hands tightly clasped, and a rain of
tears on his cheeks. Deniston naturally pretended to have noticed nothing,
but the question would not go away from him. Why
should ador be of this kind affect any one so strongly?
He seemed to himself to be getting some sort of
clue to the reason of the strange look that had
been puzzling him all the day. The man must be
a monomaniac, But what was his monomania? It was nearly
five o'clock, The short day was drawing in, and the
church began to fill with shadows, while the curious noises,
the muffled footfalls and distant talking voices that had been
perceptible all day seemed no doubt. Because of the fading
light and the consequently quickened sense of hearing to become
more frequent and insistent, The sacristan began for the first
time to show signs of hurry and impatience. He heaved
a sigh of relief when camera and notebook were finally
packed up and stowed away, and hurriedly beckoned Denniston to
the western door of the church under the tower. It
was time to ring the Angelus. A few pulls at
the reluctant rope, and the great bell Betrand high in
the tower, began to speak and swung her voice up
among the pines and down to the valleys loud with
mountain streams, calling the dwellers on those lonely hills to
remember and repeat the salutation of the Angel to her,
whom he called blessed among women. With that, a profound
quiet seemed to fall for the first time that day
upon the little town, and Deniston and the sacristan went
out of the church. On the doorstep, they fell into conversation.
Monsieur seemed to interest himself in the old choir books
in the sacristy. Undoubtedly, I was going to ask you
if there were a library in the town. No, Monsieur.
Perhaps there used to be one belonging to the chapter,
but it is now such a small place. Here came
a strange pause of irresolution, as it seemed. Then with
a sort of plunge, he went on, But if Monsieur
is amateur de vieux, leive I have at home something
that might interest him, it is not a hundred yards
At once. All Denistoon's cherished dreams of finding priceless manuscripts
in untrodden corners of France flashed up to die down
again the next moment. It was probably a stupid missile
of plant ins printing about fifteen eight. Where was the
likelihood that a place so near to lose would not
have been ransacked long ago by collectors. However, it would
be foolish not to go. He would reproach himself for
ever after if he refused. So they set off on
the way. The curious irresolution and sudden determination of the
Sacristan recurred to Denistoon, and he wondered in a shamefaced
way whether he was being decoyed into some purlieu to
be made away with as a supposed rich englishman. He contrived,
therefore to begin talking with his guide, and to drag
in in a rather clumsy fashion, the fact that he
expected two friends to join him early next morning. To
his surprise, the announcement seemed to relieve the Sacristan at
once of some of the anxiety that oppressed him. That
is well, he said, quite brightly, That is very well.
Monsieur will travel in company with his friends. They will
be always near him. It is a good thing to
travel thus in company. Sometimes the last word appeared to
be added as an afterthought, and to bring with it
a relapse into gloom for the poor little man. They
were soon at the house, which was one rather larger
than its neighbors. Stone built with a shield carved over
the door, the shield of Alberic de Molion, a collateral descendant,
Deniston tells me of Bishop John de Mooleion. This Alberic
was a canon of commands from sixteen eighty to seventeen
o one. The upper windows of the mansion were boarded up,
and the whole place bore as does the rest of command.
The aspect of decaying age arrived on his doorstep. The
sacristan paused a moment. Perhaps he said, perhaps, after all,
the monsieur has not the time, not at all, lots
of time, nothing to do till to morrow. Let us
see what it is you have got. The door was
opened at this point, and a face looked out, a
face far younger than the Sacristan's, but bearing something of
the same distressing look. Only here it seemed to be
the mark not so much of fear for personal safety
as of acute anxiety on behalf of another. Plainly, the
owner of the face was the Sacristan's daughter Anne, and
but for the expression I have described, she was a
handsome girl enough. She brightened up considerably on seeing her father,
accompanied by an able bodied stranger. A few remarks passed
between father and daughter, of which Deniston only caught these
words said by the sacristan. He was laughing in the church,
words which were answered only by a look of terror
from the girl. But in another minute they were in
the sitting room of the house, a small high chamber
with a stone floor, full of moving shadows, cast by
a wood fire that flickered on a great hearth. Something
of the character of an oratory was imparted to it
by a tall crucifix, which reached almost to the ceiling.
On one side. The figure was painted of the natural colors,
the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of
some age and solidity, And when a lamp had been
brought and chairs set, the sacristan went to this chest
and produced therefrom With growing excitement and nervousness, as Deniston thought,
a large book wrapped in a white cloth. On witchcloth,
a cross was rudely embroidered in red thread. Even before
the wrapping had been removed, denistuone began to be interested
by the size and shape of the volume. Too large
for a missile, he thought, and not the shape of
an antophoner. Perhaps it may be something good after all.
The next moment the book was open, and Deniston felt
that he had at last lit upon something better than good.
Before him lay a large folio, bound perhaps late in
the seventeenth century, with the arms of Canon Alberic de
Moleon stamped in gold on the sides. There may have
been one hundred and fifty leaves of paper in the book,
and on almost every one of them was fastened a
leaf from an illuminated manuscript, such a collection Denistoune had
hardly dreamed of in his wildest moments. He were ten
leaves from a copy of Genesis, illustrated with pictures which
could not be later than a d. Seven hundred. Further
on was a complete set of pictures from a psalter
of English execution of the very finest kind that the
thirteenth century could produce. And perhaps best of all, there
were twenty leaves of unsealed writing in Latin, which, as
a few words seen here and there told him at once,
must belong to some very early unknown Patristic treaties. Could
it possibly be a fragment of the copy of Papius
on the Words of Our Lord, which was known to
have existed as late as the twelfth century at Nemes,
we now know that these leaves did contain a considerable
fragment of that work, if not of that actual copy
of it. In any case, his mind was made up
that book must return to Cambridge with him, even if
he had to draw the whole of his balance from
the bank and stay at Saint Bertrand till the money came.
He glanced up at the sacristan to see if his
face yielded any hint that the book was for sale.
The sacristan was pale, and his lips were working. If
Monsieur will turn on to the end, he said. So.
Monsieur turned on, meeting new treasures at every rise of
a leaf, and at the end of the book he
came upon two sheets of paper of much more recent
date than anything he had seen yet, which puzzled him considerably.
They must be contemporary, he decided, with the unprincipled canon Alberic,
who had doubtless plundered the chapter library of Saint Bertrand
to form this priceless scrap book. On the first of
the paper sheets was a plan, carefully drawn and instantly
recognizable by a person who knew the ground of the
south isle and cloisters of Saint Bertrand's there were curious
signs looking like planetary symbols, and a few Hebrew words
in the corners, and in the northwest angle of the
cloister was a cross drawn in gold paint. Below the
plan was some lines of writing in Latin, which ran
thus responsor twelve mis death sixteen ninety four in terragartum
est in veniamne response from est in vennies viamne dives
vies vivamne invidendis vives mariarne. In lectoma Ita Answers of
the twelfth of December sixteen ninety four, it was asked,
shall I find it? Answer, thou shalt? Shall I become rich?
Thou wilt? Shall I live an object of envy? Thou wilt?
Shall I die in my bed? Thou wilt? A good
specimen of the treasure Hunter's record quite reminds one of
mister Minor canoncach Remain. In Old Saint Paul's was Denis
Stoone's comment, and he turned the leaf. What he then
saw impressed him, as he has often told me, more
than he could have conceived any drawing or picture capable
of impressing him. And though the drawing he saw is
no longer in existence, there is a photograph of it
which I possess, which fully bears out that statement. The
picture in question was a Seapier drawing at the end
of the seventeenth century, representing one would say, at first,
a biblical scene. For the architecture, the picture represented an interior,
and the figures had that semi classical flavor about them
which the artists of two hundred years ago thought appropriate
illustrations of the Bible. On the right was a king
on his throne, the throne elevated on twelve steps, a
canopy overhead, soldiers on either side, evidently King Solomon. He
was bending forward with outstretched scepter in attitude of command.
His face expressed horror and disgust. Yet there was in
it also the mark of imperious command and confident power.
The left half of the picture was the strangest, however,
the interest plainly centered. There on the pavement before the
throne were grouped four soldiers surrounding a crouching figure which
must be described in a moment. A fifth soldier lay
dead on the pavement, his neck distorted and his eyeballs
starting from his head. The force around the guards were
looking at the king in their faces, the sentiment of
horror was intensified. They seemed, in fact only restraint from
flight by their implicit trust in their master. All this
terror was plainly excited by the being that crouched in
their midst. I entirely despair of conveying, by any words,
the impression which this figure makes upon anyone who looks
at it, I recollect. Once showing the photograph of the
drawing to a lecturer on morphology, a person of I
was going to say, abnormally sane and unimaginative habits of mind.
He absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of
that evening, and he told me afterwards that for many
nights he had not dared to put out his light
before going to sleep. However, the main traits of the
figure I can at least indicate. At first, you saw
only a mass of coarse, matted black hair. Presently it
was seen that this covered a body, a fearful thinness,
almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like wires.
The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered like the
body with long coarse hair and hideously taloned. The eyes,
touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black pupils,
and were fixed upon the throned king with a look
of beastlike hate. Imagine one of the awful bird catching
spiders of South America translated into human form and endowed
with intelligence just less than human, and you will have
some faint conception of the terror inspired by the appalling effigy.
One remark is universally made by those to whom I
have showed the picture. It was drawn from the life.
As soon as the first shock of his irresistible fright
had subsided, Denistoon stole a look at his hosts. The
sacristan's hands were pressed upon his eyes. His daughter, looking
up at the cross on the wall, was telling her
beads feverishly. At last, the question was asked, is this
book for sale? There was the same hesitation, the same
plum of determination that he had noticed before, and then
came the welcome answer, If monsieur pleases, how much do
you ask for it? I will take two hundred and
fifty francs. This was confounding. Even a collector's conscience is
sometimes stirred and Denistoon's conscience was tenderer than a collector's.
My good man, he said, again and again, your book
is worth far more than two hundred and fifty francs.
I assure you far more. But the answer did not vary.
I will take two hundred and fifty francs, not more.
There was really no possibility of refusing such a chance.
The money was paid, the receipt signed, a glass of
wine drunk over the transaction, and then the sacristan seemed
to become a new man. He stood upright, He ceased
to throw those suspicious glances behind him. He actually laughed,
or tried to laugh. Denistuon rose to go. I shall
have the honor of accompanying Monsieur to his hotel, said
the sacristan. Oh, no, thanks, it isn't a hundred yards.
I know the way perfectly, and there is a moon.
The offer was pressed three or four times and refused
as often. Then Monsieur will summon me if if he
finds occasion. He will keep the middle of the road.
The sides are so rough. Certainly, certainly, said denistuone who
was impatient to examine his prize by himself, and he
stepped out into the passage with his book under his arm.
Here he was met by the daughter. She, it appeared,
was anxious to do a little business of her own account,
perhaps like Gahazi, to take somewhat from the foreigner whom
her father had spared. A silver crucifix and chain for
the neck. Monsieur would perhaps be good enough to accept it. Well. Really,
Denistune hadn't much use for these things. What did mademoiselle
want for it? Nothing? Nothing in the world. Monsieur is
more than welcome to it. The tone in which this,
and much more was said was unmistakably genuine, so that
Denistoune was reduced to profuse thanks and submitted to have
the chain put round his neck. It really seemed as
if he had rendered the father and daughter some service
which they hardly knew how to repay. As he set
off with his book, they stood at the door looking
after him, and they were still looking when he waved
them a last good night from the steps of the
Chateau Rouge. Dinner was over, and Denistoon was in his bedroom,
shut up alone with his acquisition. The landlady had manifested
a particular interest in him since he had told her
that he had paid a visit to the sacristan and
bought an old book from him. He thought, too, that
he had heard a hurried dialogue between her and the
said sacristan in the passage outside of the Sala Marges,
some words to the effect that Pierre and Bertrand would
be sleeping in the house had closed the conversation. All
this time a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping
over him, nervous reaction perhaps after the delight of his discovery.
Whatever it was, it resolved in a conviction that there
was some one behind him, and that he was far
more comfortable with his back to the wor wall. All this,
of course, weighed light in the balance as against the
obvious value of the collection he had acquired. And now,
as I said, he was alone in his bedroom taking
stock of Canon Alberick's treasures, in which every moment revealed
something more charming. Bless Canon Alberick, said Deniston, who had
an inveterate habit of talking to himself, I wonder where
he is now, Dear me, I wish that Landlady would
learn to laugh in a more cheering manner. Makes one
feel as if there was someone dead in the house.
Half a pipe more, did you say? I think perhaps
you are right. I wonder what that crucifix is that
the young woman insisted on giving me last century. I
suppose yes, Probably it is rather a nuisance of a
thing to have round one's neck, just too heavy. Most
likely her father has been wearing it for years. I
might give it a clean up before I put it away.
He had taken the crucifix off and laid it on
the table when his attention was caught by an object
lying on the red cloth just by his left elbow.
Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted
through his brain with their own incalculable quickness. A pen wiper, no,
no such thing in the house. A rat, no too black,
A large spider, I trust, A goodness, not no good God.
A hand like the hand in that picture. In another
infinitismal flash, he had taken it in pale, dusky skin,
covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength. Coarse
black hairs longer than ever grew on a human hand,
nails rising from the ends of the fingers and curving
sharply down and forward, gray, horny and wrinkled. He flew
out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching at
his heart. The shape whose left hand rested on the
table was rising to a standing posture behind his seat.
It's right hand crooked above his scalp. There was black
and tattered drapery about it. The coarse hair covered it
as in the drawing. The lower jaw was thin, what
can I call it? Shallow like a beast's teeth showed
behind the black lips there was no nose. The eyes
of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils showed black
and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy
life which shone there were the most horrifying features in
the whole vision. There was intelligence of a kind in them,
intelligence beyond that of a beast, below that of a man.
The feelings which this horror stirred in Denis tone were
the intensest physical fear and the most profound mental loathing.
What did he do? What could he do? He has
never been quite certain what words he said, but he
knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the
silver crucide, that he was conscious of a movement towards
him on the part of the damon, and that he
screamed with the voice of an animal in hideous pain.
Pierre and Bertrand, the two sturdy little serving men who
rushed in, saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust aside by
something that passed out between them, and found Denistone in
a swoon. They sat up with him that night, and
his two friends were at Saint Bertrand by nine o'clock
the next morning. He himself, though still shaken and nervous,
was almost himself by that time, and his story frowned
credence with them, though not until they had seen the
drawing and talked with the sacristan almost at dawn. The
little man had come to the inn on some pretense
and had listened with the deepest interest to the story
retailed by the landlady. He showed no surprise. It is he,
It is he, I have seen him myself, was his
only comment, and to all questionings but one reply was
vouchsafed de fois geleevu millefoort Giles Santi. He would tell
them nothing of the provenance of the book, nor any
details of his experiences. I shall soon sleep, and my
rest will be sweet. Why should you trouble me? He said.
He died that summer. His daughter married and settled at
Saint Papoul. She never understood the circumstances of her father's obsession.
We shall never know what he, or Canon Alberic Demoleon suffered.
At the back of that fateful drawing were some lines
of writing which may be supposed to throw light on
the situation. Contradictio salimonis come demonio nocturno Albericus de molione
delineavit fidaeus in auditorium p s qui habitat sancte bertrand
demoniorum efugato intercidar proma miserrimo primum uidi nocte twelve mis
death sixteen ninety four. We de beau mox ultimum picowi
et passus sum pleura adhuc pas us. December twenty ninth,
seventeen O one i e. The Dispute of Solomon with
the Demon of the Knight, drawn by Albert de Moleon
versical O, Lord, make haste to help me. Salme whoso
dwelleth x c I Saint Bertrand who put us devils
to flight, pray for me most unhappy. I saw it
first on the night of December the twelfth, sixteen ninety four.
Soon I shall see it for the last time. I
have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet
December than twenty ninth, seventeen o one. The Gallia Christiana
gives the date of the Canon's death as December thirty first,
seventeen o one, in bed of a sudden caesar. Details
of this kind are not common in the great work
of the Samarthani. I have never quite understood what was
Denistoon's view of the events I have narrated. He quoted
to me once a text from Ecclesiasticus. Some spirits there
be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury
lay on sore strokes. On another occasion, he said, Isaiah
was a very sensible man. Doesn't he say something about
night monsters living in the ruins of Babylon? These things
are rather beyond us at present. Another confidence of his
impressed me rather, and I sympathized with it. We had
been last year to command to see Canon Alberic's tomb.
It is a great marble erection with an effigy of
the Cannon in a large Wig and Soutain, and an
elaborate eulogy of his learning below. I saw denistoone talking
for some time with the vicar of Saint Bertrand's, and
as we drove away, he said to me, I hope
it isn't wrong. You know, I am a Presbyterian, but
I I believe there will be saying of Mass and
singing of dirges for Alberic de Mooleon's rest. Then he added,
with a touch of Northern British in his tone, I
heard no notion there came, so dear. The book is
in the went with collection at Cambridge. The drawing was
photographed and then burnt by Denistoon on the day when
he left commande, on the occasion of his first visit
of Canon. Alberic Scrapper