THE REVEREND FATHER GAUCHER’S ELIXIR ALPHONSE DAUDET

“Drink this, neighbour, and tell me what you think of it.”

And drop by drop, with the scrupulous care of a lapidary counting pearls, the curé of Graveson poured me out two fingers of a golden-green liquor, warm, shimmering, exquisite.... It warmed my stomach like sunshine.

“That is Father Gaucher’s elixir, the pride and the health of our Provence,” the good man informed me triumphantly. “It is made at the Premonstratensian convent, a couple of leagues from your mill.... Isn’t it worth all their Chartreuses?... And if you only knew how amusing the story of this elixir is! Just listen....”

Thereupon quite innocently, thinking no evil, in the Presbytery dining-room so simple and quiet with its little pictures of the Stations of the Cross and its pretty white starched curtains like surplices, the abbé began to tell me a tale just a little sceptical and irreverent, after the manner of a story from Erasmus or D’Assoucy.

“Twenty years ago the Premonstratensians, or rather the White Fathers, as our Provençals call them, had fallen into great poverty. If you had seen their house in those days, it would have made your heart ache.

“The great wall and St. Pachomius’ tower were falling into pieces. Around the weed-grown cloisters the columns were splitting, the stone saints were crumbling in their niches. Not a window was whole, not a door held fast. In the garths and chapels the Rhone wind blew as it does in the Camargue, extinguishing the candles, breaking the lead of the windows, and driving the holy water out of the stoups. But saddest of all was the convent steeple as silent as a deserted dove-cote, and the fathers, for want of means to buy themselves a bell, forced to ring to matins with clappers of almond-wood!...

“Poor White Fathers! I can see them yet, at a Corpus Christi procession, filing sadly past in their patched mantles, pale, thin from their diet of pumpkins and melons, and behind them his lordship the abbot, who hung down his head as he went, ashamed at letting the sun see his crosier with the gilding worn off and his white woollen mitre all moth-eaten. The ladies of the confraternity wept in their ranks for pity at the sight, and the big banner-carriers grinned and whispered to each other, as they pointed at the poor monks:

“‛Starlings go thin when they go in a flock!’

“The fact is that the unfortunate White Fathers were themselves reduced to debating whether they would not be better to take their flight across the world and seek fresh pasture each one where he could.

“So then, one day when this grave question was being discussed in the chapter, a message was brought to the prior that Brother Gaucher asked to be heard before the council.... You must understand that this Brother Gaucher was the convent cowherd; that is to say, he spent his days in wandering from arch to arch of the cloisters, driving two scraggy cows, which sought for grass in the crevices of the pavement. Brought up until his twelfth year by an old half-witted woman in Les Baux, called Auntie Bégon, and then taken in by the monks, the unfortunate cowherd had never been able to learn anything except to drive his beasts and to repeat his paternoster, and even that he said in Provençal; for he had a thick skull, and his wits were about as sharp as a leaden dagger. A fervent Christian, for all that, though somewhat visionary, quite comfortable in his sackcloth, and disciplining himself with strong conviction and such arms!...

“When they saw him enter the chapter-house, simple and clownish, and salute the assembly with a scrape, prior, canons, treasurer, and every one burst out laughing. That was always the effect produced everywhere that his honest, grizzled face appeared, with its goatee and its somewhat vacuous eyes; so Brother Gaucher was not put about.

“‛Your Reverences,’ he said in a good-natured tone, twisting at his olive-stone beads, ‛it’s a true saying that empty barrels make the most sound. What do you think? By putting my poor brains to steep, though they’re soft enough already, I do believe I’ve found the way to get us all out of our difficulties.

“‛It’s this way. You know Auntie Bégon, the good woman who took care of me when I was little—God rest her soul, the old sinner! She used to sing some queer songs when she had drink—Well, what I want to tell you, my reverend fathers, is that when Auntie Bégon was alive she knew the herbs that grow in the mountains as well and better than any old hag in Corsica. And, by the same token, in her latter days she compounded an incomparable elixir by blending five or six sorts of simples, which we used to go and gather together in the Alpilles. That’s many a year ago; but I think that with the aid of Saint Augustine, and the permission of our father abbot, I might—if I search carefully—recall the composition of that mysterious elixir. Then we should only have to put it into bottles and sell it a little dear, and the community would be able to get rich at its ease, like our brethren at La Trappe and the Grande....’

“He had not time to finish. The prior got up and fell on his neck. The canons took him by the hands. The treasurer, even more deeply moved than any of the others, respectfully kissed the frayed hem of his cowl.... Then each returned to his stall to deliberate; and in solemn assembly the chapter decided to entrust the cows to Brother Thrasybulus, in order that Brother Gaucher might devote himself entirely to the preparation of his elixir.

“How did the good brother manage to recall Auntie Bégon’s recipe? What efforts, what vigils did it cost him? History does not relate. But this much is certain, at the end of six months the White Fathers’ elixir was very popular already. In all the Comtat, in all the Arles district not a mas, not a farm-house but had at the backdoor of its spence, among the bottles of wine syrup and jars of olives picholines, a little brown stone flagon sealed with the arms of Provence, with a monk in ecstasy on a silver label. Thanks to the vogue of its elixir the house of the Premonstratensians got rich very rapidly. St Pachomius’ tower was rebuilt. The prior got a new mitre, the church grand new painted windows; and in the fine tracery of the steeple a whole flight of bells, big and little, alighted one fine Easter morning, chiming and pealing in full swing.

“As for Brother Gaucher, the poor lay brother whose rusticities used to amuse the chapter so, he was never mentioned now in the convent. They only knew the Reverend Father Gaucher, a man of brains and ability, who lived quite isolated from the petty, multifarious occupations of the cloister, and shut himself up all day in his distillery, while thirty monks scoured the mountains in search of his fragrant herbs.... This distillery, to which no one, not even the prior, had the right of entry, was an old abandoned chapel at the bottom of the canons’ garden. The good fathers’ simplicity had made it into a very mysterious and formidable place; and any bold and inquisitive monk who managed to reach the rose-window above the door by scrambling up the climbing vines promptly tumbled down, terrified at his peep of Father Gaucher with his necromancer’s beard, stooping over his furnaces, hydrometer in hand; and all around him red stone retorts, gigantic alembics, glass worms, a regular weird litter that glowed as if enchanted in the red gleam of the windows....

“At close of day, when the last stroke of the Angelus sounded, the door of this place of mystery was opened discreetly, and his Reverence betook himself to the church for the evening office. You should have seen the reception that he got as he traversed the monastery! The brethren lined up as he passed. They said:

“‛Hush!... He has the secret!...’

“The treasurer walked behind him and spoke to him, bowing deferentially.... Amid these adulations the Father went his way, wiping his brow, his three-cornered hat with its broad brim on the back of his head like an aureole, looking complacently about him at the wide courts planted with orange-trees, the blue roofs where new vanes were turning, and in the dazzling white cloister, amid the neat flower columns, the canons all newly rigged out, walking two and two with contented faces.

“‛They owe all that to me!’ his Reverence said inwardly; and, as often as he did so, the thought made his pride rise in gusts.

“The poor man was heavily punished for it. You’ll hear how that happened....

“You must understand that one evening, whilst the office was being sung, he arrived at the church in an extraordinary state of agitation: red, breathless, his cowl awry, and so upset that in taking holy water he dipped his sleeves into it up to the elbows. At first they thought that it was excitement at being late; but when they saw him make profound reverences to the organ and the galleries instead of saluting the high altar, rush across the church like a whirlwind, wander about in the choir for five minutes in search of his stall, then, once he was seated, sway right and left, smiling benignly, a murmur of astonishment ran through the nave and aisles. They chuckled to one another behind their breviaries:

“‛Whatever is the matter with our Father Gaucher?... Whatever is the matter with our Father Gaucher?’

“Twice the prior impatiently let his crosier fall on the pavement to command silence.... Down at the end of the choir the psalms still went on; but the responses lacked animation....

“Suddenly, in the middle of the Ave verum, lo and behold, Father Gaucher flung himself back in his stall, and sang out at the top of his voice:

“General consternation. Every one rose. There were cries of:

“‛Take him away!... He’s possessed!’

“The canons crossed themselves. His Lordship flourished his crosier.... But Father Gaucher saw nothing, heard nothing; and two sturdy monks had to drag him out by the side-door of the choir, struggling like a demoniac and going on worse than ever with his ‛patatins’ and ‛tarabans.’

“Next morning, at daybreak, the unfortunate man was on his knees in the prior’s oratory, owning his fault with a torrent of tears.

“‛It was the elixir, my lord; it was the elixir that overcame me,’ he said, beating on his breast.

“And seeing him so conscience-smitten, so penitent, the good prior himself was moved.

“‛Come, come, Father Gaucher, set your mind at rest; it will all pass away like dew in the sun.... After all, the scandal has not been so great as you think. To be sure, there was a song that was a little ... hem! hem!... Yet let us hope that the novices would not pick it up.... But now, let us see; tell me frankly how it all happened.... It was when you were trying the elixir, was it not? Perhaps your hand was too heavy?... Yes, yes, I understand.... It is like brother Schwartz, the inventor of gunpowder: you have been the victim of your invention. But tell me, my good friend, is it absolutely necessary for you to try this terrible elixir on yourself?’

“‛Unfortunately it is, my lord! The gauge gives me the strength and the degree of alcohol, it is true; but for the fineness, the velvetiness, I can’t very well trust anything but my tongue!...’

“‛Ah, to be sure!... But listen for another moment to what I am going to say to you.... When you are compelled to taste the elixir thus, does it seem good? Do you derive any pleasure from it?’

“‛Alas, yes, my lord!’ said the unfortunate father, blushing to the roots of his hair. ‛These last two evenings I have found such a bouquet in it, such an aroma!... Surely it must be the Devil that has played me this sorry trick.... And so I have quite decided to use nothing but the gauge in future. If the liquor is not fine enough, if it does not pearl enough, so much the worse....’

“‛For any sake don’t do that,’ the prior interrupted excitedly. ‛We must not run the risk of making our customers dissatisfied.... All you have to do, now that you are forewarned, is to be on your guard.... Let us see, how much do you require to ascertain?... Fifteen or twenty drops, eh?... Let’s say twenty drops.... The Devil will be smart indeed if he catches you with twenty drops.... In any case, to prevent accidents, I’ll dispense you from coming to church in future. You will say the evening office in the distillery.... And, meanwhile, go in peace, reverend father, and, above all things, count your drops carefully.’

“Alas, his poor reverence had much need to count his drops!... The Devil had hold of him, and never afterwards let him go.

“The distillery heard some strange offices!

“So long as it was day, all went well. The father was tolerably calm: he prepared his chafing-dishes and alembics, sorted his herbs carefully, all Provence herbs, fine, grey, serrated, hot with perfume and sunshine.... But in the evening, when the simples were infused and the elixir was cooling in great copper basins, the poor man’s martyrdom began.

“‛Seventeen ... eighteen ... nineteen ... twenty!...’

“The drops fell from the stirring-rod into the silver-gilt goblet. The father swallowed the twenty at a gulp, almost without pleasure. What he longed for was the twenty-first. Oh, that twenty-first drop!... Then, to escape temptation, he went and knelt down at the farthest end of the laboratory, and buried himself in his paternosters. But from the still-warm liquor there rose a faint steam charged with aromas, which came stealing about him and sent him back willy-nilly to his basins.... The liquor was a lovely golden green.... Leaning over it with open nostrils, the father stirred it gently with his stirring-rod, and in the little sparkling bubbles that the emerald wave carried round he seemed to see Auntie Bégon’s eyes laughing and twinkling as they looked at him....

“‛Here goes! Another drop!’

“And with one drop and another the unfortunate at last had his goblet full to the brim. Then, completely vanquished, he sank down in a great arm-chair, and lolling at ease, his eyes half shut, tasted his sin sip by sip, saying softly to himself with a delicious remorse:

“‘Ah! I’m damning myself ... damning myself....’

“The most terrible thing was that at the bottom of this diabolical elixir he rediscovered by some black art or other all Auntie Bégon’s naughty songs: ‛There are three little gossips, who talk of making a banquet’ ... or: ‛Master Andrew’s little shepherdess goes off to the wood by her little self,’ and always the famous one about the White Fathers: ‛Patatin, patatan.’

“Imagine his confusion next day when his cell-mates said to him slyly:

“‛Eh, eh, Father Gaucher, you had a bee in your bonnet last night, when you went to bed!’

“Then it was tears, despair and fasting, sackcloth and discipline. But nothing could avail against the demon of the elixir, and every evening at the same hour his possession began anew.

“All this time orders were pouring into the abbey in excess of expectation. They came from Nîmes, from Aix, from Avignon, from Marseilles.... Every day the convent became more like a factory. There were packing brothers, labelling brothers, others for the accounts, others for the carting; the service of God may have lost a few tolls of the bells now and again by it; but I can assure you that the poor folk of the district lost nothing....

“Well, then, one fine Sunday morning, whilst the treasurer was reading in full chapter his stock-sheet at the end of the year, and the good canons were listening to him with sparkling eyes and smiles on their lips, who should burst into the middle of the meeting but Father Gaucher, shouting out:

“‛That’s an end of it!... I can’t stand it any longer!... Give me my cows again!’

“‛But what is it, Father Gaucher?’ asked the prior, who had his own suspicions of what it was.

“‛What is it, my lord?... I’m on a fair way of preparing myself a fine eternity of flames and pitch-forks.... I drink, and drink, like a lost soul; that’s what it is!...’

‛But I told you to count your drops.’

‛Ah, so you did! To count my drops! But I would need to count by goblets now.... Yes, your Reverences, that’s what I’ve come to. Three bottles an evening!... You know quite well that can’t go on for ever.... So, get whom you like to make the elixir.... God’s fire burn me, if I take anything more to do with it!’

“There was no more laughing for the chapter.

“‛But, wretched man, you’ll ruin us!’ cried the treasurer, brandishing his ledger.

“‛Would you rather I damned myself?’

“Thereupon the prior stood up.

“‛Reverend sirs,’ he said, stretching out his fine white hand, on which the pastoral ring glistened, ‛it can all be arranged.... It’s at night, is it not, my dear son, that the demon assails you?...’

‛Yes, Sir Prior, regularly every evening.... When I see the night coming on, I get all in a sweat, saving your Reverence’s presence, like Capitou’s ass, when he saw them come with the pack-saddle.’

“‛Well, then, keep your mind easy.... In future, every evening, during the office, we’ll recite on your behalf the Prayer of Saint Augustine, to which plenary indulgence is attached.... With that, you are safe, whatever happens.... It is absolution at the very moment of sin.’

“‘O that is good, thank you, Sir Prior.’

“And, without asking anything more, Father Gaucher returned to his alembics as light as a lark.

“And in fact, from that moment, every evening, at the end of compline, the officiant never failed to say:

“‘Let us pray for our poor Father Gaucher, who is sacrificing his soul in the interests of the community. Oremus, Domine....’

“And, while the prayer ran along all those white cowls prostrated in the shadow of the naves, like a little breeze over snow, away at the other end of the convent, behind the lighted windows of the distillery, Father Gaucher might be heard chanting open-throated:

At this point the good curé stopped short in horror. “Mercy on us! If my parishioners heard me!”