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Title: The twelve best short stories in the French language
Editor: Auguste Dorchain
Release date: November 3, 2024 [eBook #74669]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Gowans and Gray
Credits: Andrés V. Galia, GenKnit, Knysna and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
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* * * * *
GOWANSCS COSMOPOLITAN LIBRARY. NO. 5
French Section
THE TWELVE BEST SHORT STORIES
IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE
THE TWELVE BEST
SHORT STORIES
IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE
SELECTED BY
AUGUSTE DORCHAIN
GOWANS & GRAY, LTD.
5 ROBERT STREET, ADELPHI, LONDON, W.C.
58 CADOGAN STREET, GLASGOW
1915
_First Edition, Demy 8vo, June, 1915._
_Second Edition, Small Fcap. 8vo, September, 1915._
PREFACE
French literature is perhaps more abundant than any other in those
short works of imagination that are called in France _contes_ or
_nouvelles_, in order to contrast them with those extended narratives
for which the name of _romans_ is reserved. As far back as the Middle
Ages, during the period of the interminable _chansons de geste_,
then of the romances of chivalry, not less diffuse, which succeeded
them, the French took pleasure in telling short stories, of which
some, such as _Aucassin and Nicolette_, still retain, for those whom
their antiquated language does not repel, much interest and charm. In
like manner, when the Renaissance ends, in the period of the ample
burlesque epic of Rabelais, the Queen of Navarre, in the tales of her
_Heptameron_, vies with the _novellieri_ of Italy. In the following
century, during which Spanish influence prevailed, we hardly find
any more short stories appearing in separate form, but novelists, in
the manner of Cervantes in his _Don Quixote_, interpolate some here
and there in the plot of their main works of fiction, as halts and
resting-places for the mind of the reader: like D’Urfé in his _Astrea_,
or Madame De La Fayette in _Zaïde_; like, again, Le Sage in his _Gil
Blas_ at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Later on, the
eighteenth century will come to restore the _genre_ to its sway, and
Voltaire will be a master in it; nevertheless he will hardly cultivate
it without making it serve philosophical purposes. Along with him,
more than one minor story-teller of merit, such as the Chevalier De
Boufflers, could be named, but not without regret that their wit and
elegance should be employed in the service of a somewhat libertine
morality.
From the rapid sketch which precedes, the reasons, whether of substance
or of form, which prevent us from including in our selection any of the
short stories which were written before the nineteenth century, will
easily be deduced. Besides, it is only then that the _genre_ flourishes
in all directions, and that the writers who cultivate it produce the
most numerous, finished and varied _nouvelles_ and _contes_. The names
of the twelve authors selected were obviously all imposed upon us; but
our embarrassment commenced when it was necessary to choose one single
tale from their works. It is certain, for instance, that we might
have preferred, in the case of Alphonse Daudet, a page in which his
trembling sensibility was expressed, and not one of those into which he
has rather put his witty Provençal gaiety; and some people may regret
that Guy de Maupassant is represented here by a sentimental tale rather
than one of those stories into which he has poured his bitter realism
and his black pessimism. To those who might be inclined to reproach
us, we would answer that we have been guided, not only by the wish to
present always the most characteristic work of each author, but by
that of giving to our selection the greatest variety of tone among the
narratives thus placed in juxtaposition, and also by the desire never
to lose sight of any moral proprieties. We have only imposed upon
ourselves one absolute rule: only to offer here perfect, indisputable
masterpieces. We hope that no one will question our success in this.
A. D.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE ADVENTURES OF THE LAST OF THE ABENCERRAGES (1806)
_Viscount Chateaubriand_ 9
THE PRISONERS OF THE CAUCASUS (1815) _Count Xavier de Maistre_ 57
EL VERDUGO (1830) _Honoré de Balzac_ 90
LAURETTE, OR, THE RED SEAL (1836) _Count Alfred de Vigny_ 103
THE VENUS OF ILLE (1837) _Prosper Mérimée_ 134
THE STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD (1842) _Alfred de Musset_ 168
[1]VANINA VANINI (1855) “_Stendhal_” 198
THE CHILD WITH THE BREAD SHOES (1863) _Théophile Gautier_ 228
THE REVEREND FATHER GAUCHER’S ELIXIR (1869) _Alphonse Daudet_ 237
THE LEGEND OF SAINT JULIAN HOSPITATOR (1877) _Gustave Flaubert_ 248
THE GATE-KEEPER (1883) _François Coppée_ 279
MADEMOISELLE PERLE (1886) _Guy de Maupassant_ 288
_PUBLISHERS’ NOTE_
_The third, fifth to seventh, and ninth to twelfth inclusive, of these
stories have been translated by Mr. William Metcalfe; the second and
fourth by Miss Measham; the eighth by Miss Lyons; while for the first
an anonymous translation has been used, which was originally published
in 1826, but has been considerably revised for this volume by Mr. Adam
L. Gowans._
_It should be remembered that M. Dorchain’s selection was restricted by
the plan of the series to the works of authors no longer living and to
stories not exceeding 15,000 words in length. It should also be borne
in mind that the notes in the present volume are, without exception,
those of the original authors, the translators having done nothing more
than translate carefully without omission or addition._
THE TWELVE BEST SHORT STORIES
IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE
THE ADVENTURES OF THE LAST OF
THE ABENCERRAGES
VISCOUNT CHATEAUBRIAND
_ADVERTISEMENT_
_The Adventures of the last of the Abencerrages_ were written
nearly twenty years ago; the portrait which I have sketched of
the Spaniards explains sufficiently why this story could not
be printed under the Imperial government. The resistance of
the Spaniards to Buonaparte, of a defenceless nation to the
conqueror, who had vanquished the best soldiers of Europe,
excited at that time the enthusiasm of every heart susceptible
of being affected by great devotedness and noble sacrifices.
The ruins of Saragossa were still smoking, and the censorship
would not have suffered the publication of eulogiums, in which
it would have discovered, rightly enough, a concealed interest
for the victims. Pictures of the ancient manners of Europe,
recollections of the glory of former times, and those of the
court of one of our most distinguished monarchs, would not have
been more agreeable to the censorship, which besides began
to repent having so often allowed me to speak of the ancient
monarchy, and of the religion of our fathers: these departed
subjects, which I was incessantly recalling, excited too
powerfully the thoughts of the living.
It is a frequent practice, in pictures, to place some unseemly
personage for the purpose of bringing out more the beauty of
others: in this story, my idea has been to paint three men of
equally elevated character, but not out of the usual course of
nature, and retaining, along with the passions, the manners
and even the prejudices of their country. The character of the
female is also drawn in the same proportions. The world of
imagination, when we transport ourselves thither, should at
least make us amends for the world of reality.
It will readily be seen that this story is the composition
of a man who has felt the pangs of exile, and whose heart is
entirely wrapt up in his country.
The views, so to speak, which I have given of Granada, of the
Alhambra, and of the ruined mosque transformed into a church,
were taken upon the spot. The latter is nothing else than the
cathedral of Cordova. These descriptions are therefore a kind
of addition to the following passage of the _Itinerary_. “From
Cadiz, I repaired to Cordova; I admired the mosque which is now
the cathedral of that city. I traversed the ancient Betica,
described by the poets as the abode of happiness. I ascended as
far as Andujar, and retraced my steps in order to see Granada.
The Alhambra appeared to me well worthy of being looked at,
even after the temples of Greece. The valley of Granada is
delightful, and reminds one very much of that of Sparta; that
the Moors should have regretted such a country may be easily
conceived.”--(_Itinerary_, part VII. and last).
There are frequent allusions in this story to the history of
the Zegris and the Abencerrages; this history is so well known,
that I have thought it superfluous to give any sketch of it
in this advertisement. Besides, the story itself contains
sufficient details to make the text easily understood.
When Boabdil, the last king of Granada, was compelled to abandon the
kingdom of his forefathers, he halted on the top of Mount Padul. That
elevated spot commanded a view of the sea, on which the unfortunate
monarch was about to embark for Africa; from it also could be
discovered Granada, the Vega, and the Xenil, on the banks of which
were erected the tents of Ferdinand and Isabella. At the sight of this
beautiful country, and of the cypresses which still marked here and
there the tombs of the Mussulmans, Boabdil began to shed tears. The
sultana Ayxa, his mother, who accompanied him in his exile, along with
the grandees who formerly composed his court, said to him: “Weep now
like a woman, for the loss of a kingdom, which thou hast been unable
to defend like a man.” They descended from the mountain, and Granada
disappeared from their eyes for ever.
The Moors of Spain, who shared the fate of their sovereign, dispersed
themselves throughout Africa; the tribes of the Zegris and the Gomeres
settled in the kingdom of Fez, which was their aboriginal country; the
Vanegas and the Alabeses took up their abode upon the coast, from Oran
to Algiers; finally the Abencerrages established themselves in the
environs of Tunis; they formed, within sight of the ruins of Carthage,
a colony, which, even in our own times, is distinguished from the Moors
of Africa, by its elegant manners, and the mildness of its laws.
These families carried into their new country the remembrance of
their old one. The _Paradise of Granada_ lived constantly in their
memory, the mothers repeated its name to their children at the breast.
They lulled them to sleep with the romances of the Zegris and the
Abencerrages. Prayers were repeated in the mosque every five days, with
the face turned towards Granada; and Allah was implored to restore to
his chosen people that land of delights. In vain did the country of the
Lotos-eaters present to the exiles its fruits, its waters, its verdure,
and its glorious sun; far from the _Vermilion Towers_,[2] there were
neither pleasant fruits, limpid springs, fresh verdure, nor sun worthy
to be looked at. If any one shewed the plains of Bagrada to an exile,
the latter only shook his head, and exclaimed with a sigh: “Granada!”
The Abencerrages, particularly, preserved the most tender and faithful
remembrance of their country. They had quitted, with the most poignant
anguish, the theatre of their glory, and the banks which they had
made so often ring with the war-cry of “Honour and love.” Being no
longer able to lift the lance in the deserts, or to wear the helmet
in a colony of farmers, they had devoted themselves to the study of
simples, a profession in equal estimation among the Arabs with that of
arms. Thus did that race of warriors, which formerly inflicted wounds,
now make its occupation that of healing them. In this particular, it
retained something of its original genius, for the knights themselves
frequently dressed the wounds of the enemies they had overthrown.
The cottage of that family, which formerly possessed palaces, was
not placed in the hamlet of the other exiles, at the foot of Mount
Mamelife; it was built amidst the very ruins of Carthage, on the
sea-shore, in the place where St. Louis expired on the ashes, and
where a Mahometan hermitage is now to be seen. Along the walls of the
cottage were hung bucklers made of lions’ skins, bearing, impressed
upon a field of azure, two figures of savages breaking down a town with
a club; round the device was this motto: “It is but little!” the coat
of arms and device of the Abencerrages. Lances adorned with white and
blue pennons, burnouses, and cassocks of slashed satin, were ranged by
the side of the bucklers, and figured in the midst of scimitars and
poniards. Here and there also were suspended gauntlets, bits ornamented
with precious stones, large silver stirrups, long swords, whose sheaths
had been embroidered by the hands of princesses, and golden spurs,
with which the Iseults, the Guineveres and Orianas were wont of old to
invest gallant knights.
Beneath these trophies of glory, were placed upon tables the trophies
of a life of peace. These were plants culled on the summits of Mount
Atlas, and in the desert of Sahara; many of them had even been brought
from the plain of Granada. Some were intended to relieve the ailments
of the body; others were supposed to mitigate the severity of mental
suffering. The Abencerrages regarded as most valuable those which were
useful in calming vain regrets, in dissipating foolish illusions, and
the ever-reviving, ever-deceived, hopes of happiness. Unfortunately
these simples possessed qualities of an opposite nature, and the sweet
odour of a flower of their own country frequently acted as a sort of
poison to the illustrious exiles.
Twenty-four years had passed away since the taking of Granada. In that
short space of time, fourteen Abencerrages had perished, by the effects
of a new climate, the accidents of a wandering life, and principally
through grief, which imperceptibly undermines the strength of man.
One single descendant was the sole hope of that illustrious family.
Aben-Hamet bore the name of that Abencerrage, who was accused by the
Zegris of having seduced the sultana Alfayma. In him were united the
beauty, the valour, the courtesy and the generosity of his ancestors,
with that mild lustre and slight tinge of melancholy which adversity,
nobly supported, inspires. He was only twenty-two years of age when he
lost his father; he then determined to make a pilgrimage to the land of
his ancestors, in order to gratify the secret longing of his heart, and
to execute a plan which he carefully concealed from his mother.
He embarked at the port of Tunis; a favourable wind carried him to
Carthagena, where he landed, and immediately proceeded on the road to
Granada. He gave himself out for an Arabian physician, who had come
to collect plants amid the rocks of the Sierra Nevada. A quiet mule
bore him slowly along in the country where formerly the Abencerrages
were carried with the swiftness of the wind on warlike coursers; a
guide walked before, leading two other mules ornamented with bells and
parti-coloured woollen tufts. Aben-Hamet crossed the large heaths and
woods of palm-trees of the kingdom of Murcia; from the great age of
these trees, he conjectured that they must have been planted by his
ancestors, and his heart was pierced by regret. There rose a tower
in which the sentinel, in former times, kept watch, during the wars
of the Moors and Christians; here appeared a ruined building whose
architecture proved its Moorish origin; a fresh subject of grief to
Aben-Hamet! He dismounted from his mule, and, on pretence of seeking
for plants, hid himself for a few moments, in the ruins, in order
to give free vent to his tears. He then proceeded on his road, in a
state of reverie, which was encouraged by the noise of the mule-bells,
and the monotonous song of his guide. The latter only interrupted his
long-winded ditty, in order to quicken the pace of his mules by giving
them the names of _beautiful_ and _brave_, or to scold them by the
epithets of _lazy_ and _obstinate_.
Flocks of sheep, directed by a shepherd like an army, in sere and
barren plains, and occasionally a solitary traveller, far from
diffusing an appearance of life upon the road, only served, in a
manner, to make it more gloomy and desert. These travellers all wore
a sword attached to the waist; they were wrapped up in a mantle, and
a large slouched hat half covered their faces. As they passed, they
saluted Aben-Hamet, who could only make out, in their noble salutation,
the names of God, of Señor and of Knight. At the close of day, the
Abencerrage took his place in the midst of strangers at the inn,
without being troubled by their indiscreet curiosity. No one spoke
to him, no one questioned him; his turban, his robe, and his arms,
excited no surprise. As it had been the will of Allah, that the Moors
of Spain should lose their beautiful country, Aben-Hamet could not help
entertaining a feeling of esteem for its grave conquerors.
Emotions still more vivid awaited the Abencerrage at the end of his
journey. Granada is built at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, on two high
hills, separated by a deep valley. The houses, built on the declivities
in the hollow of the valley, give this city the shape and appearance
of a grenado half open, from which resemblance it derives its name.
Two rivers, the Xenil and the Darro, the sands of the first of which
contain gold, and the other silver, wash the feet of the hills, form
a junction, and afterwards take a serpentine course in the midst of a
charming valley, called the Vega. This plain, which is overlooked by
Granada, is covered with vines, with pomegranate, fig, mulberry and
orange-trees; it is surrounded by mountains of singularly beautiful
form and colour. An enchanting sky, a pure and delicious air, affect
the soul with a secret languor, from which even the passing traveller
finds it difficult to preserve himself. Every one feels that, in this
country, the tender passions would have very soon stifled the heroic
ones, if true love did not always feel the wish to have glory as its
companion.
As soon as Aben-Hamet discovered the tops of the first buildings of
Granada, his heart beat so violently, that he was obliged to stop his
mule. Crossing his arms over his breast, and fixing his eyes on the
holy city, he remained speechless and immovable. The guide halted
in his turn; and, as elevated sentiments are easily understood by
a Spaniard, he appeared affected, and conjectured that the Moor’s
feelings were excited by the sight of his former country. The
Abencerrage at last broke silence.
“Guide!” said he, “be happy! hide not the truth from me, for the waves
were calm, and the moon entered into her crescent, on the day of thy
nativity. What are these towers which shine like stars over a green
forest?”
“That is the Alhambra,” answered the guide.
“And the other castle upon the opposite hill?” said Aben-Hamet.
“It is the Generalife,” replied the Spaniard. “In that castle there is
a garden planted with myrtles, where it is said the Abencerrage was
surprised with the sultana Alfayma; farther off, you see the Albaycin,
and nearer to us the Vermilion Towers.”
Every word which the guide uttered pierced the heart of Aben-Hamet. How
cruel it is to be obliged to have recourse to strangers for information
respecting the monuments of our ancestors, and to have the history of
our family and friends related to us by indifferent persons! The guide,
putting an end to the reflections of Aben-Hamet, exclaimed: “Let us
proceed, Sir Moor; it is the will of God! Do not be downcast. Is not
Francis I., even now, a prisoner in our Madrid? It is the will of God!”
He took off his hat, crossed himself with great fervour, and drove on
his mules. The Abencerrage, spurring on his, exclaimed in his turn: “It
was thus written;” [3] and they descended towards Granada.
They passed close to the great ash-tree, memorable as the scene of the
battle between Musa and the grand-master of Calatrava, in the time of
the last king of Granada. They made the circuit of the Alameda walk,
and entered the city by the gate of Elvira. They reascended the Rambla,
and arrived shortly after at a square, surrounded on all sides by
buildings of Moorish architecture. A khan was opened in this square for
the Moors of Africa, whom the trade in silks of the Vega attracted in
crowds to Granada. Thither the guide conducted Aben-Hamet.
The Abencerrage was too agitated to enjoy much rest in his new
habitation; the idea of his country tormented him. Unable any longer
to master the feelings which preyed upon his heart, he stole out, in
the middle of the night, to wander about the streets of Granada. He
attempted to recognize, with his eyes or with his hands, some of the
monuments which the elders of his tribe had so frequently described
to him. Perhaps the lofty edifice, whose walls he could only half
distinguish through the darkness, was formerly the residence of the
Abencerrages; perhaps it was in this solitary square that those
splendid carousals were given, which raised the glory of Granada to
the skies. There it was that the troops of horsemen, superbly dressed
in brocade, marched in procession; there advanced the galleys loaded
with arms and with flowers, the dragons darting out fire, and carrying
illustrious warriors concealed in their sides; ingenious inventions of
pleasure and gallantry.
But alas! in place of the sound of _anafins_, of the noise of trumpets,
and of songs of love, the deepest silence reigned around Aben-Hamet.
This mute city had changed its inhabitants, and the victors reposed
on the couches of the vanquished. “They sleep then, these proud
Spaniards,” exclaimed the young Moor with indignation, “under the roofs
from which they have banished my ancestors! And I, an Abencerrage,
I wake, unknown, solitary and forsaken, at the gate of my fathers’
palace.”
Aben-Hamet then reflected upon the destinies of man, on the
vicissitudes of fortune, on the fall of empires, lastly on Granada
itself surprised by its enemies in the midst of pleasures, and
exchanging all at once its garlands of flowers for chains; he pictured
to himself its citizens forsaking their homes in gala dresses, like
guests, who, in the disorder of their attire, are suddenly driven from
the chambers of festivity by a conflagration.
All these images, all these ideas, crowded on one another in the
soul of Aben-Hamet; full of grief and anguish, his thoughts were
principally turned to the execution of the project which had brought
him to Granada. Day surprised him in his reverie; the Abencerrage had
lost his way: he found himself far from the khan, in a remote suburb
of the city. All was yet asleep: no noise disturbed the silence of
the streets; the doors and windows of the houses were still shut; the
clarion of the cock alone proclaimed, in the habitation of the poor,
the return of labour and of hardship.
After wandering about for a long time, without being able to find his
way, Aben-Hamet heard a door open. He saw a young female come out,
dressed nearly like the Gothic queens which we see sculptured on the
monuments of our ancient abbeys; her black corset trimmed with jet
tightened her elegant waist. Her short petticoat, narrow and without
folds, discovered a beautiful leg and charming foot; a mantilla, also
black, was thrown over her head; with her left hand she held this
mantilla crossed and drawn up close like a stomacher under her chin, in
such a manner that nothing was seen of her face but her large eyes and
rosy mouth. A duenna walked by her side; a page preceded her, carrying
a prayer-book; two footmen in livery followed at some distance the
beautiful unknown; she was repairing to morning prayers, which were
announced by the ringing of a bell in a neighbouring monastery.
Aben-Hamet fancied he saw the angel Israfel, or the youngest of
the houris. The Spanish maiden, not less surprised, looked at
the Abencerrage, whose turban, robe and arms set off to still
greater advantage his noble countenance. Recovering from her first
astonishment, she beckoned to the stranger to approach, with the grace
and freedom peculiar to the women of that country. “Sir Moor,” said she
to him, “you appear to have recently arrived at Granada; have you lost
your way?”
“Sultana of flowers,” replied Aben-Hamet, “delight of men’s eyes,
Christian slave more beautiful than the virgins of Georgia, thou hast
rightly guessed! I am a stranger in this city: having lost myself
amidst its palaces, I was unable to find my way back to the khan
of the Moors. May Mahomet touch thy heart, and reward thee for thy
hospitality!”
“The Moors are renowned for their gallantry,” replied the lady with the
sweetest smile; “but I am neither sultana of flowers, nor a slave, nor
desirous of being recommended to Mahomet. Follow me, Sir knight, I will
lead you back to the khan of the Moors.”
She walked lightly before the Abencerrage, led him to the door of the
khan, to which she pointed with her hand, then passed on to the back of
a palace, and disappeared.
To what then is the repose of life attached? His country no longer
occupies solely and exclusively the mind of Aben-Hamet; Granada
is no longer in his eyes deserted, forsaken, widowed and solitary;
she is dearer than ever to his heart, but it is a new glamour which
embellishes her ruins; with the recollection of his ancestors is now
mingled another charm. Aben-Hamet has discovered the burial-place
where the ashes of the Abencerrages repose; but while he prays, throws
himself on the ground, and sheds a flood of filial tears, he fancies
that the young Spanish maiden has sometimes passed over these tombs,
and he no longer considers his ancestors as so unfortunate.
In vain does he wish to occupy himself with nothing but his pilgrimage
to the land of his fathers; in vain does he scour the hills of the
Darro and the Xenil to gather plants from them at the morning-dawn; the
young Christian lady is the flower which he is now in search of. What
fruitless efforts he has already made to discover the palace of his
enchantress! How many times has he attempted to retrace the ground over
which his divine guide conducted him! How many times has he fancied
that he has recognized the same bell, and the same cock-crow, which
he had heard near the house of the Spanish lady! Deceived by similar
sounds, he runs immediately to the side from which they proceed; but
the magic palace nowhere presents itself to his eyes! Frequently also
the uniformity of the female dress at Granada gave him a moment of
hope: at a distance every Christian female resembled the mistress of
his heart; when close to him, not one possessed her beauty or her
grace. Finally, Aben-Hamet had made the round of the churches, in
order to discover the stranger; he had even penetrated to the tomb of
Ferdinand and Isabella, but this was the greatest sacrifice which he
had yet made to love.
One day he was herborizing in the valley of the Darro. The flowery
declivity of the southern hill supported the walls of the Alhambra,
and the gardens of the Generalife; the northern hill was adorned with
the Albaycin, with smiling orchards, and with grottoes, inhabited by
a numerous population. At the western extremity of the valley, were
descried the spires of Granada, which rose in groups from the midst
of holm-oaks and cypresses. At the other extremity, towards the east,
the eye rested upon points of rocks, convents and hermitages, some of
the ruins of the ancient Illiberia, and in the distance the heights of
the Sierra Nevada. The waters of the Darro rolled along in the middle
of the vale, and presented on the margin of its course newly erected
mills, noisy waterfalls, the broken arches of a Roman aqueduct, and the
remains of a bridge of the time of the Moors.
Aben-Hamet was neither miserable enough, nor happy enough, to enjoy
properly the charms of solitude; he roamed over these beautiful banks
with absence and indifference. In the course of his random walk, he
struck into an alley of trees which wound round the declivity of
the hill of the Albaycin. A country-house, surrounded by a grove of
orange-trees, soon presented itself to his view; as he approached the
grove, he heard the sounds of a voice and a guitar. Between the voice,
the features and looks of a woman there are relations which never
deceive a man whom love possesses. “It is my houri!” said Aben-Hamet,
and he listened with a beating heart; at the name of the Abencerrages
several times repeated, his heart beat still quicker. The fair unknown
was singing a Spanish romance retracing the history of the Abencerrages
and the Zegris. Aben-Hamet was no longer able to resist his emotion;
he darted through a hedge of myrtle, and found himself in the midst
of a party of young ladies, who were alarmed at his appearance, and,
with loud screams, fled in all directions. The Spanish lady who had
been singing, and who still held the guitar, exclaimed: “It is the
Moorish gentleman!” and called back her companions. “Favourite of the
genii,” said the Abencerrage, “I sought thee as an Arab searches for a
spring at the heat of noon. I heard the sound of thy guitar; thou wert
singing the heroes of my country. I discovered thee by the beauty of
thy accents, and I come to lay at thy feet the heart of Aben-Hamet.”
“And it was with thoughts of you,” replied Donna Blanca, “that I was
repeating the romance of the Abencerrages: ever since I saw you, I have
fancied that these Moorish knights resembled you.”
The colour mounted slightly to Blanca’s forehead as she pronounced
these words. Aben-Hamet felt as if he could have thrown himself at the
feet of the young Christian, and declared to her that he was himself
the last Abencerrage; but a remnant of prudence restrained him: he was
afraid lest his name, too celebrated at Granada, should give uneasiness
to the governor. The war with the Moriscoes was scarcely terminated,
and the presence of an Abencerrage at that moment might give the
Spaniards just cause of apprehension. It was not that Aben-Hamet was
alarmed at the prospect of danger; but he trembled at the idea of being
obliged to remove himself for ever from the daughter of Don Rodrigo.
Donna Blanca was descended from a family which derived its origin from
the Cid de Bivar, and from Ximena, the daughter of Count Gormez de
Gormas. The posterity of the conqueror of Valencia the Beautiful, owing
to the ingratitude of the court of Castille, was reduced to a state of
extreme poverty; it was even believed, for several centuries, to be
extinct, such was the obscurity into which it had fallen. But, about
the time of the conquest of Granada, a last descendant of the race of
the Bivars, the grandfather of Blanca, made himself distinguished,
less by his pedigree than by his signal valour. After the expulsion of
the infidels, Ferdinand rewarded this descendant of the Cid with the
estates of several Moorish families, and created him Duke of Santa Fé.
The newly created Duke fixed his residence at Granada, and died while
still young, leaving an only son already married, Don Rodrigo, father
of Blanca.
Donna Teresa de Xeres, the wife of Don Rodrigo, gave birth to a
son, who received, at his birth, the name of Rodrigo, like all his
ancestors, but was called Don Carlos, to distinguish him from his
father. The great events of which Don Carlos was a witness from his
earliest years, the dangers to which he was exposed while yet in his
nonage, contributed to render still more grave and severe a character
naturally disposed to austerity. Don Carlos was scarcely fourteen
years of age, when he followed Cortez to Mexico: he supported all the
dangers, and was a witness of all the horrors, of that astonishing
adventure; and he was present at the overthrow of the last king of
a world until then unknown. Three years after that catastrophe, Don
Carlos had returned to Europe, and was present at the battle of Pavia,
as if he had come to witness kingly honour and valour sinking under
the strokes of fortune. The aspect of a new world, long voyages on
seas which had never before been navigated, and the spectacle of the
revolutions and vicissitudes of fate, had made a deep impression on the
religious and melancholy imagination of Don Carlos. He entered into the
knightly order of Calatrava; and, renouncing marriage in spite of Don
Rodrigo’s prayers, destined his whole fortune to his sister.
Blanca de Bivar, the only sister of Don Carlos, and much younger than
he, was the idol of her father. She had lost her mother, and had just
entered into her eighteenth year, when Aben-Hamet made his appearance
at Granada. Everything about this enchanting woman was fascination
itself; her voice was ravishing and her dancing lighter than the
zephyr. Sometimes she delighted in directing a chariot, like Armida; at
other times she flew upon the back of the swiftest barb of Andalusia,
like those charming fairies who appeared to Tristan and to Galaor
in the forests. Athens would have taken her for Aspasia, and Paris
for Diana of Poitiers, who was then beginning to shine at the court.
But, with the charms of a Frenchwoman, she had all the passions of a
Spaniard, and her natural coquetry in no degree diminished the fixity,
the constancy, the strength and elevation of the feelings of her heart.
At the noise of the screams, which the young ladies sent forth, when
Aben-Hamet rushed into the midst of the grove, Don Rodrigo came running
up. “My father,” said Blanca, “this is the Moorish gentleman of whom I
spoke to you. He heard me singing, and recognized me; he entered the
garden to thank me for having put him in his right road.”
The Duke of Santa Fé received the Abencerrage with the grave and yet
unaffected politeness of the Spaniards. One remarks in this nation
none of those servile airs, none of those circumlocutory phrases,
which reveal the abjectness of ideas, and the degradation of the soul.
The language of the first nobleman and of the peasant is the same,
the salutation the same, the compliments, habits and customs are the
same. In proportion as the confidence and generosity of this people
to strangers is unbounded, in the same proportion is its vengeance
terrible when betrayed. Of heroic courage, of patience inexhaustible,
incapable of yielding to bad fortune, it must either vanquish or be
crushed. It has little of what is called wit, but exalted passions
are with it a substitute for that light which is derived from the
refinement and abundance of ideas. A Spaniard, who passes the day
without speaking, who has seen nothing, and cares not for seeing
anything, who has read nothing, studied nothing, compared nothing,
will yet discover, in the greatness of his resolutions, the necessary
resources at the moment of adversity.
It was Don Rodrigo’s birthday, and Blanca was giving her father a
_tertulia_, or little entertainment, in this delightful solitude.
The Duke invited Aben-Hamet to seat himself amidst the young ladies,
who were amused at the turban and robe of the stranger. Some velvet
cushions were brought, and Aben-Hamet reclined himself on these
cushions in the Moorish fashion. He was questioned respecting his
country, and his adventures; he replied to these enquiries with spirit
and vivacity. He spoke the purest Castilian; one could have taken him
for a Spaniard, if he had not almost constantly said _thou_ instead of
_you_. This word had something so sweet about it in his mouth, that
Blanca could not help feeling a secret annoyance when he addressed it
to one of her companions.
A numerous retinue of servants appeared, and were the bearers of
chocolate, of fruit cakes, and little sweet cakes from Malaga, white
as snow, porous and light as sponges. After the _refresco_, Blanca
was entreated to execute one of those national dances, in which she
excelled the most accomplished Gitanas. She was obliged to accede to
the wishes of her friends. Aben-Hamet was silent, but his supplicating
looks spoke as eloquently as his mouth would have done. Blanca chose a
_zambra_, an expressive dance which the Spaniards have borrowed from
the Moors.
One of the young ladies began to play upon the guitar the air of this
foreign dance. The daughter of Don Rodrigo took off her veil, and
fastened a pair of ebony castanets round her white hands. Her black
hair falls in ringlets on her alabaster neck; her mouth and her eyes
smile in concert; her colour is animated by the action of her heart.
All at once she makes the noisy ebony re-echo, beats time three times,
commences the song of the _zambra_, and, mingling her voice with the
sounds of the guitar, darts off like lightning.
What variety in her steps! What elegance in her attitudes! Now she
raises her arms with vivacity, then she lets them fall with languor.
Sometimes she springs forward as if intoxicated with pleasure, and then
retires as if overwhelmed with sorrow. She turns her head, seems to
call to her some invisible person, modestly holds out her rosy cheek
to receive the kiss of a newly married husband, flies back ashamed,
returns delighted and consoled, marches with a noble and almost warlike
step, afterwards skims afresh the verdant mead. The harmony between
her dancing, her singing, and the music of the guitar was perfect.
The voice of Blanca, slightly husky, had that species of accent which
stirs the passions to the very bottom of the soul. The Spanish music,
composed of sighs, of lively movements, of melancholy repetitions,
of airs suddenly stopped, presents a singular mixture of gaiety and
melancholy. This music and this dancing settled the destiny of the last
Abencerrage irrecoverably; they would have been sufficient to trouble a
heart less susceptible than his.
In the evening they returned to Granada by the valley of the Darro.
Don Rodrigo was so delighted with the noble and polished manners of
Aben-Hamet, that he would not let him depart without receiving his
promise to come frequently and amuse Blanca with the wonderful stories
of the East. The Moor, at the height of his wishes, accepted the
invitation of the Duke of Santa Fé; and, beginning with the following
day, he was regular in his visits to the palace where she breathed whom
he loved more than the light of day.
Blanca found her heart very soon engaged in a deep passion, from the
very impossibility she had fancied that ever she should feel that
passion. That any one should love an infidel, a Moor, an unknown
stranger, appeared to her so extraordinary, that she took no precaution
against the malady which began to insinuate itself into her veins. But
no sooner did she become sensible of its inroads, than she accepted
this malady like a true Spaniard. The dangers and troubles, which
she foresaw, neither made her draw back when on the brink of the
precipice, nor deliberate long with her heart. She said to herself:
“Let Aben-Hamet become a Christian, let him love me, and I will follow
him to the extremity of the earth.”
On his part, the Abencerrage also felt the full power of an
irresistible passion: he no longer lived but for Blanca; he no longer
occupied himself with the plans which had brought him to Granada. It
was easy for him to obtain the information which he came expressly in
pursuit of: but every other interest, except that of his love, had
vanished from his eyes. He even dreaded the knowledge which might
produce a change in his mode of existence. He asked for nothing; he
wished not to know anything. He said to himself: “Let Blanca become a
Mahometan, let her love me, and I will serve her to my last sigh.”
Thus determined in their resolutions, Aben-Hamet and Blanca only
waited for a favourable moment to discover their mutual sentiments
to each other. It was then the best time of the year. “You have not
yet seen the Alhambra,” said the daughter of the Duke of Santa Fé to
the Abencerrage. “If I can guess, by some words which have dropped
from you, your family is originally from Granada. You will perhaps be
pleased to visit the palace of your ancient kings? I will myself, this
evening, be your guide thither.”
Aben-Hamet swore, by the prophet, that no excursion could ever be more
agreeable to him.
When the hour appointed for this pilgrimage to the Alhambra arrived,
the daughter of Don Rodrigo mounted a white hackney, accustomed to
climb the rocks like a deer. Aben-Hamet accompanied the brilliant
Spaniard on an Andalusian horse, equipped in the Turkish manner. In the
rapid course of the young Moor, his purple robe swelled out behind him,
his crooked sabre echoed on the elevated saddle, and the wind shook the
plume with which his turban was surmounted. The common people, charmed
by his graceful carriage, said as they saw him pass: “It is an infidel
prince whom Donna Blanca is going to convert.”
They first went up a long street which still bore the name of an
illustrious Moorish family. This street bordered on the exterior
inclosure of the Alhambra. They then crossed a wood of young elm-trees,
arrived at a fountain, and shortly found themselves in front of the
interior inclosure of the palace of Boabdil. In a wall flanked with
towers and surmounted by battlements, was a gate called the Gate of
Judgement. They passed through this first gate, and proceeded along a
narrow road which led them in a serpentine course between high walls
and half-ruined hovels. This road brought them to the square of the
Algibes, close to which Charles V. was then erecting a palace. From
thence, turning northward, they halted in a deserted court, at the
foot of an unornamented wall, out of repair from the effects of time.
Aben-Hamet, springing lightly to the ground, presented his hand to
Blanca, and assisted her in alighting from her mule. The servants
knocked at a deserted door, the threshold of which was concealed by the
grass; the door opened, and all at once disclosed to view the secret
recesses of the Alhambra.
All the charms of, and regrets for, his country, mingled with the
glamour of love, seized the heart of Aben-Hamet. Silent and immovable,
his wondering looks dived into this habitation of the genii. He
fancied himself transported to the entrance of one of those palaces
the account of which one reads in the Arabian tales. Light galleries,
canals of white marble bordered with lemon and orange-trees in full
bloom, fountains, and solitary courts, presented themselves in all
directions to the eyes of Aben-Hamet; and through the lengthened vaults
of the porticoes he perceived other labyrinths and fresh enchantments.
The azure of the most beautiful sky appeared between the columns,
which supported a chain of Gothic arches. The walls were covered with
arabesques, which seemed to the eye like imitations of those stuffs
of the East, which, in the ennui of the harem, are embroidered by the
caprice of a female slave. An air of voluptuousness, of religion, and
of war, seemed to breathe in this magic edifice; it was a species of
lovers’ cloister, a mysterious retreat, where the Moorish sovereigns
tasted all the pleasures, and forgot all the duties of life.
After some minutes of surprise and silence, the two lovers entered into
this residence of fallen greatness and past felicities. They first made
the round of the hall of Mexuar, in the midst of the perfume of flowers
and the freshness of waters. They then penetrated into the Court of
Lions. The agitation of Aben-Hamet increased at every step. “Didst thou
not fill my soul with delight,” said he to Blanca, “with what pain
should I find myself obliged to ask of thee, a Spaniard, the history
of this palace! Ah! these places are made to serve as a retreat for
happiness, and I!...”
Aben-Hamet perceived the name of Boabdil enchased in the mosaics: “O
my king!” exclaimed he, “what is become of thee? where shall I find
thee in thy deserted Alhambra?” And tears of fidelity, of loyalty, and
of honour suffused the eyes of the young Moor. “Your old masters,” said
Blanca, “or rather the kings of your fathers, were ungrateful.”--”What
matter!” returned the Abencerrage, “they were unfortunate!”
As he pronounced these words, Blanca conducted him into an apartment
which seemed to be the very sanctuary of the temple of love. The
elegance of this asylum could not be surpassed; the entire ceiling,
painted blue and gold, and composed of arabesques of filagree work,
allowed the light to appear as if through a tissue of flowers. A
fountain spouted in the midst of the building, the waters of which,
falling again in a shower of dew, were received in an alabaster shell.
“Aben-Hamet,” said the daughter of the Duke of Santa Fé “look well at
this fountain; it received the disfigured heads of the Abencerrages.
You can still see, on the marble, the stain of the blood of the unhappy
men who were sacrificed to Boabdil’s suspicions. It is thus that, in
your country, men who seduce credulous women are treated.”
Aben-Hamet had ceased to listen to Blanca; he had prostrated himself,
and kissed respectfully the mark of the blood of his ancestors. Then
rising he exclaimed: “O Blanca! I swear, by the blood of these knights,
to love thee with the constancy, the fidelity and the ardour of an
Abencerrage!”
“You love me then?” returned Blanca, clasping her beautiful hands, and
raising her eyes to heaven; “but do you forget that you are an infidel,
a Moor, an enemy, and that I am a Christian and a Spaniard?”
“O holy prophet!” said Aben-Hamet, “be thou witness of my oaths!...”
Blanca interrupted him. “And what reliance think you can I place on the
oaths of a persecutor of my God? Do you know whether I love you? Who
has given you the assurance to use such language to me?”
Aben-Hamet in consternation replied: “True, lady, I am only thy slave;
thou hast not chosen me to be thy knight.”
“Moor,” said Blanca, “lay artifice aside. Thou hast seen, by my looks,
that I loved thee; my passion for thee exceeds all bounds: be a
Christian, and nothing shall prevent me from being thine. But, if the
daughter of the Duke of Santa Fé venture to speak to thee thus frankly,
thou mayest judge, from that very circumstance, that she will know how
to conquer herself, and that no enemy of the Christians shall ever
possess any claim on her.”
Aben-Hamet, in a transport of passion, seized the hands of Blanca,
and placed them first on his turban, and then on his heart: “Allah is
powerful,” he cried, “and Aben-Hamet is happy! O Mahomet, let this
Christian acknowledge thy law, and nothing can....”--”Thou art a
blasphemer,” said Blanca, “let us depart hence.”
Leaning on the arm of the Moor, she proceeded to the fountain of
the Twelve Lions, which gives its name to one of the courts of the
Alhambra. “Stranger,” said the artless Spanish maiden, “when I look
at thy robe, thy turban, and thy arms, and think of our loves, I
fancy I see the shade of the handsome Abencerrage walking in this
forsaken retreat with the unfortunate Alfayma. Explain to me the Arabic
inscription which is engraved on the marble of this fountain.”
Aben-Hamet read these words:
_The beautiful princess who walks, covered with pearls, in her garden,
adds to the beauty of it so prodigiously...._[4] The rest of the
inscription was effaced.
“It is for thee that this inscription was made,” said Aben-Hamet.
“Beloved Sultana, these palaces have never been so beautiful in their
youth, as they now are in their ruins. Listen to the murmur of the
fountains, the waters of which have been turned from their course by
the moss: look at the gardens, which we see through these half-ruined
arcades; contemplate the star of day, which is setting beyond all these
porticoes; how sweet it is to wander with thee in these abodes! Thy
words embalm these retreats like the roses of Hymen. With what delight
do I discover, in thy speech, some of the accents of the language of
my fathers! The mere rustling of thy dress on these marbles makes me
thrill. The air is only perfumed because it has touched thy tresses.
Beautiful art thou as the genius of my country in the midst of these
ruins! But can Aben-Hamet hope to fix thy heart? What is he, when
compared to thee! He has roamed over the mountains with his father; he
knows the plants of the desert.... Alas! there is not one of them that
can heal the wound which thou hast given him!... He carries arms, but
he is not a knight.
“I said to myself formerly: ‛The water of the sea, which sleeps under
shelter in the hollow of the rock, is tranquil and silent, while quite
near the open sea is noisy and agitated: Aben-Hamet! such will be thy
life, silent, peaceful and unheard of, in an unknown corner of the
earth, while the court of the Sultan is overturned by storms!’ I said
so to myself, young Christian, and thou hast proved to me that the
tempest may also disturb the drop of water in the hollow of the rock.”
Blanca listened with delight to a language which was so new to her, and
the oriental turn of which seemed so much in harmony with this fairy
abode, which she rambled over with her lover. Love penetrated her heart
in all directions: she felt her knees sink under her, and was obliged
to lean more heavily on the arm of her companion. Aben-Hamet supported
the sweet burden, and repeated as he walked along: “Ah! why am I not an
illustrious Abencerrage!”
“Thou wouldst please me less,” said Blanca, “for I should be more
unhappy; remain in obscurity and live for me. A brave knight often
forgets love for glory.”
“Thou wouldst not have that danger to apprehend,” replied Aben-Hamet
with quickness.
“And how wouldst thou love me then, if thou wert an Abencerrage?”
demanded the descendant of Ximena.
“I would love thee more than glory, and less than honour!” was the
answer of the Moor.
The sun had sunk beneath the horizon during the promenade of the
two lovers; they had traversed the whole of the Alhambra. What
recollections were presented by it to the mind of Aben-Hamet! Here the
Sultana received, by means of air-holes, the smoke of the perfumes
which were burnt under her; there, in that secluded retreat, she
adorned herself with the glorious attire of the East. And it was
Blanca, it was a beloved woman, who related all these details to the
handsome youth whom she idolized.
The rising moon diffused her doubtful light in the forsaken sanctuaries
and in the deserted courts of the Alhambra; her silver rays outlined,
upon the green turf of the gardens, and upon the walls of the
apartments, the lace-work of an aerial architecture, the arches of the
cloisters, the flitting shadows of the spouting waters, and those of
the shrubs agitated by the zephyr. The nightingale sang in a cypress
which pierced the domes of a ruined mosque, and the echoes repeated her
plaintive strains. By the light of the moon, Aben-Hamet wrote the name
of Blanca on the marble of the Hall of the Two Sisters; he traced it in
Arabic characters, in order that the traveller might find an additional
mystery for the exercise of his conjectures in this palace of mysteries.
“Moor,” said Blanca, “these amusements are cruel; let us quit this
spot. The destiny of my life is fixed for ever. Bear well in mind those
words: ‛Mussulman, I am thy mistress without hope; Christian, I am thy
fortunate wife.’”
Aben-Hamet answered: “Christian, I am thy despairing slave; Mussulman,
I am thy proud husband.”
And these noble lovers departed from this dangerous palace.
The passion of Blanca increased every day, and that of Aben-Hamet
became equally violent. He was so transported at the idea of being
loved for his own sake, and of owing the sentiments which he had
inspired to no foreign cause, that he did not disclose the secret of
his birth to the daughter of the Duke of Santa Fé: he pictured to
himself a delicate pleasure in giving her the information that he bore
an illustrious name, on the very day when she consented to give him
her hand. But he was suddenly recalled to Tunis. His mother had been
attacked by an incurable disease, and wished to embrace and bless her
son before her death. Aben-Hamet presented himself at the palace of
Blanca. “Sultana,” said he to her, “my mother is at the point of death.
She has sent for me to close her eyes. Wilt thou continue to love me?”
“Thou leavest me then,” replied Blanca, turning pale; “shall I never
see thee more?”
“Come with me,” said Aben-Hamet; “I wish to exact an oath of thee, and
to give thee one in return, which death alone can break. Follow me.”
They go out; they reach a cemetery which was formerly that of the
Moors. Here and there were still to be seen little funeral columns
round which the sculptor had formerly figured a turban; but which the
Christians had subsequently replaced by a cross. Aben-Hamet led Blanca
to the foot of these columns.
“Blanca,” said he, “this is the place where my ancestors repose; I
swear by their ashes to love thee until the day when the angel of
judgement shall summon me to the tribunal of Allah. I promise thee
never to engage my heart to another woman, and to take thee for my
wife, as soon as thou shalt know the divine light of the prophet. Every
year, at this period, I will return to Granada, to see if thou hast
kept thy faith to me, and if thou wilt renounce thy errors.”
“And I,” said Blanca, in tears, “will expect thee every year; I will
preserve, until my latest sigh, the faith which I have sworn to thee;
and I will receive thee for my husband, when the God of the Christians,
more powerful than thy mistress, shall have melted thy infidel heart.”
Aben-Hamet departs, the winds carry him to the African shores. His
mother had just expired. He weeps for her; he embraces her coffin.
The months roll by; sometimes wandering amid the ruins of Carthage,
sometimes seated on the tomb of St. Louis, the banished Abencerrage
longs for the day which is to carry him back to Granada. That day at
last arrives: Aben-Hamet embarks, and the vessel directs her course to
Malaga. With what transport, with what joy mixed with apprehension,
did he descry the first promontories of Spain! Is Blanca awaiting him
on these shores? Does she still remember the poor Arab, who has never
ceased to adore her under the palm-tree of the desert?
The daughter of the Duke of Santa Fé was not unfaithful to her vows.
She had requested her father to convey her to Malaga. From the
mountain-tops which bordered the uninhabited coast, she followed with
her eyes the distant vessels and the flying sails. During the tempest,
she contemplated with alarm the sea, as it was raised into fury by the
winds. Then it was that she loved to lose herself in the clouds, to
expose herself in dangerous passages, to feel herself washed by the
same waves, or carried along by the same hurricane which threatened
the days of Aben-Hamet. As she saw the plaintive seamew skim the waves
with her large crooked wings, and fly towards the shores of Africa, she
charged her with all the love-messages and extravagant wishes which
proceed from a heart devoured by passion.
One day, while wandering on the beach, she discovered a long vessel,
whose elevated prow, bent mast, and triangular sail announced the
elegant genius of the Moors. Blanca ran to the port, into which she
soon saw the Barbary vessel enter, making the sea foam under her rapid
course. A Moor, most superbly dressed, was standing on the prow.
Behind him, two black slaves held by the bridle an Arabian horse,
whose smoking nostrils and dishevelled mane indicated both his natural
ardour, and the terror with which the noise of the waves affected him.
The bark arrives, lowers her sails, touches the pier, and lays to her
side; the Moor springs upon the shore, which re-echoes with the sound
of his arms. The slaves disembark the leopard-spotted courser, which
neighs and leaps with joy at once more finding himself on land. Other
slaves lower, with great care, a basket in which lay a gazelle amid
palm-tree leaves; her delicate limbs were fastened and doubled under
her, for fear of their being broken by the movement of the vessel; she
wore a collar of aloe berries, and upon the gold plate, which served to
connect the two ends of the collar, were engraved in Arabic a name and
a talisman.
Blanca recognized Aben-Hamet; fearful of betraying herself in the
presence of the crowd, she retired, and sent Dorothea, one of her
attendants, to inform the Abencerrage, that she was waiting for him
at the palace of the Moors. Aben-Hamet was at that moment presenting
to the governor his firman, written in blue characters on beautiful
vellum, and rolled up in a silk case. Dorothea approached, and
conducted the happy Abencerrage to the feet of Blanca. What transports,
when they found that both had remained faithful! What happiness in
seeing each other after having been so long separated! How many fresh
vows of eternal affection!
The two black slaves bring the Numidian courser, which, in place of a
saddle, had only a lion’s skin thrown over his back and fastened by a
purple belt. Afterwards the gazelle was introduced. “Sultana,” said
Aben-Hamet, “this is a deer of my country, almost as light-footed as
thyself.” Blanca, with her own hands, untied the beautiful animal,
which seemed to thank her, by looks of the sweetest expression. During
the absence of the Abencerrage, the daughter of the Duke of Santa Fé
had been studying Arabic; she read, with tearful eyes, her own name
engraved on the gazelle’s collar. The animal, on being restored to her
liberty, could scarcely stand upon her feet, from their having been so
long tied up; she laid herself down upon the ground, and leaned her
head against the knees of her mistress. Blanca gave her some fresh
dates, and caressed this doe of the desert, whose fine coat retained
the perfume of the aloe wood and of the rose of Tunis.
The Abencerrage, the Duke of Santa Fé and his daughter departed
together for Granada. The days of the happy lovers passed like those
of the preceding year: the same walks, the same regret at the sight
of his country, the same love, or rather love always increasing, and
always mutual; but also the same attachment in the two lovers to the
religion of their fathers. “Become a Christian,” said Blanca;--“Become
a Mussulman,” said Aben-Hamet, and they separated once more, without
giving way to the passion which attracted them to each other.
Aben-Hamet reappeared the third year, like those birds of passage,
which love brings back to our climates in the spring. This time he
found not Blanca on the shore; but a letter from that adored woman
informed the faithful Arab of the departure of the Duke for Madrid, and
the arrival of Don Carlos at Granada. The latter was accompanied by
a French prisoner, friend of Blanca’s brother. The Moor’s heart sunk
within him at the perusal of this letter. He set out from Malaga for
Granada with the most melancholy forebodings; the mountains appeared to
him frightfully solitary: and he several times turned round to look at
the sea which he had just crossed.
Blanca, during her father’s absence, had been unable to quit a brother
whom she loved, a brother who intended to divest himself of all his
property in her favour, and whom she saw again after seven years’
absence. Don Carlos possessed all the courage and all the pride of
his nation: terrible as the conquerors of the New World, in whose
ranks he had first carried arms; religious like the Spanish knights
who conquered the Moors, he cherished in his heart that hatred of the
infidels which he inherited from the blood of the Cid.
Thomas de Lautrec, of the illustrious house of Foix, in which beauty
in the females and bravery in the males were regarded as hereditary
qualities, was the younger brother of the Countess de Foix, and of the
brave and unfortunate Odet de Foix, Lord of Lautrec. At the age of
eighteen, Thomas had been knighted by Bayard, in that retreat which
cost the life of the knight without fear and without reproach. Some
time after, Thomas was pierced with wounds and made prisoner at Pavia,
while defending the chivalrous monarch, who then lost all, except his
honour.
Don Carlos de Bivar, who was a witness of the gallantry of Lautrec, had
caused care to be taken of the wounds of the young Frenchman, and there
was speedily formed between them one of those heroic friendships, of
which esteem and virtue are the foundations. Francis I. had returned
to France, but Charles V. detained the other prisoners. Lautrec had
had the honour to share his sovereign’s captivity, and to lie at his
feet in prison. Having remained in Spain, after the departure of his
king, he had been handed over on his parole to Don Carlos, who had just
brought him to Granada.
When Aben-Hamet presented himself at the palace of Don Rodrigo, and
the door of the apartment in which was the Duke of Santa Fé’s daughter
was opened, he experienced torments hitherto unknown to him. At the
feet of Donna Blanca was seated a young man, who was looking at her
in silence with a species of transport. This young man wore breeches
made of buffalo’s skin, and a doublet of the same colour, fastened by
a belt from which was suspended a sword with fleurs-de-lis. A silk
mantle was thrown over his shoulders, and his head was covered with a
narrow-brimmed hat, surmounted with feathers. A lace ruff, falling back
on his bosom, allowed his neck to be seen. A pair of moustaches, black
as ebony, gave a masculine and warlike air to a countenance naturally
mild. To his large boots, which fell down and doubled over his feet,
were attached golden spurs, the marks of knightly quality.
At some distance, another knight was standing, leaning on the iron
cross of his long sword; he was dressed like his companion, but seemed
rather older. His austere look, though at the same time ardent and
passionate, inspired respect and awe. The red cross of Calatrava was
embroidered on his doublet with this device: _For it and for my king_.
When Blanca perceived Aben-Hamet, she uttered an involuntary cry.
“Knights,” said she immediately, “this is the infidel of whom I have
said so much to you; take care he does not bear away the victory. The
Abencerrages were just like him, and they were surpassed by none in
loyalty, courage and gallantry.”
Don Carlos advanced to meet Aben-Hamet. “Señor Moor,” said he, “my
father and sister have informed me of your name. They believe you are
of a noble and brave race: you are yourself distinguished for your
courtesy. My master Charles V. must soon commence war against Tunis,
and we shall, I hope, meet each other in the field of honour.”
Aben-Hamet placed his hand upon his bosom, seated himself upon the
ground without answering, and remained with his eyes fixed upon Blanca
and upon Lautrec. The latter was admiring, with the curiosity peculiar
to his countrymen, the handsome countenance of the Moor, his noble
dress and his brilliant armour. Blanca displayed not the slightest
embarrassment: her soul was completely exhibited in her eyes; the
ingenuous Spaniard made no attempt to conceal the secret of her heart.
After a silence of a few moments, Aben-Hamet rose, made his bow to the
daughter of Don Rodrigo, and retired. Astonished at the behaviour of
the Moor, and at the looks of Blanca, Lautrec left the apartment, with
a suspicion which was speedily changed into certainty.
Don Carlos remained alone with his sister. “Blanca,” said he, “explain
yourself. Whence this trouble which the sight of this stranger has
occasioned you?”
“Brother,” answered Blanca, “I love Aben-Hamet, and, if he will become
a Christian, my hand is his.”
“What!” exclaimed Don Carlos, “you love Aben-Hamet! the daughter of
the Bivars love a Moor, an infidel, an enemy, whom we have driven from
these palaces!”
“Don Carlos,” replied Blanca, “I love Aben-Hamet; Aben-Hamet loves me;
for three years he has renounced me, sooner than renounce the religion
of his forefathers. He possesses nobility, honour and knighthood: to my
last breath I will adore him.”
Don Carlos was capable of estimating, in its fullest extent, the
generous resolution of Aben-Hamet, although he lamented the infatuation
of that infidel. “Unfortunate Blanca,” said he, “whither will this
passion lead thee? I had hoped that my friend Lautrec would become my
brother.”
“Thou deceivedst thyself,” said Blanca, “I cannot love that stranger.
As to my feelings for Aben-Hamet, I am accountable to no one. Keep thy
knightly vows, as I shall keep my vows of love. For thy comfort, be
assured of this, that Blanca will never become the wife of an infidel.”
“Our family will then disappear from the earth!” said Don Carlos.
“It is thy business to revive it,” said Blanca. “Besides, of what
consequence are sons whom thou wilt never see, and who will degenerate
from thy virtues? Don Carlos, I feel that we are the last of our race;
we are too much out of the common order to expect that our blood should
flourish after us. The Cid was our ancestor: he will be our posterity;”
so saying she quitted the apartment.
Don Carlos flew to the Abencerrage. “Moor,” said he, “renounce my
sister, or meet me in single combat.”
“Art thou entrusted by thy sister,” said Aben-Hamet, “to reclaim the
vows which she has made to me?”
“No,” replied Don Carlos, “she loves thee more than ever.”
“Ah! worthy brother of Blanca!” exclaimed Aben-Hamet, interrupting him,
“I must derive all my happiness from thy noble blood! O fortunate
Aben-Hamet! O happy day! I believed that Blanca was unfaithful for this
French knight ...”
“That is thy misfortune!” angrily exclaimed Don Carlos in his turn,
“Lautrec is my friend; but for thee, he would be my brother. You must
give me satisfaction for the tears which you make my family shed.”
“I am contented to do so,” answered Aben-Hamet, “but although I am
sprung from a family, which has probably combated thine, I am not a
knight. I see no one here to confer upon me that order, which will
allow thee to measure thy strength with mine, without degrading thy
rank.”
Struck with the Moor’s observation, Don Carlos looked at him with a
mixture of admiration and rage. Then all at once, “I myself will dub
thee knight! thou art worthy of it.”
Aben-Hamet bent his knee to Don Carlos. The latter gave him the
accolade, by striking him three times on the shoulder with the flat
side of his sword; afterwards, he girded on him the same sword which
the Abencerrage, perhaps, was about to plunge into his bosom. Such was
ancient honour.
Both of them immediately sprang upon their coursers, got beyond the
walls of Granada, and flew to the Fountain of the Pine. The duels
between the Moors and Christians had for a long time given celebrity to
this spring. It was there that Malek Alabes had fought with Ponce de
Leon, and the Grand Master of Calatrava had killed the brave Abayados.
The fragments of the armour of this Moorish knight were still seen
suspended from the branches of the pine, and on the bark of the tree
some letters of a funeral inscription were still legible. Don Carlos
pointed out with his hand, to the Abencerrage, the tomb of Abayados.
“Imitate,” said he to him, “that brave infidel, and receive baptism and
death from my hand.”
“Death perhaps,” answered Aben-Hamet, “but Allah and the Prophet for
ever!”
They immediately proceeded to take their ground, and rushed against
each other with fury. They were only provided with swords: Aben-Hamet
was much less skilful than Don Carlos in combat, but the excellence of
his arms, which had been tempered at Damascus, and the fleetness of his
Arabian steed, gave him an advantage over his enemy. He gave the reins
to his courser in the Moorish manner, and with his large sharp stirrup
cut the right leg of Don Carlos’s horse under the knee. The wounded
animal fell to the ground, and Don Carlos, dismounted by this fortunate
blow, marched against Aben-Hamet, bearing his sword aloft. Aben-Hamet
sprang to the ground, and met Don Carlos with intrepidity; he warded
off the first blows of the Spaniard, who broke his sword against the
Damascus blade; twice disappointed by fortune, Don Carlos shed tears of
rage, and called out to his enemy: “Strike, Moor, strike; Don Carlos,
although disarmed, defies thee, thee and all thy infidel race.”
“Thou mightest have slain me,” replied the Abencerrage, “but I never
thought of giving thee the slightest wound. I only wished to prove to
thee that I was worthy of being thy brother, and to prevent thee from
despising me.”
At that instant, they perceived a cloud of dust: it was Lautrec and
Blanca, who were spurring on two mares of Fez, fleeter than the wind.
On arriving at the Fountain of the Pine, they saw the combat suspended.
“I am vanquished,” said Don Carlos, “this knight has given me my life.
Lautrec, you will perhaps be more fortunate than I?”
“My wounds,” replied Lautrec, in a noble and dignified tone of voice,
“allow me to decline the combat with this courteous knight. I have no
wish,” added he, with a blush, “to learn the subject of your quarrel,
or to penetrate a secret which would probably be a deathblow to
myself; my absence will speedily cause peace to be restored between
you, at least unless it be Blanca’s orders that I should remain at her
feet.”
“Sir knight,” said Blanca, “you must remain with my brother: you must
look upon me as your sister. The hearts of all present are suffering
deeply; you will learn from us to bear the ills of life.”
Blanca wished to constrain the three knights to shake each other’s
hands; all three refused to do so. “I hate Aben-Hamet,” exclaimed Don
Carlos. “I envy him,” said Lautrec. “And I,” said the Abencerrage, “I
esteem Don Carlos, and I pity Lautrec; but I can love neither of them.”
“Let us continue to see each other,” said Blanca, “and sooner or later
friendship will follow esteem. Let the fatal event which has brought us
here be for ever unknown at Granada.”
From that moment Aben-Hamet became a thousand times dearer to the
daughter of the Duke of Santa Fé: love delights in valour. Nothing was
now wanting to the Abencerrage, since he had shown himself brave, and
Don Carlos owed his life to him. Aben-Hamet, by the advice of Blanca,
abstained from appearing at the palace for several days, to allow
the wrath of Don Carlos time to cool. A mixture of mild and bitter
feelings filled the soul of the Abencerrage; if, on the one hand, the
certainty of being loved with so much fidelity and ardour was to him an
inexhaustible source of delight; on the other, the certainty of never
being happy without renouncing the religion of his fathers weighed
heavily on the courage of Aben-Hamet. Years had already elapsed without
bringing any relief to his sufferings: should he see the rest of his
life pass away in the same manner?
He was plunged into an abyss of the most serious and tender
reflections, when one evening he heard the bell ringing for that
Christian prayer which announces the close of the day. It struck him
that he would enter into the temple of the God of Blanca, and ask
further counsel of the Master of Nature.
He set out; he arrived at the door of an ancient mosque, which had been
converted into a church by the faithful. With a heart pierced by sorrow
and feelings of devotion, he penetrated into the temple which was
formerly that of his God and of his country. Prayers were just ended:
there was no longer any one in the church. A holy obscurity prevailed
amid the multitude of columns, which resembled the trunks of trees of
a regularly planted forest. The light architecture of the Arabs was
here married to the Gothic architecture, and, without losing anything
of its elegance, it had assumed a gravity better adapted to meditation.
A few lamps scarcely gave light to the hollows of the vaults; but, by
the brightness of several lighted tapers, the altar of the sanctuary
was still conspicuous: it glittered with gold and precious stones. The
Spaniards glory in stripping themselves of their riches, in order to
decorate with them the objects of their worship; and the image of the
living God, placed in the midst of lace veils, of crowns of pearls, and
bunches of rubies, receives the adoration of a half-naked people.
Not a seat was to be seen in the whole extent of this vast area: a
marble pavement, which covered coffins, served the great as well as
the little, to prostrate themselves before the Lord. Aben-Hamet walked
slowly up the deserted naves, which re-echoed with the solitary noise
of his footsteps. His mind was divided between the recollections
which this ancient edifice of the Moorish religion recalled to his
memory, and the feelings to which the religion of the Christians
gave birth in his heart. He distinguished at the foot of a column a
motionless figure, which he at first mistook for a statue on a tomb.
On approaching it, he distinguished a young knight on his knees, with
his forehead reverently bent, and his arms crossed upon his bosom. This
knight made not the slightest movement at the noise of Aben-Hamet’s
steps; no mental wandering, no external sign of life disturbed his deep
prayer; his sword was laid on the ground before him, and his plumed hat
was placed by his side on the marble: he had the appearance of being
fixed in that attitude from the effect of some enchantment. Aben-Hamet
recognized Lautrec. “Ah!” said the Abencerrage to himself, “this young
and handsome Frenchman is asking some signal favour of heaven; this
warrior, so celebrated for his courage, is here laying his heart bare
to the Sovereign of Heaven, as the humblest and the most obscure of
men! Let me also pray to the God of knights and of glory.”
Aben-Hamet was about to prostrate himself upon the marble, when he
perceived, by the glimmering of a lamp, some Arabic characters and a
verse of the Koran, which appeared upon a half-ruined tablet. His heart
again felt the pangs of remorse; and he made haste to quit a building
in which he had entertained the idea of becoming a traitor to his
religion and his country.
The cemetery which surrounded this ancient mosque was a species of
garden, planted with orange, cypress and palm-trees, and watered by two
fountains; a cloister went all round it. Aben-Hamet, in passing under
one of the porticoes, perceived a female about to enter the church.
Although she was wrapped up in a veil, the Abencerrage recognized the
daughter of the Duke of Santa Fé; he stopped her, and said to her:
“Dost thou come to seek Lautrec in this temple?”
“Dismiss this vulgar jealousy,” replied Blanca, “if I no longer loved
thee, I would tell thee so: I would scorn to deceive thee. I come here
to pray for thee. Thou alone art now the object of my wishes. I forget
my own soul for thine. Thou shouldst not have intoxicated me with the
poison of thy love, or thou shouldst have consented to serve the God
whom I serve. Thou disturbest my whole family; my brother hates thee,
my father is overwhelmed with vexation, because I refuse to marry.
Dost thou not see how much my health suffers? Behold this enchanted
asylum of death: here I shall soon be laid, if thou dost not hasten to
receive my vows at the foot of the Christian altar. The struggles which
I endure are gradually undermining my existence; the passion, with
which thou hast inspired me, will not always support this feeble frame.
Remember, oh Moor, to speak to thee in thy own language, that the flame
which lights the torch is also the fire which consumes it.”
Blanca entered the church, and left Aben-Hamet confounded with her last
words.
The struggle is ended; the Abencerrage is vanquished; he is about to
renounce the errors of his faith; he has struggled long enough; the
dread of seeing Blanca perish triumphs over every other feeling in the
breast of Aben-Hamet. “After all,” said he to himself, “perhaps the
God of the Christians is the true God? This God is always the deity
of noble souls, since he is the God of Blanca, of Don Carlos, and of
Lautrec.”
Full of this idea, Aben-Hamet waited with impatience for the following
day, to inform Blanca of his resolution, and to convert a life of
sorrow and of tears into one of joy and happiness; he was unable,
however, to repair to the palace of the Duke of Santa Fé until the
evening. He learned that Blanca was gone with her brother to the
Generalife, where Lautrec was giving an entertainment. Agitated by
fresh suspicions, Aben-Hamet flies upon the traces of Blanca. Lautrec
blushed at seeing the Abencerrage appear so suddenly; as to Don Carlos,
he received the Moor with cool politeness, through which esteem was
perceptible.
Lautrec had caused a collation to be served up of the finest fruits of
Spain and of Africa, in one of the apartments of the Generalife, styled
the _Hall of the Knights_. All round this hall were suspended the
portraits of the princes and knights, who had conquered the Moors,--of
Pelayo, the Cid, Gonzalvo de Cordova; and the sword of the last king of
Granada was hung under these portraits. Aben-Hamet did not allow the
internal pain which he felt to appear, and only said, like the lion, on
looking at these portraits, “We know not how to paint.”
The generous Lautrec, who saw the eyes of the Abencerrage turned
involuntarily towards the sword of Boabdil, said to him, “Knight of
the Moors, had I anticipated the honour of your presence at this fête,
I would not have received you here. One loses a sword every day, and
I have seen the bravest of monarchs deliver up his to his fortunate
enemy.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the Moor, hiding his face with a corner of his robe,
“one might lose it like Francis I., but like Boabdil!...”
Night came on, lights were brought, and the conversation took another
turn. Don Carlos was requested to relate the discovery of Mexico. He
spoke of that unknown world with the pompous eloquence which is natural
to the Spanish nation. He related the misfortunes of Montezuma, the
manners of the Americans, the prodigies of Spanish valour, and even
the cruelties of his countrymen, which did not, in his eyes, seem to
deserve either praise or blame.
These narratives delighted Aben-Hamet, whose passion for marvellous
tales betrayed his Arabian blood. When it came to his turn, he gave
a picture of the Ottoman empire, newly established on the ruins of
Constantinople, bestowing a tribute of passing regret to the first
empire of Mahomet; the happy days when the Commander of the Faithful
saw shining around him Zobeide, Flower of Beauty, Jalib al Koolloob,
Fetnah and the generous Ganem, Love’s Slave. As to Lautrec, he painted
the gallant court of Francis I., the arts reviving from the midst
of barbarism, the honour, the loyalty, the chivalry of the olden
time, joined to the politeness of civilized ages, the Gothic turrets
ornamented with the Grecian orders, and the French ladies setting off
their rich dresses with Athenian elegance.
After this conversation, Lautrec, wishing to amuse the divinity of the
entertainment, took his guitar, and sang this romance[5] which he had
composed to one of the mountain airs of his country:
Oft to my birthplace mem’ry’s glance
Will turn, and my rapt soul entrance!
Sister, how sweet the minutes rolled
In France!
My country! thee more dear I hold
Than gold.
Rememb’rest thou how to her breast
Our mother both her children prest,
And how her bright white looks would glister?
How blest!
While we with lips of love, sweet sister!
Kiss’d her.
Rememb’rest thou that castle dear,
By which the swift stream flowed; and near,
That Moorish tow’r, with age so worn,
From where
The trumpet sounded when the morn
Was born?
Rememb’rest thou that tranquil lake
Which the swift swallow skimmed to slake
His thirst; where zephyr the sweet rose
Would shake;
And Sol’s last rays at evening’s close
Repose?
Oh! who my Helen back will yield,
My native hill, my oak-crowned field?
Their mem’ry keeps my heart-wounds old
Unhealed;
My country! thee more dear I’ll hold
Than gold.
As he finished the last couplet, Lautrec, with his glove, brushed away
the tear which the recollection of the gentle land of France extorted
from him. The regret of the handsome prisoner was warmly participated
by Aben-Hamet, who deplored as well as Lautrec the loss of his country.
When requested to take the guitar in his turn, he excused himself,
by saying that he only knew one romance, which would not be at all
agreeable to Christian ears.
” If it is a song of the infidels smarting under our victories,” said
Don Carlos scornfully, “you may sing it; tears are allowed to the
vanquished.”
“Yes,” said Blanca, “and that is the reason why our ancestors, while
they were under the Moorish yoke, have left us so many _complaints_.”
Aben-Hamet then sang this ballad, which he had learned from a poet of
the tribe of the Abencerrages.[6]
As Royal John
Rode out one day,
Granada’s town
Before him lay,
With sudden start,
“Fair town,” said he,
“My hand and heart
I give to thee.
“Thee will I wive,
And to thee will
Cordova give,
And proud Seville.
Robes rich and fair,
And jewels fine,
Shall all declare
My love is thine.”
Granada cried,
“Great Leon’s king!
I’m the Moor’s bride,
I wear his ring.
So keep thy own;
The gems I wear
Are a gorgeous zone
And children dear.”
Thou promis’d’st thus,
But kept’st not well,
O woe for us!
Granada fell.
A Christian base,
Abencerrage,
Rules thy birthplace;
’Twas in Fate’s page.
To that tomb ne’er,
The pool so near,
Shall camel bear
Medina’s seer.
A Christian base,
Abencerrage,
Rules thy birthplace;
’Twas in Fate’s page.
Alhambra’s tow’rs!
Palace of God!
Town of fair flow’rs
And fountains broad!
A Christian base,
Abencerrage,
Rules thy birthplace;
’Twas in Fate’s page.
The plaintive artlessness of this lament affected even the proud Don
Carlos, notwithstanding the imprecations it pronounced against the
Christians. He would have wished to be excused from singing himself,
but, out of courtesy to Lautrec, he felt obliged to yield to his
entreaties. Aben-Hamet handed the guitar to Blanca’s brother, who
celebrated the exploits of the Cid, his illustrious ancestor.[7]
Bright in his mail, with love and valour fired,
The Cid, about to part for Afric’s war,
Stretched at Ximena’s feet, as love inspired,
Thus sung his parting to the sweet guitar:
“My love hath said: Go forth and meet the Moor,
Return victorious from the well-fought field;
Yes! I shall then believe thou canst adore,
If, at my wish, thy love to honour yield!
“Then give to me my helmet and my spear!
In bloody fight the Cid his love shall prove,
Amidst the din of war the Moor shall hear
His battle-cry, ‛My honour and my love!’
“O gallant Moor, vaunt not thy tuneful strain,
My song shall be a nobler theme than thine,
Ere long it will become the folly of Spain,
As one where love with honour doth combine.
“Oft in my native valleys shall be heard
In the old Christians’ mouth Rodrigo’s name,
Who nobly to inglorious life preferred
His God, his king, his honour, and his flame.”
Don Carlos appeared so proud in singing these words, in a masculine
and sonorous voice, that he might have been taken for the Cid
himself. Lautrec shared the warlike enthusiasm of his friend; but the
Abencerrage had turned pale at the name of the Cid.
“This knight,” said he, “whom the Christians denominate the Flower of
Battles, bears with us the name of the Cruel. Had his generosity but
equalled his valour!...”
“His generosity,” said Don Carlos, interrupting Aben-Hamet, warmly,
“was even greater than his courage, and none but a Moor would
calumniate the hero to whom my family owes its birth.”
“What sayest thou?” exclaimed Aben-Hamet, springing up from the seat
on which he lay half reclined: “dost thou reckon the Cid among thy
ancestors?”
“His blood flows in my veins,” replied Don Carlos, “and I recognize my
possession of that noble blood by the hatred with which my heart burns
against the foes of my God.”
“It follows then,” said Aben-Hamet, looking at Blanca, “that you belong
to the family of the Bivars who, after the conquest of Granada, invaded
the possessions of the unfortunate Abencerrages, and put to death an
ancient knight of that name, who attempted to defend the tomb of his
forefathers.”
“Moor!” exclaimed Don Carlos, inflamed with rage, “know that I do not
suffer myself to be interrogated. If I now possess the spoils of the
Abencerrages, my ancestors acquired them at the price of their blood,
and to their sword only do they owe them.”
“Only one word more,” said Aben-Hamet, with constantly increasing
emotion; “we knew not in our exile that the Bivars had the title of
Santa Fé, and it was this which was the cause of my error.”
“It was on the same Bivar,” answered Don Carlos, “who conquered the
Abencerrages, that this title was conferred by Ferdinand the Catholic.”
The head of Aben-Hamet declined upon his bosom; he remained standing
in the midst of Don Carlos, Lautrec and Blanca, who looked at him with
astonishment. Two floods of tears gushed from his eyes upon the poniard
which was fastened to his girdle. “Pardon me,” he said, “men ought
not, I know, to shed tears; from this time mine will no longer flow
externally, although I have many more to shed: listen to me.
“Blanca! my love for thee equals the ardour of the burning winds of
Arabia. I was conquered: I could no longer live without thee. Yesterday
the sight of this French knight at his prayers, and thy words in the
cemetery of the temple, had made me resolve to know thy God, and to
pledge thee my faith.”
A movement of joy from Blanca, and of surprise from Don Carlos,
interrupted Aben-Hamet; Lautrec covered his face with both hands. The
Moor divined his thoughts, and shaking his head with an agonizing smile
said, “Knight, lose not all hope; as to thee, Blanca, weep for ever
over the last of the Abencerrages.”
Blanca, Don Carlos and Lautrec all three lifted up their hands to
heaven, and exclaimed, “The last of the Abencerrages!”
There was a moment of silence; fear, hope, hatred, love, astonishment
and jealousy agitated their different hearts: Blanca shortly fell upon
her knees: “Gracious God!” she said, “thou hast justified my choice; I
could only love the descendant of heroes!”
“Sister!” said the irritated Don Carlos, “you forget that you are here
in the presence of Lautrec.”
“Don Carlos,” said Aben-Hamet, “suspend thy wrath: it is my business to
restore thee to repose.” Then, addressing himself to Blanca, who had
again taken her seat:
“Houri of heaven, Genie of love and of beauty, Aben-Hamet will be thy
slave to his latest breath; but hear the full extent of his misfortune.
The old man who was immolated by thy ancestor, while defending his
home, was the father of my father; learn also a secret which I
concealed from thee, or rather which thou madest me forget. When I came
for the first time to visit this sorrowful country, my first object was
to find out some descendant of the Bivars whom I might call to account
for the blood which his fathers had shed.”
“Well then,” said Blanca, in a voice of grief, but sustained by the
accent of a great soul, “what is thy resolution?”
“The only one which is worthy of thee,” answered Aben-Hamet: “to
restore thee thy vows, to satisfy by my eternal absence, and by my
death, what we both of us owe to the enmity of our Gods, of our
countries, and of our families. Should my image ever be blotted out
from thy heart; if time, which destroys everything, should erase from
thy memory the recollection of Abencerrage ... this French knight ...
Thou owest this sacrifice to thy brother.”
Lautrec started up impetuously, and threw himself into the arms of the
Moor. “Aben-Hamet,” he cried, “think not to outdo me in generosity; I
am a Frenchman; I was knighted by Bayard; I have shed my blood for my
king; I will be like my sponsor and my prince, without fear and without
reproach. Shouldst thou remain with us, I will entreat Don Carlos to
bestow upon thee the hand of his sister; if thou quittest Granada,
never shall thy mistress be troubled with a whisper of my love. Thou
shalt not carry with thee into thy exile the fatal idea that Lautrec
was insensible to thy virtues, and sought to take advantage of thy
misfortune.”
And the young knight pressed the Moor to his bosom with the warmth and
vivacity of a Frenchman.
“Knights,” said Don Carlos in his turn, “I expected nothing less from
the illustrious races to which ye belong. Aben-Hamet, by what mark can
I recognize you for the last Abencerrage?”
“By my conduct,” replied Aben-Hamet.
“I admire it,” said the Spaniard; “but, before I explain myself, shew
me some proof of your birth.”
Aben-Hamet took from his bosom the hereditary ring of the Abencerrages,
which he wore suspended from a golden chain.
At sight of this, Don Carlos stretched out his hand to the unfortunate
Aben-Hamet. “Sir knight,” said he, “I regard you as a man of honour,
and the real descendant of kings. You honour me by your plans connected
with my family; I accept the combat which you came privately to seek.
If I am conquered, all my property, which formerly belonged to your
family, shall be faithfully restored to you. If you have renounced
your intention to fight, accept in turn the offer which I make to you:
become a Christian, and receive the hand of my sister, which Lautrec
has solicited for you.”
The temptation was great; but it was not beyond the strength of
Aben-Hamet. If all-powerful love pleaded strongly in the heart of the
Abencerrage; on the other hand, he could not think but with terror of
uniting the blood of the persecutors with that of the persecuted. He
fancied he saw the shade of his ancestor rising from the tomb, and
reproaching him with this sacrilegious alliance. With a heart torn by
grief, Aben-Hamet exclaimed: “Ah! why do I here meet with souls so
sublime, characters so generous, to make me feel more bitterly the
value of what I lose! Let Blanca pronounce; let _her_ say what I must
do, in order to render myself more worthy of her love!”
“Return to the desert!” was the exclamation of Blanca, who immediately
sunk to the earth in a swoon.
Aben-Hamet prostrated himself, adored Blanca even more than Heaven, and
departed without uttering a word. The same night he set out for Malaga,
and took his passage on board a vessel which was to touch at Oran. Near
that city he found the caravan encamped which leaves Morocco every
three years, crosses Africa, repairs to Egypt, and rejoins the caravan
of Mecca in Yemen. Aben-Hamet joined it as one of the pilgrims.
Blanca’s life was at first considered to be in danger, but she
recovered. Faithful to the promise which he had given to the
Abencerrage, Lautrec departed, and never did a word of his love or his
sorrow trouble the melancholy of the daughter of the Duke of Santa Fé.
Every year Blanca made a journey to Malaga, to wander on the mountains,
at the period when her lover was accustomed to return from Africa; she
seated herself upon the rocks, contemplated the sea, and the vessels in
the distance, and afterwards returned to Granada: she passed the rest
of her life amid the ruins of the Alhambra. She complained not; she
wept not; she never spoke of Aben-Hamet; a stranger to her would have
thought her happy. She was the only survivor of her family. Her father
died of grief, and Don Carlos was killed in a duel, in which Lautrec
acted as his second. What was the fate of Aben-Hamet no one ever knew.
In leaving Tunis, by the gate which leads to the ruins of Carthage,
the traveller finds a cemetery; under a palm-tree, in a corner of this
cemetery, a tomb was pointed out to me, which was called _the tomb
of the last of the Abencerrages_. There is nothing remarkable about
it; the sepulchral stone is perfectly smooth; only, after a Moorish
fashion, a slight hole has been excavated in the middle of it by the
chisel. The rain-water which collects in the bottom of this funeral
cup, serves, in a burning climate, to quench the thirst of the birds of
the air.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Published posthumously. “Stendhal” died in 1842.
[2] The towers of a palace at Granada.
[3] An expression which the Mussulmans have constantly in their mouths,
and apply to almost every event in their lives.
[4] This inscription, as well as several others, is still existing. It
is needless to say that I wrote this description of the Alhambra on the
spot.
[5] The public is already acquainted with this romance. I composed
the words for an air of the mountains of Auvergne, remarkable for its
sweetness and simplicity.
[6] In crossing the mountainous country between Algeciras and Cadiz,
I halted at a _venta_ situated in the midst of a wood. I found there
only a little boy of fourteen or fifteen, and a little girl of nearly
the same age, brother and sister, who were sitting by the fireside
and twisting mats. They sang a romance, the words of which I did
not understand, but the air was simple and naïve. The weather was
dreadfully stormy, and I remained two hours at the _venta_. My juvenile
hosts repeated so frequently the couplets of their romance, that it was
easy for me to get the air by heart. To this air I composed the romance
of the Abencerrage. Perhaps Aben-Hamet was mentioned in the romance of
my two little Spaniards. I may add that the dialogue of Granada and the
king of Leon is imitated from a Spanish romance.
[7] All the world knows the air of the _Follies of Spain_. This air
had no words, at least none which expressed its grave, religious and
chivalrous character. This character I have endeavoured to give in the
romance of the Cid. This romance, having got into the hands of the
public without my consent, some celebrated masters did me the honour
to set it to music. But, as I had expressly composed it for the air of
the _Follies of Spain_, one of the couplets becomes complete nonsense,
unless, reference is had to my original intention.
My song shall be a nobler theme than thine, Ere long it will become
_the folly of Spain_, etc.
In short, these three romances have little other merit than their
adaptation to three old airs of undoubted nationality: besides this,
they bring on the _dénouement_ of the story.
THE PRISONERS OF THE CAUCASUS
COUNT XAVIER DE MAISTRE
The Caucasian mountains have long been enclosed by the Russian empire
without belonging to it. Their fierce inhabitants, cut off by language
and by difference of interests, form a large number of petty tribes
which have little political intercourse one with another, but which are
all animated by the same love of independence and of plunder.
One of the most numerous and most formidable is that of the Tchetchens,
who inhabit the great and the little Kabarda, provinces whose lofty
valleys extend as far as the summits of the Caucasus. The men of this
tribe are handsome, brave, and intelligent, but they are robbers and
cruel, and in a continual state of war with the troops of “the line.”[8]
In the midst of these dangerous hordes, and in the very centre of
this immense chain of mountains, Russia has established a line of
communication with her possessions in Asia. Redoubts, placed at
intervals, protect the road as far as Georgia, but no traveller would
dare to venture alone across the space separating them. Twice a week a
convoy of infantry, with cannon and a considerable party of Cossacks,
escorts travellers and government dispatches. One of these redoubts,
situated at the outlet of the mountains, has become a village with a
fair-sized population. Its position has caused it to receive the name
of Vladikavkaz:[9] it is used as the residence of the commandant of the
troops who perform the troublesome duty which has just been mentioned.
Major Kaskambo, of the Vologda regiment, a Russian nobleman, belonging
to a family of Greek origin, was to go and take up the command of the
station at Lars, in the gorges of the Caucasus. Impatient to reach his
post, and brave to rashness, he had the imprudence to undertake this
journey with the escort of some fifty Cossacks whom he commanded, and
the still greater imprudence to talk of his plan and boast about it
before it was carried out.
The Tchetchens who live near the frontiers, and are called “peaceful
Tchetchens,” are subject to Russia, and have in consequence free
access to Mozdok; but most of them keep up friendly relations with
the mountaineers and are very often partners in their robberies.
These last, apprised of Kaskambo’s journey and of the very day of his
departure, proceeded in great numbers to the road by which he was
to travel, and prepared an ambush for him. About twenty versts from
Mozdok, at the turn of a little hill covered with brushwood, he was
attacked by seven hundred mounted men. Retreat was impossible: the
Cossacks dismounted and sustained the attack with great firmness,
hoping to be relieved by the troops of a redoubt which was not far
distant.
The inhabitants of the Caucasus, although individually very brave,
are incapable of a concerted attack, and consequently are not very
dangerous to a troop that presents a firm front; but they are well
armed and take excellent aim. Their large numbers, on this occasion,
made the fight too unequal. After a fairly long fusillade, more than
half of the Cossacks were killed or disabled; the rest had made for
themselves, with their dead horses, a circular rampart, from behind
which they fired their last cartridges. The Tchetchens, who are always
accompanied in their expeditions by Russian deserters, whom they use
if need arises as interpreters, made them shout to the Cossacks:
“Surrender the major to us, or you will be killed to the last man.”
Kaskambo, foreseeing the certain loss of his men, resolved to surrender
himself to save the lives of those who were left: he entrusted his
sword to the Cossacks and advanced alone towards the Tchetchens, who
ceased firing immediately, their aim being only to take him alive in
order to obtain a ransom. He had scarcely given himself up to his
enemies, when he saw appearing in the distance the relief that was
being sent to him: it was too late: the brigands rapidly withdrew.
His “denshchik” [10] had stayed behind with the mule that carried the
major’s baggage. Hidden in a ravine, he was awaiting the issue of
the fight, when the Cossacks found him and told him of his master’s
misfortune. The worthy servant at once determined to share his fate,
and set out in the direction whither the Tchetchens had retreated,
leading his mule with him, and following the track of the horses. When
he began to lose it in the darkness, he met a straggler of the enemy,
who conducted him to the Tchetchens’ rendezvous.
One can imagine the feelings of the prisoner when he saw his denshchik
come of his own accord to share his bad fortune. The Tchetchens at once
divided amongst themselves the booty thus brought to them. They left
to the major only a guitar which was with his baggage, and which they
restored to him in mockery. Ivan (this was the denshchik’s name)[11]
seized upon it and refused to throw it away, as his master advised him.
“Why should we lose heart?” he said, “‘the God of the Russians is
great’;[12] it is to the interest of the brigands to preserve you. They
will do you no harm.”
After a halt of some hours the horde were going to continue their
march, when one of their men, who had just joined them, announced
that the Russians were still advancing, and that probably the troops
from the other redoubts would unite to pursue them. The chiefs held
a council; it was a question of concealing their retreat, not only
in order to keep their prisoner, but also to turn the enemy aside
from their villages, and thus avoid reprisals. The horde dispersed by
various roads. Ten men on foot were told off to conduct the prisoners,
while about a hundred horsemen remained together, and marched in a
different direction from that which Kaskambo was to take. They took
away from the latter his nail-studded boots, which might have left a
recognizable track on the ground, and forced him, as well as Ivan, to
walk barefoot for a part of the morning.
Coming near a stream, the little escort followed its course, on the
grass, for a distance of half a verst, and climbed down the banks where
they were steepest, among thorny bushes, being careful to avoid leaving
any trace of their passage. The major was so weary, that, to bring him
down to the stream, they had to hold him up with belts. His feet were
bleeding; they decided to give him back his boots so that he might be
able to finish what remained of the journey.
When they reached the first village, Kaskambo, still more ill with
vexation than with fatigue, seemed to his guards so weak and exhausted,
that they feared for his life, and treated him more humanely. They
allowed him a short rest, and gave him a horse for the march; but to
turn aside the Russians from the search they might prosecute, and to
make it impossible for the prisoner himself to apprise his friends
of the place where he was hidden, they carried him from village to
village, and from one valley to another, taking the precaution of
blindfolding him several times. They thus passed a large river, which
he supposed to be the Sudja. They took great care of him during these
journeys, allowing him sufficient food and such rest as he needed.
But, when they had reached the distant village where he was to be kept
definitely, the Tchetchens suddenly changed their conduct towards him,
and subjected him to all kinds of ill treatment. They fettered his
hands and feet, and put round his neck a chain, to the end of which a
log of oak was fastened. The denshchik was less harshly treated, his
fetters were lighter, and permitted of his rendering some services to
his master.
Situated thus, at every fresh outrage he endured, a man who spoke
Russian would come to see him and advise him to write to his friends to
obtain his ransom, which had been fixed at ten thousand roubles. The
unhappy prisoner was unable to pay such a large sum, and had no hope
except in the protection of the government, which had redeemed, some
years before, a colonel who had fallen like himself into the hands of
the brigands. The interpreter promised to provide him with paper and
to see that his letter reached its destination; but after obtaining
his consent he did not reappear for several days, and during this time
the major was made to suffer increased miseries. They deprived him of
food, they took away from him the mat on which he had lain, and the pad
of a Cossack saddle which had served him for a pillow; and, when at
last the mediator returned, he announced, in confidence, that if the
sum demanded was refused at the line, or if payment of it was delayed,
the Tchetchens had decided to make away with him, in order to spare
themselves the expense and anxiety which he caused them. The object of
their cruel behaviour was to compel him to write more urgently. At last
he was supplied with paper and a reed cut in the Tartar fashion; they
took off the chains which bound his hands and neck, so that he might
write freely; and when the letter was written it was translated to the
chiefs, who undertook to see that it reached the commandant of the line.
From that time, he was treated less harshly, and was burdened with but
a single chain, which bound his right hand and foot.
His host, or rather his gaoler, was an old man of sixty, of enormous
stature, and with a savage appearance which his character did not
belie. Two of his sons had been killed in an encounter with the
Russians, which was the reason of his having been chosen, out of all
the inhabitants of the village, to be the prisoner’s keeper.
The family of this man, whose name was Ibrahim, consisted of the widow
of one of his sons, aged thirty-five, and a young child of seven or
eight, called Mamet. The mother was as ill-natured as the old keeper,
and more capricious. Kaskambo had much to suffer, but the caresses and
friendship of little Mamet were in the time that followed a diversion,
and even a real consolation in his misfortunes. This child conceived
for him so great an affection, that the threats and ill treatment of
his grandfather could not prevent him from coming and playing with the
prisoner whenever he found an opportunity. He had given to the latter
the name of “Kunakh,” which in the language of that country means a
guest or a friend. He secretly shared with him what fruit he could
obtain, and, during the forced abstinence which the major had been
compelled to endure, little Mamet, touched with pity, skilfully took
advantage of his relations’ momentary absence to bring him bread or
potatoes cooked in the ashes.
Some months had elapsed since the sending of the letter, without any
noteworthy event. During this interval, Ivan had been able to win the
good will of the woman and the old man, or at least had succeeded in
making himself necessary to them. He was versed in all the arts that
can be employed in a commanding officer’s mess. He made “kisliya shchi”
[13] to perfection, prepared pickled cucumbers, and had accustomed
his hosts to the little comforts which he had introduced into their
housekeeping.
To win greater confidence, he had placed himself with them on the
footing of a buffoon, every day inventing some new jest to amuse them;
Ibrahim especially loved to see him dance the Cossack dance. When any
one of the villagers came to visit them, Ivan’s fetters were removed,
and he was made to dance; which he always did with a good grace, each
time adding some new absurd gambol. By behaving thus continually he
had obtained for himself the freedom of the village, through which
he was generally followed by a crowd of children attracted by his
buffooneries; and, as he understood the Tartar language, he had soon
learnt that of the country, which is a closely related dialect.
The major himself was often forced to sing Russian songs with his
denshchik, and to play his guitar to amuse this fierce company. At
first they had taken off the chains which fettered his right hand
when this service was exacted from him; but, the woman having noticed
that he would sometimes play, in spite of his fetters, for his own
amusement, this favour was no longer allowed him, and the unfortunate
musician more than once repented that he had let his talent become
known. He did not know then that his guitar would one day assist him to
regain his liberty.
To attain that longed-for liberty, the two prisoners formed a thousand
plans, all very difficult to execute. At the time of their arrival
in the village, the inhabitants used to send each night, by turns,
a different man to augment the guard. Imperceptibly this precaution
was relaxed. Often the sentinel did not come: the woman and the child
slept in a neighbouring room, and old Ibrahim remained alone with
them; but he kept the key of the chains carefully on his person, and
woke up at the least sound. From day to day, the prisoner was treated
more harshly. As the answer to his letters never came, the Tchetchens
often visited his prison to insult him and threaten him with the most
cruel treatment. They deprived him of his meals, and he had one day the
vexation of seeing little Mamet pitilessly beaten for having brought
him a few medlars.
One very remarkable circumstance in the painful position in which
Kaskambo was placed, was the confidence which his persecutors had in
him, and the respect with which he had inspired them. Whilst these
barbarians subjected him to continual outrages, they would often come
to consult him and to make him arbiter in their transactions and in
their contests with one another. Amongst other disputes of which he
was made the judge the following deserves mention on account of its
peculiarity.
One of these men had entrusted a Russian note for five roubles to
his friend, who was leaving for a neighbouring valley, asking him to
deliver it to a certain person. The messenger lost his horse, which
died on the way, and came to the conclusion that he had a right to
keep the five roubles to repay him for the loss he had sustained. This
reasoning, worthy of the Caucasus, was not at all relished by the owner
of the money. On the traveller’s return, there was a great commotion in
the village. These two men had gathered around them all their relations
and friends, and the quarrel might have led to bloodshed if the old
men of the band, after having vainly tried to pacify them, had not
induced them to submit their case to the decision of the prisoner. The
whole population of the village tumultuously took their way to him, the
sooner to learn the issue of this farcical trial. Kaskambo was brought
out of his prison and led on to the platform which constituted the roof
of the house.
The greater number of the dwellings in the Caucasian valleys are partly
hollowed out of the earth, and only rise three or four feet above the
ground; the roof is horizontal, and is formed of a layer of beaten
clay. The inhabitants, especially the women, come to rest on these
terraces after sunset, and often pass the night there in the fine
season.
When Kaskambo appeared on the roof there was a profound silence.
It must doubtless have been extraordinary, to see, at this strange
tribunal, furious litigants, armed with pistols and daggers, submitting
their cause to a judge in chains, half dead with hunger and distress,
who nevertheless passed judgement in the last resort, and whose
decisions were always respected.
Despairing of making the accused listen to reason, the major made him
come forward, and, in order to put the laughers at least on the side
of justice, questioned him as follows. “If, instead of giving you five
roubles to take to his creditor, your friend had only asked you to give
him his greeting, your horse would be dead all the same, would it not?”
“Perhaps,” answered the defendant.
“And in that case,” continued the judge, “what would you have done with
the greeting? Would you not have been obliged to keep it as payment and
to be content with it? My sentence is, therefore, that you return the
note, and that your friend gives you his greeting.”
When this decision was translated to the spectators, shouts of laughter
proclaimed far and wide the wisdom of the new Solomon. The condemned
man himself, after arguing for some time, was obliged to yield, and
said, as he looked at the note: “I knew beforehand that I should lose
if that dog of a Christian interfered.” This singular confidence shows
the idea entertained by these people of European superiority, and the
innate feeling for justice that exists among the fiercest of men.
Kaskambo had written three letters since his detention without
receiving any answer: a year had passed. The wretched prisoner, without
linen, and in want of all the comforts of life, found his health
declining, and gave way to despair. Ivan himself had been ill for some
time. The severe Ibrahim, to the major’s great surprise, had however
freed the young man from his fetters during his sickness, and still
left him at liberty. The major questioning him one day on this matter:
“Master,” Ivan said to him, “I have been wanting for a long time to
consult you about a plan which has come into my head. I think that I
should do well to turn Mahometan.”
“You are certainly going mad!”
“No, I am not mad: this is the only way in which I can be useful to
you. The priest has told me that if I were circumcised they could no
longer keep me in chains; then I could do you service, procure you at
least good food and linen, and at last, who knows? when I am free ...
the God of the Russians is great! We shall see....”
“But God Himself will desert you, poor wretch, if you betray Him.”
Kaskambo, even while scolding his servant, could hardly refrain from
laughing at his whimsical plan, but, when he went so far as to forbid
it formally: “Master,” Ivan answered, “I can no longer obey you, and
it would be useless for me to try to hide it from you; it is already
done: I have been a Mahometan since the day when you thought I was
ill and they took off my chains. I am called Hussein now. What is the
harm? Can I not be a Christian again when I wish and when you are free!
See, already! I no longer have chains, I can break yours on the first
favourable opportunity, and I have a strong hope that it will present
itself.”
As a matter of fact, they kept their word to him: he was no longer
fettered, and from that time enjoyed greater freedom; but this very
freedom was nearly fatal to him. The chief authors of the expedition
against Kaskambo soon began to fear that the new Mussulman might
desert. His long stay in their midst and his knowledge of their
language put him in a position to know them all by name, and to give a
description of them to the line if he returned there; which would have
exposed them personally to the vengeance of the Russians; they highly
disapproved of the priest’s misplaced zeal. On the other hand, the
good Mussulmans, who had favoured him from the time of his conversion,
noticed that, when he was saying his prayer on the roof of the house,
according to custom, and as the mullah had expressly enjoined him,
that he might gain the public good-will, he often, through habit and
inadvertently, mixed up signs of the cross with the prostrations he
made towards Mecca, to which it sometimes happened that he turned his
back; this made them doubt the reality of his conversion.
A few months after his pretended apostasy he noticed a great change
in his intercourse with the inhabitants, and could not mistake the
manifest signs of their ill will. He was vainly seeking to discover
its cause, when the young men with whom he chiefly associated came
to propose that he should accompany them in an expedition which they
intended to undertake. Their plan was to cross the Terek, to attack
some merchants who would be going to Mozdok; Ivan agreed to their
proposal without hesitation. He had long been desiring to procure
himself arms; they promised him a share of the spoils. He thought that
when they saw him return to his master’s side the people who suspected
him of wishing to desert would no longer have the same reasons for
distrusting him. However, the major having strongly opposed the plan,
he seemed to be thinking of it no longer, when one morning Kaskambo,
on awaking, saw the mat on which Ivan slept rolled up against the wall;
he had gone during the night. His companions were to pass the Terek on
the following night, and attack the merchants, of whose progress they
knew from their spies.
The trustfulness of the Tchetchens ought to have aroused some suspicion
in Ivan’s mind: it was not natural that men so wily and suspicious
should admit a Russian, their prisoner, into an expedition directed
against his compatriots. In fact it transpired from what followed
that they had only asked him to accompany them with the intention of
assassinating him. As his character of a new convert compelled them
to use some caution, they had planned to keep him in sight during
the march, and afterwards to rid themselves of him at the instant of
attack, letting it be believed that he had been killed in the fight.
Only a few members of the expedition were in the secret; but the event
upset their calculations. At the moment when the band had laid their
ambush to attack the merchants, they were themselves surprised by a
regiment of Cossacks, who charged them so vigorously that they had
great difficulty in recrossing the river. Their great peril made them
forget the plot against Ivan, who followed them in their retreat.
As their disordered troop crossed the Terek, the waters of which are
very rapid, a young Tchetchen’s horse broke down in the middle of
the river and was immediately carried away by the waves. Ivan, who
was following him, urged his horse into the current, at the risk
of being carried off himself, and, seizing the young man just when
he was disappearing beneath the water, succeeded in bringing him
to the opposite shore. The Cossacks, who, favoured by the dawning
day, recognized him by his uniform and “furazhka,”[14] aimed at him,
shouting: “Deserter! catch the deserter!” His clothes were riddled
with bullets. At last, after fighting desperately and firing all his
cartridges, he returned to the village with the glory of having saved
the life of one of his companions, and been of service to the whole
troop.
If his conduct on this occasion did not win over to him the minds of
all, it gained him at least one friend; the young man whom he had
saved adopted him for his “kunakh” (a sacred title which the Caucasian
mountaineers never violate), and swore to defend him against every
one. But this intimacy was not sufficient to shelter him from the
hatred of the principal inhabitants. The courage which he had just
shown, and his attachment to his master, increased the fears with which
he had inspired them. They could no longer regard him as a buffoon
incapable of any enterprise, as they had done until then; and, when
they considered the abortive expedition in which he had taken part,
they wondered how Russian troops had happened to be at the right moment
in a spot so far from their usual haunts, and suspected that he had had
the means of warning them. Although this conjecture was without any
real foundation, they watched him more closely. Old Ibrahim himself,
fearing some plot for the escape of his prisoners, no longer allowed
them to engage in continued conversation, and the honest denshchik was
threatened, sometimes even beaten, when he tried to talk to his master.
In this situation, the two prisoners contrived a means of conversing
without arousing their keeper’s suspicions. As they were in the habit
of singing Russian songs together, the major would take his guitar
when he had anything important to communicate to Ivan in Ibrahim’s
presence, and sing while he questioned him: the latter answered in
the same manner, and his master accompanied him with his guitar. As
this arrangement was by no means a novelty, nobody ever noticed a
trick which besides they took the precaution to practise only on rare
occasions.
More than three months had passed since the unfortunate expedition
which has been mentioned, when Ivan fancied that he noticed an unusual
disturbance in the village. Some mules loaded with powder had arrived
in the plain. The men were cleaning their arms and preparing their
cartridges. He soon learnt that a great expedition was on foot. The
whole nation was to unite to attack a neighbouring tribe who had put
themselves under the protection of the Russians, and had allowed them
to build a redoubt on their territory. It was a question of nothing
less than exterminating the whole tribe, as well as the Russian
battalion which was protecting the building of the fort.
A few days later, Ivan, leaving the hut one morning, found the village
deserted. All the men able to bear arms had gone during the night. In
the visit which he made to the village to seek news, he obtained fresh
proofs of the evil intentions they had against him. The old men avoided
talking to him. A little boy told him openly that his father wanted
to kill him. Finally, when he was returning very thoughtfully to his
master, he saw on the roof of a house a young woman who raised her
veil, and, with an appearance of the greatest terror, made signs to him
to escape, pointing out the road to Russia; it was the sister of the
Tchetchen whom he had saved at the crossing of the Terek.
When he re-entered the house, he found the old man engaged in
inspecting Kaskambo’s fetters. A newcomer was seated in the room: it
was a man whom an intermittent fever had prevented from accompanying
his comrades and who had been sent to Ibrahim to augment the prisoners’
guard till the inhabitants returned. Ivan noticed this precaution
without evincing the least surprise. The absence of the men of the
village presented a favourable opportunity for the execution of his
plans; but the more active vigilance of their keeper, and above
all the presence of the fever patient, made success very uncertain.
However, his death would be inevitable if he awaited the return of the
inhabitants; he foresaw that their expedition would be unsuccessful
and that their rage would not spare him. No resource remained for him
except either to desert his master or to deliver him immediately. The
faithful servant would have died a thousand deaths rather than choose
the former alternative.
Kaskambo, who was beginning to lose all hope, had fallen for some time
into a kind of stupor, and maintained a profound silence. Ivan, more
calm and cheerful than usual, surpassed himself in preparing the meal,
and while he did it he sang Russian songs, which he interspersed with
words of encouragement to his master.
“The time has come,” he said, adding to each sentence the meaningless
refrain of a popular Russian song, “hey lully, hey lully, the time has
come to end our misery or to perish. To-morrow, hey lully, we shall be
on the way to a town, a pretty town, hey lully, which I will not name.
Courage, master! don’t let yourself lose heart. The God of the Russians
is great.”
Kaskambo, indifferent alike to life and death, not knowing his
denshchik’s plan, contented himself with answering: “Do what you like,
and be silent.” Towards evening the fever patient, whom they had
entertained bountifully in order to detain him, and who, besides the
good meal he had made, had amused himself for the rest of the day with
eating “shashlyk,”[15] was seized with such a violent fit of fever,
that he left the company and withdrew to his own home. They let him go
without much difficulty, Ivan having entirely reassured the old man
by his gaiety. The more to remove any kind of suspicion, he retired
early to the back of the room and lay down on a bench against the wall,
until Ibrahim should fall asleep; but the latter had resolved to stay
awake all night. Instead of lying down on the mat by the fire, as he
generally did, he sat down on a log opposite his prisoner, and sent
away his daughter-in-law, who withdrew to the next room, where her
child was, and shut the door after her.
From the dark corner where he had settled himself, Ivan looked
attentively at the scene before him. In the light of the fire which
flared up from time to time, an axe glittered in a recess of the wall.
The old man, overcome by drowsiness, let his head fall at times on his
breast. Ivan saw that the time had come, and stood up. The suspicious
gaoler noticed it immediately. “What are you doing there?” he asked
sharply. Ivan, instead of replying, drew near the fire, yawning like
a man waking from a deep sleep. Ibrahim, who himself felt his eyelids
growing heavy, ordered Kaskambo to play the guitar to keep him awake.
The latter refused, but Ivan handed him the instrument, at the same
time making the sign arranged. “Play, master,” he said, “I have
something to say to you.” Kaskambo tuned the instrument, and, beginning
to sing, they commenced the terrible duet which follows.
KASKAMBO.
“Hey lully, hey lully, what have you to say? Be careful. (At each
question, and each answer, they sang together verses of the Russian
song following:)
“I am anxious, I am sad,
What to do I cannot tell,
Him I wait whom I love well,
Lonely watch I for my lad.
Hey lully, hey lully,
’Tis sad without my dearie.”
IVAN.
“See that axe,--don’t look at it. Hey lully, hey lully, I’ll split this
rascal’s head.
“Here I sit and spin apart,
Breaks the thread my hand within:
Ah! to-morrow I will spin,
Now I am too sad at heart.
Hey lully, hey lully,
Oh, where can be my dearie?”
KASKAMBO.
“A useless slaughter! hey lully, how could I fly with my fetters?
“As a calf its mother’s side,
As a shepherd seeks his flocks,
As a kid, beneath the rocks,
Seeks the grass in sweet spring-tide,
Hey lully, hey lully,
So seek I for my dearie.”
IVAN.
“The key of the fetters will be in the brigand’s pocket.
“When I hie at break of day,
With my pitcher, to the well,--
How it is I cannot tell!--
Still my feet seek out the way,
Hey lully, hey lully,
That leads me to my dearie.”
KASKAMBO.
“The woman will give the alarm, hey lully.
“Waiting, ah! what grief I prove,
He, ingrate, elsewhere is gay,
Maybe false he doth me play,
Happy with another love.
Hey lully, hey lully,
Can I have lost my dearie?”
IVAN.
“It will happen as it may: will you not die all the same, hey lully, of
misery and starvation?
“Ah, if false he be indeed,
If he pass me by some day,
Let the village burn away,
And on me the fierce flames feed!
Hey lully, hey lully,
Why live without my dearie?”
The old man becoming attentive, they redoubled the hey lully,
accompanied by a noisy arpeggio: “Play, master,” continued the
denshchik, “play the Cossack dance; I am going to dance round the room
so as to get near the axe; play boldly.”
KASKAMBO.
“Well, be it so; this hell will be ended.”
He turned away his head and began with all his might to play the
required dance.
Ivan began the steps and grotesque attitudes of the Cossack dance,
which the old man especially liked, leaping and gambolling, and
uttering cries to distract his attention. When Kaskambo felt that the
dancer was near the axe, his heart throbbed with anxiety: this means of
their deliverance was in a little cupboard without a door, contrived
within the wall, but at a height to which Ivan could hardly reach. To
have it within his reach, he took advantage of a favourable moment,
seized it suddenly and at once placed it on the ground in the shadow
cast by Ibrahim’s body. When the latter looked at him, he was far from
the place, and continuing his dance. This dangerous scene had lasted
for some time, and Kaskambo, weary of playing, began to think that
his denshchik’s courage was failing, or that he did not think it a
favourable opportunity. He glanced at him at the instant when, having
seized the axe, the intrepid dancer was steadily advancing to strike
the brigand with it. The emotion felt by the major was so strong, that
he stopped playing, and let his guitar fall on his knees. At the same
moment, the old man had stooped, and made a step forward to push some
brushwood into the fire: some dry leaves burst into flame, and cast a
bright glow into the room. Ibrahim turned round to sit down.
If, at this juncture, Ivan had pursued his enterprise, a hand-to-hand
fight would have been inevitable: the alarm would have been given,
which above all it was needful to avoid; but his presence of mind
saved him. When he noticed the major’s confusion, and saw Ibrahim
rise, he placed the axe behind the very log which served as a seat to
the latter, and recommenced his dance. “Play, confound it!” he said
to his master; “what are you thinking of?” The major, realizing how
unwise he had been, began to play again softly. The old gaoler had no
suspicion, and sat down again; but he ordered them to finish the music
and lie down. Ivan, quietly going and taking the guitar-case, came and
placed it on the hearth; but, instead of taking the instrument which
his master held out to him, he suddenly snatched the axe from behind
Ibrahim, and dealt him such a frightful blow on the head, that the
unhappy man did not even utter a sigh, but fell stark dead, his face in
the fire; his long grey beard began to blaze; Ivan pulled him out by
the feet and covered him with a mat.
They were listening, to find out if the woman had been awakened, when,
surprised no doubt at the silence which reigned after so much noise,
she opened the door of her room: “What are you doing in here?” she
said, advancing towards the prisoners; “how is it that there is a smell
of burnt feathers?” The fire had just been scattered and gave hardly
any light. Ivan raised the axe to strike her; she had time to turn her
head, and received the blow on her breast, uttering a frightful sigh;
another blow, swifter than lightning, caught her as she fell, and
stretched her dead at Kaskambo’s feet. Terrified by this second murder,
which he had not expected, the major, seeing Ivan advance towards
the child’s room, placed himself in the way to stop him. “Where are
you going, wretched man?” he said; “would you be so barbarous as to
sacrifice the child too, who has shown me such friendship? If you set
me free at this price, neither your attachment nor your services shall
save you when we reach the line.”
“At the line,” answered Ivan, “you can do as you like; but here we must
make an end.”
Kaskambo, collecting all his strength, collared him as he attempted
to force his passage. “Wretch,” he said, “if you dare to attempt his
life, if you touch a single hair of his head, I swear here before God
that I will give myself up into the hands of the Tchetchens, and your
barbarity will be in vain.”
“Into the hands of the Tchetchens!” repeated the denshchik, raising
his bloody axe above his master’s head; “they shall never recapture
you alive; I will slay them, you and myself, before that happens. This
child might ruin us by giving the alarm; in your present state, women
would be enough to put you back in prison.”
“Stop! stop!” cried Kaskambo, from whose hands Ivan was trying to free
himself. “Stop! monster, you shall murder me before committing this
crime!”
But, impeded by his chains and weak as he was, he could not restrain
the ferocious young man, who thrust him back, so that he fell violently
to the ground, ready to faint from bewilderment and horror. While, all
stained with the blood of the first victims, he was attempting to rise,
“Ivan,” he cried, “I implore you, do not kill him! In the name of God,
do not spill the blood of that innocent creature!”
He ran to the help of the child as soon as he had the strength; but
when he reached the door of the room he knocked in the darkness against
Ivan coming out.
“All is over, master; let us lose no time, and don’t make a noise.
Don’t make a noise, I tell you,” he answered to his master’s despairing
reproaches: “what’s done is done; it is impossible to draw back now.
Until we are free, every man I meet is dead, or else he must kill me;
and if any one comes in here before our departure, I don’t care whether
it is a man, a woman, or a child, a friend or an enemy, I lay him there
with the others.”
He lighted a splinter of larch and began to rummage in the brigand’s
cartridge-box and pockets; the key of the fetters was not there:
he sought for it as vainly in the woman’s clothes, in a chest, and
wherever he fancied it could be hidden. Whilst he made this search, the
major gave himself up without restraint to his grief. Ivan comforted
him in his own way. “You would do better,” he said, “to weep for the
key of the fetters which is lost. Why should you regret this race of
brigands, who have tortured you for more than fifteen months? They
wanted to put us to death, well! their turn has come before ours. Is it
_my_ fault? May hell swallow them all!”
However, as the key of the fetters was not to be found, so many
slaughters would be in vain if they could not manage to break them.
Ivan, with the corner of the axe, succeeded in loosening the ring
on the hand, but that which fastened the chain to the feet resisted
all his efforts; he was afraid of hurting his master, and dared not
use all his strength. On the other hand, the night was advancing,
and the danger became urgent; they decided to go. Ivan fastened the
chain firmly to the major’s belt, so that it impeded him as little as
possible, and made no noise. He placed in a wallet a quarter of mutton,
the remains of the evening meal, added to it some other provisions,
and armed himself with the dead man’s pistol and dagger. Kaskambo took
possession of his “burka”;[16] they went out in silence, and, going
round the house to avoid meeting any one, they took the path into the
mountains, instead of going towards Mozdok and the ordinary road,
easily foreseeing that they would be pursued in that direction. For
the rest of the night they tramped along the mountains that lay on
their right, and when day began to dawn they entered a beech wood which
crowned the whole mountain, and sheltered them from the danger of being
seen from a distance.
It was in the month of February; the ground, on these heights, and
especially in the forest, was still covered with a hard snow which
supported the travellers’ steps during the night and part of the
morning; but towards midday, when it had been softened by the sun,
they sank at every instant, which made their progress very slow. Thus
they reached laboriously the side of a deep valley which they had to
cross, in the depths of which the snow had disappeared; a beaten path
followed the windings of the stream, and proclaimed that the place
was frequented. On this account, and because of the fatigue which
overwhelmed the major, the travellers decided to remain in that spot
to wait for the night; they settled down between some isolated rocks
which projected from the snow. Ivan cut down some pine-branches to make
from them, on the snow, a thick bed, on which the major slept. While
he rested, Ivan tried to find out where they were. The valley at the
summit of which they were was surrounded by lofty mountains between
which no outlet was visible: he saw that it was impossible to avoid
the beaten track, and that they must of necessity follow the course of
the stream in order to get out of the labyrinth. It was about eleven
o’clock at night, and the snow was beginning to harden again, when they
descended into the valley. But before beginning their journey they
set fire to their shelter, as much to warm themselves as to prepare a
little meal of shashlyk, of which they were in great need. A handful of
snow was their drink, and a mouthful of brandy finished the feast. They
crossed the valley, luckily without seeing anyone, and entered the pass
where the path and the stream were confined between steep perpendicular
mountains. They walked with all possible speed, knowing well the
danger they ran of being met in this narrow passage, out of which they
only emerged towards nine o’clock in the morning.
It was then only that the dark pass suddenly opened out, and that they
saw, beyond the lower mountains which intersected in front of them, the
immense horizon of Russia, like a distant sea. It would be difficult
to form an idea of the joy felt by the major at this unexpected sight.
“Russia! Russia!” was the only word he could pronounce. The travellers
sat down to rest and to enjoy beforehand their approaching freedom.
This anticipation of happiness was mingled in the major’s mind with the
memory of the horrible catastrophe which he had just witnessed, and
which his fetters and blood-stained clothes recalled to him vividly.
With eyes fixed on the distant goal of his labours, he calculated the
difficulties of the journey. The sight of the long and dangerous road
which remained for him to travel with fettered feet and legs swollen
with fatigue, soon obliterated even the trace of the momentary pleasure
which the sight of his native land had given him. To the torments of
imagination was added a burning thirst. Ivan went down to the stream
which flowed some way off to bring some water to his master; he found
there a bridge made of two trees and saw far off a dwelling. It was
a kind of chalet, a summer house of the Tchetchens which happened to
be empty. In the plight of the fugitives, this isolated house was
a precious discovery. Ivan came to tear his master away from his
reflections, in order to lead him into the refuge which he had just
discovered, and after having settled him there he at once began to look
for the store.
The inhabitants of the Caucasus, who, for the most part, are half
nomads and often exposed to attacks from their neighbours, always
have near their houses caves, in which they hide their provisions
and goods. These stores, formed like narrow wells, are closed with
a plank or large stone carefully covered with earth, and are always
placed in spots where turf is wanting, for fear the colour of the grass
should betray the deposit. In spite of these precautions, the Russian
soldiers often discover them; they strike the earth with the ramrods
of their guns in the beaten paths which are near dwellings, and the
sound indicates the hollows which they seek. Ivan found one under a
shed adjoining the house, in which he discovered earthenware pots, some
ears of maize, a piece of rock-salt and several household utensils.
He ran to fetch water for cooking purposes; the quarter of mutton and
some potatoes which he had brought were placed on the fire. While
the soup was preparing, Kaskambo roasted the ears of maize: finally,
some hazelnuts also found in the store completed the meal. When he
had finished, Ivan, with more time and means, succeeded in freeing
his master from his chains; and the latter, calmer, and revived by a
meal excellent under the circumstances, slept soundly, and it was deep
night when he awoke. In spite of this favourable rest, when he wanted
to continue his journey, his swollen legs were so stiff that he could
not make the least movement without suffering unbearable pain. However,
he had to go. Leaning on his servant, he set out mournfully, convinced
that he would never reach the longed-for goal. The motion and the heat
of walking appeased little by little the pain he was suffering. He
walked all night, often stopping, and then immediately recommencing his
march. Sometimes also, giving way to discouragement, he threw himself
on the ground, and urged Ivan to leave him to his evil fate. His
dauntless companion not only encouraged him by his talk and example,
but almost used violence to raise and drag him along with him. They
found in their journey a difficult and dangerous pass, which they could
not avoid. To wait for day would have caused an irreparable loss of
time; they decided to cross it at the risk of being dashed to pieces,
but, before allowing his master to enter upon it, Ivan wished to
reconnoitre and go over it alone. While he descended, Kaskambo stayed
on the brink of the rock in a state of anxiety difficult to describe.
The night was dark; he heard beneath his feet the dull murmur of a
rapid stream which flowed through the valley; the sound of the stones
loosened from the mountain under his companion’s tread, and falling
into the water, made him aware of the immense depth of the precipice
on the edge of which he had stopped. In this moment of anguish, which
might perhaps be the last of his life, the memory of his mother
returned to his mind; she had tenderly blessed him on his departure
from the line; this thought restored his courage. A secret presentiment
gave him the hope of seeing her again. “O God!” he cried, “grant that
her blessing may not be in vain!” As he was ending this short but
fervent prayer, Ivan reappeared. The pass when surveyed was not so
difficult as they had thought at first. After climbing down several
fathoms between the rocks, it was necessary, in order to reach the
practicable side, to walk along a narrow sloping ledge of rock, covered
with slippery snow, beneath which was a sheer precipice. Ivan with his
axe cut in the snow holes which made the passage easier: they crossed
themselves. “Come then,” said Kaskambo, “if I perish, at least let it
not be for want of courage; it was only illness that took that from
me. I will go on now as long as God gives me strength.” They emerged
successfully from the dangerous pass and continued their journey. The
paths began to be more continuous and well-beaten, and they no longer
found any snow except in places looking north, and on low-lying ground
where it had accumulated. They had the good fortune to meet nobody
until daybreak, when the sight of two men appearing in the distance
obliged them to lie down on the ground so that they might not be seen.
When the mountains are left behind in these provinces, woods are
no longer to be found; the ground there is absolutely bare, and a
single tree would be vainly sought, except on the banks of the large
rivers, where still they are very scarce, a most extraordinary thing,
considering the fertility of the soil. They had for some time been
following the course of the Sudja, which they had to cross to reach
Mozdok, seeking a place where the water, less rapid, would offer a
safer passage, when they saw a man on horseback coming straight towards
them. The country, completely open, offered neither trees nor bushes
as a means of hiding. They lay flat down under the bank of the Sudja,
on the edge of the water. The traveller passed within a few fathoms
of their lair. They intended only to defend themselves if they were
attacked. Ivan drew his dagger and gave the pistol to the major. Seeing
then that the rider was only a child of twelve or thirteen, he hurled
himself suddenly upon him, collared him, and threw him down on the
grass. The youth would have resisted, but, seeing the major appear on
the river-bank, pistol in hand, he fled at full speed. The horse had no
saddle, and a halter passed through its mouth by way of bridle. The two
fugitives at once made use of their capture to cross the river. This
encounter was very fortunate for them, for they soon saw that it would
have been impossible for them to pass it on foot, as they had purposed.
Their mount, although burdened with the weight of two men, was almost
carried away by the swiftness of the water. However, they arrived safe
and sound at the opposite shore, which unfortunately was too steep
for the horse to be able to land. They got off to lighten it. As Ivan
pulled with all his might to enable it to mount upon the shore, the
halter came unfastened and remained in his hands. The animal, swept
away by the current, after many efforts to land, was swallowed up in
the river, and drowned.
Deprived of this resource, but from this time less troubled as to
the danger of pursuit, they made for a hillock, covered with loose
rocks, which they saw in the distance, intending to hide themselves
and rest there until night. From their reckoning of the distance
they had already travelled, they judged that the dwellings of the
peaceful Tchetchens ought not to be very far away; but nothing could
be more unsafe than to give themselves up to these men, whose probable
treachery might be their undoing.
However, considering the weak state of Kaskambo, it would be very
difficult for him to reach the Terek unaided. Their provisions were
exhausted: they passed the rest of the day in gloomy silence, not
daring to reveal their anxieties to each other. Towards evening, the
major saw his denshchik strike his brow with his fist, uttering a deep
sigh. Astonished at this sudden despair, which his dauntless companion
had in no way evinced until then, he asked him the reason of it.
“Master,” said Ivan, “I have done something very wrong!”
“May God forgive us it!” answered Kaskambo, crossing himself.
“Yes,” continued Ivan, “I have forgotten to bring away that fine
carbine which was in the child’s room. What could you expect? It never
entered my mind: you were groaning so up there, and making such a
noise, that I forgot it. You’re laughing, are you? It was the best
carbine there was in the whole village. I would have made a present of
it to the first man we met, to put him on our side: for I don’t know
how, in the state I see you are in, we can finish our march.”
The weather, which till then had favoured them, changed during the day.
The cold Russian wind blew violently, and drove sleet in their faces.
They set out at nightfall, uncertain whether they should try to reach
some villages, or to avoid them. But the long stage which remained for
them to travel, supposing the latter, became absolutely impossible for
them owing to a fresh misfortune which befell them towards the end of
the night. As they were crossing a little ravine, over the remains of
snow which covered its bottom, the ice broke under their feet, and they
were plunged in water up to the knees. Kaskambo’s efforts to extricate
himself made his garments wetter than ever. Since the time when they
set out, the cold had never been so keen; the whole country-side was
white with sleet. After walking for a quarter of an hour, seized by the
cold, he fell, through weariness and pain, and absolutely refused to
go any farther. Seeing the impossibility of reaching the goal of his
journey, he considered it a useless barbarity to detain his companion,
who could easily escape by himself.
“Listen, Ivan,” he said, “God is my witness that I have done all I
could up till now to take advantage of the help you have given me, but
you see that it can no longer save me, and that my fate is sealed. Go
on to the line, my dear Ivan, return to our regiment; I command you.
Say to my old friends and to my superior officers that you have left
me here to feed the ravens, and that I wish them a better fate. But,
before you go, recollect the oath which you made up yonder in the blood
of our gaolers. You swore that the Tchetchens should not recapture me
alive: keep your word.”
So saying, he lay down on the ground, and covered himself completely
with his burka.
“There is one resource left,” Ivan answered; “it is to seek the
dwelling of a Tchetchen and to win over its master with promises. If
he betrays us, we shall at least have less with which to reproach
ourselves. Try again to drag yourself so far; or else,” he added,
seeing that his master kept silence, “I will go alone, and try to win
over a Tchetchen; and, if it turns out well, I will return with him to
fetch you; if badly, if I perish and do not come back, here, take the
pistol.”
Kaskambo stretched out a hand from under the burka and took the pistol.
Ivan covered him with dry grass and brushwood for fear he should be
discovered by anyone during his excursion. As he prepared to go, his
master called him back. “Ivan,” he said, “hear again my last request.
If you recross the Terek, and if you see my mother again without me ...”
“Master,” Ivan interrupted, “good-bye for the present. If you perish,
neither your mother nor mine will ever see me again.”
After an hour’s walk, he saw from a small eminence two villages three
or four versts distant; that was not what he sought; he wanted to find
an isolated house, which he could enter without being seen, to win over
its master secretly. The distant smoke of a chimney discovered to him
one such as he desired. He at once betook himself thither, and entered
without hesitation. The master of the house was sitting on the ground,
engaged in patching one of his boots.
“I have come,” said Ivan, “to give you the chance of earning two
hundred roubles, and to ask a service of you. No doubt you have heard
of Major Kaskambo, a prisoner among the mountaineers. Well, I have
rescued him; he is here, a step off, ill and in your power. Should you
please to give him up again to his enemies, they will praise you no
doubt, but, you know well, they will not reward you. If on the contrary
you consent to save him, by keeping him in your house for three days
only, I will go to Mozdok, and will bring you two hundred roubles in
hard cash for his ransom; while, if you dare to stir from your place,”
(he added, drawing his dagger) “and to give the alarm to have me
seized, I will kill you. Your word at once, or you are dead.”
Ivan’s assured tone convinced the Tchetchen without alarming him.
“Young man,” he said, calmly putting on his boot, “I also have a
dagger in my girdle, and yours does not terrify me. Had you entered my
house as a friend, I would never have betrayed a man who had passed my
threshold; but now I promise nothing. Sit down there, and say what you
will.”
Ivan, seeing with whom he had to deal, sheathed his dagger again, sat
down, and repeated his proposal.
“What security will you give me,” asked the Tchetchen, “for the
fulfilment of your promise?”
“I will leave you the major himself,” Ivan answered; “do you think I
would have suffered for fifteen months, and brought my master to you,
to desert him?”
“That is all right, I believe you; but two hundred roubles is not
enough: I must have four hundred.”
“Why not ask four thousand? it is easy enough; but I, who wish to keep
my word, offer you two hundred, because I know where to get them, and
not a copeck more. Do you want to make me deceive you?”
“Well, be it so; I agree to two hundred roubles; and you will return
alone, and in three days?”
“Yes, alone, and in three days, I give you my word! But have you given
me yours? is the major your guest?”
“He is my guest, and you as well, from this moment, you have my word
for it.”
They shook hands and ran to fetch the major, whom they brought back
half dead with cold and hunger.
Instead of going to Mozdok, Ivan, learning that he was nearer to
Tchervelianskaya-Stanitsa, where there was a large body of Cossacks,
went thither immediately. He had no difficulty in collecting the
sum he needed. The good Cossacks, some of whom had been engaged in
the unfortunate affair which had cost Kaskambo his liberty, clubbed
together with alacrity to complete the ransom. On the day fixed, Ivan
set out to go at last and set his master free, but the colonel who
commanded the outpost, fearing some fresh treachery, did not allow him
to return alone, and in spite of the agreement made with the Tchetchen
he had him accompanied by some Cossacks.
This precaution again was nearly fatal to Kaskambo. From his first
distant sight of the Cossack lances, his host thought himself betrayed,
and, displaying at once the savage courage of his nation, he led the
major, who was still ill, on to the roof of the house, bound him to
a post, and placed himself opposite him, carbine in hand: “If you
advance,” he shouted, when Ivan was within hearing, at the same time
aiming at his prisoner, “if you make another step, I will blow out the
major’s brains, and I have fifty cartridges for my enemies and the
traitor who brings them.”
“You are not betrayed,” cried the denshchik, trembling for his master’s
life; “they forced me to come back accompanied, but I have brought the
two hundred roubles, and have kept my word.”
“Let the Cossacks withdraw,” added the Tchetchen, “or I will fire.”
Kaskambo himself begged the officer to retire. Ivan followed the
detachment for some time and returned alone; but the suspicious brigand
did not allow him to approach. He made him count out the roubles a
hundred paces from the house, on the path, and ordered him to go away.
As soon as he had taken possession of them, he went back to the roof
and threw himself down at the major’s feet, begging his pardon and
imploring him to forget the ill treatment which, he said, he had been
forced to make him suffer for his own safety. “I will only remember,”
Kaskambo answered, “that I have been your guest and that you have
kept your word to me; but, before asking my pardon, please begin by
unfastening my bonds.” Instead of answering him, the Tchetchen, seeing
Ivan returning, jumped from the roof and disappeared like lightning.
On the same day, honest Ivan had the pleasure and glory of restoring
his master to the bosom of his friends, who had despaired of seeing him
again.
The gleaner of this tale, a few months afterwards, at Yegorievski,
passing, during the night, before a little house, handsome and very
much lighted up, got out of his “kibitka,”[17] and approached a window
to enjoy the sight of a very lively ball which was being given on the
ground-floor. A young non-commissioned officer was also looking very
attentively at what was going on inside the room.
“Who is giving the ball?” the traveller asked him.
“The major, who is being married.”
“What is the major’s name?”
“His name is Kaskambo.”
The traveller, knowing the strange story of that officer, congratulated
himself on having yielded to his curiosity, and had pointed out to him
the bridegroom, who, beaming with pleasure, forgot in that hour the
Tchetchens and their cruelty.
“Show me, pray,” he again added, “the brave denshchik who delivered
him.”
The non-commissioned officer, after hesitating for some time, answered,
“It was myself.”
Doubly surprised at the encounter, and still more so at finding him so
young, the traveller asked him his age. He had not yet completed his
twentieth year, and had just received a gratuity, with the rank of a
non-commissioned officer, as a reward for his courage and fidelity.
This splendid fellow, after having voluntarily shared his master’s
misfortunes, and restored him to life and liberty, was now rejoicing
in his happiness, as he looked at his wedding-festivities through the
window. But as the stranger expressed his surprise that he was not
present at the merry making, taxing his former master with ingratitude
on this score, Ivan gave him a black look, and re-entered the house
whistling the tune of “Hey lully, hey lully.” He appeared soon
afterwards in the ball-room, and the inquisitive stranger got into his
kibitka again, very thankful to have escaped having his head split open
with an axe.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] By this name is designated the succession of stations guarded by
Russian troops between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, from the
mouth of the Terek to that of the Kuban.
[9] Vladikavkaz comes from the Russian verb “vladeti,” which means
“command, dominate.”
[10] Soldier-servant.
[11] He was called Ivan Smirnoff, a name which might be translated
into French as “John the Gentile,” which contrasted strangely with his
character, as we shall see by what follows.
[12] A familiar proverb of Russian soldiers in the moment of danger.
[13] A Russian drink; it is a kind of beer made with flour.
[14] A Russian word which corresponds to what is called in French “cap.”
[15] Mutton roasted in small pieces at the end of a stick.
[16] A cloak of impervious felt with long hair, rather like bearskin.
The burka, the ordinary cloak of the Cossacks, is only made in their
country: with it they brave with impunity the rain and mud of the
bivouac.
[17] The kibitka is a carriage, the body of which, like that of
a roughly-built barouche, is fixed directly on two axle-trees,
and in winter on two runners forming a sledge; it is the ordinary
travelling-carriage in Russia.
EL VERDUGO
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Midnight had just sounded from the belfry of the little town of Menda.
At that moment a young French officer, who was leaning over the parapet
of a long terrace, which ran along the edge of the gardens of the
castle of Menda, seemed to be sunk in meditation more profound than was
natural to the carelessness of military life; but it must be said at
the same time that hour, place, and night were never more propitious
to meditation. The clear sky of Spain spread an azure dome overhead.
The sparkling of the stars and the soft light of the moon lit up a
delightful valley, which unrolled itself invitingly at his feet. By
supporting himself upon an orange-tree in blossom, the major could
see, a hundred feet below him, the town of Menda, which seemed to have
taken shelter from the north winds at the foot of the rock upon which
the castle was built. Turning his head, he could observe the sea, its
shining waters framing the prospect in a broad sheet of silver. The
castle was lit up. The merry tumult of a ball, the strains of the
orchestra, the laughter of some officers and their partners reached
his ears, blended with the distant murmur of the waves. The coolness
of the night imparted a sort of energy to his body, fatigued by the
heat of the day. And, finally, the garden was planted with shrubs so
odoriferous and flowers so sweet, that the young man felt as if plunged
in a bath of perfumes.
The castle of Menda belonged to a grandee of Spain, who, together
with his family, was then in residence. All that evening the elder of
his daughters had regarded the officer with an interest characterized
by such sadness, that the sentiment of compassion expressed by the
Spaniard might well have been the cause of the Frenchman’s reverie.
Clara was beautiful, and, although she had three brothers and a sister,
the Marquis of Leganés’s possessions seemed considerable enough to
lead Victor Marchand to believe that the young lady would have a rich
dowry. But how presume to think that the daughter of an old man, the
vainest in all Spain of his nobility, would be bestowed on the son of
a Parisian grocer? Moreover, the French were hated. The Marquis having
been suspected by General G..t..r, who was governor of the province,
of organizing a movement in favour of Ferdinand VII, the battalion
commanded by Victor Marchand had been stationed in the little town of
Menda to overawe the neighbouring districts, which owed allegiance to
the Marquis of Leganés. A recent dispatch from Marshal Ney had given
reason to apprehend that the English might shortly attempt a landing
on the coast, and had pointed out the Marquis as a man who kept in
communication with the Cabinet in London. So, in spite of the good
reception which the Spaniard had given to Victor Marchand and his
soldiers, the young officer was constantly on his guard. As he made
his way to the terrace, from which he intended to examine the state of
the town and the districts committed to his oversight, he had asked
himself how he ought to interpret the friendliness which the Marquis
had never ceased to display towards him, and how the tranquillity of
the country could be reconciled with his general’s disquietude; but for
the last minute these thoughts had been driven from the young officer’s
head by a sense of prudence, and by a very legitimate curiosity. He
had just observed a considerable number of lights in the town. In
spite of it being the feast of St. James, he had ordered, only that
very morning, that fires were to be put out at the hour prescribed by
his regulations. The castle alone had been exempted from this measure.
He could see here and there the gleam of the bayonets of his soldiers
at their usual posts; but the silence was most solemn, and nothing
announced that the Spaniards were overcome by the intoxication of a
feast. After trying to discover a reason for this infringement of
which the townspeople were guilty, he found their contravention all
the more mysterious and incomprehensible that he had left officers in
charge of the night police and the rounds. With the impetuosity of
youth, he was proceeding to slip through a gap, in order to descend
the rocks rapidly, and thus arrive sooner than by the ordinary road
at a small post stationed at the entrance to the town on the castle
side, when a slight noise arrested him in his course. He thought he
heard the gravel of the walk crunch beneath a woman’s light footstep.
He turned his head and saw nothing, but his eye was arrested by the
extraordinary brightness of the ocean. There, all of a sudden, he
perceived a sight so ominous that he stood motionless with surprise,
and refused to believe his senses. The silvery rays of the moon enabled
him to distinguish some sails at a considerable distance. He trembled,
and sought to convince himself that this vision was an optical delusion
produced by the fantastic tricks of waves and moon. At that moment a
hoarse voice uttered the name of the officer, who looked towards the
gap, and there saw the head of the soldier whom he had ordered to
accompany him to the castle slowly emerge.
“Is that you, commandant?”
“Yes. What is it?” was the whispered response of the young man, whom a
sort of presentiment warned to proceed with secrecy.
“Those rascals down there are as restless as worms, and I hasten, with
your leave, to report some little things I have observed.”
“Speak,” answered Victor Marchand.
“I have just been following a man from the castle, who came this way
with a lantern in his hand. A lantern is terribly suspicious! I don’t
think that there Christian requires to light candles at this time of
night.--‛They mean to do for us,’ says I to myself, and I set about
examining his heels. And so, commandant, I discovered a pretty heap of
faggots on a rock two or three steps away.”
A terrible cry which all at once resounded from the town interrupted
the soldier. A sudden gleam lit up the commandant. The poor grenadier
received a bullet in his head and fell. A fire of straw and dry wood
blazed up like a conflagration some ten paces from the young man. The
instruments and laughter were no longer to be heard in the ball-room.
A deathly silence, broken by occasional groans, had suddenly taken
the place of the hum and music of the feast. A cannon-shot boomed
across the silvery plain of the ocean. A cold sweat ran down the young
officer’s forehead. He was without his sword. He understood that his
soldiers had perished, and that the English were about to land. He
saw himself dishonoured if he lived, he saw himself brought before a
court-martial; then with his eye he measured the depth of the valley,
and was about to dash himself down, when at that moment Clara’s hand
seized his.
“Flee!” she said. “My brothers are coming behind me to kill you. At the
foot of the rock yonder, you will find Juanito’s Andalusian. Go!”
She pushed him away; the young man gazed at her in stupefaction for
one moment; but, soon obeying the instinct of self-preservation, which
never forsakes any man, even the bravest, he dashed into the park in
the direction indicated, and ran over rocks which only the goats had
trodden hitherto. He heard Clara calling to her brothers to pursue him;
he heard the steps of his assassins; he heard the bullets from several
discharges whistle past his ears; but he reached the valley, found the
horse, mounted it, and disappeared with the rapidity of lightning.
Some hours later, the young officer arrived at the quarters of General
G..t..r, whom he found at dinner with his staff.
“I bring you my head!” exclaimed the major, as he made his appearance,
pale and disordered.
He sat down and related the horrible adventure. His recital was
received with appalling silence.
“I consider you more to be pitied than blamed,” the terrible general at
length replied. “You are not answerable for the Spaniards’ crime; and
provided the marshal does not decide otherwise I acquit you.”
These words afforded but very slight consolation to the unfortunate
officer.
“When the emperor hears about it!” he exclaimed.
“He’ll want to have you shot,” said the general, “but we shall see.
Now, let us say no more about it,” he added sternly, “except to exact a
vengeance that will strike salutary terror into this country where they
make war like savages.”
An hour later, a whole regiment of infantry, a detachment of cavalry
and a train of artillery were on the march. The general and Victor
marched at the head of the column. The soldiers, aware of the massacre
of their comrades, were possessed with a fury without bounds.
The distance which separated the town of Menda from the general
headquarters was covered with miraculous rapidity. On the line of
march, the general found whole villages under arms. Each of these
miserable places was surrounded, and its inhabitants decimated.
By some inexplicable fatality, the English ships had remained hove
to without advancing; but it was learned subsequently that these
vessels had nothing on board but artillery, and had outsailed the other
transports. Thus the town of Menda, deprived of its expected defenders,
whom the appearance of the English sails had seemed to promise, was
surrounded by the French troops almost without a blow being struck. The
inhabitants, seized with terror, offered to surrender at discretion.
With that devotion, instances of which have been not uncommon in the
Peninsula, the assassins of the French, foreseeing from the notorious
cruelty of the general that Menda would perhaps be committed to the
flames and the inhabitants put to the sword, proposed to denounce
themselves to the general. He accepted their offer, on condition
that the inmates of the castle, from the humblest serving-man to the
Marquis, should be delivered into his hands. This capitulation having
been agreed to, the general promised to show mercy to the rest of the
inhabitants, and to prevent his soldiers from pillaging or setting fire
to the town. An enormous fine was imposed, and the richest inhabitants
gave themselves up as prisoners to guarantee its payment, which had to
be effected within twenty-four hours.
The general took all precautions necessary for the safety of his
troops, saw to the defence of the district, and refused to billet his
soldiers. After seeing them encamped, he went up to the castle, and
took it into military occupation. The members of the Leganés family and
the domestics were kept carefully under observation, bound, and shut
up in the hall where the dance had taken place. From the windows of
this apartment the terrace, which commanded the town, could easily be
seen. The staff took up its quarters in an adjoining gallery, where the
general at once held a council upon the measures to be taken to oppose
the disembarkation. After having dispatched an aide-de-camp to Marshal
Ney, and ordered batteries to be established on the coast, the general
and his staff proceeded to deal with the prisoners. Two hundred
Spaniards whom the inhabitants had surrendered were shot out of hand on
the terrace. After this military execution, the general ordered as many
gallows to be erected as there were persons in the hall of the castle,
and the town executioner to be sent for. Victor Marchand took advantage
of the time until dinner to visit the prisoners. He was not long in
returning to the general.
“I come,” he said with emotion, “to ask you some favours.”
“You!” retorted the general in a tone of bitter irony.
“Alas!” Victor responded, “They are sad favours I ask. When the
Marquis saw you plant the gallows, he hoped that you would change the
punishment to be inflicted on his family, and begs you to cause the
nobles to be beheaded.”
“Very well!” said the general.
“They ask also to be allowed the consolations of religion, and to be
set free from their bonds; they promise not to attempt to escape.”
“I agree to that,” said the general; “but you are responsible to me for
them.”
“The old man also offers you all his fortune, if you will pardon his
youngest son.”
“Indeed!” replied the general. “His estate already belongs to King
Joseph.” He stopped. A look of contempt wrinkled his brow, and he
added: “I’ll do more than he desires. I understand the importance of
his last request. Well, he shall purchase the eternity of his name, but
Spain shall always remember his treachery and its punishment! I grant
his fortune and life to whichever of his sons will take the place of
the executioner. Go, and say no more about it.”
Dinner was served. The officers at table satisfied an appetite which
fatigue had sharpened. Only one of them, Victor Marchand, was absent
from the feast. After long hesitation, he entered the apartment where
the haughty family of Leganés was languishing, and cast a sorrowful
look on the spectacle now presented by the hall, where only the other
evening he had seen the heads of the two young women and the three
young men whirling round as they were borne along in the waltz: he
shuddered as he reflected that in a little they must roll severed by
the executioner’s sabre. Bound to their gilded chairs, the father and
mother, the three sons and the two daughters, remained in a state
of complete immobility. Eight servants were standing, their hands
bound behind their backs. These fifteen persons looked at one another
gravely, and their eyes hardly betrayed the sentiments by which they
were animated. On some brows profound resignation and regret at the
failure of their enterprise might be read. Some motionless soldiers
guarded them, and respected the grief of those cruel enemies. An
expression of curiosity animated their visages when Victor made his
appearance. He gave the order to unbind the prisoners, and himself
proceeded to unfasten the cords which held Clara a prisoner in her
chair. She smiled sadly. The officer could not help coming in contact
with the young woman’s arms, while he admired her black hair and her
supple form. She was a true Spaniard: she had the Spanish complexion,
the Spanish eyes, with long curved lashes and a pupil blacker than the
raven’s wing.
“Have you succeeded?” she asked, addressing him with one of those
mournful smiles in which there is still some vestige of the young girl.
Victor could not restrain himself from groaning. He looked at the
three brothers and Clara one by one. The first, and he was the eldest,
was thirty years old. Short, rather badly built, with a proud and
disdainful expression, he was not without a certain nobility of
manner, and seemed no stranger to that delicacy of sentiment which
once rendered Spanish gallantry so celebrated. He was called Juanito.
The second, Philip, was aged about twenty. He resembled Clara. The
youngest was eight years old. In Manuel’s features, a painter would
have found something of that Roman constancy which David has bestowed
upon the children in his republican scenes. The old Marquis had a head
covered with white hair, which looked as if it had come out of one of
Murillo’s pictures. At the sight, the young officer shook his head in
despair of seeing the general’s bargain accepted by any one of those
personages; nevertheless he ventured to confide it to Clara. At first
the Spaniard shivered, but in an instant she recovered calmness, and
went and knelt before her father.
“Oh!” she said to him. “Make Juanito swear that he will obey faithfully
the orders which you will give him, and we shall be content.”
The Marchioness trembled with expectation; but, when she bent over
to her husband and heard Clara’s horrible confidence, the mother
fainted. Juanito understood all, he sprang up like a caged lion. Victor
took upon himself to dismiss the soldiers, after having obtained an
assurance of perfect submission from the Marquis. The domestics were
led out and delivered to the executioner, who hanged them. When the
family were observed by none but Victor, the old father rose.
“Juanito!” he said.
Juanito made no response but an inclination of the head which was equal
to a refusal, fell back in his chair, and regarded his parents with a
dry and terrible eye. Clara came and sat on his knee, and began gaily:
“My dear Juanito,” she said, putting her arm round his neck and kissing
him on his eyelids, “if you only knew how easy death will be to me if
given by you! I shall not have to submit to the hateful touch of an
executioner’s hands. You will cure me of the ills which awaited me,
and--my good Juanito, you did not wish to see me belong to anybody, did
you--?”
Her velvety eyes darted a glance of fire upon Victor, as if to rekindle
in Juanito’s heart his horror of the French.
“Be brave,” his brother Philip said, “or else our race, which is almost
royal, will be extinguished.”
Suddenly Clara rose, the group which had formed about Juanito broke up;
and the son, justifiably mutinous, saw erect before him his old father,
who exclaimed solemnly: “Juanito, I command you!”
The young man remained motionless, his father fell on his knees.
Involuntarily, Clara, Manuel and Philip followed his example. All
stretched out their hands to him who should save their family from
oblivion, and seemed to repeat these words of their father: “My son,
will you prove lacking in Spanish energy and right feeling? Do you wish
me to remain long on my knees, and ought you to consider your own life
and your own sufferings?... Is this my son, madam?” added the old man,
turning to the Marchioness.
“He consents!” exclaimed his mother in despair, observing Juanito move
his eyebrows in a fashion of which only she understood the significance.
Mariquita, the second daughter, knelt and clasped her mother in her
feeble arms; and, as she wept scalding tears, her little brother Manuel
came to scold her. At that moment the almoner of the castle entered; he
was at once surrounded by the whole family, they led him to Juanito.
Unable to endure the scene any longer, Victor made a sign to Clara,
and hastened to go and try a last effort with the general. He found
him in good humour, in the middle of the feast, and drinking with his
officers, who were beginning to exchange merry remarks.
An hour later, a hundred of the most notable inhabitants of Menda came
up to the terrace, according to the general’s orders, to be witnesses
of the execution of the family of Leganés. A detachment of soldiers
was posted to keep back the Spaniards, who were drawn up beneath the
gallows on which the Marquis’s domestics had been hanged. The heads
of the townsmen almost touched the feet of those martyrs. Thirty
paces distant from them, a block rose, and a scimitar gleamed. The
executioner was there in case of a refusal on the part of Juanito.
Soon, amid the most profound silence, the Spaniards heard the footsteps
of several persons, the measured sound of the march of a picket of
soldiers, and the slight rattle of their muskets. These different
sounds were blended with the merry accents from the officers’ mess,
as the dance-music of the ball had disguised the preparations for the
sanguinary treachery of the other night. All eyes were turned towards
the Castle, and they saw the noble family advancing with incredible
firmness. Every brow was calm and serene. One man only, pale and in
disorder, leaned on the priest, who expended all the consolations of
religion on this man, the only one who was to live. The executioner
understood, as did every one else, that Juanito had taken his place
for a day. The old Marquis and his wife, Clara, Mariquita, and their
two brothers, came and knelt a few paces from the fatal spot. Juanito
was led by the priest. When he arrived at the block, the executioner,
taking him by the sleeve, drew him aside, and gave him, probably, some
instructions. The confessor placed the victims in such a position that
they could not see the executions. But they were true Spaniards, and
held themselves erect and unfaltering.
Clara darted first to her brother. “Juanito,” she said to him, “have
pity on my want of courage, and begin with me!”
At that moment, the precipitate steps of a man resounded. Victor
arrived on the place of this scene. Clara had already knelt down, her
white neck invited the scimitar. The officer turned pale, but he found
strength to hasten up to her.
“The General grants you your life, if you will marry me,” he said to
her in an undertone.
The Spaniard darted a look of contempt and pride at the officer. “Go
on, Juanito!” she said in deep accents.
Her head rolled at Victor’s feet. The Marchioness of Leganés let a
convulsive movement escape her when she heard the sound; it was the
only sign of her grief.
“Am I right like this, my good Juanito?” was the demand which little
Manuel made of his brother.
“Ah, you weep, Mariquita!” said Juanito to his sister.
“Oh, yes!” responded the young girl. “I am thinking of you, my poor
Juanito: you will be very unhappy without us!”
Soon the tall figure of the Marquis appeared. He gazed upon the blood
of his children, turned towards the hushed and motionless spectators,
stretched out his hands towards Juanito, and said in a loud voice:
“Spaniards, I give my son his father’s blessing! Now _Marquis_, strike
without fear, you are without reproach.”
But when Juanito saw his mother approach supported by the confessor, he
exclaimed: “She nursed me!”
His voice drew a cry of horror from the assemblage. The din of the
feast and the merry laughter of the officers were hushed at the
terrible clamour. The Marchioness understood that Juanito’s courage was
exhausted, with one bound, she leaped over the balustrade, to dash her
brains out on the rocks below. A cry of admiration arose. Juanito had
fallen unconscious.
“General,” said a half-drunken officer, “Marchand has just been telling
me something of this execution. I bet you did not order it....”
“Do you forget, gentlemen,” exclaimed General G..t..r, “that, in a
month, five hundred French families will be in tears, and that we are
in Spain? Do you wish us to leave our bones here?”
After that address there was no one, not even a sub-lieutenant, who
dared to empty his glass.
In spite of the respect with which he is everywhere regarded, in spite
of the title of _El Verdugo_ (The Executioner) which the King of Spain
has granted as a title of honour to the Marquis of Leganés, he is
consumed by regrets, he lives in retirement and shows himself rarely.
Bowed down by the burden of his splendid crime, he seems to be waiting
impatiently until the birth of a second son gives him the right to
rejoin the shades who accompany him incessantly.
LAURETTE, OR, THE RED SEAL
COUNT ALFRED DE VIGNY
I
_OF THE MEETING WHICH BEFELL ME ONE DAY ON THE HIGH ROAD_
The high road through Artois and Flanders is long and dreary. It
stretches in a straight line, without trees, without ditches, through
flat fields that are always full of yellow mud. In the month of March,
1815, I travelled along this road, and a meeting befell me which I have
never forgotten since.
I was alone, on horseback, I was wearing a handsome white cloak, a red
uniform, a black helmet, pistols and a big sabre; it had been raining
in torrents for the last four days and nights of my journey, and I
remember that I was singing “Joconde” at the top of my voice. I was so
young!--The King’s household, in 1814, had been filled up with children
and grandsires; the Emperor seemed to have taken all the men and killed
them.
My comrades were in front, on the road, in the train of King Louis
XVII.; I saw their white clocks and red uniforms, right away on the
northern horizon; Bonaparte’s lancers, who were watching and following
our retreat step by step, from time to time showed the tricolour
pennons of their lances on the opposite sky-line. A lost shoe had
delayed my horse; he was young and strong, and I urged him on, so that
I might rejoin my squadron; he set off at a rapid trot. I put my hand
to my belt,--it was well enough furnished with gold pieces; I heard
the iron scabbard of my sabre ringing against the stirrup, and I felt
very proud and perfectly happy.
It was still raining, and I was still singing. However, I soon grew
silent, tired of hearing no one but myself, and I no longer heard
anything but the rain and the hoofs of my horse, which was floundering
in the ruts. The road was unpaved; I was sinking, and was obliged to go
at a walk. My top-boots were covered, outside, with a thick crust of
mud as yellow as ochre; inside they were filling with rain. I looked at
my brand-new gold epaulettes, my joy and comfort; they were roughened
by the wet, which distressed me.
My horse lowered his head; I did the same: I began to think, and to
wonder, for the first time, where I was going. I knew absolutely
nothing about it; but that did not trouble me long: I was certain that,
my squadron being there, there was my duty also. Feeling at my heart
a deep, unchangeable calm, I gave thanks for it to the indescribable
sense of Duty, and I tried to explain it to myself. Seeing at close
quarters how unaccustomed fatigues were gaily borne by heads so fair,
or so white, how a secure future was so cavalierly risked by so many
prosperous men of the world, and taking my share in that miraculous
satisfaction which is imparted to every man by the conviction that he
cannot evade any debt of Honour, I concluded that an easier and more
common thing than people imagine, is SELF-SACRIFICE.
I wondered whether Self-sacrifice was not a feeling innate in us;
what was this need of obeying, and resigning our will into another’s
hands, as if it were a heavy and wearisome load; whence came the secret
happiness at being rid of this burden, and why human pride had never
rebelled against it. I saw clearly how this mysterious instinct bound
peoples together, everywhere, into powerful unions, but nowhere did
I see, so entire and so formidable as in Armies, this renunciation
of individual actions, words, wishes and almost of thoughts. I saw
resistance possible and usual everywhere, the citizen, in all places,
practising a discerning and intelligent obedience which examines
into matters, and may be suspended. I saw how even the wife’s tender
submission ends as soon as she is bidden to do wrong, and how the law
defends her; but military obedience, passive and active at one and the
same time, receiving the order and carrying it out, striking, with eyes
shut, like the ancient Destiny! I traced the possible consequences
of the soldier’s Self-sacrifice, irretrievable, unconditional, and
sometimes leading to terrible duties.
Thus I thought as I journeyed on at my horse’s pleasure, looking at
the time by my watch, and seeing the road still stretching out in a
straight line, without a tree or a house, and cutting the plain as
far as eye could see, like a broad yellow stripe on a grey canvas.
Sometimes the watery stripe blended with the watery earth around it,
and, when a rather less pallid light illuminated this desolate stretch
of country, I saw myself in the midst of a muddy sea, following a
current of slime and plaster.
As I carefully examined this yellow stripe of road, I noticed on it,
about a quarter of a league off, a little black moving speck. This
gave me pleasure,--it was somebody. I saw that this black speck was
going like myself in the direction of Lille, and that it was travelling
in a zigzag, a sign of a laborious journey. I accelerated my pace
and gained on this object, which lengthened somewhat and grew larger
beneath my gaze. I resumed a trot on firmer ground, and thought I made
out a kind of small black vehicle. I was hungry, I hoped that it was a
canteen-woman’s cart, and, regarding my poor horse as a boat, I rowed
it with all my might to reach that fortunate isle, in that sea wherein
at times it sank up to the middle.
A hundred paces off, I was able to distinguish clearly a little white
wooden cart, covered with three hoops and with black oilcloth. It
looked like a little cradle set on two wheels. The wheels were sunk
in the mud up to the axle-trees; a little mule which drew them was
laboriously led by a man on foot who held the bridle. I drew near and
viewed him with attention.
He was a man of about fifty, with a white moustache, tall and strong,
with back bent like those old infantry officers who have carried the
knapsack. He wore their uniform, and you caught a glimpse of a major’s
epaulette under a short blue cloak, much worn. His face was rugged,
but kind, as so many are in the army. He looked at me sideways under
his thick black eyebrows, and briskly drew from his cart a gun, which
he cocked, at the same time crossing to the other side of his mule, of
which he made a rampart. Having seen his white cockade, I contented
myself with showing the sleeve of my red uniform, and he replaced his
gun in the cart, saying:
“Ah! that makes a difference, I took you for one of those fellows who
are chasing us. Will you have a drink?”
“With pleasure,” I said, approaching him, “I have drunk nothing for
twenty-four hours.”
He had hanging from his neck a cocoa-nut, very finely carved, contrived
as a flask, with a silver neck, and he seemed rather proud of it. He
passed it to me, and I drank a little poor white wine from it with
great enjoyment; I returned the cocoa-nut to him.
“To the health of the King!” he said as he drank; “he made me an
officer of the Legion of Honour, it is only fair that I should follow
him to the frontier. Indeed, as I have only my epaulette to live by, I
shall afterwards resume command of my battalion, it is my duty.”
So speaking, as if to himself, he started his little mule once more,
saying that we had no time to lose; and, as I was of his opinion, I
set off again along with him. I looked at him continually without
questioning him, never having cared for the indiscreet chatter so
common amongst us.
We went on without speaking for about a quarter of a league. As he
stopped then to give a rest to his little mule, which it pained me to
see, I stopped too and tried to squeeze from my riding-boots the water
which filled them, as if they were two wells in which my legs had been
soaked.
“Your boots are beginning to stick to your feet,” he said.
“I have not had them off for four nights,” I told him.
“Pooh! in a week you won’t notice it,” he rejoined in his hoarse voice;
“it is something to be alone, you know, in times like those we live in.
Do you know what I have in there?”
“No,” I said.
“A woman.”
I said “Oh!” without too much surprise, and marched on calmly, at a
walking pace. He followed me.
“That wretched wheelbarrow didn’t cost me much,” he went on, “nor the
mule either; but it is all I need, though this road is a devil of a
pull.”
I offered him my horse to mount when he felt tired; and as I only
talked to him gravely and simply of his turn-out, for which he feared
mockery, he suddenly put himself at his ease, and, coming near my
stirrup, slapped me on the knee, saying:
“Well, you’re a good lad, though you are in the Reds.”
From his bitter tone, in thus designating the four Red Companies, I
gathered what malignant prejudices had been aroused in the army by the
luxury and the commissions of these corps of officers.
“However,” he added, “I shall not accept your offer, seeing that I
cannot ride, and that that’s not _my_ business.”
“But, major, superior officers like yourself have to do so.”
“Pooh! once a year at the inspection, and then on a hired horse. _I_
have always been a sailor, and since then a foot-soldier; I don’t
understand horsemanship.”
He walked twenty paces, looking at me sideways from time to time, as if
expecting a question: and as no word was forthcoming he continued:
“You aren’t inquisitive, upon my word! What I said just now should have
surprised you.”
“I am seldom surprised,” said I.
“Oh! but if I told you how I left off being a sailor, we should see.”
“Well,” I replied, “why don’t you try? it will warm you, and make me
forget that the rain is soaking into my back and only stopping at my
heels.”
The good major solemnly prepared to speak, with all the pleasure of a
child. He adjusted his oilcloth-covered shako on his head, and jerked
his shoulder in a way that no one who has not served in the infantry
can picture, in the way that a foot-soldier does to lift his knapsack
and lighten its weight for a moment; it is a soldier’s custom, which,
in an officer, becomes a bad habit. After this convulsive gesture, he
again drank a little wine from his cocoa-nut, gave the little mule an
encouraging kick in the stomach, and began.
II
_THE STORY OF THE RED SEAL_
You must know first of all, my lad, that I was born at Brest; I began
as a soldier’s son, earning my half-rations and half-pay from the time
I was nine years old, my father being a private in the Guards. But,
as I loved the sea, one fine night, while I was on leave at Brest,
I hid in the bottom of the hold of a merchant vessel leaving for the
Indies; they only discovered me in mid-ocean, and the captain preferred
making me a cabin-boy to throwing me overboard. When the Revolution
came, I had made some progress, and in my turn had become captain
of a neat enough little merchant vessel, having scoured the sea for
fifteen years. When the ex-royal navy, a fine old navy too, by Jove!
suddenly found itself without officers, they took some captains from
the merchant navy. I had had some skirmishes with buccaneers of which I
may tell you later; they put me in command of a brig of war named the
“Marat.”
On the 28th of Fructidor, 1797, I received orders to set sail for
Cayenne. I had to take there sixty soldiers and a man sentenced to
transportation, who was left over from the hundred and ninety-three
whom the frigate “Decade” had taken on board some days before. I
was ordered to treat this individual with consideration, and in the
Directory’s first letter was enclosed a second, sealed with three red
seals, in the midst of which was one very large. I was forbidden to
open this letter before reaching the first degree of north latitude,
between the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth of longitude, that is to
say, when just about to cross the line.
This big letter had a quite peculiar appearance. It was long, and so
tightly shut that I could read nothing between the corners or through
the envelope. I am not superstitious, but that letter frightened me. I
put it in my room under the glass of a wretched little English clock
which was nailed over my bed. That bed was a real sailor’s bed, you
know what they are like. But what am I talking about? You are sixteen
at the very most, you can’t have seen one.
A queen’s room cannot be arranged as neatly as a sailor’s, I say it
without any wish to boast. Everything has its own little place and its
own little nail. Nothing can move about. The vessel may roll as it
pleases, without displacing anything. The furniture is made to suit
the shape of the ship and of your own little room. My bed was a chest.
When it was open, I slept in it; when it was shut, it was my sofa, and
I smoked my pipe on it. Sometimes it was my table; then we sat on two
little casks which were in the room. My floor was waxed and scrubbed
like mahogany, and shone like a jewel: a real mirror! Oh! it was a
pretty little room! And my brig certainly had its value as well. We
often enjoyed ourselves famously there, and the voyage began pleasantly
enough that time, had it not been.... But we must not anticipate.
We had a good north-north-west wind, and I was engaged in putting the
letter under the glass of my clock, when my “convict” entered my room;
he was holding the hand of a pretty young thing of about seventeen. He
told me that he was nineteen; a handsome fellow, though rather pale,
and too fair-skinned for a man. He was a man all the same; and a man
who conducted himself, when occasion arose, better than many old ones
would have done, as you will see. He held his little wife by the arm;
she was as fresh and gay as a child. They looked like two turtle-doves.
To me it was a pleasant sight. I said to them:
“Well, children! you have come to pay the old captain a visit: it is
charming of you. I am taking you rather a long way; but so much the
better, we shall have time to get to know one another. I am sorry to
receive the lady without my coat; but I was going to nail this great
rascal of a letter up there. Perhaps you would give me a hand?”
They really were good little things. The little husband took the
hammer, and the little wife the nails, and they passed them to me as I
asked for them; and she said to me: “Right! left! captain!” laughing
because the pitching of the ship made my clock toss about. I can still
hear her even now with her little voice: “Left! right! captain!” She
was laughing at me.--” Ah!” I said, “you little mischief! I will make
your husband scold you, I will!” Then she threw her arms about his neck
and kissed him. They really were charming, and that was the way we
became acquainted. We were good friends at once.
It was a good crossing too. I always had weather that might have been
made for me. As I had never had any but black faces on my ship, I
made my two little lovers come to my table every day. It cheered me
up. When we had eaten the biscuits and fish, the little wife and her
husband kept on looking at each other as if they had never seen each
other before. Then I would begin to laugh with all my heart and make
fun of them. They laughed too with me. You would have laughed to see
us like three lunatics, not knowing what was the matter with us. It
was really pleasant to see them loving each other like that! They were
happy everywhere; they liked all that was given to them. Yet they were
allowanced like all the rest of us; I only added a little Swedish
brandy when they dined with me, just a small glass, to keep up my rank.
They slept in a hammock, in which the ship rolled them about like those
two pears I have there in my wet handkerchief. They were brisk and
contented. I was like you, I asked no questions. What need was there
for _me_, a ferryman, to know their name and business? I was carrying
them from the other side of the sea, as I would have carried two birds
of paradise.
At the end of a month, I had got to look on them as my children. All
day long, when I called them, they would come to sit with me. The young
man wrote at my table, that is to say on my bed; and, when I wished, he
helped me to take my “reckoning.” He soon knew how to do it as well as
I; I was sometimes quite amazed at it. The young wife would sit on a
little cask and begin to sew.
One day that they were settled like this I said to them:
“Do you know, my little friends, that we make a family picture, as we
are now? I don’t want to question you, but probably you haven’t more
money than you need, and you are pretty delicate, both of you, to
dig and use the pick as the convicts at Cayenne do. It is a wretched
country, I can tell you that with all my heart; but I, who am an old
wizened tar dried up by the sun, I should live there like a lord. If
you had, as it seems to me (without wishing to question you) that you
do have, a little liking for me, I should be willing enough to leave my
old brig, which is now no better than an old tub, and I would settle
there with you, if you like. I have no family but a dog, which is a
grief to me; you would be a little company for me. I would help you in
many things; and I have got together a good stock of goods honestly
enough smuggled, on which we should live, and which I should leave you
when I came to turn up my toes, as they say in polite society.”
They sat staring at one another quite amazed, looking as if they
thought I was not speaking the truth; and the little woman ran, as she
always did, and threw her arms round the other’s neck, and sat on his
knees, quite red in the face, and crying. He hugged her tightly, and I
saw tears in his eyes as well; he held out his hand to me, and turned
paler than usual. She whispered to him, and her long fair locks fell
over his shoulder; her hair had come untwisted like a rope suddenly
uncoiled, for she was as lively as a fish: that hair, if only you
could have seen it! it was like gold. As they kept on whispering, the
young man kissing her brow from time to time, and she weeping, I grew
impatient:
“Well, would that suit you?” I said to them at last.
“But ... but, captain, you are very kind,” said the husband, “but the
fact is ... you could not live with convicts, and....” He looked down.
“I don’t know,” I said, “what you have done to get transported, but
you’ll tell me that some day, or not at all, if you’d prefer. You don’t
look to me as if your consciences were very heavy, and I’m quite sure
that I’ve done many worse things than you in my life, so there, you
poor innocents. Of course while you are in my custody, I shall not
release you, you mustn’t expect it; I would sooner cut off your heads
like two pigeons’. But, the epaulette once laid aside, I no longer know
either admiral or anything else.”
“The fact is,” he answered, sadly shaking his dark head, dark, although
powdered a little, as was still the fashion at that time, “the fact is
I think it would be dangerous for you, captain, to seem to know us. We
laugh because we are young; we look happy because we love each other;
but I have some bad moments when I think of the future, and cannot tell
what will happen to my poor Laura.”
Again he pressed his young wife’s head to his bosom:
“That was really what I was bound to say to the captain; would not you
have said the same thing, child?”
I took my pipe and got up, because I was beginning to feel my eyes
rather moist, and that doesn’t suit _me_.
“Come! come!” I said, “things will clear themselves up later on. If the
lady objects to tobacco, her withdrawal would oblige.”
She got up, her face all flaming and wet with tears, like a child that
has been scolded.
“Anyhow,” she said to me, looking at my clock, “you are forgetting, you
people; what about the letter!”
I felt something which affected me powerfully. I seemed to have a pain
in my hair when she said that to me.
“Good Heavens! I had quite forgotten about it,” I said. “Ah! upon my
word, this is a pretty business! If we had passed the first degree of
north latitude, there would be nothing more for me to do but to throw
myself into the water.--Just to make me happy, the child reminds me of
that villainous letter!”
I looked quickly at my chart, and, when I saw that we had a week at
least still to go, my head was relieved, but my heart, without my
knowing why, was not.
“The fact is that the Directory doesn’t treat the question of obedience
as a joke!” I said. “Come, I am posted up this time again. The time
went past so quickly that I had quite forgotten that.”
Well, sir, we all three remained with our noses in the air looking at
the letter, as if it was going to speak to us. What struck me a good
deal was, that the sun, which slipped in through the skylight, was
lighting up the glass of the clock, and showed up the big red seal, and
the other little ones, like the features of a face in the midst of the
fire.
“Wouldn’t you say that its eyes were jumping out of its head?” I said
to amuse them.
“Oh! my friend,” said the young wife, “it looks like spots of blood.”
“Pooh! pooh!” said her husband, taking her arm, “you are wrong, Laura;
it looks like a circular to announce a wedding. Come and rest, come
along; why does the letter trouble you?”
They ran away as if a ghost had followed them, and went up on deck. I
remained alone with the big letter, and I remember that as I smoked my
pipe I kept looking at it, as if its red eyes held mine fast, sucking
them in as a serpent’s eyes do. Its great pale face, its third seal,
bigger than the eyes, wide open, gaping like the jaws of a wolf ... all
that put me in a bad temper; I took my coat and hung it on the clock,
so as not to see any more either the time or the brute of a letter.
I went to finish my pipe on deck. I stayed there till nightfall.
We were then off the Cape Verde Islands. The “Marat” was shooting
along, sailing before the wind, at ten knots, without inconveniencing
herself. The night was the finest I have seen in my life near the
tropic. The moon was rising above the horizon, as large as a sun;
the sea cut it in half, and turned quite white like a sheet of snow
covered with little diamonds. I looked at this as I smoked, sitting on
my seat. The officer of the watch and the sailors said nothing, and
like me watched the shadow of the brig on the water. I was pleased at
hearing nothing. I like silence and order. I had forbidden any noise
and any fire. I caught a glimpse, however, of a little red line almost
under my feet. I should have flown into a rage at once; but, as it was
coming from my little “convicts,” I wanted to make sure of what they
were doing before I got angry. I had only the trouble of stooping down,
and I could see, through the big skylight, into the little room: and I
looked.
The young wife was on her knees, saying her prayers. There was a little
lamp that threw its light on her. She was in her nightgown; I could see
from above her bare shoulders, her little bare feet, and her long fair
hair, all dishevelled. I thought of drawing back, but I said to myself:
“Pooh! an old soldier, what does he matter?” And I continued watching.
Her husband was sitting on a little trunk, his head on his hands,
watching her as she prayed. She raised her head upwards, as if to
heaven, and I saw her big blue eyes wet like those of a Magdalene.
While she prayed, he took the ends of her long tresses and kissed them
noiselessly. When she had finished, she made the sign of the cross,
smiling as if she were entering paradise. I saw that he made the sign
of the cross like her, but as if he were ashamed of it. In fact, for a
man it is odd.
She stood up, kissed him, and stretched herself out the first in her
hammock, into which he lifted her without a word, as you put a child
into a swing. The heat was stifling; she felt herself pleasantly lulled
by the motion of the ship, and seemed already to be falling asleep. Her
little white feet were crossed and raised to a level with her head, and
her whole body wrapped in her long white nightgown. She was a dear, she
was!
“My love,” she said, half asleep, “are you not sleepy? Do you know it’s
very late?”
He still remained with his brow on his hands, not answering. This
troubled her a little, the good little soul, and she put her pretty
head out of the hammock, like a bird’s out of its nest, and looked at
him with parted lips, not daring to speak again.
At last he said to her:
“Ah! my dear Laura, as we draw nearer to America, I cannot help growing
sadder. I don’t know why, but it seems to me that the happiest time of
our life will have been that of the voyage.”
“I think so too,” she said; “I should like never to get there.”
He looked at her, clasping his hands with a rapture which you cannot
imagine.
“And yet, my angel, you always weep as you pray to God,” he said; “that
grieves me very much, for I know well of what people you are thinking,
and I believe that you regret what you have done.”
“I, regret it!” she said, looking very hurt; “I, regret having followed
you, my beloved! Do you think that, because I have belonged to you such
a little while, I love you the less? Is one not a woman, does not one
know one’s duty, at seventeen? Did not my mother and sisters say that
it was my duty to follow you to Guiana? Did they not say that in that I
was doing nothing surprising? I am only surprised that it should have
touched you, my love; it is all natural. And now I don’t know how you
can think that I regret anything, when I am with you to help you to
live, or to die with you if you die!”
She said all that in a voice so soft that you would have thought it was
music. I was quite touched by it, and said:
“You’re a good little woman, you are!”
The young man began to sigh and tap the floor with his foot, as he
kissed a pretty hand and bare arm that she held out to him.
“Oh! Laurette, my Laurette!” he said, “when I think that, if we had
delayed our marriage for four days, I should have been arrested alone
and should have departed alone, I cannot forgive myself.”
Then the little beauty stretched out of the hammock her pretty white
arms, bare to the shoulders, and stroked his brow, his hair, and his
eyes, taking his head as if she would carry it away and hide it in
her bosom. She smiled like a child, and said to him a lot of little
womanly things, the like of which I had never heard before. She closed
his mouth with her fingers so that only she could speak. She said,
playfully taking her long hair like a handkerchief to wipe his eyes:
“Tell me, is it not much better to have with you a woman who loves you,
my beloved? I am quite pleased, myself, to go to Cayenne; I shall see
savages and cocoa-palms like Paul and Virginia’s, shan’t I? We shall
each plant our own. We shall see which will be the better gardener.
We’ll make a little hut for us two. I will work all day and all night,
if you like. I am strong; see, look at my arms;--see, I could almost
lift you. Don’t laugh at me; I can embroider very well, besides; and is
there not a town somewhere thereabouts where they need embroiderers? I
will give lessons in drawing and music if they want them too; and, if
they can read there, _you_ will write.”
I remember that the poor fellow was in such despair that he gave a
great cry when she said that.
“Write!”--he exclaimed,--” write!”
And he grasped the wrist of his right hand with his left.
“Oh! write! why did I ever learn to write? Write! why it’s a madman’s
trade!...--I believed in their liberty of the press!--Where did I get
my brains! Eh! and for what? to print five or six poor commonplace
ideas, only read by those who like them, thrown in the fire by those
who hate them, of no use but to cause us to be persecuted! It doesn’t
matter for me; but you, lovely angel, become a woman scarcely four
days ago! Explain to me, I beg of you, how it was I allowed you to be
so good as to follow me here? Do you know at all where you are, poor
little one? And do you know where you are going? Soon, child, you will
be sixteen hundred leagues from your mother and sisters ... and for me!
all that for me!”
She hid her head for a moment in the hammock; and I from above saw
that she was crying; but he below did not see her face; and, when she
withdrew it from the sheet, it was with a smile to make him cheerful.
“It’s true, we’re not rich just now,” she said, and burst out laughing;
“see, look at my purse, I have no more than one single louis left. What
have you?”
He began to laugh too like a child:
“On my word, I had a crown left, but I gave it to the little boy who
carried your box.”
“Oh, pooh! what does that matter”! she said snapping her little white
fingers like castanets; “one is never gayer than when one has nothing;
and haven’t I in reserve the two diamond rings that my mother gave me?
those are good anywhere, and for anything, aren’t they? When you wish,
we will sell them. Besides, I think that the dear good captain hasn’t
told us all his kind intentions towards us, and that he knows quite
well what is in the letter. It is surely a recommendation for us to the
governor of Cayenne.”
“Perhaps,” he said; “who knows?”
“Isn’t it?” his little wife went on; “you are so good, that I’m sure
that the government has exiled you for a little time, but isn’t angry
with you.”
She had said that so well! calling me the dear good captain, that I was
quite moved and softened by it; and I even rejoiced in my heart, that
she had perhaps guessed rightly about the sealed letter. They began
again to kiss one another; I stamped sharply on the deck to make them
stop.
I shouted to them:
“Hi! come now, my little friends! the order has been given that all
lights on this vessel are to be put out. Blow out your light, if you
please.”
They blew out the lamp, and I heard them laugh and chatter in whispers
in the dark like school-children. I began again to walk up and down
alone on my deck, smoking my pipe. All the stars of the tropics were at
their posts, as big as little moons. I looked at them, and breathed in
air which felt fresh and pleasant.
I said to myself that the good little things had certainly guessed the
truth, and I was quite cheered up by this. It was indeed to be wagered
that one of the five Directors had changed his mind and recommended
them to me; I didn’t very well explain to myself why, for there are
affairs of state that I for my part have never understood; but, in
short, I believed it, and, without knowing why, I was satisfied.
I went down to my room, and went to look at the letter under my old
uniform coat. It had a different face: it seemed to me to laugh, and
its seals looked rose-coloured. I no longer doubted its good nature,
and made it a little signal of friendship.
In spite of that, I put my coat back on the top of it; it worried me.
We never thought of looking at it at all for some days, and we were
cheerful; but, when we approached the first degree of latitude, we
began to stop talking.
One fine morning, I woke rather surprised at feeling no motion in the
ship. To tell the truth, I always sleep with one eye open, as they say,
and, as I missed the rolling, I opened them both. We had fallen on a
dead calm, and it was below the first degree of north latitude, at the
27th of longitude. I put my nose above deck: the sea was as smooth as
a bowl of oil; all the spread sails were fallen, clinging to the masts
like empty balloons. I said at once: “Come, I shall have time to read
you!” looking sideways in the direction of the letter. I waited till
evening, at sunset. However, it had to be done: I opened the clock, and
hastily pulled out the sealed order.--Well, my dear fellow, I held it
in my hands for a quarter of an hour, without being able to read it. At
last I said to myself: “This is too much!” and I broke the three seals
with my thumb; and, as for the big red seal, I ground it into dust.
After I had read I rubbed my eyes, thinking I had made a mistake.
I re-read the whole letter; I re-read it again; I began once more
taking the last line and going back to the first. I didn’t believe
it. My legs were shaking under me a little, I sat down; I had a sort
of quivering on the skin of my face; I rubbed my cheeks a little with
rum, I put some in the hollow of my hands, I pitied myself for being so
foolish; but it only lasted a moment; I went up to get some air.
Laurette was so pretty that day, that I didn’t wish to go near her:
she had a little white frock, quite plain, her arms bare to the neck,
and her long hair loose as she always wore it. She was amusing herself
with dipping her other dress into the sea at the end of a string, and
laughed as she tried to catch the sea-wrack, a plant that looks like
bunches of grapes, and floats on the water in the tropics.
“Do come and see the grapes! come quickly!” she was crying; and her
lover leaned on her and bent down, and did not look at the water, for
he was looking at her very tenderly.
I signed to the young man to come and speak to me on the quarter-deck.
She turned round. I don’t know what I looked like, but she let her
string fall; she seized him violently by the arm, and said:
“Oh! don’t go, he is quite pale.”
That might well be; there was something to be pale about. Nevertheless
he came to me on the quarter-deck; she looked at us, leaning against
the mainmast. For a long time we walked up and down without saying
anything. I was smoking a cigar which seemed to me bitter, and I spat
it into the water. His eye followed me; I took his arm; I was choking,
truly, on my word of honour! I was choking.
“Let us see!” I said to him at last, “tell me now, my little friend,
tell me a little of your history. What the devil have you done to those
dogs of lawyers who are there like five bits of a king? It seems that
they are mightily angry with you! It’s strange!”
He shrugged his shoulders, inclining his head (with such a gentle look,
poor fellow!), and said:
“On my soul! captain, nothing much, after all: three verses of a ballad
on the Directory, that’s all.”
“Impossible!!” I said.
“On my soul, yes! The verses weren’t even very good. I was arrested on
the 15th of Fructidor and taken to La Force, tried on the 16th, and
condemned to death at first, then to transportation as a favour.”
“Strange!” I said. “The Directors are very touchy fellows: for that
letter you know of orders me to shoot you.”
He did not answer, and smiled, keeping his countenance pretty well for
a young man of nineteen. He only looked at his wife, and wiped his
brow, from which drops of sweat were falling. I had as much at least on
my face, and drops of another kind in my eyes.
I went on:
“It appears that those citizens didn’t want to do for you on land,
they thought that here it wouldn’t be noticed so much. But it’s very
distressing for me; for it’s no use your being a good fellow, I cannot
get out of it; the sentence of death is there in due form, and the
warrant for execution signed, paraphed, and sealed; nothing is wanting.”
He bowed to me very politely, reddening.
“I ask nothing, captain,” he said in a voice as gentle as ever; “I
should be very sorry to make you fail in your duty. I should only like
to speak a little to Laura, and to beg you to protect her in the event
of her surviving me, which I don’t think likely.”
“Oh! as for that, it’s all right, my lad,” I said to him; “if you have
no objection, I will take her to her family on my return to France,
and will only leave her when she no longer wishes to see me. But, in
my opinion, you can flatter yourself that she won’t recover from that
blow; poor little woman!”
He took both my hands, and pressed them, saying to me:
“My good captain, you are suffering more than I from what remains for
you to do, I know very well; but what can we do? I can count on you
to keep for her the little that belongs to me, to protect her, to see
that she receives whatever her old mother may leave her, can I not? to
defend her life, her honour, can I not? and also to see that her health
is always cared for.--Stay,” he added in a lower tone, “I must tell you
that she is very delicate; often her chest is so much affected that
she faints several times in a day; she must always be well wrapped up.
In fact you will take the place of her father, her mother, and myself
as much as possible, is that not so? If she could keep the rings that
her mother gave her, I should be very glad. But, if it is needful to
sell them for her, it must certainly be done. My poor Laurette! see how
beautiful she is!”
As things were beginning to get too affecting, I was worried, and began
to frown; I had spoken to him cheerfully to prevent myself growing
weak; but I was no longer anxious about that: “Come, enough!” I said to
him, “honest folk understand each other well enough. Go and speak to
her, and let us make haste.”
I pressed his hand in a friendly way, and, as he did not let mine go
and kept looking at me in a peculiar manner: “Let me see!” I added, “if
I have any advice to give you, it is not to speak to her of this. We
will arrange the matter without her expecting it, or you either, so be
at ease; that’s my affair!”
“Ah! that makes a difference,” he said, “I didn’t know ... that will be
better certainly. Besides, the good-byes! the good-byes! they weaken
one.”
“Yes, yes,” I said, “don’t be a child, it’s better so. Don’t kiss her,
my friend, don’t kiss her, if you can manage it, or you are lost.”
I gave him my hand again, and let him go. Oh! it was very hard for me,
all that.
It seemed to me, upon my word, that he kept the secret well; for they
walked up and down, arm in arm, for a quarter of an hour, and they came
back to the ship’s side to get the string and the dress, which one of
my cabin-boys had fished up.
Night fell suddenly. It was the moment I had decided to seize. But that
moment has lasted for me up to this very day, and I shall drag it after
me all my life like a chain and ball.
* * * * *
Here the old major was obliged to stop. I took care not to speak, for
fear of diverting his thoughts; he continued, beating his breast:
* * * * *
That moment, I tell you, I cannot yet understand. I felt my rage
mounting to my very hair, and, at the same time, something or other
made me obey and urged me onward. I called the officers and said to
one of them:
“Come, launch a boat ... since we are now executioners! You will put
that woman in it, and will take her out into the ocean until you hear
guns going off. Then you will return.” To obey a scrap of paper! for
that was really all it was! There must have been something in the air
that urged me on. I caught a glimpse in the distance of the young man
... oh! it was terrible to see! ... kneeling before his Laurette and
kissing her knees and her feet. Do you not think I was very unhappy?
I called out like a madman! “Separate them ... we are all rascals!
Separate them.... The poor Republic is a dead body! The Directors, the
Directory, are its vermin! I shall leave the sea! I’m not afraid of
all your lawyers; let them be told what I say, what does it matter to
me?” Ah! much I cared for them, indeed! I should have liked to get hold
of them, I should have had all five of them shot, the rascals! Oh! I
would have done it; I cared as much for life as for the rain falling
yonder, there.... Much I cared for it! ... a life like mine.... Ah!
yes, indeed, a poor life ... truly!” ...
* * * * *
And the major’s voice died away little by little and became as
uncertain as his words; and he walked on, biting his lips and frowning
in a wild and fierce abstraction. He gave little convulsive movements,
and struck his mule with his scabbard, as if he wanted to kill it. What
astonished me, was to see the yellow skin of his face turn a dark red.
He unfastened and violently tore open his coat at his chest, baring
it to the wind and rain. Thus we continued our march in deep silence.
I saw clearly that he would not speak any more of his own accord, and
that I must bring myself to question him.
“I quite understand,” I said, as if he had finished his story, “that,
after so cruel an experience, one conceives a horror for one’s calling.”
“Oh! calling; are you mad?” he said sharply, “it isn’t the calling!
Never will the captain of a vessel be forced to turn executioner,
unless when there come governments of murderers and thieves, who take
advantage of a poor man’s habit of obeying blindly, obeying always,
obeying like a wretched machine, in spite of his heart.”
At the same time he drew from his pocket a red handkerchief, into which
he began to cry like a child. I stopped a minute as if to arrange my
stirrup, and, staying behind the cart, I walked after it for some time,
feeling that he would be humiliated if I saw too plainly his copious
tears.
I had guessed rightly, for after about a quarter of an hour he also
came behind his poor conveyance, and asked me if I had any razors in my
portmanteau; to which I merely answered that, not yet having any beard,
they were of no use to me. But he did not mind, it was so that he could
speak of something else. I noticed with pleasure, however that he was
coming back to his story, for he said to me suddenly:
“You’ve never seen any ships in your life, have you?”
“I have only seen them,” I said, “at the Panorama in Paris, and I have
not much confidence in the naval knowledge I gathered there.”
“You don’t know, then, what the cat-head is?”
“I can’t imagine,” I said.
“It is a kind of terrace of beams projecting from the bows of the ship,
and from which they throw the anchor into the sea. When a man is shot,
he is generally placed there,” he added in a lower voice.
“Ah! I understand, because from there he falls into the sea.”
He did not answer, and began to describe all the kinds of boat that a
brig can carry, and their place in the vessel; and then, without any
order in his ideas, he continued his story with that affected air of
carelessness which always results from long service, because a man must
show his inferiors his contempt of danger, contempt of men, contempt of
life, contempt of death, and contempt of himself; and all this nearly
always hides, under a hard exterior, a profound sensibility.--The
hardness of the man of war is like an iron mask over a noble face, like
a stone dungeon that shuts in a royal prisoner.
* * * * *
“These craft hold six men,” he went on. “They jumped in and took Laura
with them, before she had time to cry out or speak. Oh! that’s a thing
for which no honest man can console himself when he is the cause of
it. It is no use saying so, such a thing cannot be forgotten!... Ah!
what weather it is!--What devil urged me to talk about this! When I’m
telling it, I never can stop, it has to be finished. It’s a story that
intoxicates me like Jurançon wine.--Ah! what weather it is!--My cloak
is wet through!
“I was still telling you, I think, about that little Laurette!--Poor
woman!--What clumsy people there are in the world! The officer was so
stupid as to take the boat ahead of the brig. After that, it is true
to say that one cannot foresee everything. I was counting on the night
to hide the deed, and didn’t think of the light from twelve guns being
fired at once. And, on my life! from the boat she saw her husband fall
into the sea, shot dead.
“If there is a God up yonder, he knows how that happened that I’m going
to tell you; _I_ don’t know, but it was seen and heard as I see and
hear you. At the instant when they fired, she put her hand to her head
as if a bullet had struck her brow, and sat still in the boat without
fainting, without crying out, without speaking, and came back to the
brig when and how they wished. I went to her and talked to her for a
long time as well as I could. She seemed to be listening to me and
looked me in the face, rubbing her brow. She did not understand, and
her brow was red and her face quite pale. She was trembling in every
limb as if she was afraid of everybody. That has remained with her. She
is still the same, poor little thing! an idiot, or as it were imbecile,
or mad, whatever you please. Never has any one got a word out of her,
except when she asks for some one to take away what is in her head.
“From that time I became as sad as she, and I felt something within me
saying to me: ‛Stay with her to the end of your life, and take care
of her’; I have done it. When I returned to France, I asked to be
transferred with my rank into the land-troops, having taken a hatred
of the sea, because into it I had spilled innocent blood. I sought out
Laura’s family. Her mother was dead. Her sisters, to whom I took her
mad, didn’t want her, and offered to send her to Charenton. I turned my
back on them, and I kept her with me.
“Ah! merciful heavens! if you want to see her, comrade, it rests with
you.” “Can it be she inside?” I asked. “Certainly! here! wait. Whoa!
mule....”
III
_HOW I CONTINUED MY JOURNEY_
And he stopped his poor mule, which seemed delighted that I had
asked the question. At the same time he lifted the oilcloth from
his little cart, as if to arrange the straw which almost filled it,
and I saw something very sad. I saw two blue eyes, extraordinarily
large, admirably shaped, starting from a head pale, thin and long, and
overflowing with quite straight fair hair. I saw nothing, in truth, but
those two eyes, for the rest was dead. Her brow was red; her hollow
white cheeks were bluish at the cheek-bones; she was cowering in the
midst of the straw, so much so that you scarcely saw projecting from
it her knees, on which she was playing dominoes all by herself. She
looked at us for a minute, trembled a long time, smiled at me a little,
and went on playing. It seemed to me that she was labouring to perceive
how her right hand would beat her left. “You see, she has been playing
that game for a month,” the major said to me; “to-morrow, perhaps it
will be another game that will last a long time. It’s strange, eh?”
At the same time he began to replace on his shako the oilcloth, which
the rain had slightly disarranged.
“Poor Laurette!” I said, “you have lost, and for ever, truly!”
I brought my horse near the cart, and held out my hand to her; she
gave me hers mechanically, smiling with great sweetness. I noticed
with surprise that she wore on her long fingers two diamond rings;
I thought that here were her mother’s rings still, and wondered how
poverty had left them there. I would not have remarked as much to the
old commandant for all the world; but, as he followed me with his eyes,
and saw mine fixed on Laura’s fingers, he said to me with a certain air
of pride:
“They are pretty big diamonds, aren’t they? They might fetch a price on
occasion, but I did not want her to part from them, poor child. When
they are touched, she cries, she is never without them. Otherwise, she
never complains, and she can sew now and then. I have kept my word
to her poor little husband, and, in truth, I don’t regret it. I have
never left her, and I have said everywhere that she is my mad daughter.
People have respected that. In the army everything gets arranged
better than they would think at Paris, eh!--She has been through all
the Emperor’s wars with me, and I have always got her through safe and
sound. I have always kept her comfortable. With straw and a little
carriage, it’s never impossible. Her dress was pretty well cared for,
and I, being a major, with good pay, my Legion of Honour pension,
and the monthly napoleon, whose value was double, formerly, I was
quite able to keep things going, and she did not embarrass me. On the
contrary, the officers of the 7th Light Horse would sometimes laugh at
her child’s play.”
Then he went near, and tapped her on the shoulder, as he would have
done to his little mule.
“Well, my girl! come now, say something to the lieutenant there: come,
just a nod.”
She went on with her dominoes.
“Oh!” he said, “she is a little shy to-day, because it is raining. Yet
she never catches cold. These mad people are never ill, it’s convenient
in that way. At the Beresina and all through the retreat from Moscow,
she went bareheaded.--There, my girl, go on playing, come, don’t worry
about us; there, do as you please, Laurette.”
She took the hand that he rested on her shoulder, a great black and
wrinkled hand; she lifted it timidly to her lips and kissed it like a
poor slave. My heart was wrung by that kiss, and I turned my horse back
violently.
“Shall we continue our march, commandant?” I said; “it will be night
before we reach Béthune.”
The commandant carefully scraped off with the end of his sword the
yellow mud that covered his boots; then he got up on the footboard of
the cart, and pulled over Laura’s head the cloth hood of a little cloak
she was wearing. He took off his black silk scarf and put it round his
adopted daughter’s neck; after which he gave the mule a kick, jerked
his shoulder, and said: “Off you go, you’re a poor lot!” and we set off
again.
The rain was still falling dismally; the grey sky and the grey earth
stretched out endlessly; a kind of wan light, a pale wet sun, was
sinking behind great mills that were not turning. We relapsed into
profound silence.
I was looking at my old commandant; he was walking in great strides,
with energy still maintained, while his mule was exhausted, and even
my horse was beginning to hang his head. This worthy man from time
to time took on his shako to wipe his bald forehead and his few grey
hairs, or his thick eyebrows, or his white moustache, from which
the rain was dripping. He did not worry about the effect which his
narrative might have had on me. He had not made himself out either
better or worse than he was. He had not stooped to show himself to
advantage. He was not thinking of himself, and, after a quarter of an
hour, he began, in the same manner, a very much longer story about a
campaign of Marshal Massena’s, where he had formed his company into a
square against some cavalry or other. I did not listen to him, although
he grew warm in demonstrating to me the superiority of the foot-soldier
over the mounted man.
Night fell, we were not going fast. The mud was becoming thicker and
deeper. Nothing on the road and nothing at the end. We stopped at the
foot of a dead tree, the only tree in our path. He first attended to
his mule, as I did to my horse. Then he looked into the cart, as a
mother does into her child’s cradle. I heard him saying: “Come, my
girl, spread this coat over your feet, and try to sleep.--Come, that’s
right! She hasn’t got a drop of rain on her.--Oh! confound it! she
has broken my watch that I left round her neck!--Oh! my poor silver
watch!--There, it’s no matter; try to sleep, child. The fine weather
will come soon.--It’s strange! she is always feverish; mad people are
like that. Look, here’s some chocolate for you, child.”
He propped the cart against the tree, and we sat down under the wheels,
sheltered from the incessant shower, sharing a loaf he had and one I
had: a poor supper.
“I am sorry we have nothing but this,” he said; “but it’s better than
horseflesh cooked under the ashes with gunpowder on top, by way of
salt, as we used to eat it in Russia. As for the poor little woman, I
am bound to give her the best I have. You see that I always keep her
by herself. She cannot bear to be near a man since the affair of the
letter. I am old, and she seems to believe that I am her father; in
spite of that, she would strangle me if I tried merely to kiss her on
the forehead. Education always leaves them something, it seems, for I
have never seen her forget to hide herself like a nun.--That’s strange,
eh?”
As he was talking of her like this, we heard her sigh and say: “Take
away the lead! take away the lead!” I got up, he made me sit down again.
“Sit still, sit still,” he said to me, “it is nothing. She has always
said that, because she always thinks she can feel a bullet in her head.
That doesn’t prevent her doing whatever she is told, and that with
great amiability.”
I was silent and listened to him sadly. I began to calculate that from
1797 to 1815, which we had reached, eighteen years had passed thus
for this man.--For a long time I stayed beside him in silence, trying
to account to myself for such a character and such a fate. Then, for
no apparent reason, I gave him a very enthusiastic handshake. He was
astonished at it.
“You are a noble man!” I said to him. He answered:
“Eh! why that? Is it because of that poor woman?... You know well, my
lad, that it was a duty. I have long learnt to sacrifice self.”
And he talked to me about Massena again.
The next day, at dawn, we reached Béthune, an ugly little fortified
town, where you would say that the ramparts, contracting their circle,
had squeezed the houses one on top of another. Everything there was in
confusion; there had just been an alarm. The inhabitants were beginning
to draw in the white flags from the windows; and to sew the tricolours
together in their houses. The drums were beating the call to arms; the
trumpets were sounding “to horse,” by order of the Duke of Berry. The
long Picardy carts were carrying the Swiss Hundred and their baggage;
the cannon of the Body-guard hastening to the ramparts, the princes’
carriages, the squadrons of the Red Companies falling in, were blocking
up the town. The sight of the Royal Dragoons and the Musketeers made
me forget my old travelling companion. I joined my company, and in
the crowd I lost the little cart and its poor occupants. To my great
regret, it was for ever that I lost them.
It was the first time in my life that I read the inmost depths of
a real soldier’s heart. This meeting revealed to me a kind of human
nature unknown to me, and which the country knows little and does not
treat well; I placed it thenceforward very high in my esteem. I have
often since then sought around me some man like that one, capable of
that complete and unheeding self-sacrifice. Now, during the fourteen
years that I have lived in the army, it is in it alone, and above all
in the poor and despised ranks of the infantry, that I have met these
men of antique mould, carrying the sentiment of duty to its final
consequences, feeling neither remorse for having obeyed nor shame for
being poor, simple in customs and in speech, proud of their country’s
glory and heedless of their own, gladly shutting themselves up in their
obscurity, and sharing with the unfortunate the black bread which they
pay for with their blood.
I was long ignorant of what had become of this poor major, especially
as he had not told me his name and I had not asked it. One day,
however, at the coffee-house, in 1825, I think, an old infantry captain
of the line to whom I described him, whilst waiting for parade, said to
me:
“Oh! by heaven, my dear fellow, I knew him, poor devil! He was a fine
man; he was ‛put down’ by a bullet at Waterloo. He had, indeed, left
with the baggage a kind of mad girl whom we took to the hospital at
Amiens, as we were on our way to join the army of the Loire, and who
died there, raving, three days later.”
“I can well believe it,” I said to him; “she had lost her
foster-father!”
“Oh pooh! _father_! what is that you say?” he rejoined in a tone which
he meant to be sly and suggestive.
“I say that the call to arms is being sounded,” I replied, going out.
And I too exercised self-restraint.
THE VENUS OF ILLE
PROSPER MÉRIMÉE
“Ιλεως, ἦν δ’ ἐγὼ, ἔοτω ὁ ἀνδριὰς καὶ ἢπιος οὔτως ἀνδρεῖος ὤν.”
Lucian, _Philopseudes_.
I was descending the last declivity of the Canigou, and, although the
sun was already set, I could distinguish in the plain the houses of the
little town of Ille, towards which I was making.
“Of course,” I said to the Catalan who had served me as guide since the
previous evening, “of course you know where M. de Peyrehorade stays?”
“Know where he stays!” he exclaimed; “I know his house as well as my
own; and, if it were not so dark, I would show it you. It is the finest
in Ille. He has money, he has, M. de Peyrehorade, and he’s marrying his
son to richer than himself even.”
“And is this marriage to be soon?” I asked him.
“Soon! perhaps the fiddles are ordered for the wedding already.
To-night, perhaps, to-morrow, the day after to-morrow, for all that I
know! It’s to be at Puygarrig; for it’s Mademoiselle de Puygarrig whom
the young gentleman is marrying. It will be grand, that it will!”
I had an introduction from my friend, M. de P., to M. de Peyrehorade.
He, I had been informed, was a very learned antiquary, and most
exceedingly obliging. He would consider it a pleasure to show me all
the ruins for ten leagues around. Now, I was counting on his aid to
visit the environs of Ille, which I knew to be rich in monuments of
antiquity and of the Middle Ages. This marriage, of which I now heard
for the first time, upset all my plans.
“I am going to be a spoil-sport,” I said to myself. But I was expected;
seeing that M. de P. had said I was coming, I was bound to present
myself.
“I’ll bet you, sir,” my guide said to me, when we were now in the
plain, “I’ll bet you a cigar that I guess what you are going to do at
M. de Peyrehorade’s.”
“O!” I said to him, as I handed him a cigar, “that’s not very difficult
to guess! At this hour of night, after doing six leagues on the
Canigou, the great thing is supper.”
“Yes, but to-morrow?... Listen, I’ll wager you’ve come to Ille to see
the idol. I guessed as much from seeing you take the portraits of the
saints at Serrabona.”
“The idol! What idol?” The word excited my curiosity.
“What! Did they not tell you at Perpignan, how M. de Peyrehorade had
found an idol in the ground?”
“A statue in terra cotta or earthenware, do you mean?”
“No, no, in real copper, enough to make a lot of pennies with. It
weighs as much as a church-bell. It was away down in the ground, at the
foot of an olive-tree, that we got it.”
“Then you were present at the discovery?”
“Yes, sir. M. de Peyrehorade told us a fortnight ago, Jean Coll and me,
to root up an old olive-tree that was frosted last year, for it was a
very bad one, as you know. Well then, as we were busy, Jean Coll, who
was going at it with all his might, gave a blow with his pick, and I
hear Boom ..., as if he had struck on a bell. ‘What’s that?’ says I. We
pick, and we pick, and, look! there appears a black hand, which looked
like the hand of a corpse rising out of the ground. I did get a fright.
I go off to the master, and I says to him, ‛Corpses, master, under the
olive-tree! Must call the parson,’ ‛What corpses?’ says he to me. He
comes, and has no sooner seen the hand than he cries out, ‛An antique!
An antique!’ You would have thought he had found a treasure. And there
he was, with the pick, with his hands, fussing away and doing as much
work as the two of us, with his way of it.”
“And after all, what did you find?”
“A great black woman, more than half naked, saving your Honour’s
presence, all in copper, and M. de Peyrehorade told us that it was an
idol of the time of the heathens ... of the time of Charlemagne, no
less!”
“I see what it is.... Just a Virgin in bronze from some convent that
has been destroyed.”
“Just a Virgin! Very much so!... I’d easily have recognized it, if it
had been just a Virgin. It’s an idol, I tell you; that’s well seen from
her look. She fixes you with her great, white eyes.... You’d think she
was staring at you. You have to cast down your eyes, you have, if you
look at her.”
“White eyes, do you say? No doubt they are inlaid on the bronze.
Perhaps it will be some Roman statue.”
“Roman! that’s it. M. de Peyrehorade said that she’s a Roman. Ah! I can
see you’re a scholar like himself.”
“Is she complete, in good preservation?”
“Yes, sir. She wants nothing. She’s even finer and better finished than
the bust of Louis-Philippe at the Town-house in painted plaster. But,
for all that, I don’t like the idol’s face. She looks wicked ... and
she is wicked.”
“Wicked! What wickedness has she done to you?”
“Not to me exactly; but you’ll see. We were breaking our backs to make
her stand upright, even M. de Peyrehorade, who was also pulling at the
rope, though he has not much more strength than a chicken, honest man!
After a good deal of trouble we get her straight. I was picking up a
piece of tile to prop her, when, crash! there she falls in a heap on
her back. I shouted, ‛Look out below, there!’ But not quick enough,
though, for Jean Coll had not time to pull away his leg.”
“And was he hurt?”
“Broken as clean as a pipe-shank, his poor leg! Zounds, when I saw
that, my, I was furious! I wanted to put my pick through the idol, but
M. de Peyrehorade prevented me. He gave money to Jean Coll, but for
all that he has been in bed a fortnight since it happened to him, and
the doctor says that he’ll never walk as well with that leg as with
the other. It’s a pity for him, for he was our best runner and, next
to the young gentleman, our trickiest tennis-player. M. Alphonse de
Peyrehorade was sorry about it, for it was Coll he used to play with.
My word, it was good to see how they returned the balls. Paf! Paf! They
never once touched the ground.”
Talking thus, we entered Ille, and soon I found myself in presence of
M. de Peyrehorade. He was a little old man, still fresh and lively,
powdered, red-nosed, with a jovial and roguish air. Before opening
M. de P.’s letter, he had installed me in front of a well-spread
table, and had presented me to his wife and son as an illustrious
archæologist, who was to rescue Roussillon from the oblivion in which
it had been left by the indifference of savants.
All the time that I was eating with a good appetite--for nothing makes
one so sharp-set as the keen air of the mountains--I was examining
my hosts. I have said something about M. de Peyrehorade; I ought to
add that he was vivacity itself. He talked, ate, got up, ran to his
library, brought me books, showed me prints, filled my glass; he was
never two minutes at rest. His wife, a little too stout, like most
Catalan women when they are over forty, struck me as a double-dyed
provincial, occupied solely with the cares of her household. Although
the supper was enough for six persons at least, she ran to the kitchen,
made them kill pigeons and fry _miliasses_, and opened I don’t know how
many pots of preserves. In an instant the table was crowded with dishes
and bottles, and I should assuredly have died of indigestion, if I had
even tasted everything that they offered me. Nevertheless, at each dish
that I refused, there were fresh excuses. They were afraid I should
find myself very uncomfortable at Ille. In the country there are so few
resources, and Parisians are so hard to please!
Amid all his parents’ comings and goings, M. Alphonse de Peyrehorade
budged no more than a gate-post. He was a tall young man of
six-and-twenty, with a countenance handsome and regular, but lacking
in expression. His build and his athletic proportions quite justified
the reputation of an indefatigable tennis-player which he had acquired
in the district. He was dressed that evening with elegance, exactly
after the plate in the latest number of the _Journal des Modes_. But he
seemed to me to be ill at ease in his habiliments; he was as stiff as
a poker in his velvet stock, and could only turn all in a piece. His
large, sunburnt hands and short nails contrasted singularly with his
costume. They were the hands of a labourer sticking out of the cuffs of
a dandy. Moreover, though he looked me up and down from head to foot
most inquisitively in my quality of a Parisian, he never addressed
me the whole evening, except once, to ask me where I had bought my
watch-chain.
“Ah, well, my dear guest,” M. de Peyrehorade said to me as the supper
was drawing to an end, “you belong to me, you are under my roof. I
will not let you go, at least not until you have seen everything of
interest that we have in our mountains. You must get acquainted with
our Roussillon, and do justice to it. You have no idea of all that
we are going to show you. Phœnician, Celtic, Roman, Arab, Byzantine
antiquities, I’ll show you them all, from the cedar to the hyssop. I’ll
take you everywhere, and won’t spare you a single brick.”
A fit of coughing forced him to stop. I took advantage of it to tell
him that I should be most sorry to inconvenience him on an occasion so
interesting to his family.
If he would have the kindness to give me his valuable advice as to the
excursions which I ought to make, I should be able, without his taking
the trouble of accompanying me, to....
“Ah, you mean the marriage of that boy there!” he shouted, and
interrupted me. “Fiddlesticks! that will be over by the day after
to-morrow. You’ll celebrate the wedding along with us, a family affair,
for the bride is in mourning for an aunt, whose heiress she is. So no
party, no dance.... It’s a pity ... you would have seen our Catalan
girls dancing.... They are pretty, and perhaps you’d have taken
the fancy to imitate my Alphonse. One marriage, they say, leads to
another.... By Saturday, after the young couple are married, I’ll be
free, and we’ll set out. I must apologize to you for boring you with a
country wedding. For a Parisian who is sated with gaieties ... and a
wedding without a dance into the bargain! However, you’ll see a bride
... a bride ... you’ll tell me what you think about her.... But you’re
a sober-sides and don’t look at women now. I’ve better than that to
show you. I’ll let you see something!... I am keeping a fine surprise
for you to-morrow.”
“Faith,” I said, “it is not easy to have a treasure in the house
without the public knowing all about it. I think I can guess the
surprise that you have in store for me. Yes, if it is your statue you
mean, the description of it which my guide gave me has served only to
excite my curiosity and to dispose me to admiration.”
“Ah! He has told you of the idol, for so they call my beautiful Venus
Tur.... But I won’t tell you anything. To-morrow in daylight you
shall see her, and you shall tell me if I am right in thinking her a
masterpiece. Upon my word! you could not have arrived more opportunely!
There are some inscriptions, which I, poor ignoramus, explain in my
own way ... but a savant from Paris!... You will perhaps laugh at my
interpretation ... for I have written a paper.... I who am speaking to
you ... an old provincial antiquary, I have come out.... I mean to make
the press groan.... If you will be so kind as read and correct me, I
flatter myself.... For example, I am very curious to know how you will
translate that inscription on the base: _CAVE_.... But I won’t ask you
anything just now! To-morrow, to-morrow! Not a word about the Venus
to-day!”
“You are just as well, Peyrehorade,” said his wife, “to let your idol
alone. Can’t you see that you are preventing the gentleman from eating?
Go away with you! The gentleman has seen plenty of finer statues than
yours at Paris. At the Tuileries there are dozens of them, and in
bronze, too.”
“There’s ignorance for you, the blessed ignorance of the provinces!”
broke in M. de Peyrehorade. “To compare an admirable antique to
Coustou’s vapid faces!
‛With great lack of reverence, truly,
Speaks my wife of gods divine!’
“Do you know, my wife wanted me to melt down my statue to make into
a bell for our church? Because she would have been the donor. A
masterpiece of Myron’s, my dear sir!”
“Masterpiece! Masterpiece! A pretty masterpiece she’s made, breaking a
man’s leg!”
“Look here, wife,” said M. de Peyrehorade, in a firm tone, stretching
out to her his right leg in a stocking of clouded silk, “if my Venus
had broken that leg for me, I should not have regretted it.”
“Gracious! Peyrehorade, how can you say that? Fortunately the man’s
getting better. But still I can’t bring myself to look at a statue
which causes misfortunes like that. Poor Jean Coll!”
“Wounded by Venus, sir,” said M. de Peyrehorade with a great laugh,
“wounded by Venus, the rascal complains:
‛_Veneris nec præmia nôris._’
Who hasn’t been wounded by Venus?”
M. Alphonse, who understood French better than Latin, winked an
eye with a knowing air, and looked at me, as much as to ask, “D’ye
understand, Mr. Parisian?”
The supper came to an end. For the last hour I had eaten nothing. I was
tired, and I could not manage to hide the frequent yawns which escaped
me. Madame de Peyrehorade was the first to notice them, and remarked
that it was time to go to bed. Thereupon began fresh apologies for
the poor couch I was about to find. I should not be so comfortable as
in Paris. Things are so uncomfortable in the provinces. I must excuse
Roussillon people. It was in vain that I protested that after a journey
in the mountains a truss of straw would be a delicious couch for me;
they persisted in entreating me to pardon poor country folk, if they
did not treat me so well as they could have desired. At last I went
upstairs to the room which was meant for me, accompanied by M. de
Peyrehorade. The stair, the upper steps of which were of wood, led to
the middle of a corridor, on which several rooms opened.
“To the right,” said my host, “are the apartments which I intend for
the future Madame Alphonse. Your room is at the end of the opposite
corridor. You quite understand,” he added with an air which was
meant to be sly, “you quite understand that newly married folk must
be isolated. You are at one end of the house, they at the other.”
We entered a well furnished room, where the first object on which
I set eyes was a bed seven feet long, six wide, and so high that
one required a stool to hoist oneself into it. My host, having
shown me where the bell was, and having satisfied himself that the
sugar-bowl was filled and the eau-de-Cologne bottles duly set on the
dressing-table, after having asked me several times if I had everything
I wanted, wished me good-night and left me to myself.
The windows were shut. Before undressing, I opened one to breathe the
fresh night air, so delightful after a long supper. Before me lay the
Canigou, which is wonderful to behold at any time, but which, that
night, seemed to me the finest mountain in the world, lit up as it
was by a resplendent moon. I remained some minutes contemplating the
marvellous sky-line, and I was about to close my window when, looking
down, I observed the statue on a pedestal some two-score yards from the
house. It was placed at the corner of a quick-set hedge, which divided
a little garden from a spacious square perfectly smooth, which, as I
learned later, was the town tennis-court. This space, the property of
M. de Peyrehorade, had been made over by him to the commune, at the
pressing solicitations of his son.
At the distance where I was, it was difficult to make out the attitude
of the statue; I could only judge of its height, which seemed to be
about six feet. At that moment, two rascals from the town were passing
by the tennis-court, pretty close to the hedge, whistling the pretty
Roussillon air _Montagnes régalades_. They stopped to look at the
statue; one of them even apostrophized it aloud. He spoke Catalan; but
I had been in Roussillon long enough to be able to understand pretty
well what he was saying.
“So you’re there, you hussy!” (The Catalan word was more forcible).
“You’re there!” he said. “So it’s you who broke Jean Coll’s leg for
him! If you belonged to me, I’d break your neck.”
“Bah! What would you break it with?” said the other. “She’s made of
copper, so hard that Stephen broke his file on it trying to cut into
it. It’s copper of heathen times; it’s harder than I don’t know what.”
“If I had my cold chisel,” (it seems that he was an apprentice
locksmith), “I’d soon knock out her big white eyes, as easy as I’d take
an almond out of its shell. There’s more than two half-crowns’ worth of
silver in them.”
They went a step or two on their way.
“I must wish the idol good-night,” said the taller of the apprentices,
stopping short.
He stooped down, and no doubt picked up a stone. I saw him straighten
out his arm and throw something, and immediately a sonorous blow rang
on the bronze. That same instant, the apprentice put his hand to his
head and uttered a cry of pain.
“She’s thrown it back at me!” he exclaimed.
And my two rascals took to their heels. Evidently the stone had
rebounded from the metal and had punished the joker for his outrage on
the goddess.
I shut the window, laughing heartily.
“Another Vandal punished by Venus! Would that all the destroyers of our
ancient monuments had their heads broken in the same way!”
With this charitable desire, I fell asleep.
It was broad daylight when I awoke. At one side of my bed stood M. de
Peyrehorade in his dressing-gown; at the other a servant, sent by his
wife, a cup of chocolate in his hand.
“Come! get up, Parisian! That’s just like you lazy people from the
capital!” said my host, while I dressed myself hurriedly. “Eight
o’clock, and still in bed! Why, I’ve been up since six o’clock! This
is the third time I’ve been upstairs; I went to your door on tiptoe;
no one, no sign of life. It is bad for you to sleep too much at your
age. And my Venus, whom you have not seen yet! Come, quick and take
this cup of Barcelona chocolate.... Real smuggled.... Chocolate such
as you don’t have in Paris. Fortify yourself, for, once you are in the
presence of my Venus, there will be no tearing you away from her.”
In five minutes I was ready, that is to say, half shaved, buttoned
awry, and scalded by the chocolate that I had swallowed boiling hot. I
went down to the garden, and found myself before an admirable statue.
It really was a Venus of marvellous beauty. The upper part of the body
was nude, as the ancients usually represented the greater divinities;
the right hand, raised level with the breast, was turned palm inwards,
the thumb and first two fingers extended, the others slightly bent. The
other hand, approaching her haunch, supported the drapery that covered
the lower part of the body. The pose of the statue recalled that of the
player at morra, which is designated, for some reason or other, by the
name of Germanicus. Perhaps the intention was to represent the goddess
as playing at morra.
Be that as it may, nothing more perfect could possibly be seen than
the body of that Venus; nothing more suave, more voluptuous than its
contours; nothing more elegant and more noble than its drapery. I had
expected some work of the Lower Empire; I saw a masterpiece of the best
period of sculpture. What struck me above all was the exquisite truth
of the forms, so much so that one might have supposed them moulded from
nature, if nature produced such perfect models.
The hair, piled above the forehead, seemed to have been gilded at
one time. The head, small like that of almost all Greek statues, was
slightly inclined forwards. As for the face, I shall never succeed in
expressing its strange character, the type of which was not like that
of any other antique statue that I can remember. It was not the calm
and severe beauty of the Greek sculptors, who, on system, gave all the
features a majestic immobility. Here, on the contrary, I observed with
surprise the distinct intention of the artist to render mischievousness
almost bordering on malice. All the features were slightly contracted:
the eyes a little oblique, the mouth raised at the corners, the
nostrils somewhat distended. Disdain, irony, cruelty were to be read
on this visage, which was at the same time of an incredible beauty.
In fact, the more one looked at that admirable statue, the more one
experienced a feeling of pain that such marvellous beauty could be
allied to utter absence of sensibility.
“If the model ever existed,” I said to M. de Peyrehorade--” and I doubt
if Heaven ever produced such a woman--how I pity her lovers! She must
have found pleasure in making them die of despair. There is something
ferocious in her expression, and yet I have never seen anything so
beautiful.”
“‛Tis Venus’ self a stooping o’er her prey!”
exclaimed M. de Peyrehorade, gratified at my enthusiasm.
The expression of infernal irony was augmented, perhaps, by the
contrast between her eyes inlaid with silver, very brilliant, and the
blackish-green patina which time had given to the whole statue. Those
brilliant eyes produced a certain illusion, which recalled reality,
life. I remembered what my guide had told me, that she made those who
looked at her cast down their eyes. That was almost true, and I could
not refrain from a gesture of anger against myself at feeling somewhat
ill at ease before this figure of bronze.
“Now that you have admired everything in detail, my dear colleague
in the antique,” said my host, “let us proceed, if you please, to a
scientific discussion. What do you say about this inscription, to which
you have not paid any attention as yet?”
He showed me the base of the statue, and there I read these words:
CAVE AMANTEM.
“_Quid dicis, doctissime?_” he asked me, rubbing his hands. “Let us see
whether we shall agree on the meaning of this _cave amantem_!”
“Why,” I said, “there are two possible meanings. You can translate,
‛Beware of him who loves thee; distrust lovers.’ But, in this sense I
do not know whether _cave amantem_ would be good Latinity. Looking to
the lady’s diabolical expression, I am more inclined to think that the
artist meant to warn the beholder against this terrible beauty. So I
would translate, ‛Beware for thyself, if _she_ loves thee.’”
“Humph!” said M. de Peyrehorade. “Yes, that is an admissible rendering:
but you will not be offended if I prefer the first translation, which,
however, I shall develop. You know who the lover of Venus was, do you
not?”
“There are several.”
“Yes; but the first is Vulcan. Was the meaning not intended to be
‛Despite all thy beauty, thy disdainful air, thou shalt have a
blacksmith, an ugly lameter for lover?’ A profound moral, sir, for
coquettes!”
I could not keep from smiling, the interpretation seemed so far-fetched.
“It’s a terrible language, Latin, with its conciseness,” I remarked,
to avoid contradicting my antiquary explicitly, and I fell back a few
paces in order to view the statue better.
“One moment, colleague!” said M. de Peyrehorade, taking me by the arm,
“you haven’t seen all. There’s still another inscription. Get up on the
base and look at the right arm.” So speaking, he helped me to get up.
I clung on without much ceremony by the neck of the Venus with whom I
was beginning to be quite at home. I even looked at her for a moment
“under the nose,” and found her more wicked and more beautiful than
ever at close quarters. Then I saw that there were engraved on the arm
some characters in ancient cursive character, as it seemed to me. With
the help of spectacles I spelled out what follows, and meanwhile M.
de Peyrehorade repeated each word as I pronounced it, signifying his
approval by voice and gesture. Accordingly I read:
VENERI TVRBVL ...
EVTYCHES MYRO
IMPERIO FECIT
After the word TVRBVL in the first line it seemed to me that there were
several letters effaced; but TVRBVL was perfectly legible.
“Which means?” my host asked me, beaming and smiling mischievously, for
he was pretty sure that I would not get easily over that TVRBVL.
“There is one word which I can’t explain yet,” I told him, “but all
the rest is easy: Eutyches Myron made this offering to Venus at her
command.”
“Just so! But TVRBVL, what do you make of that? What is TVRBVL?”
“TVRBVL bothers me considerably. I am hunting in vain for some known
epithet of Venus which might help me. Let us see, what do you say to
TVRBVLENTA? Venus who troubles, agitates?... You see that I am always
possessed by her wicked expression. TVRBVLENTA, that is not at all a
bad epithet for Venus,” I added in a modest tone, for I was not very
well satisfied myself with my explanation.
“Venus the Turbulent! Venus the Rowdy! Ah! Then you believe that my
Venus is a tavern Venus, do you? Not at all, sir; she is a well-bred
Venus. But I’ll explain this TVRBVL ... to you. Though you must promise
not to divulge my discovery before my paper is printed. Because, you
see, I am proud of this find.... You might as well leave us poor
devils of provincials some ears to glean. You are so rich, you learned
gentlemen of Paris!”
From the top of the pedestal, where I was still perched, I solemnly
promised him that I would never be so dishonourable as to rob him of
his discovery.
“TVRBVL ..., sir,” said he, coming nearer and lowering his voice, for
fear any one besides me might hear him, “read TVRBVLNERAE.”
“I am still no wiser.”
“Listen! A league from here, at the foot of the mountain, there is a
village called Boulternère. That is a corruption of the Latin word
TVRBVLNERA. Nothing more common than these inversions. Boulternère,
sir, was a Roman town. I always suspected so, but I never had evidence
for it. The evidence is here! This Venus was the local deity of the
city of Boulternère; and this word Boulternère, of which I have just
demonstrated the ancient origin, proves a thing more curious still,
namely, that Boulternère, before being a Roman town, was a town of the
Phœnicians!”
He paused for a moment to take breath and enjoy my surprise. I managed
to repress a strong desire to laugh.
“In fact,” he continued, “TVRBVLNERA is pure Phœnician; TVR, pronounce
TOOR.... TOOR and SOOR, the same word, are they not? SUR is the
Phœnician name of Tyre; I need not remind you of its meaning. BVL is
Baal; Bâl, Bel, Bul, slight difference of pronunciation. As for NERA,
that gives me a little trouble. I am inclined to think, failing a
Phœnician word, that it comes from the Greek νηρός, moist, marshy.
The word would then be a hybrid. To justify νηρός, I’ll show you at
Boulternère how the streams from the mountains form pestilential
marshes there. On the other hand, the termination NERA might have been
added much later in honour of Nera Pivesuvia, wife of Tetricus, who may
have rendered some benefit to the city of Turbul. But, looking to the
marshes, I prefer the derivation from νηρός.”
He took a pinch of snuff with a satisfied air.
“But let us leave the Phœnicians and return to the inscription. I
translate, then, ‛To Venus of Boulternère Myron dedicates at her
command this statue, his work.’”
I took good care not to criticize his etymology; but I wished in my
turn to give evidence of penetration, and said to him:
“Stop a moment, sir, Myron consecrated something; but I do not at all
see that it was this statue.”
“How so?” he exclaimed. “Was not Myron a famous Greek sculptor? His
talent must have been perpetuated in his family: it must have been one
of his descendants who made this statue. Nothing is more certain.”
“But,” I replied, “I see a little hole in the arm. In my opinion,
it served to fasten something, a bracelet, for instance, which this
Myron gave to Venus as an expiatory offering. Myron was an unhappy
lover. Venus was angry with him; he appeased her by consecrating a
golden bracelet to her. Note that _fecit_ is very often used for
_consecravit_. They are synonymous terms. I could show you more than
one example, if I had Gruter, or even Orellius at hand. It is natural
that a lover should see Venus in a dream, that he should imagine
that she commands him to give a golden bracelet to her statue. Myron
consecrated a bracelet to her.... Then the barbarians, or even some
sacrilegious robber....”
“Ah, it is easy to see that you have written novels!” exclaimed my
host, as he lent me a hand to descend. “No, sir; it is a work of the
school of Myron. Only look at the workmanship, and you’ll agree.”
Having made it an invariable rule never to give a point-blank
contradiction to obstinate antiquaries, I bowed my head with an air of
conviction and said:
“It is an admirable piece.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed M. de Peyrehorade. “Another piece of
vandalism! Some one must have been throwing stones at my statue!”
He had just observed a white mark a little above the breast of the
Venus. I noticed a similar trace on the fingers of the right hand,
which, I supposed at the time, the stone had touched in its passage,
or perhaps even a fragment had been knocked off it by the shock, and
had rebounded on to the hand. I related to my host the insult, of which
I had been a witness, and the prompt punishment which had followed
it. He laughed heartily at the story, and, comparing the appprentice
to Diomede, wished that, like the Greek hero, he might see all his
companions turned into white birds.
The breakfast bell interrupted this classical conversation, and, as on
the previous evening, I was obliged to eat enough for four. Then M. de
Peyrehorade’s farmers came; and, while he gave audience to them, his
son took me to see a barouche which he had bought at Toulouse for his
bride, and which I, of course, admired. Next I went into the stable
with him, where he kept me for half an hour boasting about his horses,
telling me their pedigrees, and detailing the prizes that they had won
at the county races. At last he came to tell me about his future wife,
having been led up to her by a grey mare which he intended for her.
“We’ll see her to-day,” he said. “I don’t know whether you’ll think her
pretty. You are difficult to please at Paris; but every one here and
at Perpignan thinks her charming. The beauty of it is that she is very
rich. Her aunt at Prades has left her property to her. Oh, I’ll be very
happy.”
I was deeply disgusted to see a young man apparently more impressed by
the dowry than by the charms of his future wife.
“You know something about jewels,” continued M. Alphonse, “what do you
think of this? This is the ring which I’m to give her to-morrow.”
With these words he drew from the first joint of his little finger a
big ring enriched with diamonds, in the form of two clasped hands; an
allusion which struck me as infinitely poetical. The workmanship was
ancient, but I thought that it had been remodelled to set the diamonds.
Inside the ring, in Gothic letters, could be read the words, “_Sempr’
ab ti_,” that is to say, “Ever with thee.”
“It is a pretty ring,” I said; “but those diamonds that have been added
have made it lose something of its character.”
“Oh, it is very much prettier like that,” he said with a smile. “There
are twelve hundred francs worth of diamonds there. It was given to me
by my mother. It was a very ancient family ring ... from the times of
chivalry. My grandmother used it for her wedding-ring, and she got it
from her grandmother. Goodness knows when it was made.”
“The custom at Paris,” I told him, “is to give quite a simple ring,
usually composed of two different metals, such as gold and platinum.
Wait! that other ring, the one on that finger, would be very suitable.
This one, with its diamonds and its hands in relief, is so big that one
could never put on a glove over it.”
“Oh, Madame Alphonse will manage as she likes. I expect she’ll be
quite glad to have it in any case. Twelve thousand francs is a nice
thing to have on one’s finger. That little ring there,” he added,
with a complacent glance at the perfectly plain ring which he wore on
his hand, “that ring there was given me by a girl at Paris one Shrove
Tuesday. Ah, how I went the pace when I was at Paris two years ago!
That’s the place to enjoy oneself!...” And he heaved a sigh of regret.
We were to dine that day at Puygarrig, with the bride’s parents; we got
into a barouche and drove to the château, which was about a league and
a half distant from Ille. I was presented and received as the friend of
the family. I shall say nothing about the dinner or the conversation
which ensued, and in which I took little part. M. Alphonse, placed
beside his betrothed, said something in her ear every quarter of an
hour. For her part, she did not often raise her eyes, and, when her
intended spoke to her, she blushed modestly, but answered him without
embarrassment.
Mademoiselle de Puygarrig was eighteen years of age; her supple and
delicate figure was a contrast to the large-boned frame of her robust
bridegroom. She was not merely beautiful, but entrancing. I admired
the perfect naturalness of all her answers; and her air of kindness,
which yet was not without a slight tinge of mischief, reminded me
involuntarily of my host’s Venus. As I made this comparison mentally,
I asked myself whether the superiority in point of beauty, which was
undoubtedly to be awarded to the statue, was not due, in great part, to
its tigress-like expression; for energy, even that of evil passions,
always excites us to astonishment and a sort of involuntary admiration.
“What a pity,” said I to myself, as we left Puygarrig, “that so amiable
a creature should be rich, and her portion should attract the suit of
a man so unworthy of her!” On the way back to Ille, being at a loss
for something to say to Madame de Peyrehorade, whom I thought it good
manners to address occasionally, I exclaimed:
“You are great freethinkers in Roussillon! Why, Madame, you are holding
a marriage on a Friday! At Paris we are more superstitious; nobody
there would dare to take a wife on such a day.”
“For goodness’ sake don’t talk about that to me!” she said. “If it had
depended on me alone, we should certainly have chosen another day. But
Peyrehorade would have it, and we had to give in to him. I am anxious
about it all the same. What if anything happens? There must be some
reason for it, for else why is everybody afraid of Friday?”
“Friday!” cried her husband, “that’s Venus’s day! A good day for
a marriage! You see, my dear colleague, I can never get away from
my Venus. On my honour, it’s because of her that I chose Friday!
To-morrow, if you like, before the wedding, we’ll make a little
sacrifice to her; we’ll sacrifice two doves, and if I knew where to get
some incense....”
“For shame, Peyrehorade!” broke in his wife, scandalized beyond
endurance. “Burn incense to an idol! That would be an abomination!
Whatever would they say about us in the district?”
“At least,” said M. de Peyrehorade, “you will allow me to place a
wreath of roses and lilies on her head:
_Manibus date lilia plenis._
You see, sir, the Charter is an empty word. We have not liberty of
worship!”
The arrangements for the morrow were settled as follows. Everybody was
to be dressed and ready at ten o’clock sharp. After chocolate, we were
to drive to Puygarrig. The civil marriage was to take place at the
mayor’s office in the village, and the religious ceremony in the chapel
at the château. Next was to come a breakfast. After the breakfast we
were to pass the time as best we could until seven o’clock. At seven
we were to return to Ille, to M. de Peyrehorade’s, where the united
families were to sup. The rest followed naturally. As they could not
dance, they meant to eat as much as possible.
By eight o’clock I was seated before the Venus, pencil in hand,
beginning the head of the statue over again for the twentieth time
without being able to catch its expression. M. de Peyrehorade kept
coming and going about me, giving me his advice and repeating his
Phœnician etymologies; then he disposed some Bengal roses on the
pedestal of the statue, and in a tragi-comic voice addressed to it his
prayers for the couple who were about to live under his roof. About
nine o’clock he went in to dress, and at the same moment M. Alphonse
made his appearance, very tight in a new coat, with white gloves,
patent-leather boots, chased studs, a rose in his button-hole.
“You will draw my wife’s portrait?” he asked, bending over my sketch.
“She is pretty too.”
At that moment, on the tennis-court which I have mentioned, a match
began, which at once attracted M. Alphonse’s attention. I too, tired
and in despair of rendering that diabolical face, soon quitted my
sketch to watch the players. Among them were some Spanish muleteers who
had arrived the night before. They were Aragonese and Navarrese, almost
all of marvellous skill. Accordingly the Ille men, though encouraged
by the presence and advice of M. Alphonse, were pretty promptly beaten
by these new champions. The local spectators were in consternation.
M. Alphonse looked at his watch. It was only half-past nine yet. His
mother had not got her hair dressed. He hesitated no longer; he took
off his coat, asked for a jacket, and challenged the Spaniards. When I
saw him do so, I smiled and was rather surprised.
“We must keep up the honour of the country,” he said. I found him
really handsome then. He was aroused. His dress, which had occupied
him so much a little ago, was nothing more to him now. A few minutes
before, he had been afraid to turn his head for fear of deranging his
neck-tie. Now he had no more thought of his curled hair or his neatly
pleated ruffle. And his bride?... Really, had it been necessary, I
believe he would have had the marriage postponed. I saw him hastily
slip on a pair of sandals, turn up his sleeves, and, with a confident
air, place himself at the head of the defeated side, like Cæsar
rallying his soldiers at Dyrrachium. I leaped over the hedge and
stationed myself comfortably under the shade of a _celiis australis_,
so that I had a good view of the two camps.
Contrary to general expectation, M. Alphonse missed the first ball;
true it came skimming low down and delivered with surprising force by
an Aragonese, who appeared to be the leader of the Spaniards.
He was a man about forty years of age, hard and wiry, about six feet
tall, and his olive skin was almost as dark in tone as the bronze of
the Venus.
M. Alphonse threw his racket on the ground in a rage.
“It’s this confounded ring,” he cried, “which pinched my finger, and
made me miss a safe ball!”
He took off the diamond ring, not without difficulty; I went to take
it from him; but he was too quick for me and ran to the Venus, put the
ring on its ring-finger, and resumed his place at the head of the Ille
men.
He was pale, but calm and resolute. Thenceforth he did not make a
single mistake, and the Spaniards were thoroughly beaten. It was a fine
sight to see the enthusiasm of the on-lookers: some uttered a thousand
cries of joy and threw their bonnets in the air; others pressed his
hands, calling him the honour of their country. If he had repelled an
invasion, I doubt whether he would have received more lively or more
sincere congratulations. The disappointment of the losers added still
more to the brilliance of his victory.
“We’ll have other matches, my good fellow,” he said to the Aragonese
with a tone of superiority; “but I’ll give you a handicap.”
I could have wished that M. Alphonse had been more modest, and I was
almost pained at the humiliation of his rival.
The Spanish giant felt the insult keenly. I saw him turn pale under
his sunburnt skin. He looked at his racket gloomily and set his teeth;
then, in a choked voice, he said almost inaudibly, “_Me lo pagarás_.”
M. de Peyrehorade’s voice disturbed his son’s triumph; my host, much
surprised not to find him presiding over the harnessing of the new
barouche, was still more surprised to see him all in a sweat, racket
in hand. M. Alphonse ran to the house, washed his hands and face,
put his new coat and patent-leather shoes on again, and five minutes
later we were off at a brisk trot on the way to Puygarrig. All the
tennis-players of the town and a great number of on-lookers followed us
with cries of joy. The strong horses which drew us had difficulty in
keeping ahead of those intrepid Catalans.
We were at Puygarrig, and the procession was about to set out for the
mayor’s office, when M. Alphonse struck his forehead, and said to me in
an undertone:
“How stupid of me! I’ve forgotten the ring! It’s on the finger of the
Venus, the Devil take her! What ever you do, don’t mention it to my
mother. Perhaps she’ll not notice anything.”
“You could send somebody,” I said.
“Bah! My man is staying behind at Ille. And those fellows here, I
don’t much trust them. Twelve hundred francs worth of diamonds! That
would be a temptation to a good many of them. Besides, what would
they think here of my absent-mindedness? They’d make fine fun of me.
They’d call me the statue’s husband.... I just hope nobody steals it
from me! Fortunately the idol has put a fear on my rogues. They don’t
dare go within arm’s length of it. Bah! It doesn’t matter; I’ve got
another ring.” The two ceremonies, civil and religious, were performed
with due pomp; and Mademoiselle de Puygarrig received a little Paris
dress-maker’s ring, never suspecting that her bridegroom was making
the sacrifice of a love-token to her. Then we sat down to table, where
we drank, ate, even sang, all at great length. I felt for the bride in
the coarse merriment which was resounding about her; still, she kept
a better countenance than I had expected, and her embarrassment had
nothing either of awkwardness or affectation about it.
Perhaps courage comes with difficult situations.
The breakfast having terminated when it pleased Heaven, it was four
o’clock; the men went to walk in the park, which was magnificent,
or to watch the Puygarrig peasant-girls dancing on the château lawn
arrayed in their holiday clothes. In this way we spent some hours.
Meanwhile the women were very busy with the bride, who was making them
admire her wedding-presents. Then she changed her dress, and I noticed
that she covered up her fine hair with a cap and a feathered hat, for
women are in a great hurry until they have assumed as soon as possible
the ornaments which custom forbids them to wear as long as they are
unmarried.
It was almost eight o’clock when they set about starting for Ille. But
first there was a pathetic scene. Mademoiselle de Puygarrig’s aunt, who
had been a mother to her, a very aged and very devout woman, was not
to go to town with us. At her niece’s going away she made a touching
address to her on the duties of a wife, a discourse which resulted in a
torrent of tears and never-ending embraces. M. de Peyrehorade compared
this parting to the Rape of the Sabines. We set out, however, and on
the way we all did our utmost to distract the bride and make her laugh;
but in vain.
At Ille supper was waiting us, and what a supper! If I had been
disgusted at the coarse merriment of the morning, I was still more
so at the equivocations and pleasantries of which the bridegroom
and, above all, the bride were the objects. The bridegroom, who had
disappeared for an instant before sitting down to table, was pale and
icily serious. Every other minute he took a draught of old Collioure
wine, almost as strong as brandy. I was beside him, and I felt obliged
to warn him:
“Take care! They say that wine....”
I told him some nonsense or other to put myself on a level with the
other guests.
He nudged me with his knee and, in an undertone, said to me:
“When we rise from table ..., let me have a word with you.”
His grave tone surprised me. I looked more attentively at him, and I
noticed the strange alteration in his features.
“Do you feel unwell?” I asked him.
“No.”
And he fell to drinking again.
Meanwhile, amid shouts and clapping of hands, a child of eleven, who
had slipped under the table, showed the company a pretty white and
pink ribbon which he had just unfastened from the bride’s ankle. That
was called her garter. It was at once cut in pieces and distributed to
the young people, who decorated their buttonholes with it, after an
old custom, which is still maintained in some patriarchal families.
This caused the bride to blush to the whites of her eyes.... But her
distress was at a height when M. de Peyrehorade, having called for
silence, sang her certain Catalan verses, impromptu, he said. Here is
the sense of them, if I understood it aright:
“What is this, my friends! Has the wine which I have drunk made me see
double! There are two Venuses here....”
The bridegroom suddenly looked round with an air of alarm which made
everybody laugh.
“Yes,” pursued M. de Peyrehorade, “there are two Venuses under my roof.
The one, I found in the earth, like a truffle; the other, descended
from the skies, has just divided her girdle among us.”
He meant her garter.
“My son, choose which you prefer, the Roman Venus or the Catalan Venus.
The rascal takes the Catalan, and his choice is the best. The Roman is
black, the Catalan is white. The Roman is cold, the Catalan sets every
one who approaches her on fire.”
This conclusion excited such a roar, such noisy applause and such
resounding laughter, that I thought the ceiling was going to fall on
our heads. Round the table there were only three solemn faces, the
young couple’s and my own. I had a bad headache; and besides, for some
reason or other, a marriage always depresses me. This one, besides,
rather disgusted me.
The last couplets having been sung by the depute mayor--and very free
they were, I ought to mention--we went into the drawing-room to witness
the retiral of the bride, who was soon to be conducted to her chamber,
for it was near midnight. M. Alphonse drew me into a window recess, and
said, with averted eyes:
“You will laugh at me.... But I don’t know what is wrong with me.... I
am bewitched! Devil take me!”
The first thought which came into my head was that he imagined himself
threatened with some misfortune similar to those mentioned by Montaigne
and Madame de Sévigné:
“The whole Empire of Love is replete with tragic histories, etc.”
“I thought that sort of accidents never happened except to persons of
intelligence,” I said to myself.
“You’ve drunk too much Collioure, my dear Monsieur Alphonse,” I said to
him. “I warned you.”
“Yes, perhaps. But this is something much more dreadful.”
His voice was broken. I really thought he was drunk.
“You know my ring?” he continued after a pause.
“What! Has it been taken away?”
“No.”
“Then you have it, have you not?”
“No ... I ... I can’t get it off that devil of a Venus’s finger.”
“A fine story! You’ve not pulled hard enough.”
“Not at all.... But the Venus.... She has closed her finger.”
He stared at me with a haggard face, supporting himself by the
window-fastening to keep himself from falling.
“A pretty tale!” I said to him. “You have pushed the ring too far on.
You’ll get it off to-morrow with pincers. But take care not to spoil
the statue.”
“I tell you no! The Venus’s finger is turned in, crooked in; she has
her hand clenched, do you understand?... She is my wife, it seems,
since I have given her my ring.... She won’t give it back now.”
I felt a sudden shiver, and for an instant my flesh crept. Then a great
sigh that he gave sent a reek of wine over to me, and all my emotion
disappeared.
“The silly fool,” thought I, “is quite drunk.”
“You are an antiquary, sir,” the bridegroom added in a lamentable tone;
“you know about those statues ... perhaps there is some spring, some
devilment, that I don’t know about.... Would you go and see?”
“Willingly,” I said. “Come along with me.”
“No, I’d rather you went alone.”
I went out of the drawing-room. The weather had changed during supper,
and the rain was beginning to fall heavily. I was about to ask for an
umbrella, when a thought arrested me. I should be a great fool, I said
to myself, to go and verify what a drunk man had told me! Besides,
he perhaps wished to play some ill-natured joke on me to make me a
laughing-stock for those good provincials; and the least that would
result to me from it would be to get soaked to the skin and catch a bad
cold.
From the door I cast a glance at the statue all running with water,
and I went upstairs to my room without returning to the drawing-room.
I went to bed; but sleep was long of coming. All the scenes of the
day presented themselves to my mind. I thought of that young girl,
so lovely and so pure, left to the mercy of a brutal drunkard. “What
an odious thing,” I said to myself, “a marriage of convenience is! A
mayor puts on a tricolour scarf, a parson a stole, and there, the most
respectable girl in the world is handed over to the Minotaur! what can
two beings who do not love each other have to say to each other at a
moment such as this, a moment which two lovers would purchase at the
price of their lives? Can a woman ever love a man whom she has once
seen coarse? First impressions are never effaced, and I am sure of
this, that that M. Alphonse will richly deserve to be hated....”
During my monologue, which I have shortened considerably, I had heard
a great deal of coming and going in the house, doors opening and
shutting, carriages driving away; then I seemed to have heard the light
steps of a number of women on the stair, making for the end of the
corridor opposite to my room. It was probably the bride’s attendants
taking her to bed. In course of time they had gone downstairs again.
Madame de Peyrehorade’s door was shut. How anxious and uneasy that poor
girl must be, I thought! I turned about on my bed in a bad temper. A
bachelor cuts a foolish figure in a house where a marriage is being
held.
Silence reigned for some time; then it was broken by heavy steps
climbing up the stair. The wooden treads cracked loudly.
“The brute!” I exclaimed. “I’ll wager he’s going to fall on the stairs.”
All became quiet again. I took a book to change the course of my
thoughts. It was a statistical account of the department, graced with
a memorandum by M. de Peyrehorade on the druidical monuments of the
Prades hundred. I fell over at the third page.
I slept badly, and woke several times. It might be about five o’clock
in the morning, and I had been awake twenty minutes or more, when the
cock crew. Day was about to dawn. Just then I heard distinctly the same
heavy steps, the same cracking of the stair, that I had heard before
falling asleep. It struck me as strange. I yawned and tried to think
why M. Alphonse was rising so early in the morning. I could imagine no
likely reason. I was about to close my eyes again, when my attention
was excited anew by a strange trampling, with which the ringing of
bells and the sound of doors being noisily opened soon mingled; then I
made out confused cries.
“My drunk friend has set the house afire somewhere!” I thought, as I
jumped down out of bed.
I dressed in a hurry and went out into the corridor. From the opposite
end came cries and lamentations, and one heart-rending voice dominated
all the others--” My son! My son!” It was evident that some calamity
had happened to M. Alphonse. I ran to the nuptial chamber: it was
full of people. The first thing that met my view was the young man
half-clad, stretched across the bed, the frame of which was broken.
He was livid and motionless. His mother was weeping and crying at
his side. M. de Peyrehorade was busy, rubbing his temples with
eau-de-Cologne, or holding smelling-salts to his nose. Alas! his son
had been dead for a long time. On a sofa at the other end of the room
was the bride, writhing in horrible convulsions. She was uttering
inarticulate cries, and two strong servants had the utmost difficulty
in holding her.
“Good God!” I exclaimed, “whatever has happened?”
I went up to the bed and raised the unfortunate young man’s body; it
was already stiff and cold. His clenched teeth and his blackened face
gave evidence of the most frightful agony. It was only too plain that
his end had been violent and his death-struggles terrible. Yet there
was no trace of blood on his clothes. I opened his shirt, and on his
chest I saw a livid mark, which was continued round his ribs and back.
One would have thought that he had been crushed in a band of iron.
My foot trod upon something hard on the carpet; I stooped down, and saw
the diamond ring.
I drew M. de Peyrehorade and his wife into their room; then I had the
bride taken there.
“You have still a daughter,” I said to them, “you owe her your care.”
Then I left them alone.
There seemed to me no doubt that M. Alphonse had been the victim of a
murder, the perpetrators of which had found means to let themselves in
to the bride’s room at night. Yet those bruises on his chest and their
circular direction puzzled me considerably, for a stick or an iron bar
could not have produced them. All at once I remembered to have heard
that the bravos of Valencia make use of long bags of leather, stuffed
with fine sand, to knock down the persons whom they have been paid to
kill. I immediately remembered the Aragonese muleteer and his threat;
at the same time I scarcely dared to think that he had taken such a
terrible revenge for a harmless joke.
I went about the house, searching everywhere for traces of breaking
in, without finding them anywhere. I went down to the garden, to see
whether the murderers could have got in from that side; but I found
no certain traces there. Besides last night’s rain had so soaked the
earth that it could not have retained any very sharp impression. All
the same, I observed some footprints deeply imprinted in the ground;
they were in two contrary directions, but in the same line, starting
from the corner of the hedge beside the tennis-court and ending at
the house-door. They might have been made by M. Alphonse when he went
to look for his ring on the statue’s finger. On the other hand, the
hedge at that place was not so close as elsewhere; that must have
been the spot where the murderers crossed it. Passing and repassing
before the statue, I halted for a moment to look at it. This time, I
confess, I could not contemplate its expression of ironical wickedness
without fear; and, my head full of the horrible scenes which I had
just witnessed, I seemed to behold an infernal deity applauding the
misfortune which had overtaken that house.
I got back to my room and remained there until midday. Then I went to
inquire for my hosts. They were a little more composed. Mademoiselle
de Puygarrig--I ought to say M. Alphonse’s widow--had recovered
consciousness. She had even spoken with the public prosecutor from
Perpignan, who was then on circuit at Ille, and that official had taken
her deposition. He asked for mine. I told him what I knew, and did not
conceal my suspicions about the Aragonese muleteer. He ordered him to
be arrested at once.
“Have you learned anything from Madame Alphonse?” I asked the public
prosecutor, when my deposition had been written and signed.
“That unhappy young lady has gone out of her mind,” he said to me with
a sad smile. “Out of her mind! Quite out! Here’s her story.
“She had been in bed, she says, for some minutes, with the curtains
drawn, when the door of her room opened, and some one came in. Madame
Alphonse was then on the far side of the bed, with her face to the
wall. She did not move, being sure that it was her husband. An instant
later the bed groaned as if it was loaded with an enormous weight. She
was very much afraid, but did not dare to turn her head. Five minutes,
ten minutes perhaps--she could form no notion of the time--passed thus.
Then she made an involuntary movement, or rather the person who was
in the bed made one, and she felt the contact of something as cold as
ice, these are the expressions she used. She buried herself in the far
side of the bed, trembling in every limb. Shortly afterwards the door
opened a second time, and some one entered, who said, ‛Good evening, my
little wife.’ Very soon after, the curtains were drawn aside. She heard
a smothered cry. The person who was in the bed beside her sat up, and
seemed to stretch forward his arms. She turned her head then ... and
saw, she declares, her husband on his knees at the bed-side, his head
level with the pillow, in the arms of a sort of greenish giant who was
hugging him with violence. She says, and she has repeated it to me a
score of times, poor woman! ... she says that she recognized ... can
you guess? The bronze Venus, M. de Peyrehorade’s statue.... Since it
came into the neighbourhood, every one dreams about it. But to resume
the unhappy madwoman’s story. At that sight she lost consciousness, and
probably she had already lost her reason some time before. She is quite
unable to say how long she continued in her faint. When she came to
herself, she still saw the phantom, or the statue, as she always calls
it, motionless, its legs and the lower part of its body in the bed,
its bust and arms stretched over, and in its arms her husband, without
movement. A cock crew. The statue then got out of the bed, let fall the
corpse, and went out. Madame Alphonse tore at the bell-pull, and you
know the rest.”
They brought up the Spaniard; he was calm, and defended himself with
much coolness and presence of mind. To be sure, he did not deny the
saying which I had heard; but he explained that all he meant by it was
that, next day, when he was rested, he would have won a tennis-match
from his conqueror. I recollect that he added:
“When an Aragonese is affronted, he does not wait till the next day to
avenge himself. If I had thought that M. Alphonse meant to insult me, I
would have given him one in the belly with my knife on the spot.”
They compared his shoes with the footprints in the garden; his shoes
were very much larger.
Finally the innkeeper, with whom the man had lodged, affirmed that he
had spent the whole night rubbing and dosing one of his mules that was
sick.
Moreover, this Aragonese was a man of good reputation, well known in
the neighbourhood, to which he came every year on his business. So
they released him and made their excuses to him.
I forgot the deposition of a servant, who had been the last to see M.
Alphonse in life. It was at the moment when he was about to go upstairs
to his wife, and, calling the servant, he had asked him with an air
of anxiety, if he knew where I was. The servant answered him that he
had seen nothing of me. M. Alphonse then heaved a sigh, and remained
speechless for more than a minute, then he said, “_Well, I declare, the
devil must have taken him away too!_”
I asked this man whether M. Alphonse had his diamond ring when he spoke
to him. The servant hesitated about answering; at last he said that he
thought no, but that he really had not paid any attention.
“If he had had the ring on his finger,” he added, correcting himself,
“I should certainly have noticed it, for I thought that he had given it
to Madame Alphonse.”
While questioning this man I felt something of the superstitious terror
which Madame Alphonse’s deposition had spread all through the house.
The public prosecutor looked at me with a smile, and I took good care
not to say anything more.
Some hours after M. Alphonse’s funeral, I made ready to leave Ille. M.
de Peyrehorade’s carriage was to take me to Perpignan. In spite of his
weak condition, the poor old man insisted on accompanying me to the
gate of his garden. We crossed it in silence, he dragging himself along
painfully, leaning on my arm. At the moment of our parting, I cast a
last look on the Venus. I could well foresee that my host, although he
did not share the terror and hatred with which it inspired a part of
his family, would wish to rid himself of an object which would remind
him unceasingly of a fearful calamity. My intention was to get him to
promise to place it in a museum. I was hesitating about how to broach
the matter, when M. de Peyrehorade mechanically turned his head in
the direction in which he saw me looking fixedly. He caught sight of
the statue, and at once burst into tears. I embraced him, and, without
venturing to say a single word to him, got into the carriage.
Since my departure I have not learned that the slightest fresh light
has been shed upon this mysterious catastrophe.
M. de Peyrehorade died some months after his son. By his will he
bequeathed to me his manuscripts, which I shall perhaps publish some
day. I have found no trace whatever among them of the paper dealing
with the inscriptions on the Venus.
_P.S._--My friend M. de P. has just written to me from Perpignan that
the statue no longer exists. After her husband’s death, Madame de
Peyrehorade’s first care was to have it melted down and made into a
bell, and in this new form it is doing duty at the church of Ille. But,
adds M. de P., it would appear that ill luck pursues the owners of that
bronze. Since this bell began to ring at Ille the vines have twice been
frosted.
THE STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD
ALFRED DE MUSSET
I
How glorious, but how distressing a thing it is to be an exceptional
blackbird in this world! I am by no means a fabulous bird, and M. de
Buffon has described me. But, alas! I am extremely rare, and very
difficult to find. Would God I had been utterly undiscoverable!
My father and mother were two good souls, who had lived for a number
of years at the bottom of a secluded old garden in the Marais. Theirs
was an exemplary household. While my mother, squatted in a thick bush,
laid regularly three times a year, and sat on her eggs, dozing, with
patriarchal devotion, my father, still very tidy and very smart despite
his great age, kept pilfering around her all day long, bringing her
fine insects which he held delicately by the tip of the tail, so as
not to disgust his wife, and, when night came, he never failed, if the
weather was fine, to regale her with a song, which rejoiced the whole
neighbourhood. Never a quarrel, never the least cloud, had disturbed
that sweet union.
Scarcely had I come into the world, when my father, for the first time
in his life, began to show bad temper. Although I was as yet only a
dubious grey, he failed to recognize in me either the colour, or the
form of his numerous posterity.
“There’s a dirty child,” he would sometimes say, looking askance at
me; “it looks as if that ragamuffin must go and poke himself into every
mortar-heap and mud-heap he comes across, that he is always so ugly and
bespattered.”
“Eh, dear me, my friend,” answered my mother, always curled into a ball
in an old bowl, of which she had made her nest, “don’t you see that
it’s all you can expect at his age? In your young days, weren’t you a
charming little pickle yourself? Let our blackbirdie grow, and you’ll
see how handsome he’ll be; he’s one of the best I ever laid.”
Although thus taking my side, my mother was under no delusion; she saw
the growth of my fatal plumage, which to her appeared a monstrosity;
but she did as mothers do, who often become partial to their infants
because of the very thing in which they are hardly used by Nature, as
if the fault were their own, or as if they could repel in advance the
injustice of fortune which must strike their children.
When the time of my first moult came, my father turned very pensive
indeed, and considered me attentively. So long as my feathers were
coming out, he continued to treat me kindly enough, and even gave me
some paste when he saw me shivering almost naked in a corner; but as
soon as my poor numbed wings began to get a new covering of down, with
each white feather he saw appear, he flew into such a rage that I was
afraid he’d pluck me for the rest of my days. Alas! I had no mirror;
I knew not the cause of his anger, and I asked myself why the best of
fathers showed himself so barbarous to me.
One day, when a ray of sunshine and my sprouting plumage had, despite
me, stirred my heart to joy, as I was fluttering about in an alley, I
started, unfortunately for me, to sing. The first note that my father
heard, he sprang up in the air like a rocket.
“What is that I hear there?” he exclaimed. “Is that how a blackbird
whistles? Is that how I whistle? Is that whistling?”
And, alighting beside my mother with a most terrible countenance:
“Wretch!” he said, “who has been laying in your nest?”
At these words my mother darted, deeply insulted, out of her bowl, not
without doing some damage to one foot; she tried to speak, but her sobs
choked her; she fell on the ground half swooning. I saw her at the
point of death; terrified and trembling with fear I threw myself at my
father’s knees.
“O my father!” I said to him, “though I whistle wrong, and though I am
wrongly clad, don’t let my mother be punished for it! Is it her fault
if Nature has denied me a voice like yours? Is it her fault if I have
not your handsome yellow beak and your fine black French coat, which
make you look like a churchwarden swallowing an omelette? If Heaven has
made a monster of me, and if some one must be punished for it, let me
at least be the only one to suffer!”
“That is not the question,” said my father. “What is the meaning of the
absurd way in which you have just now presumed to whistle? Who taught
you to whistle like that, contrary to all custom and all rule?”
“Alas! sir,” I answered humbly, “I whistled as I could, because I felt
merry that it was fine weather, and perhaps because I had eaten too
many flies.”
“We don’t whistle like that in my family,” retorted my father, beside
himself. “For centuries we have whistled from father to son, and, when
I make my voice heard in the night, let me tell you that there is an
old gentleman here on the first floor and a little work-girl in the
attic, who open their windows to listen to me. Is it not enough to have
before my eyes the frightful colour of your ridiculous feathers, which
give you a powdered look, like a clown at a fair? If I were not the
most peaceable of blackbirds, I would have plucked you naked a hundred
times before now, for all the world like a barn-door fowl ready for the
spit.”
“Why then!” I exclaimed, revolted at my father’s injustice, “if that
is the case, sir, don’t let that stand in your way! I will take myself
off from your presence, I will spare your eyes the sight of this
unfortunate white tail by which you drag me about all day long. I will
depart, sir, I will flee; plenty other children will console your old
age, since my mother lays three times a year; I will go far from you to
hide my misery, and perhaps,” I added sobbing, “perhaps I shall find,
in some neighbour’s kitchen-garden, or on the gutters, some earth-worms
or some spiders to maintain my sad existence.”
“As you will,” replied my father, far from being softened at this
speech; “let me never see you again! You are not my son; you are not a
blackbird.”
“And what am I then, sir, if you please?”
“I have no idea, but you are not a blackbird.”
After these crushing words, my father went off with slow steps. My
mother rose sadly, and went limping to have her cry out in her bowl.
As for me, confounded and overcome, I took my flight as best I could,
and I went, as I had announced, to perch myself on the gutter of a
neighbouring house.
II
My father had the inhumanity to leave me for several days in this
mortifying situation. In spite of his violence, he had a good heart,
and, from the stolen looks which he directed towards me, I saw well
that he would have liked to pardon me and recall me; my mother
especially looked up to me constantly with eyes full of fondness,
and sometimes even ventured to call me with a little plaintive cry;
but my horrible white plumage caused them, in spite of themselves, a
repugnance and a terror for which, I saw well, there was no remedy
whatever.
“I am not a blackbird!” I repeated; and, in fact, when preening myself
in the morning and gazing at my reflection in the water of the gutter,
I recognized only too clearly how little I resembled my family. “O
Heaven!” I repeated again, “do tell me what I am!”
One night, when it was raining in torrents, I was about to go to sleep,
worn out by hunger and vexation, when I saw a bird settle beside me,
more drenched, more pallid, and more lean than I thought possible. He
was about my colour, so far as I could judge in the rain which was
deluging us, he had scarcely feathers enough on his body to clothe
a sparrow, and he was bigger than myself. He seemed to me, at first
sight, a poor and necessitous bird indeed; but, in spite of the storm
which maltreated his almost clean-plucked brow, he preserved an air of
pride which charmed me. I modestly made him a profound reverence, to
which he responded with a peck of his bill, which all but threw me down
off the gutter. Seeing that I scratched my ear and took myself off with
compunction, without trying to answer him in his own language:
“Who are you?” he asked in a voice which was as hoarse as his skull was
bald.
“Alas, your Lordship,” I answered (fearing a second thrust), “I have no
idea. I thought I was a blackbird, but they have convinced me that I am
not one.”
The singularity of my answer, and my air of sincerity, interested
him. He came beside me, and made me tell my story, a task of which I
acquitted myself with all the sadness and all the humility which were
suitable to my position and the fearful weather which we were having.
“If you were a carrier-pigeon like me,” he said, after having heard me,
“the petty annoyances at which you distress yourself would not disturb
you one moment. We travel, that is our life, and we have our loves,
it is true, but I do not know who my father is. To cleave the air,
to traverse space, to see the mountains and plains beneath our feet,
to breathe the very azure of the heavens, not the exhalations of the
earth, to fly like the arrow to an appointed mark which never escapes
us, that is our pleasure and our existence. I travel farther in one day
than a man can do in ten.”
“Upon my word, sir,” I said, somewhat emboldened, “you are a Bohemian
bird.”
“That’s another thing about which I don’t much trouble,” he replied. “I
have no country at all; I know only three things: my travels, my wife,
and my little ones. Where my wife is, there is my country.”
“But what have you hanging there at your neck? It’s like an old,
tattered curl-paper.”
“These are papers of importance,” he replied, puffing himself out; I
am going to Brussels this trip, and I am taking news to the celebrated
banker X---- which will make the funds fall one franc seventy-eight
centimes.”
“Gracious goodness!” I exclaimed, “it is a fine life yours, and
Brussels, I am sure, must be a town well worth seeing. Could you
not take me with you? Since I am not a blackbird, I am perhaps a
carrier-pigeon.”
“If you were one,” he replied, “you would have returned that peck which
I gave you a moment ago.”
“Why, sir, I’ll return it to you; don’t let us quarrel over such a
trifle. See, the morning is appearing and the storm is subsiding. Pray
let me follow you! I am lost, I have nothing left me in the world;--if
you refuse me, there is nothing for it but to drown myself in this
gutter.”
“Very well then, go ahead! Follow me if you can.”
I took a last look at the garden where my mother was sleeping. A tear
rolled from my eyes; the wind and rain carried it away. I spread my
wings, and set out.
III
My wings, I have said, were not very strong yet. While my guide went
like the wind, I panted at his side; I kept up for some time, but soon
such a violent dizziness seized me that I felt as if I should faint.
“Is there far to go yet?” I asked in a weak voice.
“No,” he answered me, “we are at Bourget; we have only sixty leagues to
do now.”
I tried to take fresh courage, not wishing to look like a draggled
hen, and flew another quarter of an hour, but, for once, I was done up.
“Sir,” I stammered afresh, “couldn’t we stop here a moment? I have
a horrible thirst, which is torturing me, and, if we perched on a
tree....”
“Go to the devil! You’re a blackbird!” answered the carrier-pigeon in a
rage.
And, without deigning to turn his head, he continued his journey in
high dudgeon. As for me, dazed and blind, I fell into a corn-field.
I do not know how long my faint lasted. When I recovered consciousness,
the first thing that I remembered was the carrier-pigeon’s last words;
“You’re only a blackbird,” he had told me.--” Oh my dear parents,” I
thought, “you were wrong then! I will return to you; you will recognize
me as your true and lawful child, and you will restore me my place in
that dear little heap of leaves which is below my mother’s bowl.”
I made an effort to rise; but the fatigue of my journey and the pain
which I felt from my fall paralysed all my limbs. Scarcely had I stood
up on my feet, when the faintness seized me once more and I fell again
on my side.
The frightful thought of death was already presenting itself to my
mind, when, across the cornflowers and poppies, I saw two charming
persons coming towards me on tiptoe. One was a little magpie, very
neatly marked and extremely coquettish, and the other a rose-coloured
turtle-dove. The turtle halted some paces from me, with an intense air
of modesty and of compassion for my misfortune; but the magpie came up
to me hopping in the most graceful manner in the world.
“Eh, dear me, poor child, what are you doing there?” she asked me in a
playful and silvery voice.
“Alas! my Lady Marchioness,” I answered (for she must have been that
at least), “I am a poor devil of a traveller whom his postilion has
dropped by the roadside, and I am in a fair way of dying of hunger.”
“Holy Virgin! Do you tell me so!” she responded.
And she at once began to flit here and there upon the bushes which
surrounded us, coming and going from one side to the other, bringing
me a quantity of berries and fruits, of which she made a little heap
beside me, continuing her questions all the time.
“But who are you? And where do you come from? What an incredible
adventure yours is! And where are you going? Fancy travelling alone, so
young, for you are only coming out of your first moult! What do your
parents do? Where do they come from? How did they come to let you away
in that state? Why, it’s enough to make one’s feathers stand on end!”
While she was talking, I had raised myself a little on one wing, and
I ate with a good appetite. The turtle remained motionless, always
looking at me with an air of pity. Meanwhile she noticed that I was
looking about with an exhausted air, and she understood that I was
thirsty. A drop from the rain which had fallen during the night was
left on a scrap of pimpernel; she timidly gathered this drop in her
beak and brought it to me quite fresh. Certainly, if I had not been
so ill, such a reserved person would never have ventured on such a
proceeding.
I did not yet know what love was, but my heart beat violently. Divided
between two varying emotions, I was possessed by an inexplicable
pleasure. My table-maid was so gay, my cup-bearer so effusive and
gentle, that I could have wished to go on breakfasting thus to all
eternity. Unfortunately everything has an end, even a convalescent’s
appetite. The repast finished and my strength restored, I satisfied
the little magpie’s curiosity and related my misfortunes to her
with as much sincerity as I had told them the evening before to the
pigeon. The magpie listened to me with more attention than seemed
natural to her, and the turtle gave me some charming tokens of her
profound sensibility. But when I came to touch on the prime cause of my
troubles, that is to say my ignorance as to what I was:
“Are you joking?” the pie exclaimed; “You a blackbird! You a pigeon!
Fie! you are a magpie, my dear child, a magpie, if ever there was
one--and a very pretty magpie,” she added, giving me a little blow with
her wing, a tap with her fan, so to speak.
“But, my Lady Marchioness,” I answered, “it seems to me that, for a
magpie, my colour, if you’ll excuse me saying so....”
“A Russian magpie, my dear; you are a Russian magpie! Don’t you know
that they are white? Poor boy, what innocence!”
“But, madam,” I replied, “how should I be a Russian magpie, when I was
born in the Marais in an old broken bowl?”
“Ah! the dear child! You are one of the invaders, my dear; do you fancy
that you are the only one? Leave it to me, and do as I bid you; I’ll
take you with me this very hour, and show you the finest things in the
world.”
“Where is that, madam, if you please?”
“In my green palace, my darling; you’ll see what a life we lead there.
You’ll not have been a magpie a quarter of an hour, before you’ll
want to hear tell of no other thing. There are a hundred of us there;
not those great village magpies, who beg alms on the high roads, but
all noble and well-bred, slim, active, and no bigger than a fist. Not
one of us but has neither more nor less than seven black bars and
five white bars; that is an invariable rule, and we despise everybody
else. You have not the black marks, it is true, but your quality of
Russian will be enough to secure your admission. Our life is spent
in two things, chattering and tittivating. From morning to midday we
tittivate, and from midday to evening we chatter. Each of us perches
on a tree, as lofty and old as possible. In the middle of the forest
rises an immense oak, uninhabited alas! It was the dwelling of the
late King Pie X., whither we used to go in pilgrimage, heaving mighty
great sighs; but, apart from this little sadness, we pass the time
wonderfully. Our wives are not prudes, any more than our husbands are
jealous, but our pleasures are pure and honest, because our heart is
as noble as our language is frank and joyous. Our pride has no bounds,
and, if a jay or any other low fellow should chance to thrust himself
in among us, we pluck him without mercy. But that does not prevent us
from being the best neighbours in the world, and the sparrows, the
tomtits, and the goldfinches, who live in our copses, find us always
ready to help them, to feed them, and to defend them. Nowhere is there
more chattering than among us, and nowhere less evil speaking. We are
not without some old devotee magpies, who say their paternosters all
day long, but the giddiest young gossip among us can pass, without
fear of a peck, close to the severest dowager. In a word, we live on
pleasure, on honour, on gossip, on glory, and on dress.”
“That is very fine indeed, madam,” I replied, “and I should certainly
be ill-advised not to obey the orders of a person like you. But, before
having the honour of following you, allow me, by your leave, to say
a word to this good young lady here. Mademoiselle,” I continued,
addressing myself to the turtle, “tell me frankly, I entreat you, do
you think that I am really a Russian magpie?”
At this question, the turtle hung down her head, and turned pink, like
Lolotte’s ribbons.
“Why, sir,” she said, “I don’t know if I can....”
“In Heaven’s name, speak, mademoiselle! I have not the slightest
intention of offending you, quite the contrary. You both look so
charming to me, that I here and now vow to offer my heart and my claw
to whichever of you will accept it, the moment I know if I am a magpie
or something else; for, when I look at you,” I added, speaking in a
lower tone to the young lady, “I feel a something of the turtle-dove
about me, which torments me strangely.”
“Why, to be sure,” said the turtle, blushing still more, “I do not
know if it is the reflection of the sun striking on you through these
poppies, but your plumage does seem to me to have a slight tint....”
She did not venture to say more.
“O perplexity!” I exclaimed, “how am I to know what to believe? How
give my heart to one of you, when it is so cruelly torn asunder? O
Socrates! how admirable, but how hard to follow, the principle thou
hast given us, when thou saidst, ‛Know thyself!’”
Since the day when my unfortunate song had so enraged my father, I had
never made use of my voice. At this juncture it came into my mind to
employ it as a means of discerning the truth. “By Jove,” thought I,
“since my father put me to the door after the first couplet, the least
the second can do is to produce some effect on these ladies!” Having,
then, commenced by bowing politely, as if to request their indulgence
because of the rain which I had come through, I began first of all to
whistle, then to warble, then to do roulades, then at last to sing at
the pitch of my voice, like a Spanish muleteer in full blast.
The longer I sang, the farther and farther the little magpie made
off from me with an air of surprise, which soon became stupefaction,
then turned into a feeling of terror mingled with profound weariness.
She described circles round about me, like a cat about a piece of
scalding hot bacon which has just burned her, but which she wishes to
taste again. Seeing the effect of my experiment, and wishing to carry
it out to the end, the more impatience the poor Marchioness showed,
the more I sang myself hoarse. She resisted my melodious efforts for
five-and-twenty minutes; at last, unable to stand them any longer, she
flew away noisily and returned to her palace of verdure. As for the
turtle, she had been sound asleep almost from the first.
“Admirable effect of harmony!” I reflected. “O Marais! O maternal bowl!
More than ever my thoughts return to you!”
At the moment when I was spreading my wings to depart, the turtle
reopened her eyes.
“Adieu,” she said, “stranger, so polite and so tiresome! My name is
Guruli; remember me!”
“Beauteous Guruli,” I answered, “you are good, gentle and charming; I
would live and die for you. But you are rose-colour; such happiness is
not meant for me!”
IV
The unfortunate effect produced by my song did not fail to sadden me.
“Alas, music; alas, poesy!” I repeated on my way back to Paris, “How
few hearts there are which comprehend you!”
Whilst making these reflections, I bumped my head against another
bird’s who was flying in the opposite direction to me. The shock was so
violent and so unexpected that we both fell down on a tree-top, which,
by good luck, was there. After shaking ourselves a bit, I eyed the new
comer, expecting a quarrel. I was surprised to see that he was white.
To tell the truth, he had a head somewhat bigger than myself, and over
his brow a sort of crest, which gave him a mock-heroic appearance.
Besides that, he carried his tail well up in the air, with great
magnanimity; however, he did not seem at all disposed to do battle. We
addressed each other very civilly, and made our mutual excuses, after
which we entered into conversation. I took the liberty of asking him
his name and what country he came from.
“I am astonished,” he said to me, “that you do not know me. Are you not
one of us?”
“To tell the truth, sir,” I answered, “I do not know whom I belong to.
Every one asks me and says the same thing to me; it must be a wager
that they have made.”
“You are joking,” he said; “your plumage becomes you too well for me
not to recognize a brother. You belong unmistakably to that illustrious
and venerable race which is entitled in Latin _cacatua_, in learned
language _kakatoës_, and in vulgar jargon cockatoo.”
“Faith, sir, that is possible, and it would be a great honour indeed
for me. But do not let that prevent you from acting as if I were not
one, and have the condescension to inform me whom I have the honour of
addressing.”
“I am,” responded the unknown, “the great poet Kacatogan. I have
made mighty travels, sir, arid passages, and cruel peregrinations.
It was not yesterday that I began to rhyme, and my Muse has had her
misfortunes. I have warbled under Louis XVI., sir, I have bawled for
the Republic, I have nobly sung the Empire, I have discreetly lauded
the Restoration, I have even made an effort in these last times, and
have submitted, not without difficulty, to the exigencies of this
tasteless century. I have launched on the world piquant distichs,
sublime hymns, gracious dithyrambs, pious elegies, long-haired dramas,
woolly romances, powdered vaudevilles, and bald tragedies. In a word,
I can flatter myself with having added to the Temple of the Muses
some gallant festoons, some sombre battlements, and some ingenious
arabesques. What more do you want? I have grown old. But I still rhyme
vigorously, sir, and such as you see me now, I was dreaming over a poem
in one canto, which would be at least six pages long, when you gave me
a bump on my brow. Nevertheless, if I can help you in any way, I am
entirely at your service.”
“Indeed you can, sir,” I replied, “for you find me at this moment in a
serious poetical difficulty. I do not presume to say that I am a poet,
still less a great poet, such as you,” I added, bowing to him, “but
Nature has endowed me with a throat, which itches when I am at ease or
when I am vexed. To tell you the truth, I am absolutely ignorant of the
rules.”
“I have forgotten them,” said Kacatogan, “don’t worry yourself about
that.”
“But an annoying thing happens to me,” I replied; “my voice produces an
effect on those who hear it, almost the same as that which a certain
Jean de Nivelle’s produced on.... You know what I mean?”
“I know,” said Kacatogan; “I have seen this odd effect in my own
experience. The cause of it is unknown to me, but the effect is
indisputable.”
“Well then, sir, you who seem to me to be the Nestor of poesy, can you
suggest, I entreat you, a remedy for this painful drawback?”
“No,” said Kacatogan, “for my own part, I have never been able to
find one. I was much exercised about it when I was young, because
they always hissed me; but nowadays I have ceased to think about it
I suspect that this repugnance arises from what the public reads by
others than ourselves: that distracts its attention.”
“I am of your opinion; but you will agree, sir, that it is very hard
for a well-intentioned creature to put people to flight the moment a
good impulse seizes him. Would you be so kind as do me the service of
listening to me, and giving me your frank opinion?”
“Most willingly,” said Kacatogan; “I am all ears.”
I at once began to sing, and I had the satisfaction of seeing that
Kacatogan neither fled nor fell asleep. He stared at me fixedly, and
from time to time nodded his head with an air of approval, and with
a sort of murmur of commendation. But I soon saw that he was not
listening to me, and was dreaming of his poem. Taking advantage of a
moment when I was taking breath, he interrupted me all at once.
“I have found that rhyme after all!” he cried, smiling and wagging his
head; “it is the sixty-thousand-seven-hundred-and-fourteenth that has
come out of this brain of mine! And they have the audacity to say that
I am ageing! I’ll go and read it to my kind friends, I’ll go and read
it to them, and we’ll see what they have to say to it!”
So speaking, he took flight and disappeared, apparently having quite
forgotten that he had met me.
V
Left alone and disappointed, the best thing I could do was to take
advantage of what was left of the day, and fly at the full stretch
of my wings towards Paris. Unfortunately I did not know my way. My
journey with the pigeon had been too agreeable to leave me with any
very exact recollection; so, instead of going straight on, I turned to
the left at Bourget, and, overtaken by the night, was obliged to seek a
resting-place in the woods of Morfontaine.
They were all going to bed when I arrived. The magpies and jays,
who, as every one knows, are the worst bedfellows in the world, were
squabbling on every hand. In the bushes the sparrows were chirruping
and treading one upon another. At the water’s edge two herons were
stalking gravely, perched on their long stilts, in the attitude of
meditation, the George Dandins of the place, waiting patiently for
their wives. Some enormous crows, half asleep, were settling themselves
heavily on the tops of the highest trees, and were snuffling their
evening prayers. Lower down, the amorous tits were still pursuing one
another in the copses, whilst a dishevelled woodpecker was pushing her
family from behind to make them go into the hollow of a tree. Troops
of hedge-sparrows returned from the fields, dancing in the air like
puffs of smoke, and swooping down upon a shrub, which they covered
entirely; chaffinches, warblers, redbreasts arranged themselves lightly
on detached branches, like the crystals on a chandelier. On every hand
voices resounded, saying as plainly as could be: “Come, my wife! Come,
my girl!--Come to me, my fair one!--This way, my sweet!--Here I am, my
dear!--Good evening, my mistress!--Adieu, my friends!--Sound sleep, my
children!”
What a situation for a bachelor to have to sleep in such a guesthouse!
I was tempted to attach myself to some birds of my own build, and ask
hospitality of them. “At night,” I reflected, “all birds are grey; and,
besides, does one do any harm to people by sleeping politely beside
them?”
I made my way first of all to a ditch, where the starlings were
assembling. They were dressing for the night with very great care, and
I noticed that the most of them had gilded wings and varnished claws;
they were the dandies of the forest. They were good enough fellows,
and did not honour me with any attention. But their talk was so empty,
and they related their petty quarrels and their conquests with such
fatuity, and made up to one another so clumsily, that it was impossible
for me to stay there.
I next went to perch myself on a branch where half a dozen birds of
different sorts were in a row. I modestly took the last place, at
the extremity of the branch, in the hope that they would tolerate
me. As ill luck would have it, my neighbour was an old dove, as dry
as a rusty weather-cock. At the moment when I came near her, the few
feathers which covered her bones were the object of her solicitude;
she pretended to preen them, but she was too much afraid of pulling
one out; she merely passed them in review to see if she had her count.
Scarcely had I touched her with the tip of my wing, when she drew
herself up majestically.
“What do you mean, sir?” she said to me, compressing her beak with a
modesty quite British.
And, fetching me a great nudge with her elbow, she sent me down with a
vigour that would have done honour to a porter.
I fell into a clump of heather, where a fat woodhen was sleeping. My
own mother in her bowl did not have such an air of bliss. She was so
plump, so full-blown, so well set on her triple stomach, that one would
have taken her for a pie of which the crust had been eaten. I crept
furtively in beside her. “She won’t wake,” I said to myself, “and in
any case such a good fat mammy can’t be very cross.” No more she was.
She half opened her eyes, and said to me, with a slight sigh:
“You’re bothering me, child; go away.”
At the same instant I heard some one calling me: it was some thrushes
who were making signs to me from the top of a mountain-ash to come to
them. “Here are some kind souls at last,” I thought. They made room
for me, laughing like mad, and I slipped into their feathery group as
promptly as a love-letter into a muff. But I was not long in concluding
that those ladies had eaten more grapes than was wise; they could
scarcely support themselves on the branches, and their ill-bred jokes,
their outbursts of laughter and their decidedly free songs forced me to
take my departure.
I began to despair, and I was about to go to sleep in a solitary
corner, when a nightingale began to sing. Everybody at once became
silent. Alas! how pure his voice was, how his very melancholy appeared
sweet! So far from disturbing the slumbers of others, his harmonies
seemed to lull them to sleep. No one dreamt of silencing him, no one
found fault with him for singing his song at such an hour; his father
did not beat him, his friends did not take flight.
“Is there no one, then, but me,” I cried, “who is forbidden to be
happy? Let us depart, let us flee this cruel world! Better to seek my
way amid the darkness, at the risk of being devoured by some owl, than
to let myself be thus tortured by the sight of others’ happiness.
With this thought I set out again, and wandered a long time at random.
With the first streak of day I descried the towers of Notre Dame. In
the twinkling of an eye I had reached it, and I did not cast my eyes
around long before I recognized our garden. I flew thither quicker than
lightning.... Alas, it was empty!... I called in vain for my parents:
no one answered me. The tree where my father used to post himself,
the maternal bush, the dear bowl, all had disappeared. The axe had
destroyed everything; instead of the green alley where I was born,
there remained only a hundred of faggots.
VI
At first I searched for my parents in all the gardens round about,
but it was wasted labour; they had without doubt taken refuge in some
far-off quarter, and I should never be able to get news of them.
Overcome by a dreadful sorrow, I went to perch myself on the gutter to
which my father’s anger had first exiled me. I passed days and nights
there in deploring my sad existence. I had no more sleep, I scarcely
ate: I was like to die of grief.
One day, when I was lamenting as usual:
“So then,” I said aloud, “I am neither a blackbird, for my father
plucked me; nor a pigeon, since I fell by the way when I wanted to
go to Belgium; nor a Russian magpie, since the little Marchioness
stopped her ears the moment I opened my beak; nor a turtle-dove, since
Guruli, even the good Guruli, snored like a monk when I was singing;
nor a parrot, since Kacatogan did not deign to listen to me; nor a
bird of any kind, in short, since at Morfontaine they let me sleep
all by myself. And yet I have feathers on my body; here are claws and
here are wings. I am no monster, witness Guruli, and even the little
Marchioness, who found me quite to their taste. By what inexplicable
mystery can these feathers, these wings, these claws not form a total
to which a name might be given? Can I not by any chance be....”
I was about to continue my lamentations, when I was interrupted by two
market-women disputing in the street.
“Why, hang me,” said one of them to the other, “if you ever manage it,
I’ll make you a present of a white blackbird!”
“Merciful Heaven!” I exclaimed, “that’s my case. O Providence! I am the
son of a blackbird, and I am white: I am a white blackbird!”
This discovery, it must be acknowledged, altered my ideas considerably.
Instead of continuing to lament my lot, I began to puff out my chest
and march proudly up and down the gutter, looking into space with a
victorious air.
“It’s something,” I said to myself, “to be a white blackbird: that
isn’t found in a donkey’s stride. I was very simple to distress myself
at not finding my like: it is the fate of genius, it is mine! I meant
to flee the world: now I mean to astonish it! Since I am this bird
without a peer, of which the vulgar deny the existence, I ought, and I
mean, to comport myself as such, nothing more or less than the Phœnix,
and to despise the rest of the winged race. I must buy the memoirs
of Alfieri and the poems of Lord Byron; that substantial pabulum will
inspire me with a noble pride; without reckoning that which God has
given me. Yes, I mean to add, if that is possible, to the lustre of my
birth. Nature has made me rare; I will make myself mysterious. It will
be a favour, a glory, to see me. And, indeed,” I added in a lower tone,
“supposing I show myself frankly for money?
“But shame! What an unworthy thought! I mean to make a poem, like
Kacatogan, not in one canto, but in twenty-four, like all the great
men; that is not enough, there will be forty-eight, with notes and an
appendix! The universe must learn of my existence. I shall not fail, in
my verses, to deplore my loneliness; but I shall do it in such a way
that the most fortunate will envy me. Since Heaven has refused me a
mate, I will say frightful evil of those of others. I will prove that
everything is too sour, except the grapes which I eat. The nightingales
must look to themselves; I will demonstrate, as sure as two and two
make four, that their complaints make one sick, and that their wares
are worth nothing. I must go and find Charpentier. I mean to establish
a strong literary position for myself at the very start. I intend to
have a court about me composed not only of journalists, but of real
authors and even of women writers. I’ll write a rôle for Mademoiselle
Rachel, and, if she refuses to take it, I’ll publish with sound of
trumpet that her talent is much inferior to that of an old provincial
actress. I will go to Venice and I’ll hire on the banks of the Grand
Canal, in the heart of that fairy city, the beautiful Mocenigo Palace,
which costs four livres ten sous a day; there I will inspire myself
with all the souvenirs which the author of ‛Lara’ must have left in it.
From the depth of my solitude I will inundate the world with a deluge
of alternate rhymes, modelled on the Spenserian stanza, wherewith I
shall solace my great soul; I shall make all the tomtits sigh, all
the turtles coo, all the woodcocks dissolve in tears, and all the old
screech-owls screech. But, as regards my own person, I will prove
inexorable and inaccessible to love. In vain will they press me,
supplicate me to have pity on the unfortunates whom my sublime songs
have led astray; to all that I will answer ‛Faugh!’ O superabundance of
glory! My manuscripts will sell for their weight in gold, my books will
traverse the seas; renown, fortune, will attend me everywhere; I alone
shall seem indifferent to the murmurs of the crowd which will surround
me. In one word, I will be a perfect white blackbird, a veritable
eccentric author, fêted, petted, admired, envied, but utterly surly and
insupportable.”
VII
It did not take me more than six weeks to give my first work to
the world. It was, as I had promised myself, a poem in forty-eight
cantos. True there were some negligences in it owing to the prodigious
fecundity with which I had written it; but I reckoned that the public
of to-day, accustomed as it is to the elegant literature at the foot of
the newspapers, would not reproach me with them.
I had a success worthy of myself, that is to say, without its like.
The subject of my work was nothing else than myself: in this respect
I conformed to the height of fashion of our day. I related my past
sufferings with a charming fatuity; I informed the reader of a thousand
domestic details of the most piquant interest; the description of
my mother’s bowl filled no less than fourteen cantos: I counted its
grooves, its holes, its lumps, its chips, its splinters, its nails, its
stains, its different colours, its reflections; I showed its inside,
its outside, its edges, its bottom, its sides, its inclined planes
and its level planes; passing to its contents, I gave studies of the
tufts of grass, the straws, the dried leaves, the little scraps of
wood, the pebbles, the drops of water, the remains of flies, the broken
cockchafers’ legs, which were to be found there; it was a ravishing
description. But do not imagine that I had it printed all in a piece;
there are impertinent readers who would have skipped it. I had cleverly
cut it into pieces, and worked it into the narrative in such a fashion
that none of it was lost; so that at the most interesting and most
dramatic moment, all of a sudden there came fifteen pages of bowl.
There, in my opinion, is one of the great secrets of the art, and, as
there is not the least trace of avarice about me, any one who likes may
profit by it.
All Europe was in a stir at the appearance of my book; it devoured the
intimate revelations which I condescended to communicate to it. How
could it have been otherwise? Not only did I enumerate all the facts
relative to my person, but I also gave the public a complete picture
of all the moonshine that I had passed through my head since the age
of two months; I had even intercalated, in the best place, an ode
composed by me in the egg. At the same time, it is needless to say that
I did not neglect, in passing, to discuss the great subject which is
occupying the world so much nowadays, to wit, the future of the human
race. This problem had struck me as interesting; in a leisure moment I
had sketched a solution of it, which passed generally for satisfying.
Every day people sent me compliments in verse, letters of
congratulation, and anonymous declarations of love. As for visits, I
adhered rigorously to the plan which I had traced for myself; my door
was shut to every one. Still, I could not debar myself from seeing two
strangers who announced themselves as relations of mine. One was a
blackbird from Senegal, and the other a blackbird from China.
“Ah, sir!” they said to me, embracing me like to choke me, “what a
great blackbird you are! How well you have depicted, in your immortal
poem, the deep-seated suffering of misunderstood genius! If we were
not as unappreciated as possible already, we should become so after
having read you. How we sympathize with your griefs, with your sublime
contempt of the vulgar. We also, sir, we know from our own experience
the secret pains which you have sung! Here are two sonnets which we
have composed, such as they are, and which we beg you to accept.”
“Here also,” said the Chinese, “is some music which my wife has
composed on a passage in your preface. It expresses the author’s
intention most wonderfully.”
“Gentlemen,” I said to them, “so far as I can judge, you appear to me
to be endowed with a great heart and an enlightened mind. But excuse me
asking you a question. Whence proceeds your melancholy?”
“Why, sir,” replied the inhabitant of Senegal, “look how I am built.
My plumage, it is true, is pleasant to look at, and I am clad in that
handsome green colour which is seen shining on ducks; but my beak is
too short and my foot too large; and see what a tail I am rigged out
with! The length of my body does not make two-thirds of it. Is that not
reason enough to wish oneself dead and done with?”
“And as for me, sir,” said the Chinese, “my misfortune is even more
distressing. My brother’s tail sweeps the streets; but the street-boys
point their finger at me because I have no tail at all.”
“Gentlemen,” I replied, “I pity you with all my soul; it is always
annoying to have too much or too little of anything, no matter what it
is. But permit me to tell you that in the Zoological Gardens there are
several persons who resemble you, and who have stayed there a long time
very peaceably, stuffed. Just as it is not enough for a woman author
to cast aside all modesty in order to write a good book, no more is
it enough for a blackbird to be discontented in order to have genius.
I am the only one of my kind; and I grieve over the fact; perhaps I am
wrong, but I am within my rights. I am white, gentlemen; become the
same, and we’ll see what you’ll be able to say.”
VIII
In spite of the resolution which I had formed and the calm which I
had affected, I was not happy. My isolation, though glorious, did
not seem to me less painful, and I could not reflect without dread
on the necessity, under which I found myself, of passing all my life
in celibacy. The return of spring, in particular, caused me mortal
discomfort, and I was beginning to relapse into my old melancholy, when
an unforeseen circumstance decided my whole life.
It need hardly be said that my writings had crossed the Channel, and
that the English made a run upon them. The English make a run upon
everything, except the things they understand. One day I received a
letter from London, signed by a young lady blackbird: “I have read your
poem,” she said to me, “and the admiration which I felt has caused
me to form the resolution of offering you my hand and my person. God
has created us for each other! I am like you, I am a white young lady
blackbird!...”
My surprise and my joy may be easily imagined. “A white young lady
blackbird!” I said to myself. “Is it really possible? Then I am no
longer alone upon the earth!” I hastened to reply to the fair unknown,
and I did so in a manner which showed plainly enough how much her offer
was to my mind. I pressed her to come to Paris, or to permit me to
fly to her. She replied that she preferred to come herself, because
her parents bored her, that she was arranging her affairs, and that I
should see her very soon.
She did indeed come some days later. O joy! she was the prettiest lady
blackbird in the world, and she was even whiter than myself.
“Ah, mademoiselle!” I exclaimed, “or rather madam, for I regard you
from this moment as my lawful wife, is it credible that such a charming
creature should have existed on the earth without fame informing me
of her existence? Blessed be the misfortunes which I have experienced
and the pecks which my father has given me, since Heaven reserved me a
consolation so unhoped-for! Until this day I thought myself condemned
to an eternal solitude, and, to speak frankly to you, it was a heavy
burden to bear; but when I see you I feel within me all the qualities
of a father of a family. Accept my hand without delay; let us be
married English fashion, without ceremony, and go away together to
Switzerland.”
“I won’t hear of that,” said the young lady blackbird; “I mean our
marriage to be magnificent, and all the blackbirds in France, who are
anything like well-born, to be solemnly gathered to it. People like
us owe it to their own reputation not to get married like cats in
the gutter. I have brought a supply of bank-notes with me. Write out
your invitations, go to your tradesmen, and don’t be stingy with the
refreshments.”
I conformed blindly to the white lady blackbird’s orders. Our wedding
was of overwhelming magnificence; they ate ten thousand flies at it. We
received the nuptial benediction from a Reverend Father Cormorant, who
was archbishop _in partibus_. The day finished up with a superb ball;
in short nothing was wanting to my happiness.
The more deeply I understood the character of my charming wife,
the more my love increased. She united in her little person all
advantages of soul and body. Her only fault was that she was somewhat
strait-laced; but I attributed this to the influence of the English
fogs in which she had lived hitherto, and I had no doubt that the
climate of France would soon dissipate this slight cloud.
A thing which disquieted me more seriously was a sort of mystery, in
which she sometimes wrapped herself with singular strictness, locking
herself in with her lady’s maids, and so passing hours together at
her toilette, as she pretended. Husbands do not much like such whims
in their households. A score of times it happened that I knocked at
my wife’s apartments without getting the door opened. This vexed me
cruelly. One day I insisted with so much ill temper, that she found
herself obliged to accede and open to me for a moment, not without
complaining bitterly of my importunity. I noticed, on entering, a great
bottle full of a sort of paste made with flour and Spanish whiting. I
asked my wife what she did with that concoction, and she replied that
it was a soothing application for some chilblains that she had.
This soothing application seemed to me just a little suspicious;
but what distrust could be excited in me by a person so gentle and
discreet, who had surrendered herself to me with such enthusiasm and
such perfect sincerity? I did not know at first that my well-beloved
was a woman of the pen; she made the avowal in course of time, and
she even went so far as to show me the manuscript of a novel in which
she had imitated at one and the same time Walter Scott and Scarron.
I leave you to imagine the agreeable surprise which such a discovery
caused me. Not only did I see myself the possessor of an incomparable
beauty, but I also acquired the certainty that the intelligence of my
companion was in every respect worthy of my genius. From that moment we
worked together. While I composed my poems, she blotted reams of paper.
I recited my verses to her aloud, which did not in the least hinder
her from writing all the time. She laid her novels with a facility
almost equal to my own, always choosing the most dramatic subjects,
parricides, rapes, murders, and even knaveries, always taking care to
attack the Government by the way and to preach the emancipation of
women blackbirds. In a word, no task was too great for her mind, no
daring too much for her modesty; she never once had to strike out a
line or to form a plan before setting to work. She was the type of the
literary woman blackbird.
One day when she was applying herself to her work with unaccustomed
ardour, I noticed that she was sweating great drops, and I was
astonished to see at the same time that she had a great black stain on
her back.
“Why, good gracious, I said to her, “whatever is that! Are you unwell?”
She seemed rather frightened, and even put out at first; but her great
experience of the world soon helped her to regain the admirable command
which she always exercised over herself. She told me that it was a
spot of ink, and that she was very liable to it in her moments of
inspiration.
“Can it be that my wife is going off colour?” I asked myself in a
whisper. This thought prevented me from sleeping. The bottle of paste
came to my mind. “O Heaven!” I exclaimed, “What a suspicion! Can this
celestial creature be nothing but a painting, a touch of whitewash?
Can she have varnished herself to impose upon me?... When I thought I
was pressing to my heart the sister of my soul, the privileged being
created for me alone, can it be that I wedded nothing but flour?”
Haunted by this horrible doubt, I formed a plan for delivering myself
from it. I made the purchase of a barometer, and waited eagerly for it
to be a wet day. I meant to take my wife to the country, to choose a
doubtful Sunday, and try the experiment of a drenching. But we were in
the middle of July; it was frightfully fine weather.
The semblance of happiness and the habit of writing had stimulated my
sensibility exceedingly. Artless as I was, it sometimes happened, when
I was at work, that sentiment was stronger than thought, and I began
to weep whilst waiting for a rhyme. My wife loved those rare occasions
immensely: any masculine weakness charms feminine pride. One night
when I was polishing an erasure, according to Boileau’s precept, it so
happened that I opened my heart.
“O thou!” I said to my dear lady blackbird, “thou, my only and best
beloved! Thou without whom my life is a dream, thou whose look, whose
smile metamorphoses the universe for me, life of my heart, knowest thou
how much I love thee? A little study and attention would easily enable
me to find words to put into verse a commonplace idea, already worn
threadbare by other poets; but where will I ever find them to express
that with which thy beauty inspires me? Could the memory of my past
pains, even, furnish me with a word to describe to thee my present
happiness? Before thou camest to me, my isolation was that of an orphan
in exile; to-day it is that of a king. In this feeble body, of which
I have the form until death make of it a ruin, in this fevered little
brain, where an unavailing thought ferments, dost thou know, my angel,
dost thou comprehend, my fair one, that there can be nothing but what
is thine? Hear what little my brain can express, and understand how
much greater is my love! O that my genius were a pearl, and that thou
wert Cleopatra!”
Whilst raving thus, I shed tears on my wife, and she changed colour
visibly. At each tear that dropped from my eyes, appeared a feather,
not even black, but of the most faded russet (I do believe she had
already bleached herself elsewhere). After some minutes of tender
outpouring, I found myself in presence of a bird stripped of paste and
flour, exactly like the most common and everyday blackbirds.
What could I do or say? what measures could I take? Reproaches
were useless. No doubt I was fully entitled to consider the matter
redhibitory and have my marriage declared null; but how dare to publish
my shame? Had I not misfortune enough already? I took my courage in my
claws, I resolved to forsake the world, to abandon my literary career,
to flee into a desert, if that were possible, to shun for ever the
sight of a living creature, and to seek, like Alceste,
... some solitary place,
Where a white blackbird may be white in perfect peace!
IX
Thereupon I flew away, always weeping; and the wind, which is the Fate
of birds, bore me to a branch in Morfontaine. This time they were all
in bed.--” What a marriage!” I said to myself, “What a business! No
doubt it was with a good intention that the poor child made herself
white; but I am none the less to be pitied, and she is none the less
russet.”
The nightingale was singing again. Alone, in the bosom of the night,
he was enjoying whole-heartedly his divine gift, which makes him so
superior to the poets, and was uttering his thought freely to the
silence that surrounded him. I could not resist the temptation of going
up to him and addressing him.
“How happy you are!” I said to him. “Not only do you sing as much as
you wish, and very well, too, and all the world listens to you; but
you have a wife and children, your nest, your friends, a good pillow
of moss, full moon, and no newspapers. Rubini and Rossini are nothing
compared to you: you are as good as the one, and you anticipate the
other. I too have sung, sir, and it was pitiable. I have drawn up words
in serried rows like so many Prussian soldiers, I have strung stale
commonplaces together, while you were in the wood. Is your secret to be
discovered?”
“Yes,” the nightingale replied to me, “but it is not what you imagine.
My wife bores me, I do not love her at all; I am in love with the rose;
Sadi the Persian has mentioned it. I sing myself hoarse for her all
night long, but she sleeps and does not hear me. Her chalice is shut at
the present moment: she is nursing an old beetle in it--and to-morrow
morning, when I reach my bed worn out with suffering and fatigue, then
she will spread herself out to let a bee devour her heart!”
VANINA VANINI;
OR, PARTICULARS OF THE LAST LODGE OF CARBONARI DISCOVERED IN
THE PAPAL STATES
“STENDHAL” (HENRY BEYLE)
One evening in the spring of 182- all Rome was in a stir: the Duke
of B----, the famous banker, was giving a ball at his new palace in
the Piazza Venezia. The utmost magnificence that the arts of Italy
and the luxury of Paris and London could produce had been brought
together to embellish the palace. The throng was immense. The blonde,
reserved beauties of noble England had solicited the honour of being
present at this ball; they arrived in crowds. The handsomest women in
Rome disputed the prize of beauty with them. A young girl, whom the
brilliance of her eyes and her ebon hair proclaimed a Roman, entered
escorted by her father; all eyes followed her. A singular pride shone
in all her movements.
The strangers as they entered were visibly impressed by the
magnificence of the ball. “None of the fêtes of the kings of Europe
comes anywhere near this,” they said.
The kings have not a palace of Roman architecture: they are obliged to
invite the great ladies of their courts; the Duke of B---- only invites
pretty women. That evening he had been happy in his invitations; the
men seemed dazzled. Among so many remarkable women the difficulty was
to decide who was the handsomest. The choice for some time remained
undecided; but at last the Princess Vanina Vanini, the young girl with
the black hair and the eye of fire, was proclaimed queen of the ball.
At once the strangers and the young men of Rome, abandoning all the
other saloons, formed a crowd in the one where she was.
Her father, Prince Asdrubale Vanini, had wished her to dance first
with two or three German sovereigns. After that she accepted the
invitations of some Englishmen, very handsome and very noble; their
air of solemnity wearied her. She evidently found more pleasure in
tormenting young Livio Savelli, who seemed deeply in love. He was the
most magnificent young man in Rome, and, what was more, he too was a
prince; but, if you had given him a novel to read, he would have thrown
the volume away after twenty pages, saying that it gave him a headache.
That was a disadvantage in Vanina’s eyes.
About midnight a piece of news spread through the ball and produced a
great stir. A young carbonaro, who had been confined in the Castle of
Sant’ Angelo, had just escaped that very night by means of a disguise;
and, with an excess of romantic daring, on arriving at the last ward of
the prison, he had attacked the soldiers with a poniard; but he himself
had been wounded; the police were tracking him through the streets by
his blood, and they hoped to find him.
As this anecdote was being told, Don Livio Savelli, dazzled by the
graces and the triumphs of Vanina, with whom he had just been dancing,
said to her as, almost beside himself with love, he led her back to her
place:
“But, really, who could please you?”
“That young carbonaro who has just escaped,” Vanina answered him; “he
at least has done something more than take the trouble of being born.”
Prince Don Asdrubale came up to his daughter. He was a rich man, who
for the last twenty years had not taken reckoning with his steward,
who lent him his own revenues at a very high rate of interest. If you
met him in the street, you would have taken him for an old actor; you
would not have observed that his hands were ornamented with five or six
enormous rings set with big diamonds. His two sons had become Jesuits
and afterwards died insane. He had forgotten them; but he was vexed
that his only daughter Vanina would not marry. She was now nineteen,
and had refused the most brilliant matches. What was her reason? The
same as Sulla’s for abdicating: _her contempt for the Romans_.
The day after the ball, Vanina noticed that her father, the most
careless of men, who had never in his life taken the trouble to carry
a key, very carefully shut the door of a little stair which led to
some rooms on the third floor of the palace. The windows of these
rooms looked on to a terrace adorned with orange-trees. Vanina went
to pay some visits in Rome; on her return, the main entrance of the
palace was blocked by the preparations for an illumination, so the
carriage went in by the courts at the back. Vanina looked up, and saw
to her astonishment that one of the windows of the rooms which her
father had shut with such care was open. She got rid of her companion,
climbed to the top of the palace, and searched about until she found a
little grated window, which gave a view of the terrace ornamented with
orange-trees. The open window that she had noticed was close beside
her. That room must certainly be occupied; but by whom? Next day,
Vanina managed to obtain the key of a little door which opened on to
the terrace ornamented with orange-trees.
She stealthily approached the window, which was still open. A
sun-shutter helped to cover it. Inside the room was a bed and some one
in the bed. Her first impulse was to withdraw; but she caught sight of
a woman’s dress thrown on a chair. Looking more closely at the person
in the bed, she saw that she was fair and apparently very young. She
had no more doubt about its being a woman. The dress thrown down on the
chair was stained with blood; there was blood on the woman’s shoes,
too, laid on a table. The stranger moved; Vanina perceived that she
was wounded. A large cloth, spotted with blood, covered her breast;
the cloth was only kept on with ribbons; it was no surgeon’s hand that
had fixed it so. Vanina noticed that every day, about four o’clock,
her father shut himself up in his room, then went to see the stranger;
he soon came downstairs again, and took the carriage to visit the
Countess Vitteleschi. Immediately he had gone, Vanina climbed up to
the little terrace from which she could see the stranger. Her feelings
were actively excited in favour of this most unfortunate young woman;
she tried to guess at her adventure. The blood-stained dress thrown on
a chair seemed to have been pierced with dagger-thrusts. Vanina could
count the rents. One day she saw the stranger more distinctly: her
blue eyes were gazing towards heaven; she seemed to be praying. Soon
tears filled her lovely eyes; the young princess could scarcely refrain
from speaking to her. The next day Vanina summoned up courage to hide
herself in the little terrace before her father arrived. She saw Don
Asdrubale go into the stranger’s room; he carried a little basket
containing provisions. The prince seemed to be disturbed and did not
say much. He spoke so low that, although the sash of the window was
open, Vanina could not make out what he said. He went away immediately.
“The poor woman must have some very terrible enemies,” said Vanina to
herself, “that my father, who is usually so careless, dares not trust
anybody, and takes the trouble of climbing a hundred and twenty steps
every day.”
One evening when Vanina softly advanced her head in the direction of
the stranger’s window, she met her eyes, and all was discovered.
Vanina fell on her knees, and exclaimed:
“I love you; I am at your service!”
The stranger signed to her to come in.
“I owe you many apologies!” exclaimed Vanina. “How offensive my foolish
curiosity must seem to you! I swear secrecy, and, if you insist on it,
I shall never return.”
“Who would not be happy to see you?” said the stranger. “Do you live in
this palace?”
“Of course,” replied Vanina; “but I see you do not know me; I am
Vanina, Don Asdrubale’s daughter.”
The stranger looked at her in astonishment, blushed deeply, and then
added:
“Permit me to hope that you will come and see me every day; but I
should like the prince not to know of your visits.”
Vanina’s heart beat fast; the stranger’s manners seemed to her full of
distinction. This poor young woman had no doubt offended some powerful
person. Had she, perhaps, in a moment of jealousy, killed her lover?
Vanina could not conceive of a commonplace reason for her misfortune.
The stranger told her that she had received a wound in the shoulder,
which had penetrated to her chest and was causing her much suffering.
She often found her mouth full of blood.
“Yet you have no surgeon?” exclaimed Vanina.
“You are aware,” said the stranger, “that at Rome the surgeons have
to give the police an exact report of all the wounds that they treat.
The prince condescends to bind up my wounds with his own hands, in the
cloth which you see.”
With the most perfect grace, the stranger avoided any bemoaning
over her accident; Vanina loved her to madness. One thing, however,
astonished the young princess greatly, namely that, in the middle of
a conversation which was certainly serious enough, the stranger had
great difficulty in suppressing a sudden desire to laugh.
“I should be happy,” said Vanina, “to know your name.”
“They call me Clementine.”
“Well, dear Clementine, to-morrow at five o’clock I’ll come and see
you.”
Next day, Vanina found her new friend very ill.
“I want to get a surgeon to you,” said Vanina, embracing her.
“I would rather die,” said the stranger. “Why should I wish to
compromise my benefactors?”
“The surgeon to Monsignore Savelli-Catanzara, the governor of Rome, is
the son of one of our servants,” Vanina replied eagerly; “he is devoted
to us, and, in his position, is afraid of no one. My father does not do
justice to his fidelity; I am going to send for him.”
“I don’t want any surgeon,” the stranger exclaimed, with a sharpness
which surprised Vanina. “Come and see me; and, if God must call me to
Himself, I shall die happy in your arms.”
Next day, the stranger was still worse.
“If you love me,” said Vanina, as she left her, “you’ll see a surgeon.”
“If he comes, my happiness is gone.”
“I’m going to send for one,” replied Vanina.
Without a word, the stranger detained her and took her hand, which she
covered with kisses. There was a long silence; the stranger’s eyes were
full of tears. At last she let go Vanina’s hand, and, with the air with
which she might have gone to her death, said to her:
“I have a confession to make to you. The day before yesterday I
told you a lie when I said I was Clementine; I am an unfortunate
carbonaro----.”
Vanina, astonished, pushed back her chair and stood up at once.
“I am aware,” continued the carbonaro, “that this confession will
cause me to lose the only good thing that attaches me to life; but
it is unworthy of me to deceive you. I am called Pietro Missirilli;
I am nineteen years old; my father is a poor surgeon at Sant’ Angelo
in Vado, for my part I am a carbonaro. Our lodge was surprised; I was
brought, in chains, from Romagna to Rome. Buried in a dungeon lighted
night and day by a lamp, I passed thirteen months there. A charitable
soul conceived the idea of rescuing me. They dressed me in women’s
clothes. As I was coming out of prison and was passing the warders at
the last door, one of them cursed the carbonari; I gave him a slap.
I assure you that this was not a piece of vain bravado, but simply
thoughtlessness. Pursued through the streets of Rome at night after
this imprudence, wounded with bayonets, fast losing my strength, I
rushed up the stairs of a mansion, the door of which was open; I heard
the soldiers coming up after me; I sprang into the garden; I fell down
only a few paces from a woman who was walking there.”
“The Countess Vitteleschi, my father’s friend!” said Vanina.
“What! Has she told you?” exclaimed Missirilli. “In any case, the
lady, whose name must never be uttered, saved my life. As the soldiers
came into her house to seize me, your father took me out of it in
his carriage. I feel very ill; for some days this bayonet-wound in
my shoulder has prevented me from breathing. I am going to die, in
despair, too, because I shall not see you again.”
Vanina had listened with impatience; she went out hastily: Missirilli
could discover no pity in her fine eyes; only the expression of a
haughty character which had been wounded.
At night, a surgeon appeared; he was alone. Missirilli was in despair;
he feared that he would never see Vanina again. He questioned the
surgeon, who bled him and gave him no answer. The succeeding days,
the same silence. Pietro’s eyes never left the terrace-window by which
Vanina had been accustomed to enter; he was very unhappy. Once, about
midnight, he thought he saw some one in the shadow on the terrace: was
it Vanina?
Vanina came every night to press her cheek against the young
carbonaro’s window-panes.
“If I speak to him,” she said to herself, “I am lost! No, I must not
see him again!”
Having taken this resolution, she recalled, in spite of herself,
the fondness which she had conceived for the young man when she so
foolishly took him for a woman. And now, after so sweet an intimacy,
she must forget him! In her more reasonable moments, Vanina was
terrified at the change which had taken place in her thoughts. Since
Missirilli had named himself, all the things she had been accustomed to
think about were as if covered with a veil, and seemed very far away.
A week had not passed before Vanina, pale and trembling, entered the
young carbonaro’s room with the surgeon. She came to tell him that the
prince must be made to promise to let a servant take his place. She
did not remain ten seconds; but some days afterwards she came back
again with the surgeon, out of humanity. One night, though Missirilli
was much better and Vanina had no longer the excuse of fearing for his
life, she ventured to come alone. Nothing could exceed Missirilli’s
happiness at seeing her, but he thought to conceal his love; above all,
he did not wish to forget the dignity of a man. Vanina, who had come to
his room covered with blushes and afraid she would have to listen to
words of love, was disconcerted by the noble and devoted, but far from
tender, friendliness with which he received her. She went away without
his trying to detain her.
Some days after, when she returned, the same conduct, the same
assurances of respectful devotion and eternal gratitude. So far from
having to put a curb on the young carbonaro’s transports, Vanina asked
herself if she alone was in love. This young girl, till then so proud,
bitterly felt the extent of her folly. She affected gaiety, even
coldness, came less often, but could not bring herself to cease seeing
the young invalid.
Missirilli, burning with love, but remembering his obscure birth and
his duty towards himself, had vowed never to descend to talking of love
unless Vanina remained a week without seeing him. The young princess’s
pride disputed every foot of the way.
“Well,” she said to herself at last, “if I see him, it is on my own
account, it is for my amusement, and I will never avow the interest
with which he inspires me.”
She paid long visits to Missirilli, who talked with her as he might
have done if twenty people had been present. One night, after having
spent the whole day in detesting him and promising herself to be even
colder and severer than usual to him, she told him that she loved him.
Soon she had nothing left to refuse him.
Though her folly was great, it must be owned that Vanina was perfectly
happy. Missirilli had no more thought of what he considered due to his
dignity as a man; he loved as they love for the first time at nineteen
and in Italy. He had all the scruples of passionate love, even to the
extent of acknowledging to the proud young princess the policy which he
had employed to make her fall in love with him. He was astonished at
the excess of his happiness. Four months passed only too quickly. One
day the surgeon gave the invalid his liberty. “But what am I to do?”
thought Missirilli. “Am I to remain in hiding under the roof of one of
the handsomest women in Rome? And the vile tyrants who kept me thirteen
months in prison without letting me see the light of day will think
they have broken my spirit! Italy, thou art unfortunate indeed, if thy
children abandon thee for so little!”
Vanina never doubted that Pietro’s greatest happiness would be to
remain attached to her for ever; he seemed only too happy; but a saying
of General Bonaparte rankled in the young man’s soul and influenced all
his conduct towards women. In 1796, when General Bonaparte was leaving
Brescia, the magistrates, who accompanied him to the gate of the town,
said to him that the Brescians loved liberty more than all other
Italians.
“Yes,” he answered, “they love to talk about it to their mistresses.”
Missirilli said to Vanina with some constraint:
“As soon as it is night, I must go out.”
“Take good care to be in the palace again before daybreak; I’ll wait
for you.”
“At daybreak I’ll be several miles from Rome.”
“Indeed,” said Vanina coldly, “and where are you going to?”
“To Romagna, to take my revenge.”
“Seeing that I am rich,” Vanina said with the calmest air imaginable,
“I hope that you will accept some arms and some money from me.”
Missirilli looked at her for a moment without moving a muscle; then,
throwing himself into her arms:
“Soul of my soul, you make me forget everything else, even my duty.
But, the nobler your heart is, the better you should understand me.”
Vanina wept copiously, and it was settled that he should not leave Rome
for another two days yet.
“Pietro,” she said to him next day, “you have often told me that a
well-known man, a Roman prince for example, who had command of plenty
of money, could render great service to the cause of liberty, if ever
Austria should be involved in any great war at a distance from us.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Pietro in astonishment.
“Well then, you have courage; all you lack is position: I am going to
offer you my hand and two hundred thousand livres a year. I undertake
to get my father’s consent.”
Pietro threw himself at her feet; Vanina was radiant with joy.
“I love you passionately,” he said; “but I am a poor servant of my
country; and, the unhappier Italy is, the more faithful I must be to
her. To obtain Don Asdrubale’s consent, I should have to play a sorry
part for many years. Vanina, I refuse you.”
Missirilli was in a hurry to commit himself by this speech. His courage
threatened to fail him.
“My misfortune,” he exclaimed, “is that I love you more than life, that
to leave Rome is the worst of tortures for me. Ah! why is Italy not
delivered from the barbarians? With what pleasure I should embark along
with you to go and live in America!”
Vanina remained as if frozen. This refusal of her hand had astonished
her pride; but soon she cast herself into Missirilli’s arms.
“You never seemed so dear to me as now,” she exclaimed; “yes, my little
country surgeon, I am yours for ever. You are a great man, like our
ancient Romans.”
All ideas of the future, all the gloomy suggestions of good sense
disappeared; there was a moment of perfect love. When they were able to
talk sensibly, Vanina said:
“I shall be in Romagna almost as soon as you. I’ll get sent to the
baths at Poretta. I will stop at our castle at San Nicolo, near
Forli----”
“There I’ll spend my life with you!” exclaimed Missirilli.
“My part in future is to dare everything,” Vanina resumed with a sigh.
“I shall ruin myself for you, but what matter----. Could you love a
woman who has lost her honour?”
“Are you not my wife?” said Missirilli, “and a wife always adored? I
shall know how to love you and protect you.”
Vanina had to go and pay visits. Scarcely had she left Missirilli when
he began to think his conduct barbarous.
“What is our _country_, after all?” he said to himself. “It is not
a being to whom we owe any gratitude for any benefit, and who might
be unhappy and curse us if we failed to be grateful. _Country_ and
_liberty_ are like my cloak, a thing that is useful to me, that I must
buy, no doubt, if I have not inherited it from my father; but after all
I love country and liberty because these two things are useful to me.
If I can do nothing with them, if they are no more use to me than a
cloak in August, what is the good of buying them, at an enormous price
too? Vanina is so beautiful! She has such a remarkable mind! People
will seek to please her; she will forget me. What woman ever had only
one lover? Those Roman princes, whom I despise as citizens, have such
an advantage over me! They must be very lovable! Ah, if I go away, she
will forget me, and I shall lose her for ever!”
In the middle of the night Vanina came to see him; he told her of the
indecision in which he had been plunged, and the examination to which,
because he loved her, he had subjected the great word _country_. Vanina
was very happy.
“If he had to choose definitely between his country and me,” she said
to herself, “the choice would fall on me.”
The clock of the neighbouring church struck three; the moment of
their last farewells arrived. Pietro tore himself from the arms of
his beloved. He was already descending the little stair, when Vanina,
restraining her tears, said to him with a smile:
“If you had been tended by some poor countrywoman, would you not do
something out of gratitude? Would you not try to repay her? The future
is uncertain; you are going to travel amidst enemies; give me three
days out of gratitude, as if I were a poor woman, and in repayment of
my trouble.”
Missirilli remained. At last he quitted Rome. Thanks to a passport
bought from a foreign embassy, he reached his home. There was great
rejoicing; they had given him up for dead. His friends wished to
celebrate his safe return by killing one or two carabineers, as the
police in the Papal states are called.
“Do not let us kill an Italian that knows the use of arms, unless we
are forced to,” said Missirilli; “our country is not an island, like
happy England: we need soldiers to resist the intervention of the kings
of Europe.”
Shortly afterwards, Missirilli, hard pressed by the carabineers, killed
two of them with the pistols that Vanina had given him. A price was set
on his head.
Vanina did not make her appearance in Romagna: Missirilli thought he
was forgotten. His vanity was hurt; he began to dwell on the difference
of rank which separated him from his mistress. In a moment of softening
and regret for his past happiness, he took the notion of returning to
Rome to see what Vanina was doing. This mad thought was on the point
of prevailing over what he believed to be his duty, when one evening
the bell of a mountain-church sounded the angelus in a strange fashion,
as if the ringer were preoccupied. It was the signal for the meeting
of the lodge of carbonari to which Missirilli had been affiliated on
his arrival in Romagna. That same night, they all met in a certain
hermitage in the woods. The two hermits, stupefied with opium, had no
suspicion of the use that was being made of their little dwelling.
Missirilli, who arrived very downcast, learned that the head of the
lodge had been arrested, and that he, a young man of barely twenty,
was to be elected head of a lodge which included men over fifty, who
had been engaged in the conspiracies since Murat’s expedition of 1815.
Pietro felt his heart beat at receiving this unexpected honour. As
soon as he was alone, he resolved to think no more of the young Roman
lady who had forgotten him, and to consecrate all his thoughts to
_delivering Italy from the barbarians_.[18]
Two days later, Missirilli saw in the list of arrivals and departures
sent to him as head of the lodge that the Princess Vanina had just
arrived at her castle of San Nicolo. To read this name caused more
trouble than pleasure to his soul. In vain he thought to make sure
of his fidelity to his country by restraining himself from hastening
that very night to the castle of San Nicolo; the thought of Vanina
whom he was neglecting prevented his fulfilling his duties in a
reasonable fashion. He saw her the next day; she loved him as she had
done at Rome. Her father, who wished to marry her, had hindered her
departure. She brought two thousand sequins with her. This unexpected
assistance helped wonderfully to establish Missirilli in his new
dignity. Thanks to them they got daggers made in Corfu, they gained
over the confidential secretary of the legate charged with pursuing the
carbonari, and also obtained the list of parish priests who served as
spies to the government.
It was at this period that one, not the most unreasonable, of the
conspiracies that have been attempted in unhappy Italy was finally
organized. I shall not enter into details that would be out of place
here. I shall content myself with saying that, if the enterprise had
been crowned with success, Missirilli would have been able to claim a
great share of the glory. According to it several thousand insurgents
would have risen at a given signal, and awaited under arms the arrival
of their superior heads. The decisive moment was at hand, when, as
always happens, the conspiracy was paralysed by the arrests of the
leaders.
Vanina had not long arrived in Romagna when she fancied she could
see that love of country would make her lover forget all other love.
The young Roman’s pride was chafed. She tried in vain to reason with
herself; black disappointment took possession of her; she found herself
cursing liberty. One day when she had come to Forli to see Missirilli,
she was no longer mistress of her grief, which, so far, her pride had
always been able to master.
“Really,” she said to him, “you love me like a husband; that’s not what
I want.”
Her tears soon began to flow; but they were tears of shame at having
descended to reproaches. Missirilli responded to her tears like one
preoccupied. All at once it occurred to Vanina to leave him and return
to Rome. She found a cruel joy in punishing herself for the weakness
which had just made her speak. After some moments’ silence, her mind
was made up; she decided that she was unworthy of Missirilli if she did
not leave him. She rejoiced in the prospect of his sad surprise when
he sought for her at his side, and did not find her. Soon the thought
that she had been unable to win the love of the man for whose sake she
had committed so many follies revived all her tenderness. She thereupon
broke the silence, and did everything in the world to elicit a word
of love from him. He said many very tender things to her, with an air
of abstraction; but it was with quite a much profounder accent that,
talking of his political enterprises, he exclaimed mournfully:
“_Ah, if this affair does not succeed, if the government discovers it
this time, I’ll give it up!_”
Vanina remained motionless. For an hour and more she had had the
feeling that she was seeing her lover for the last time. His words
flashed a fatal ray into her mind. She said to herself:
“The carbonari have already got several thousand sequins from me. There
can be no doubt about my devotion to the conspiracy.”
Vanina at last roused herself from her reverie, to say to Pietro:
“Will you come and spend twenty-four hours with me at the castle of San
Nicolo? Your gathering this evening does not require your presence.
To-morrow morning, at San Nicolo, we can walk about; that will calm
your agitation and give you all the coolness that you need at such an
important juncture.”
Pietro consented.
Vanina left him to make preparations for the journey, locking, as
usual, the little room in which she hid him.
She hastened to a former waiting-woman of hers, who had left her to
get married and set up a small business at Forli. On arriving at
this woman’s, she hurriedly wrote on the margin of a book of hours,
which she found in her room, an exact indication of the place where
the lodge of carbonari was to meet that same night. She concluded
her denunciation with these words: “This lodge consists of nineteen
members; here are their names and addresses.” After writing this list,
very exact, except that Missirilli’s name was omitted, she said to the
woman, whom she could depend on:
“Take this book to the Cardinal Legate; let him read what is written
and give you back the book. Here are ten sequins; if ever the legate
pronounces your name, your death is assured; but you will save my life
if you get the legate to read the page I have just written.”
Everything succeeded perfectly. The legate’s fears prevented him from
behaving like a great lord. He let the woman of the people who asked
to speak with him appear in his presence masked, but on condition that
she had her hands tied. In this state the shopwoman was brought into
the presence of the great person, whom she found entrenched behind an
immense table covered with a green cloth.
The legate read the page of the book of hours, holding it well
away from him, for fear of some subtle poison. He gave it back to
the shopwoman, and did not have her followed. In less than forty
minutes after leaving her lover, Vanina, who had seen her former
waiting-woman’s return, appeared once more to Missirilli, convinced
that thenceforth he was entirely hers. She told him that there was an
extraordinary commotion in the town; patrols of carabineers were to be
seen in streets where they never used to go.
“If you’ll take my advice,” she added, “we’ll start for San Nicolo at
once.”
Missirilli consented to do so. They walked to the young princess’s
carriage, which, with her companion, a discreet and well-paid
confidante, was waiting for her half a league outside the town.
On arriving at the castle of San Nicolo, Vanina, who was uneasy about
the strange step that she had taken, redoubled her tenderness to
her lover. But it seemed to her that in talking love to him she was
acting a part. The night before, when she played the traitor, she had
forgotten about remorse. As she clasped her lover in her arms, she said
to herself:
“There is a word that might be uttered in his hearing, and, once it was
pronounced, he would have a horror of me at once and for ever.”
In the middle of the night, one of Vanina’s servants came abruptly
into her room. This man was a carbonaro, though she did not suspect
it. So, then, Missirilli had secrets from her, even about details like
that. She shuddered. The man had come to warn Missirilli that during
the night the houses of nineteen carbonari at Forli had been searched,
and they themselves arrested the moment they returned from the lodge.
Although taken by surprise, nine had escaped. The carabineers had been
able to take ten of them to prison in the citadel. On entering it, one
of them had thrown himself down the well, which is very deep, and had
killed himself.
Vanina was covered with confusion; fortunately Pietro did not observe
it: he could have read her crime in her eyes.... “At this very moment,”
the servant added, “the garrison of Forli is forming a cordon in all
the streets. Each soldier is within speaking distance of his neighbour.
The inhabitants cannot cross from one side of the street to the other
except where an officer is stationed.”
After the man had gone, Pietro was pensive, but only for an instant.
“There is nothing that can be done for the moment,” he said at last.
Vanina was like to die; she trembled beneath her lover’s glance.
“Whatever is wrong with you?” he said at last.
Then he began to think about something else, and ceased to look at her.
About the middle of the day, she ventured to say to him:
“That’s another lodge discovered; I should think you’ll keep quiet for
some time now.”
“_Very quiet_,” Missirilli answered, with a smile that made her shudder.
She went to make a necessary visit to the village priest of San Nicolo,
perhaps a spy of the Jesuits. On returning for dinner at seven o’clock,
she found the little room where her lover was hidden deserted. Beside
herself, she ran all through the house seeking for him; he was not
there. In despair she returned to the little room; only then did she
catch sight of a note; she read:
“_I am going to surrender myself to the legate; I despair of our cause;
Heaven is against us. Who has betrayed us? Apparently the wretch who
threw himself into the well. Since my life is useless to poor Italy,
I do not wish that my comrades, seeing that I alone have not been
arrested, should imagine that I have sold them. Adieu; if you love me,
think on how to avenge me. Ruin, annihilate, the infamous wretch that
has betrayed us, even though he be my father._”
Vanina fell into a chair, half-fainting and plunged in the most cruel
unhappiness. She was unable to utter a word; her eyes were dry and
burning.
At last she flung herself on her knees.
“Great God! accept my vow,” she exclaimed; “yes, I will punish the
infamous wretch who has been a traitor; but Pietro must first be
restored to liberty.”
An hour later she was on her way to Rome. Her father had long been
urging her to return. During her absence, he had arranged her
marriage with Prince Livio Savelli. Vanina had scarcely arrived
when he mentioned it to her, trembling. To his great astonishment,
she consented at the first word. That same evening, at Countess
Vitteleschi’s house, her father presented Don Livio almost officially
to her; she talked a great deal with him. He was a most elegant young
man, and kept the finest possible horses; but, though he was admitted
to be clever, his character was supposed to be so light that he was not
an object of suspicion to the government. Vanina thought that by first
turning his head she would make a convenient agent of him. Since he was
nephew to Monsignore Savelli-Catanzara, governor of Rome and minister
of police, she supposed that the spies would not presume to follow him.
After having treated the amiable Don Livio exceedingly well for some
days, Vanina announced to him that he would never be her husband; he
was, according to her, empty-headed.
“If you were not a child,” she told him, “your uncle’s clerks would
have no secrets from you. For example, what has been decided about the
carbonari who were discovered recently at Forli?”
Two days later Don Livio came to tell her that all the carbonari taken
at Forli had made their escape. She fastened her great black eyes upon
him with the bitter smile of most profound contempt, and did not deign
to speak to him all that evening. The next day but one Don Livio came
to acknowledge to her with a blush that he had been deceived the first
time.
“But,” he said, “I have got the key to my uncle’s study; I have seen
from the papers that I found there that a Congregation (or Commission)
composed of some of the leading cardinals and prelates is meeting in
the strictest secrecy and discussing whether these carbonari should
be tried at Ravenna or at Rome. The nine carbonari taken at Forli and
their head, one Missirilli, who has been foolish enough to surrender
himself, are at the present moment confined in the castle of San
Leo.[19]
At the word “foolish,” Vanina pinched the prince with all her might.
“I want,” she said, “to see the official papers myself, and go into
your uncle’s study with you; you have most likely read them wrong.”
At these words Don Livio shuddered; Vanina was demanding a thing almost
impossible; but the young woman’s strange genius redoubled his love. A
day or two later Vanina, disguised as a man and wearing a pretty little
coat of the Savelli livery, was able to spend half an hour amidst the
police minister’s most secret papers. She felt a thrill of the keenest
delight when she discovered the daily report on “Pietro Missirilli,
prisoner awaiting trial.” Her hands trembled as she held the paper. As
she read that name she was on the point of being overcome. When they
went out from the governor of Rome’s palace Vanina permitted Don Livio
to embrace her.
“You are coming well out of the tests to which I am submitting you,”
she said.
After a speech like that the young prince would have set fire to the
Vatican to please Vanina. That evening there was a ball at the French
ambassador’s; she danced a great deal, and almost always with Don
Livio. He was intoxicated with happiness; she must not allow him to
reflect.
“My father is sometimes strange,” Vanina said to him one day. “This
morning he dismissed two of his servants, who came to tell me their
sorrows. One of them has asked a place with your uncle, the governor of
Rome; the other, who has been an artilleryman with the French, would
like to be employed in the castle of Sant’ Angelo.”
“I’ll take them both into my service,” said the young prince briskly.
“Is that what I asked you?” Vanina replied proudly. “I repeated those
poor fellows’ petitions word for word; they ought to get what they
asked, and not something else.”
There was nothing more difficult. Monsignore Catanzara was anything but
an imprudent man, and only admitted servants into his house who were
well known to him. In the midst of a life apparently full of all manner
of pleasures, Vanina, tormented by remorse, was very unhappy. The
slowness of events was killing her. Her father’s man of business had
procured money for her. Ought she to flee from her father’s house and
go to Romagna, and attempt to get her lover out of prison? Senseless as
this notion was she was on the point of carrying it into execution when
chance took pity on her.
Don Livio said to her:
“The ten carbonari of Missirilli’s lodge are going to be transferred to
Rome on the understanding that they are to be executed in Romagna after
they have been condemned. That is what my uncle has got the Pope to
sanction this evening. You and I are the only persons in Rome who know
this secret. Are you satisfied!”
“You are becoming a man,” Vanina replied; “make me a present of your
portrait.”
The day before Missirilli was due to arrive at Rome Vanina found a
pretext for going to Città-Castellana. The prison of that town is where
the carbonari spend the night when they are transferred from Romagna
to Rome. She saw Missirilli in the morning as he came out of prison.
He was chained by himself to a cart; he seemed to her to be pale, but
by no means downhearted. An old woman threw a bunch of violets to him;
Missirilli smiled her his thanks.
Vanina had seen her lover; all her thoughts seemed renewed; she had
fresh courage. A long time ago she had procured a good preferment
to the Abbate Cari, the chaplain of the castle of Sant’ Angelo, in
which her lover was to be confined; she had made this good priest her
confessor. At Rome it is no small thing to be confessor of a princess
who is niece to the governor.
The trial of the Forli carbonari did not last long. In revenge for
their arrival in Rome, which it had been unable to prevent, the extreme
party so contrived that the commission which was to try them was
composed of the most ambitious prelates. This commission was presided
over by the minister of police.
The law against carbonari is clear; those from Forli could cherish
no hope; none the less they defended their lives by every possible
subterfuge. Not only did their judges condemn them to death, but
several declared for atrocious tortures, that their hands should be
cut off, and such like. The minister of police, whose fortune was made
(for no one leaves that position except to take a red hat), had no use
for cut-off hands: when he referred the sentence to the Pope he had
the punishment of all the condemned men commuted to several years’
imprisonment. Pietro Missirilli alone was excepted. The minister
regarded that young man as a dangerous fanatic, and besides he had
already been condemned to death as guilty of the murder of the two
carabineers already mentioned. Vanina knew about the sentence and its
commutation a few minutes after the minister had returned from his
audience of the Pope.
Next day Monsignore Catanzara returned to his palace about midnight and
found no sign of his valet in his room; the minister, astonished, rang
several times; at last an old, imbecile servant appeared: the minister,
out of all patience, decided to undress unaided. He locked his door;
it was very warm; he took his gown and threw it in a heap on a chair.
The gown, thrown too hard, went over the chair and struck the muslin
curtain at the window, and showed the form of a man. The minister
quickly rushed to his bed and seized a pistol. As he was returning to
the window a very young man, in his livery, came towards him pistol in
hand. At this sight the minister raised his pistol and took aim; he was
about to fire; the young man said to him, laughing:
“What, Monsignore, do you not recognize Vanina Vanini?”
“What is the meaning of this unseemly pleasantry?” the Minister
retorted angrily.
“Let us discuss things coolly,” said the young woman. “To begin with,
your pistol is not loaded.”
The Minister, astonished, satisfied himself that such was the case;
after which he drew a dagger from his vest-pocket.[20]
Vanina said to him, with a charming little air of authority:
“Let us be seated, Monsignore.”
And she calmly took her place on a sofa.
“Are you alone, though?” the Minister said.
“Absolutely alone, I swear!” exclaimed Vanina.
The Minister was careful to verify this: he went round the room and
looked everywhere; after which he sat down on a chair three paces from
Vanina.
“What interest should I have,” said Vanina in a gentle and reasonable
tone, “in attempting the life of a moderate man, who would probably
be succeeded by some weak, hot-headed person that would be capable of
undoing himself and others besides.”
“What do you want, pray, madam?” the minister said somewhat testily.
“This scene is not to my taste, and must cease.”
“What I am about to add,” Vanina replied haughtily, suddenly forgetting
her gracious air, “concerns you more than me. There is a desire that
the life of the carbonaro Missirilli should be spared: if he is
executed, you will not survive him a week. I have no interest in all
this; the folly which you deplore I did to amuse myself in the first
place, and next, to oblige a lady who is one of my friends. I wished,”
Vanina continued, resuming her affability, “I wished to render a
service to an accomplished man, who soon will be my uncle, and, from
all appearance, should carry the fortunes of his house to a great
pitch.”
The minister cast aside his vexed air: Vanina’s beauty no doubt
contributed to this rapid change. Monsignore Catanzara’s taste for
pretty women was well known in Rome, and in her disguise of a footman
of the house of Savelli, with well-fitting silk stockings, a red vest,
her little sky-blue coat laced with silver, and the pistol in her hand,
Vanina was ravishing.
“My future niece,” said the minister, almost laughing, “you are
committing a great folly, and it will not be your last.”
“I hope that so discreet a person as you will keep my secret,
especially from Don Livio; and, to make sure of your promise, my dear
uncle, if you grant me the life of my friend’s protégé, I’ll give you a
kiss.”
Thus continuing the conversation in that half-jocular tone in which
Roman ladies know how to discuss the most important affairs, Vanina
contrived to give this interview, which she had begun pistol in hand,
the air of a visit paid by the young princess Savelli to her uncle the
governor of Rome.
Soon Monsignore Catanzara, although rejecting with scorn the notion of
being influenced by fear, went so far as to explain to his niece all
the difficulties that he would encounter in saving Missirilli’s life.
As he discussed them, the minister walked up and down the room with
Vanina; he took up a carafe of lemonade that was on the chimney-piece,
and poured some into a crystal glass. When he was on the point of
putting it to his lips, Vanina secured it, and, after holding it some
time, let it fall into the garden, as if by carelessness. A moment
later, the minister took a chocolate pastille out of a sweetmeat-box.
Vanina snatched it from him, and said, laughing as she did so:
“Do take care; everything in the house is poisoned, for they intended
your death. It is I who have obtained the respite of my future uncle,
so as not to enter the family of Savelli absolutely empty-handed.”
Monsignore Catanzara, greatly astonished, thanked his niece, and gave
her great hopes of Missirilli’s life.
“Our bargain is settled,” exclaimed Vanina, “and in proof of it, here
is your reward,” she said, embracing him.
The minister took his reward.
“I must own, my dear Vanina,” he added, “that I am not fond of blood.
Besides, I am still young, though I perhaps look very old to you; and I
may live to see the day when blood shed now will leave a stain.”
Two o’clock was striking when Monsignore Catanzara escorted Vanina to
the private gate of his garden.
The day after next, when the minister appeared before the Pope, not a
little anxious about the course that he had to pursue, His Holiness
said to him:
“Before we go any further, I have a favour to ask you. There is one of
those carbonari from Forli, who is still under sentence of death; the
thought keeps me from sleeping: the man must be saved.”
The minister, seeing that the Pope had made up his mind, made many
objections, and ended by writing a decree, or _motu proprio_, which the
Pope signed, contrary to custom.
It had occurred to Vanina that she might perhaps obtain her lover’s
pardon, but that they would try to poison him. The previous evening,
Missirilli had received some small parcels of ship-biscuit from Abbate
Cari, her confessor, with a warning not to touch the food provided by
the State.
Vanina, having afterwards learned that the Forli carbonari were to be
transferred to the castle of San Leo, wished to try to see Missirilli
at Città-Castellana on his way; she arrived in that town twenty-four
hours in advance of the prisoners; there she found Abbate Cari, who had
preceded her by some days. He had got the jailor’s leave for Missirilli
to hear Mass at midnight in the prison chapel. He had obtained even
more: if Missirilli would allow his arms and legs to be fastened with a
chain, the jailor would withdraw to the door of the chapel, so that he
could always see the prisoner, for whom he was responsible, but could
not hear what he said.
The day which was to decide Vanina’s destiny dawned at last. Early in
the morning she shut herself up in the prison chapel. Who could tell
the thoughts which agitated her during that long day? Did Missirilli
love her sufficiently to pardon her? She had denounced his lodge, but
she had saved his life. When reason regained command of that tortured
soul, Vanina hoped that he would consent to leave Italy in her company;
if she had sinned, it was through excess of love. As four o’clock
struck, she heard the tread of the carabineers’ horses on the pavement
in the distance. Each tread seemed to ring in her heart. Soon she made
out the rumbling of the carts which conveyed the prisoners. They halted
in the little square in front of the prison; she saw two carabineers
lift out Missirilli, who was alone on a cart and so heavily loaded
with irons that he could not move. “At least he is alive,” she said
to herself with tears in her eyes; “they have not poisoned him.” The
evening was cruel; the altar-lamp, which was hung high up, and which
the jailor stinted of oil, was the only light in the gloomy chapel.
Vanina’s eyes wandered over the tombs of some great lords of the Middle
Ages who had died in the neighbouring prison. Their statues looked
ferocious.
All sounds had long ago ceased; Vanina was absorbed in her black
thoughts. Shortly after midnight struck, she thought she heard a
slight noise like the flutter of a bat. She tried to walk, and fell
half-fainting on the altar-rail. At the same instant, two phantoms
stood beside her, without her having heard them come. They were the
jailor and Missirilli, so loaded with chains that he was almost
swathed in them. The jailor opened a lantern, which he placed on the
altar-rail, beside Vanina, in such a position that he could see his
prisoner clearly. Then he withdrew into the background, near the
door. Scarcely had the jailor removed, when Vanina flung herself on
Missirilli’s neck. As she clasped him in her arms, she felt nothing but
his cold, sharp chains. “Who put these chains on him?” she thought. She
felt no pleasure in embracing her lover. To this pain succeeded another
more piercing: she believed, for a moment, that Missirilli knew of her
crime, his reception of her was so chilly.
“Dear friend,” he said to her at last, “I regret the love which you
have conceived for me; though I search, I cannot discover the merit
that might have inspired it. Let us return, I entreat you, to more
Christian feelings, let us forget the illusions which once led us
astray; I cannot be yours. The continual misfortune that has dogged my
enterprises proceeds, perhaps, from the state of mortal sin in which I
have always lived. Even listening to the counsels of human prudence,
why was I not arrested with my friends on that fatal night at Forli?
Why was I not found at my post at the moment of danger? Why was it that
my absence could authorize the most cruel suspicions?--Because I had
another passion than the liberation of Italy.”
Vanina could not recover from the surprise that she felt at the change
in Missirilli. Though he did not appear to have grown thinner, he
looked like thirty. Vanina attributed this change to the bad treatment
that he had suffered in prison; she burst into tears.
“Ah,” she said to him, “the jailors promised so faithfully that they
would treat you kindly!”
The fact was that, at the approach of death, all the religious
principles that were consistent with his passion for the liberation
of Italy had revived in the young carbonaro’s heart. Little by little
Vanina perceived that the astonishing change which she noticed in
her lover was entirely moral, and in no wise the result of physical
ill-treatment. Her grief, which she had thought at its height, was
augmented by this discovery.
Missirilli ceased speaking; Vanina seemed on the point of being
suffocated by her sobs. He added, with some emotion:
“If I loved anything on earth, it would be you, Vanina; but thanks to
God I have only one object left me in life; I will die in prison, or in
the endeavour to restore liberty to Italy.”
There was another silence; evidently Vanina was unable to speak: she
tried to do so, in vain. Missirilli added:
“Duty is cruel, my friend; but, if there were no pain in accomplishing
it, where would heroism be? Give me your word that you will not try to
see me again.”
As well as his close-bound chain allowed him, he made a little motion
with his wrist and stretched out his fingers to Vanina.
“If you will let a man who was dear to you advise you, be sensible and
marry the deserving man whom your father intends for you. Do not make
any awkward confidence to him; but on the other hand do not ever try
to see me again; let us be strangers to each other in future. You have
advanced a considerable sum for the service of your country; if ever
it is delivered from its tyrants, that sum will be repaid to you in
national funds.”
Vanina was overwhelmed. While he spoke to her, Pietro’s eye had never
once flashed, except when he uttered the word “country.”
At last pride came to the rescue of the young princess; she had
provided herself with diamonds and small files. Without a word of
reply, she offered them to Missirilli. “I accept them out of duty,”
he said, “for I must try to escape; but I will never see you again; I
swear it in presence of your new benefits. Adieu, Vanina; promise me
that you will never write to me, never try to see me; leave all of me
to my country, I am dead to you: farewell.”
“No!” Vanina replied furiously, “I wish you to know what I have done,
led by the love I had for you.”
With that she told him all her proceedings from the moment that
Missirilli quitted the castle of San Nicolo to surrender himself to the
legate. When the recital was ended, Vanina said:
“All that is nothing; I did more for love of you.”
And she told him of her treason.
“Ah, monster!” exclaimed Pietro in a rage, hurling himself upon her,
and he tried to fell her with his chains.
He would have succeeded in doing so, but for the jailor, who ran
forward at his first cries. He seized Missirilli.
“Here, monster! I won’t be indebted to you for anything,” said
Missirilli to Vanina, flinging the files and diamonds at her as well as
his chains permitted; and he hastened away.
Vanina remained utterly crushed. She returned to Rome, and the
newspapers announce that she has just married Prince Don Livio Savelli.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] “_Librar l’Italia de’ barbari_,” a saying of Petrarch’s in 1350,
afterwards repeated by Julius II., by Machiavelli, and by Count Alfieri.
[19] Near Rimini in Romagna. It was in this castle that the famous
Cagliostro perished; it is said in the district that he was suffocated
there.
[20] A Roman prelate would no doubt not be fit to command an army corps
bravely, as was more than once done by a general of division who was
minister of police at Paris at the time of Mallet’s attempt; but he
never would have let himself be held up in his own house so easily. He
would have been too much afraid of being quizzed by his colleagues. A
Roman who knows that he is hated does not go about without being well
armed.
The writer has not thought it necessary to justify some other little
differences between the ways of doing and speaking at Paris and those
at Rome. So far from toning down these differences, he has thought it
right to state them boldly. The Romans whom he describes have not the
honour of being Frenchmen.
THE CHILD WITH THE BREAD SHOES
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
Listen to this story which the grandmothers of Germany tell their
grandchildren,--Germany, a beautiful country of legends and dreams,
where the moonlight, playing on the mists of Old Rhine, creates a
thousand fantastic visions.
At the end of the village a poor woman lived alone in a humble cottage:
the house was very poor and contained but the barest necessities in the
way of furniture.
An old bed with twisted columns whence hung serge curtains yellow with
age; a bread-bin; a walnut chest, polished till it shone, but the
numerous worm-eaten holes of which were stopped with wax, indicated a
long period of service; an arm-chair, covered with tapestry from which
the colours had faded and which had been worn thin by the shaking head
of the old grandmother; a spinning-wheel polished with use: that was
all.
We were about to forget a child’s cradle, quite new, very cosily
padded and covered with a pretty flowered counterpane stitched by an
indefatigable needle, that of a mother ornamenting the crib of her
little Jesus.
All the wealth in the little house was centred there.
The child of a burgomaster or of an aulic councillor could not have
been more softly couched. Sacred prodigality, sweet folly of the mother
who deprives herself of everything to provide a little luxury, in the
midst of her poverty, for her dear nursling!
The cradle gave a festal air to the poor hovel; nature, which
is compassionate to the unfortunate, made the bareness of this
white-washed cottage gay with tufts of houseleek and velvet moss. Kind
plants, full of pity, although they looked like parasites, filled up
the holes in the roof and made it as dazzling as a bride’s jewels, and
prevented the rain from falling on the cradle; the pigeons alighted on
the window and cooed until the child fell asleep.
A little bird, to which young Hans had given a crumb of bread in the
winter, when the snow made the ground white, had, when spring came,
let a grain fall from his beak at the foot of the wall, and thence had
sprung a beautiful bindweed which, clinging to the stones with its
green claws, had entered the room by a broken window-pane, and crowned
the child’s cradle with its cluster, so that in the morning Hans’s blue
eyes and the blue bells of the bindweed woke up at the same time, and
looked at each other with an understanding air.
This home, then, was poor but not gloomy.
Hans’s mother, whose husband had died far away at the war, lived as
best she could on vegetables from the garden, and the product of her
spinning-wheel: very little, it is true, but Hans wanted for nothing
and that was enough.
Hans’s mother was a truly pious and believing woman. She prayed, worked
and practised virtue; but she had one fault: she looked upon herself
with too much complacence and prided herself too much on her son.
It sometimes happens that mothers, seeing these beautiful rosy
children, with dimpled hands, white skin and pink heels, think that
they belong to them for ever.
But God gives nothing; he only lends, and, like a forgotten creditor,
he sometimes comes to demand his own again all of a sudden.
Because this fresh bud had sprung from her stem, Hans’s mother believed
that she had made him to be born: and God, who, from within his
Paradise with its azure vaults starred with gold, watches everything
that happens on earth, and hears from the ends of the infinite the
sound that the blade of grass makes as it grows, was not pleased to see
this.
He also saw that Hans was greedy and that his mother was too indulgent
to this greediness; the naughty child often cried when he had,
after grapes or an apple, to eat bread, object of envy to so many
unfortunates, and his mother let him throw away the piece of bread he
had commenced, or else finished it herself.
Now it happened that Hans fell ill: fever burned him, his breath
whistled in his choking throat; he had croup, a terrible illness that
has made the eyes of many mothers and fathers red.
At the sight the poor woman was filled with horrible anguish.
You have doubtless seen in some church the image of Our Lady, clothed
in mourning and standing under the Cross, with her breast open and her
bleeding heart, where lie plunged seven swords of silver, three on
one side, four on the other. That means that there is no agony more
terrible than that of a mother who sees her child dying.
And yet the Holy Virgin believed in the divinity of Jesus and knew that
her son would come to life again.
Now Hans’s mother had not that hope.
During the last days of Hans’s illness his mother, even while watching
him, continued to spin mechanically and the whirring of the wheel
mingled with the rattle in the throat of the dying child.
If some rich people find it strange that a mother can spin by the
bed-side of a dying child, it is because they do not understand what
tortures poverty contains for the soul; alas! it does not only break
the body, it also breaks the heart.
What she was spinning thus, was the thread for her little Hans’s
shroud; she did not wish that any cloth that had been used should
cover that dear body, and, as she had no money, she made her
spinning-wheel hum with a mournful activity; but she did not pass the
thread through her lips as was her custom: enough tears fell from her
eyes to moisten it.
At the end of the sixth day, Hans expired. Whether from chance or from
sympathy, the cluster of bindweed that caressed his cradle faded, dried
up and let its last curled-up flower fall on the bed.
When the mother was quite convinced that the breath had for ever flown
from his lips, on which the violets of death had replaced the roses
of life, she covered the too dear head with the edge of the sheet,
took her bundle of thread under her arm, and made her way towards the
weaver’s house.
“Weaver,” she said to him, “here is some very fine thread, very regular
and without knots; the spider does not spin any finer between the
joists of the ceiling; let your shuttle come and go; from this thread I
must have an ell of cloth as soft as the cloth of Friesland or Holland.”
The weaver took the skein, set the warp, and the busy shuttle, drawing
the thread after it, began to run hither and thither.
The card strengthened the woof and the thread continued to grow evenly,
and without breaking, on the loom; it was as fine as the shift of an
archduchess or the linen with which the priest dries the communion-cup
at the altar.
When all the thread was used, the weaver gave the cloth to the poor
mother, and, as he had understood everything from the settled look of
despair on the unhappy woman’s face, he said to her:
“The emperor’s son, who died last year while still an infant, was not
wrapped in a finer or softer shroud in his little ebony coffin with
silver nails.”
Having folded the cloth, the mother drew from her wasted finger a thin
gold ring, all worn with use.
“Good weaver,” she said, “take this ring, my wedding-ring, the only
gold I ever possessed.”
The kind weaver-man did not wish to take it; but she said to him:
“Where I am going I shall have no need of a ring; for I feel my Hans’s
small arms pulling me into the ground.”
Then she went to the carpenter and said to him:
“Master, get me some oak from the heart of the tree, which will not rot
and which the worms will not be able to eat; cut from it five boards
and two little boards and make a coffin to these measurements.”
The carpenter took his saw and plane, trimmed the planks, and struck
the nails as lightly as possible with his hammer, so as not to let the
iron points enter farther into the poor woman’s heart than into the
wood.
When the work was finished, it was so carefully and so well done that
it might have been taken for a box to put jewels and laces in.
“Carpenter, as you have made so beautiful a coffin for my little Hans,
I give you my house at the end of the village, and the little garden
behind it, and the well with the vineyard.--You shall not wait long.”
With the shroud and the coffin, which she held under her arm, it was so
small, she went through the village streets, and the children, who do
not know what death is, said:
“Look at Hans’s mother taking him a beautiful box of toys from
Nuremberg; it must be a town with its painted and varnished wooden
houses, its steeple covered with tin-foil, its belfry and its tower
with battlements, and its trees in the promenades, all curly and green;
or else a beautiful violin with its sculptured pegs at the neck and its
horsehair bow.--Oh, why have we not a box like it!”
And the mothers, growing pale, kissed them and told them to be quiet:
“Silly children that you are, you must not say that; do not wish for
the box of toys, or the violin-case that one carries with tears under
one’s arm: you will have it soon enough, poor little ones!”
When Hans’s mother got home, she took the dainty, still pretty,
corpse of her son and began to make his last toilet--it must be made
carefully, for it has to last for eternity.
She clothed him in his Sunday clothes, his silk dress and fur pelisse,
so that he should not be cold in the damp place to which he was going.
Beside him she put the doll with the enamel eyes, the doll he loved so
much that he always took it to bed with him.
But, just as she was turning down the shroud on the body which she
had kissed for the last time a thousand times, she saw that she had
forgotten to place his pretty little red slippers on the child’s feet.
She looked for them in the room, for it hurt her to see the little feet
bare that used to be so warm and pink, and were now so cold and white;
but during her absence the rats had found the shoes under the bed, and
for want of better food had nibbled them, gnawed at them, and cut holes
in the leather.
It was a great grief to the poor mother that Hans should go away into
the other world with bare feet; when the heart is all one wound, it
only needs a touch to make it bleed.
She cried to see the slippers: from that inflamed, worn-out eye a tear
could still gush.
How could she get shoes for Hans, when she had already given her ring
and her house? That was the thought that troubled her. By dint of
thinking she had an idea.
In the bread-bin there was still a whole loaf of bread, as, for a long
time, the unhappy woman, kept alive by her sorrow, had been eating
nothing.
She broke the loaf, remembering that, in the past, she had often made
with the soft parts pigeons, geese, chickens, wooden shoes, boats, and
other boys’ things to amuse Hans.
Placing the bread in the hollow of her hand, and kneading it with her
thumb while she moistened it with her tears, she made a little pair of
bread shoes, with which she covered the cold, bluish feet of the dead
child, and, her heart consoled, she turned down the shroud and closed
the coffin.--While she was kneading the bread, a poor man had come to
the door and timidly asked for some bread; but she had signed to him
with her hand to go away.
The grave-digger came to take away the box, and buried it in a corner
of the cemetery under a clump of white rose-bushes: the air was warm,
it was not raining and the ground was not wet; this was a comfort to
the mother, who thought that her poor little Hans would not pass the
first night in his tomb too uncomfortably.
When she returned home to her solitary house, she placed Hans’s cradle
beside her bed, lay down and fell asleep.
Overtaxed nature succumbed.
As she slept, she had a dream or, at least, she believed it was a dream.
Hans appeared to her, clothed, as he was in his coffin, in his Sunday
dress and his pelisse lined with swans’-down, in his hand his doll with
the enamel eyes and on his feet his bread shoes.
He seemed to be sad.
He had not the halo that death ought to give to the little innocents;
for, if a child is placed in the ground, it comes out an angel.
The roses of Paradise were not flourishing on his pale cheeks, coloured
white by death; tears fell from his blond eyelashes, and great sighs
swelled his little breast.
The vision disappeared, and the mother awoke, bathed in perspiration,
delighted at having seen her child, terrified at having seen him so
sad; but she reassured herself by saying, “Poor Hans! even in Paradise
he cannot forget me.”
The following night, the apparition was repeated: Hans was still more
sad and more pale.
His mother, stretching her arms out to him, said:
“Dear child, take comfort, and do not weary in Heaven; I shall soon
rejoin you.”
The third night, Hans came again; he moaned and cried more than at the
other times, and he disappeared with his little hands joined; he no
longer had his doll, but he still had his bread shoes.
His mother, being uneasy, went to consult a venerable priest, who said
to her:
“I will watch beside you to-night, and I will question the little
ghost; he will answer me; I know what words to say to innocent or
guilty spirits.”
Hans appeared at the usual hour, and the priest summoned him, in the
consecrated words, to tell him what troubled him in the other world.
“It is the bread shoes which torment me, and hinder me from mounting
the diamond staircase of Paradise; they are heavier on my feet than
postilion’s boots and I cannot get past the first two or three steps,
and that troubles me greatly, for I see above a cloud of beautiful
cherubim with rosy wings who are calling to me to play with them and
are showing me toys of silver and gold.”
Having said these words, he disappeared.
The good priest, to whom Hans’s mother had made her confession, said to
her:
“You have committed a grave fault, you have profaned the daily bread,
the sacred bread, our good God’s bread, the bread that Jesus Christ, at
his last repast, chose to represent his body, and, after having refused
a slice of it to the poor man who came to your door, you kneaded from
it slippers for your Hans.
“You must open the coffin, take the bread shoes off the child’s feet,
and burn them in the all-purifying fire.”
Accompanied by the grave-digger and the mother, the priest proceeded to
the cemetery: with four blows of the spade the coffin was laid bare,
and was opened.
Hans was lying inside, just as his mother had laid him there, but his
face bore an expression of pain.
The holy priest gently removed the bread shoes from the dead child’s
feet and burned them himself at the flames of a candle, reciting a
prayer the while.
When night came, Hans appeared to his mother one last time, but he was
gay, rosy and happy, and had with him two little cherubim with whom
he had already made friends; he had wings of light and a fillet of
diamonds.
“Oh, mother, what joy, what happiness, and oh, how beautiful are the
gardens of Paradise! We play there all the time and our good God never
scolds.”
Next day, the mother saw her son again, not on earth, but in heaven;
for she died during the day, her brow pressed against the empty cradle.
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:
“‛In Paris there dwells a White Father,
Patatin, patatan, tarabin, taraban....’
“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:
“‘In Paris there dwells a White Father,
Patatin, patatan, tarabin, taraban;
In Paris there dwells a White Father
Who sets all the little nuns dancing,
Trip, trip, trip, trip in a garden;
Who sets all the....’”
* * * * *
At this point the good _curé_ stopped short in horror. “Mercy on us! If
my parishioners heard me!”
THE LEGEND OF SAINT JULIAN HOSPITATOR
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
I
Julian’s father and mother lived in a castle in the midst of woods on
the slope of a hill.
Its four corner-towers had pointed roofs covered with scales of lead,
and the base of the walls rested on masses of rock which went down
abruptly right to the bottom of the moat.
The pavements of the court were as clean as the flagged floor of a
church. Long gutters, shaped like dragons with down-drooped jaws,
vomited the rain-water into the cistern; and on the window-ledges at
every storey, in a pot of painted earthenware, a plant of basil or
heliotrope opened to the sun.
A second line of defence, formed of stakes, enclosed first an orchard
of fruit-trees, then a parterre, where the combinations of the flowers
formed patterns, and next a trellis with bowers in which to take the
air, and a mall which served to amuse the pages. On the other side were
the kennel, the stables, the bakery, the wine-press and the barns. A
meadow of green grass extended all around, itself enclosed by a strong
hedge of thorns.
They had lived in peace so long that the portcullis was never let
down; the moats were full of water; the swallows made their nests in
the openings of the battlements; and the archer who walked up and down
upon the walls all day long retired into his turret as soon as the sun
shone too strongly, and slept there like a monk.
Indoors, the ironwork shone everywhere; tapestries in the rooms gave
protection from the cold; and the presses were crammed with linen; the
wine-tuns were piled up in the cellars, the oaken coffers groaned with
the weight of bags of silver.
In the great hall arms of every age and every nation were to be
seen among banners and heads of wild beasts, from the slings of the
Amalekites and the javelins of the Garamantes to the scimitars of the
Saracens and the chain-coats of the Normans.
The great spit in the kitchen could turn an ox; the chapel was as
sumptuous as the oratory of a king. There was even, in a retired
corner, a vapour-bath in the Roman fashion; but the good lord of the
castle abstained from it, deeming that it was an idolatrous custom.
Always wrapped in a fox pelisse, he walked about his house, did justice
among his vassals, and appeased the quarrels of his neighbours. In
winter he watched the snow-flakes fall, or had histories read to him.
As soon as the good weather came, he went out on his mule along the
lanes, amongst the green cornfields, and talked with the rustics, to
whom he gave advice. After many adventures, he had taken to wife a
damsel of high degree.
She was very fair, somewhat proud and serious. The horns of her
head-dress brushed against the lintel of the doors; the train of her
cloth gown trailed three paces behind her. Her household was ruled like
the interior of a monastery; every morning she gave out their work to
her servants, saw to the comfits and unguents, span on her distaff, or
embroidered altar-cloths. In answer to her prayers God granted her a
son.
Then there were great rejoicings, and a feast which lasted three days
and four nights, amid the illumination of torches, to the sound of
harps, on floors strawed with leafage. At it they ate the rarest
spices, with fowls as big as sheep; as a diversion, a dwarf came
out of a pasty; and when the bowls gave out, for the crowd was ever
increasing, they were obliged to drink from the horns and helmets.
The young mother was not present at those festivities. She stayed in
her bed and kept quiet. One evening she woke and saw, by a moonbeam
that shone in at the window, something like a shadow that moved. It was
an ancient in a frock of coarse stuff, with a chaplet at his side, a
wallet on his shoulder, with all the appearance of a hermit. He came up
to her pillow and said without opening his lips:
“Rejoice, O mother! Thy son will be a saint!”
She was about to cry out; but gliding upon the moon-ray he rose gently
into the air, then disappeared. The songs of the banquet sounded more
loudly than ever. She heard the voices of angels; and her head sank
back upon the pillow, which was surmounted by the bone of a martyr in a
frame of carbuncles.
Next day all the servants, when questioned, declared that they had not
seen any hermit. Dream or reality, this must have been a communication
from Heaven; but she was careful to say nothing about it, lest she
should be charged with pride.
The revellers departed at break of day; and Julian’s father was outside
the postern, where he had been seeing the last of them off, when all at
once a mendicant rose up before him in the mist. He was a gipsy with
plaited beard, silver rings on both his arms, and sparkling eyeballs.
With an inspired air he stammered these inconsequent words:
“Ah! ah! your son!... much blood!... much glory!... always fortunate!
An Emperor’s family.”
And, stooping to pick up his alms, he disappeared in the grass and
vanished.
The good castellan looked right and left and called his loudest. Not a
soul! The wind blew, the morning mists cleared away.
He attributed this vision to lightheadedness from want of sleep. “If I
talk about it,” he said to himself, “they will laugh at me.” However,
the splendours destined for his son dazzled him, although the promise
of them was by no means clear, and he even doubted whether he had heard
it.
The spouses kept their secrets from each other. But both cherished
the child with equal love; and, respecting him as one marked out by
God, they bestowed an infinity of care upon his person. His cradle was
stuffed with the finest down; a lamp in the shape of a dove burned over
it continually; three nurses lulled him to rest; and, well wrapped in
his swaddling-bands, his face rosy, and his eyes blue, with his brocade
cloak and his cap trimmed with pearls, he looked like a little Jesus.
His teeth came without his uttering a single moan.
When he was seven, his mother taught him to sing. To make him brave,
his father hoisted him on to a great horse. The child smiled with
satisfaction, and was not long in learning everything about chargers.
A very learned old monk instructed him in the Holy Scriptures, Arabic
cyphering, Latin letters, and the art of drawing dainty pictures on
vellum. They worked together away up at the top of a tower, out of the
noise.
The lesson finished, they went down to the garden, where, walking about
side by side, they studied the flowers.
Sometimes they would see a string of pack-animals making their way
along the bottom of the vale conducted by a man on foot in Oriental
garb. The castellan, who had recognized him for a merchant, would send
a servant to him. The stranger, taking confidence, turned out of his
way, and, taken into the parlour, he brought out of his coffers pieces
of velvet and silk, jewellery, aromatics, strange things of which
the use was unknown; in the end the honest man went away with great
gain, without having suffered any violence. At other times a group of
pilgrims would knock at the door. Their wet garments smoked before the
fire; and when they were fed they told their travels: the wanderings of
barks on the foaming sea, marches on foot through the burning sands,
the ferocity of the Paynims, the caverns of Syria, the Cradle and the
Sepulchre. Then they gave the young lord cockle-shells from their
mantles.
Often the castellan feasted his old companions-in-arms. As they drank,
they recalled their wars, the assaults on fortresses with battering
of engines and prodigious wounds. Julian, who was listening, uttered
shouts at what he heard; thereupon his father had no doubt that he
would some day be a conqueror. But in the evening, when the angelus
sounded, as he passed between the bowing poor, he put his hand in
his purse with such modesty and such a noble air that his mother was
certain he would be an archbishop in course of time.
His place in chapel was beside his parents; and however long the
offices might be he remained on his knees at his faldstool, his bonnet
on the ground and his hands clasped.
One day during Mass, on raising his head, he noticed a little white
mouse which came out of a hole in the wall. It ran on to the first
step of the altar, and, after two or three turns to right and left,
made off the same way. Next Sunday the thought that he might see it
again troubled him. It came back; and each Sunday he waited for it, was
annoyed by it, and was seized by hatred of it, and resolved to make
away with it.
So, having shut the door and scattered some crumbs of cake on the
steps, he stationed himself before the hole with a switch in his hand.
After a very long time a pink muzzle appeared, then all the mouse. He
struck a light blow and remained stupefied before the tiny body that no
longer moved. A drop of blood stained the pavement. He wiped it off
hastily with his sleeve, threw the mouse outside, and said nothing
about it to any one.
All sorts of small birds picked at the seeds in the garden. He took
it into his head to put peas into a hollow reed. When he heard a
twittering in the garden, he approached softly, then raised his tube,
puffed his cheeks, and the little creatures rained upon his shoulders
so abundantly that he could not keep from laughing, overjoyed at his
mischief.
One morning, as he was returning along the wall, he caught sight of a
big pigeon on top of the rampart, pouting in the sun. Julian stopped to
look at it; there was a gap in the wall just there, a splinter of stone
came to his hand. He bent his arm, and the stone knocked down the bird,
which fell in a heap into the moat.
He hurried down, tearing himself on the bushes, searching everywhere,
more active than a young dog.
The pigeon was quivering with broken wings, hanging in the branches of
a privet-bush.
Its persistence in life irritated the child. He set about wringing its
neck, and the bird’s convulsions made his heart beat, and filled it
with a savage and tumultuous pleasure. When it at last stiffened, he
felt himself fainting.
That evening, at supper, his father declared that a boy of his age
ought to learn venery; and he went to look for an old manuscript
containing all the pastime of the chase in question and answer. In it
a master showed his pupil the art of entering dogs and manning hawks,
of setting snares, how to recognize the stag by his fumets, the fox by
his footprints, the wolf by his pads; the best way to discover their
tracks, how they are started, and where their refuges usually are; what
are the most favourable winds, with an enumeration of the calls and
rules of the quarry.
When Julian could repeat all those things by heart, his father made up
a pack of hounds for him.
First were to be seen four and twenty Barbary greyhounds, faster
than gazelles, but apt to get out of hand; then seventeen couples
of Breton dogs, spotted with white on a red ground, unfaltering in
their obedience to command, strong-chested and deep-throated. For the
attack of the wild boar and perilous lairs, there were forty griffons,
hairy as bears. Mastiffs from Tartary, almost as tall as asses,
flame-coloured, broad-backed and straight-legged, were meant to pursue
the aurochs. The black coat of the spaniels gleamed like satin; the
yelping of the talbots rivalled the music of the beagles. In a separate
yard, rattling their chains and rolling their eyes, growled eight Alan
bulldogs, formidable brutes, which would spring at a horseman’s belly
and were not afraid of lions.
They all were fed on wheaten bread, drank from stone troughs, and bore
sonorous names.
The falconry, perhaps, even excelled the kennel. The good lord, by dint
of money, had procured tercels from the Caucasus, sakers from Babylon,
gerfalcons from Germany, and peregrine falcons captured on the cliffs
by the shores of frozen seas in distant lands. They were lodged in a
shed covered with thatch, and, fastened in order of their size on the
perch, had a sod of turf before them, on which they were set from time
to time to keep them limber.
Purse-nets, hooks, spring-traps, all sorts of gins, were constructed.
Often they took out to the fields spaniels, which very soon stood. Then
the huntsmen, advancing step by step, cautiously spread an immense net
over their motionless bodies. A word made them bark; quails started up;
and the ladies of the neighbourhood, who had been invited with their
husbands, the children and the waiting-women, all threw themselves upon
them and caught them easily.
At other times, a drum was beaten to start the hares; foxes fell into
trenches, or else a spring opened and caught a wolf by the foot.
But Julian despised those easy artifices; he preferred to hunt far
away from other people, with his horse and his hawk. It was almost
always a great tartaret from Scythia, white as snow. Its leather hood
was surmounted by a plume, golden bells trembled on its blue feet; and
it sat fast on its master’s wrist while his horse galloped and the
plains unrolled beneath them. Julian, unfastening its leashes, loosed
it all at once; the brave bird mounted straight into the air like an
arrow; and two unequal specks could be seen twisting, meeting, then
disappearing in the heights of the azure. The falcon was not long in
descending, tearing some bird in pieces, and came to resume its place
on its master’s gauntlet, its two wings trembling.
In this fashion Julian flew the heron, the kite, the crow, and the
vulture.
He loved, sounding his horn, to follow his dogs as they ran along the
hill-sides, leapt the brooks, climbed up to the woods; and when the
stag began to sigh under their bites he struck it down swiftly, then
took pleasure in the fury of the mastiffs as they devoured it, cut in
pieces upon its reeking hide.
On misty days, he hid himself in a marsh to watch for geese, otters and
wild duck.
Three squires waited for him at break of day at the foot of the porch,
and the old monk, leaning out of his attic window, made signs to him in
vain. Julian did not turn back, he went his way in the heat of the sun,
in the rain, in storm, drank water from the springs in his hand, ate
wild apples as he trotted; if he was tired, he rested beneath an oak;
and he came home at midnight covered with blood and mire, with thorns
in his hair and smelling of wild beasts. He became like them. When his
mother embraced him, he submitted coldly to her clasp, and appeared to
be dreaming of something deep.
He slew bears with blows of his hunting-knife, bulls with the axe, wild
boars with the spear; and once, even, without so much as a stick, he
defended himself against wolves which were gnawing some corpses beneath
a gallows.
* * * * *
One winter morning, he set out before daylight, well equipped, a
cross-bow on his shoulder and a quiverful of bolts at his saddle-bow.
His Danish jennet, followed by two basset-hounds, made the ground ring
as it walked with even pace. Drops of sleet clung to his mantle, a
strong breeze was blowing. One side of the horizon cleared; and in the
paleness of the twilight he saw some rabbits running about at the mouth
of their burrows. The two basset-hounds suddenly dashed upon them, and
with a quick shake to this side and that broke their necks.
Soon he entered a wood. On the end of a branch a capercaillie benumbed
with cold was sleeping with its head under its wing. Julian sliced off
both its feet with a backhanded stroke of his sword, and went on his
way without picking it up.
Three hours later he found himself on the peak of a mountain so high
that the sky seemed almost black. Before him a rock like a long wall
sloped down and overhung a precipice; and at its end two wild goats
looked down into the abyss. As he had not his bolts, for he had left
his horse behind, he determined to climb down to them; crouching,
bare-footed, he at last reached the first of the goats and plunged
a poniard between its ribs. The second, seized with terror, leapt
into space. Julian darted forward to strike it, and, his right foot
slipping, he fell across the carcase of the other, his face over the
abyss and his arms out-stretched.
Having got down to the plain again, he followed the willows that
fringed a stream. Cranes, flying very low, passed over his head from
time to time. Julian felled them with his whip and never missed one.
Meanwhile the warmer air had melted the rime, great mists floated about
and the sun appeared. He saw shining far away a frozen lake, which
looked like lead. In the middle of the lake was a beast which Julian
did not know, a beaver with its black muzzle. In spite of the distance,
a bolt brought it down; and he was vexed not to be able to carry away
its skin.
Then he went on through an avenue of great trees which formed a sort of
triumphal arch with their crowns at the edge of a forest. A roe-deer
sprang out of a thicket, a fallow-deer appeared in a cross-way, a
badger came out of a hole, a peacock on the grass displayed its
tail;--and, when he had killed them all, more roe-deer presented
themselves, more fallow-deer, more badgers, more peacocks, and
blackbirds, jays, polecats, foxes, hedgehogs, lynxes, an infinity of
beasts, more numerous at every step. They played about him, trembling,
with sweet and supplicating looks. But Julian never grew tired of
killing them, now winding his cross-bow, now unsheathing his sword,
now thrusting with his cutlass, without a thought in his mind, without
recollection of anything whatsoever. He was hunting in some country
somewhere, from a time unknown, simply because he was there, everything
done with the ease experienced in dreams. An extraordinary spectacle
arrested him. Stags filled a valley shaped like a circus; and huddled
one against the other they warmed themselves with their breaths, which
could be seen reeking in the mist.
The prospect of such carnage choked him with delight for some minutes.
Then he dismounted, turned up his sleeves, and began to shoot.
At the whistling of the first bolt, all the stags turned round their
heads at once. Gaps showed in their mass; plaintive voices sounded, and
a great commotion agitated the herd.
The sides of the valley were too high for them to clear. They sprang
about in the enclosure, seeking to escape. Julian aimed, let go, and
his arrows fell like the rainstreaks in a storm-shower. The maddened
stags fought, reared, climbed upon one another; and their bodies locked
by their antlers made a great hillock which crumbled away as it moved.
At last they were dead, lying on the sand, the foam at their nostrils,
their entrails protruding, the heaving of their flanks subsiding by
degrees. Then all was still.
Night was about to fall; and behind the wood, between the branches, the
sky was like a lake of blood.
Julian leant his back against a tree. With listless eye he contemplated
the enormity of the massacre, not understanding how he had been able to
do it.
On the other side of the valley, at the edge of the forest, he saw a
stag, a hind and her fawn.
The stag, which was black and of monstrous size, had sixteen points
and a white beard. The hind, light as withered leaves in colour, was
browsing on the grass; and the dappled fawn sucked at her dug without
hindering her progress.
The cross-bow snored once again. The fawn, that same instant, was
killed. Then its dam, looking to the sky, brayed in a voice deep,
heart-rending, human. With a shot full in the breast the exasperated
Julian stretched her on the earth.
The great stag had seen him, and gave a spring. Julian discharged his
last bolt at him. It struck his forehead and remained fixed there.
The great stag did not seem to feel it; striding over the dead he kept
advancing, was about to charge down upon him and disembowel him; and
Julian drew back in unspeakable terror. The prodigious animal halted;
and with flaming eyes, solemn as a patriarch or a justiciary, while a
bell tolled in the distance, it thrice repeated:
“Accursed! Accursed! Accursed! Some day, ferocious heart, thou wilt
murder thy father and mother!”
It bent its knees, closed its eyelids gently, and died.
Julian was stupefied, then overcome by sudden fatigue; and an immense
disgust, an immense sadness, took possession of him. With his head in
both his hands, he wept a long time.
His horse was lost; his dogs had left him; the solitude which enfolded
him seemed all menacing with vague perils. Then, seized with fright, he
took a way across country, chose a path at hazard, and found himself
almost immediately at the castle-gate.
That night he did not sleep. Under the swaying of the hanging lamp he
continually saw the great black stag. Its prediction obsessed him; he
fought against it. “No, no, no! I cannot kill them!” Then he thought,
“But what if I wished it?” And he was in dread lest the Devil should
inspire him with the desire.
For three long months, his mother prayed in anguish at his pillow, and
his father walked continually up and down the corridors in anguish,
groaning. He summoned the most famous master-leeches, who ordered
quantities of drugs. Julian’s malady, they said, was caused by some
noxious wind or some amorous desire. But to all questions the young man
shook his head.
* * * * *
His strength came back to him; and they walked him out in the
courtyard, the old monk and the good lord each supporting him by an arm.
When he was completely restored, he refrained obstinately from the
chase.
His father, wishing to cheer him, made him a present of a great Saracen
sword.
It was at the top of a pillar, in a trophy. To reach it a ladder was
required. Julian climbed it. The heavy sword slipped through his
fingers, and grazed the good lord so closely, as it fell, that his
gown was cut by it; Julian thought he had killed his father, and
fainted.
Thenceforth he had a dread of weapons. The sight of a naked blade made
him blench. This weakness caused great distress to his family.
At length the old monk commanded him in the name of God and for the
honour of his ancestors to resume the exercises of a gentleman.
The squires amused themselves every day with throwing the javelin. In
this Julian very soon excelled. He sent his into bottle-mouths, broke
the teeth of the weather-vanes, hit the nails-studs of the doors at a
hundred paces.
One summer evening, at the hour when the mist renders things
indistinct, he was under the trellis in the garden and saw down at the
end two white wings that fluttered at the height of the fence. He never
doubted but it was a stork; and he darted his javelin.
A piercing cry resounded.
It was his mother, whose head-dress with its long lappets remained
pinned to the wall.
Julian fled from the castle, and was never seen there again.
II
He joined himself to a band of adventurers who were passing.
He learned to know hunger, thirst, fevers, and vermin. He became
accustomed to the din of mellays and the sight of the dying. The wind
tanned his skin. His limbs became calloused by contact with his armour;
and since he was very strong, courageous, temperate, and of good
counsel, he had no trouble in obtaining the command of a company.
At the beginning of a battle he roused his soldiers with a great wave
of his sword. With a knotted rope he climbed the walls of citadels at
night, swayed about by the hurricane, while the drops of Greek fire
stuck to his cuirass, and the boiling pitch and melted lead streamed
down from the battlements. Often the hurtling of a stone shivered his
buckler. Bridges overloaded with men collapsed beneath him. With a
sweep of his mace he rid himself of fourteen horsemen. In the lists he
defeated all who came forward. More than a score of times he was taken
for dead.
Thanks to divine favour he always escaped; for he protected churchmen,
orphans, widows, and especially aged men. When he saw one of these last
walking in front of him, he called to him, in order to see his face, as
if he were afraid of killing him by mistake.
Fugitive slaves, revolted peasants, portionless bastards, all sorts of
desperate men flocked to his banner, and he gathered an army of his own.
It increased. He became famous. He was sought after.
He aided in turn the Dauphin of France and the King of England, the
Templars of Jerusalem, the Surenas of the Parthians, the Negus of
Abyssinia, and the Emperor of Calicut. He fought Scandinavians covered
with fish-scales, negroes furnished with targets of hippopotamus hide
and mounted on red asses, golden-skinned Indians, brandishing above
their diadems broad sabres brighter than mirrors. He vanquished the
Troglodytes and the Anthropophagi. He traversed regions so torrid that
under the burning heat of the sun the hair of men’s heads took fire of
itself like torches; and others so icy that men’s arms came away from
their bodies and fell to the ground; and countries where there were so
many fogs that they marched surrounded by phantoms.
States in difficulty consulted him. He obtained unhoped-for terms in
interviews with ambassadors. If a monarch governed ill, he arrived
suddenly and remonstrated with him. He set peoples free. He delivered
queens shut up in towers. It was he, and no other, who smote the great
serpent of Milan and the dragon of Oberbirbach.
Now, the Emperor of Occitania, having triumphed over the Spanish
Mussulmans, had united in concubinage with the sister of the Caliph
of Cordova, and had a daughter by her, whom he had brought up as a
Christian. But the Caliph, making as if he wished to be converted, came
to him on a visit accompanied by a numerous escort, massacred all his
garrison and plunged him into a dungeon-pit, where he treated him most
harshly, in order to extract treasure from him.
Julian hastened to his aid, destroyed the army of the infidels, laid
siege to the town, slew the Caliph, cut off his head, and threw it like
a ball over the ramparts. Then he took the Emperor from his prison and
caused him to remount his throne in presence of all his court.
As the price of such a service, the Emperor presented him with much
silver in baskets; Julian would have none of it. Believing that he
desired more, he offered him three-quarters of his wealth; another
refusal. Then to share his kingdom; Julian thanked him and declined.
And the Emperor wept for vexation, not knowing how to testify his
gratitude, when he struck his forehead, said a word into the ear of
a courtier, the curtains of a tapestry were raised, and a young girl
appeared.
Her great black eyes shone like two soft lamps. A charming smile parted
her lips. The ringlets of her hair were caught in the jewels on her
open dress; and under the transparence of her tunic her youthful form
was half-revealed. She was all dainty and plump, with a slender waist.
Julian was dazzled with love, the more so as he had so far led a life
of extreme chastity.
So he received the Emperor’s daughter in marriage, with a castle which
she held of her mother; and, the nuptials ended, they parted with no
end of compliments on either side.
The palace was of white marble, built in the Moresque style, on a
headland, in a grove of orange-trees. Terraces of flowers stretched
down to the border of a bay, where pink shells crunched under the feet.
Behind the castle extended a forest in the shape of a fan. The sky was
always blue, and the trees bent now beneath the sea-breeze, now beneath
the wind from the mountains that framed the distant horizon.
The rooms, full of twilight, were illumined by the incrustations upon
the walls. Tall columns, slender as reeds, supported the vaulting of
the cupolas, which were decorated with reliefs in imitation of the
stalactites of grottoes.
There were fountains in the halls, mosaics in the courtyards, festooned
partition-walls, a thousand refinements of architecture and everywhere
such silence that one could hear the rustling of a scarf or the echo of
a sigh.
Julian made war no longer. He rested, surrounded by a people at
peace; and each day a crowd passed before him with genuflexions and
hand-kissing in the Oriental fashion.
Clad in purple he leaned on his elbows in a window-recess and recalled
his hunts of bygone days; and he could have wished to be coursing over
the desert after the gazelles and the ostriches, to be hiding in the
bamboos on the watch for leopards, to be traversing the forests full of
rhinoceroses, climbing to the summit of the most inaccessible mountains
to get better aim at the eagles, or fighting the white bears on the
icebergs of the sea.
Sometimes in a dream he saw himself like our father Adam in the midst
of Paradise among all the beasts; he stretched out his arm and made
them die; or else they passed before him two by two in order of their
bigness, from the elephants and the lions to the ermines and the ducks,
as on the day when they entered Noah’s Ark. In the shade of a cavern he
darted unerring javelins upon them; others came; there was no end to
them; and he woke up rolling his eyes savagely.
Princes of his acquaintance invited him to hunt. He always refused,
thinking by this sort of penance to avert his misfortune; for it seemed
to him that the fate of his parents depended on the murder of the
animals. But he suffered from not seeing them, and his other desire
became intolerable.
To divert him his wife sent for jugglers and dancing-girls.
She walked with him, in an open litter, in the country; at other times
stretched on the side of a skiff they watched the fish straying in the
water clear as the sky. Often she threw flowers in his face; sitting at
his feet she drew music from a three-stringed mandoline; then, placing
her clasped hands on his shoulder, she would ask in a timid voice,
“Why, what ails you, my dear lord?”
He gave no reply, or burst into sobs; at last one day he confessed his
horrible thought.
She opposed it with very sound arguments: his father and mother were
probably dead; if ever he saw them again, by what chance, with what
purpose, would he come to work this abomination? Therefore his fears
were groundless, and he ought to take to hunting again.
Julian smiled as he heard her, but he did not decide to satisfy her
desire.
One evening in the month of August, when they were in their room, she
had just gone to bed, and he was kneeling for his prayers, when he
heard the barking of a fox, then light footsteps under the window; and
caught sight in the dusk of something that looked like animals. The
temptation was too strong. He took his quiver down from the peg.
She seemed surprised.
“It is to obey you!” he said, “I shall be back by sunrise.”
For all that, she was apprehensive of some unhappy accident.
He reassured her, then went out, astonished at the inconsequence of her
moods.
Soon afterwards a page came to announce that two strangers, in the
absence of the lord, asked to see the lady at once.
And soon came into the room an old man and an old woman, bent, dusty,
in coarse garments, each leaning on a staff.
They took courage and declared that they brought Julian news of his
parents.
She leant forward to listen to them.
Meanwhile, having understood each other by a glance, they asked her if
he always loved them still, if he ever spoke about them.
“Oh, yes,” she said.
Then they exclaimed:
“Well, we are they!” And they sat down very weary and overcome with
fatigue.
Nothing could persuade the young wife that her husband was their son.
They proved it to her by describing certain marks which he had on his
body.
She sprang from her couch, called her page, and a repast was set before
them.
Although they were very hungry, they could not eat much; and even at
a distance she could perceive the trembling of their gnarled hands as
they took the goblets.
They had a thousand questions to ask about Julian. She answered them
all, but was careful to say nothing about his gloomy notion with regard
to them.
When there was no sign of his return, they had left their castle; and
they had travelled for several years, following vague indications,
without losing hope. They had required so much money for the ferries
and in the hostelries, for the rights of princes and the exactions of
robbers, that they had come to the bottom of their purse and were now
begging. What matter, now that they were soon to embrace their son?
They extolled his happiness in having so gracious a wife, and never
wearied admiring her and kissing her.
The richness of the apartment astonished them greatly, and the old
man, having examined the walls, asked why they bore the blazon of the
Emperor of Occitania.
She replied:
“He is my father!”
At that he trembled, recalling the prediction of the gipsy, and the
old woman thought of the word of the hermit. Doubtless her son’s glory
was but the dawn of the splendours of eternity; and the pair remained
awestruck in the light of the candelabra which illumined the table.
They must have been very handsome in their youth. The mother still had
all her hair, the fine braids of which, like wreaths of snow, hung down
to the bottom of her cheeks; and the father, with his tall form and his
long beard, was like a church statue.
Julian’s wife counselled them not to wait for him. She put them to bed
herself in her own room, then closed the casement; they fell asleep.
Day was about to appear and outside the window the little birds were
beginning to sing.
* * * * *
Julian had crossed the park; and was marching in the forest with
vigorous step, rejoicing in the softness of the grass and the sweetness
of the air.
The shadows of the trees lay upon the moss. Sometimes the moon made
white patches in the glades, and he hesitated to go on, thinking that
he saw a sheet of water, or again the surface of calm pools blended
with the colour of the herbage. Everywhere was a great silence; and he
discovered none of the animals which had been roaming round his castle
only a few minutes before.
The wood became thicker, the darkness profound. Puffs of warm wind
passed by, full of softening perfumes. He sank in heaps of dead leaves,
and leant against an oak to take breath.
All at once, behind him leapt a darker mass, a wild boar. Julian
had not time to seize his bow, and grieved at that as if it were a
misfortune.
Then, coming out of the wood, he caught sight of a wolf slinking along
a hedge.
Julian sent an arrow after it. The wolf halted, turned its head to look
at him, and went on its way. It trotted on, always keeping the same
distance between them, halted now and then, and, as soon as it was
aimed at, took to flight again.
In this manner Julian traversed an interminable plain, then sandhills,
and found himself at last on a table-land commanding a great stretch
of country. Flat rocks were strewn among caves and ruins. He stumbled
over dead men’s bones; here and there mouldering crosses leaned over
in melancholy fashion. But shapes moved in the uncertain shadow of
the tombs, and out of it came hyenas, excited, panting. Their claws
clattering on the flagstones, they came up to him, and smelled him with
yawns that showed their gums. He unsheathed his sabre. They fled at
once in all directions and, continuing their limping and precipitate
gallop, were lost in the distance amid a cloud of dust.
An hour later, he met in a ravine a furious bull, his horns levelled,
pawing the sand with his hoof. Julian thrust his lance under his
dewlap. It shattered as if the animal had been made of brass; he shut
his eyes and waited for his death. When he opened them again, the bull
had disappeared.
At that his soul was overwhelmed with shame. A superior power was
taking away his strength; and he went back to the forest to return home.
It was entangled with creepers; and he was cutting them with his sabre
when a polecat suddenly slipped between his legs, a panther made a
spring over his shoulder, a serpent climbed in a spiral about an
ash-tree.
In its foliage was a monstrous jackdaw, which looked at Julian; and,
here and there, a number of great sparks showed among the branches, as
if the sky had caused all its stars to rain down on the forest. They
were the eyes of animals, wild cats, squirrels, owls, parrots, monkeys.
Julian darted his arrows at them; the arrows with their feathers
settled on the leaves like white butterflies. He hurled stones at them;
the stones fell back without hitting anything. He cursed himself, could
have struck himself, howled imprecations, was like to choke with rage.
And all the animals that he had pursued were represented, forming
a circle close about him. Some were squatted on their rumps, the
others standing at their full height. He stood in the centre, frozen
with terror, incapable of the smallest movement. By a supreme effort
of will, he took a step; the animals perched on the trees spread
their wings, those which trod the ground moved their limbs; and all
accompanied him.
The hyenas marched before him, the wolf and the wild boar behind. The
bull at his right hand rocked its head, and at his left the serpent
writhed through the plants, while the panther, with arched back,
advanced with velvety step in great strides. He moved as gently as
possible, not to irritate them, and from the depths of the thickets he
saw issuing porcupines, foxes, vipers, jackals and bears.
Julian started to run; they ran too. The serpent hissed, the
foul-smelling beasts drooled. The wild boar rubbed his heels with its
tusks, the wolf the palms of his hands with its hairy muzzle. The
monkeys grimaced as they pinched him, the polecat rolled over his feet.
A bear took away his bonnet with a back-stroke of its paw; and the
panther scornfully let fall an arrow which it carried in its mouth.
A certain irony was evident in their stealthy proceedings. Looking at
him out of the corner of their eyes, they seemed to be meditating a
plan of revenge; and, deafened by the humming of insects, beaten by
birds’ tails, suffocated by breaths, he walked with his arms stretched
forward, his eyelids closed, like a blind man, without even the
strength to cry “Mercy!”
The crow of a cock vibrated in the air. Others answered it; it was day;
and over the orange-trees he recognized the summit of his palace.
Then, at the edge of a field, he saw, three paces off, some red
partridges fluttering in the stubble. He undid his cloak and flung it
over them like a net. When he uncovered them, he could find only one,
and that one long dead and rotten.
This deception exasperated him more than all the others. His thirst for
carnage came back to him; failing beasts, he could have massacred men.
He climbed the three terraces, burst in the door with a blow of his
fist; but at the foot of the stairs the thought of his dear wife
relieved his heart. She was sleeping, no doubt, and he would go and
surprise her.
Having drawn off his sandals, he turned the lock gently and entered.
The leaded panes obscured the pale light of the dawn. Julian caught his
feet in some garments on the floor; further on, he stumbled against
a side-board still covered with dishes. “She must have been eating,”
he said to himself, and went towards the bed, which was lost in the
darkness of the farther side of the room. When he reached the bed-side,
in order to embrace his wife, he leant over the pillow where the two
heads were reposing side by side. Thereupon he felt the touch of a
beard against his mouth.
He recoiled, thinking he was going mad; but he returned to the
bed-side, and his fingers, as he felt about, came against hair which
was very long. To convince himself of his error, he passed his hand
gently over the pillow yet again. It was indeed a beard, this time, and
a man!--a man lying with his wife!
Bursting into a wrath beyond measure, he fell upon them with his
poniard; and he stamped and foamed, with howls like a savage beast.
Then he stopped. The dead, pierced to the heart, had not so much as
moved. He listened attentively to the two groanings almost equal, and,
as they subsided, another one far away continued them. Indistinct at
first, this plaintive, long-drawn voice came nearer, became loud,
cruel: and to his terror he recognized it for the belling of the great
black stag.
And, as he turned round, he thought he saw in the door-way the phantom
of his wife, light in hand.
The din of the murder had brought her. With one staring glance she
comprehended all, and, flying in horror, let fall her candle.
He picked it up.
His father and mother lay before him, stretched on their backs, with
their bosoms pierced; and their countenances, of a majestic gentleness,
were as if they guarded some eternal secret. Smears and clots of blood
showed on their white skin, on the sheets, on the floor, upon an ivory
crucifix hanging in the alcove. The crimson reflection of the window,
touched at that moment by the sun, lit up those crimson stains, and
cast yet others all over the apartment. Julian went up to the two
bodies saying to himself, trying to persuade himself, that it could
not be, that he was mistaken, that there are sometimes extraordinary
resemblances. At last he stooped to look more closely at the old man;
and he saw between the half-closed eyelids a lifeless eye that burnt
him like fire. Then he crossed to the other side of the couch, occupied
by the other corpse, the face of which was partially concealed by
its white hair. Julian passed his hand under its braids, lifted its
head;--and he gazed at it, holding it at the length of his rigid arm,
while he lighted himself with the candle in his other hand. Some drops
soaking through the mattress fell one by one upon the boards.
At the end of the day he presented himself before his wife; and, in a
voice unlike his own, commanded her first, not to answer him, not to
come near him, not even to look at him, then to follow, under pain of
damnation, all his orders, which were irrevocable.
The obsequies were to be carried out according to the instructions
which he had left in writing on a faldstool in the chamber of the dead.
He left her his palace, his vassals, all his possessions, not even
retaining the clothes on his body, nor his sandals, which they would
find at the top of the staircase.
She had obeyed the will of God in being the occasion of his crime, and
was to pray for his soul, since thenceforward he should be as one dead.
* * * * *
The dead were magnificently interred in the chapel of a monastery three
days’ journey from the castle. A monk with his cowl drawn over his head
followed the train far apart from the rest, and no one dared to speak
to him.
During the Mass he remained flat on his belly in the porch, his arms
out-stretched in a cross, and his brow in the dust.
After the burial, they saw him take the road that led to the mountains.
He turned round several times, and at last disappeared.
III
He went away, begging his bread through the world.
He held out his hand to horsemen on the highways, approached the
harvesters with genuflexions, or remained motionless before the
barriers of courts; and his visage was so sad that they never refused
him alms.
In his humility he told his story; thereupon all fled from him,
crossing themselves. In the villages where he had already passed, as
soon as he was recognized, they shut the doors, shouted threats at
him, threw stones at him. The more charitable set a dish on their
window-sill, then closed the shutter so as not to see him.
Repulsed everywhere, he avoided men; and nourished himself with roots,
plants, wild fruits, and shell-fish which he sought along the shores.
Sometimes on turning a hill he would see below him a confusion of
crowded roofs, with stone spires, bridges, towers, black streets
crossing one another, whence a continual hum rose up to his ears.
The need of mingling with the existence of others would force him
to descend to the town. But the brutish air of the faces, the din
of occupations, the indifference of their talk, froze his heart. On
feast-days, when the great bell of some cathedral filled the whole
people with joy from break of day, he watched the inhabitants issuing
from their houses, then the dances in the squares, the fountains
running ale at the crossings, the damask hangings outside the lodgings
of princes, and at evening, through the panes of the ground-floors, the
long family tables, where grandparents held little children on their
knees; sobs choked him and he turned back to the country.
He contemplated with transports of love the foals in the pastures, the
birds in their nests, the insects on the flowers; at his approach all
fled farther away, hid themselves in alarm, flew off as fast as they
could.
He sought the solitudes again. But the wind brought what seemed groans
of death-agony to his ear; the tears of the dew falling to earth
recalled other drops of heavier weight to his mind. The sun showed like
blood in the clouds every evening; and every night, in a dream, his
parricide began anew.
He made himself a haircloth shirt with iron points. He climbed on his
two knees up every hill that had a chapel on its summit. But pitiless
thought obscured the splendours of the sanctuaries, and tortured him
amid the macerations of his penance.
He did not revolt against God who had inflicted this deed upon him, and
yet he was in despair to think that he could have wrought it.
His own person caused him such horror that he adventured himself in
perils in the hope of delivering himself from it. He saved paralytics
from fires, children from the bottom of gulfs. The abyss rejected him,
the flames spared him.
Time did not ease his sufferings. They became intolerable. He resolved
to die.
And one day that he found himself at the edge of a fountain, as he
stooped over it to judge the depth of the water, he saw facing him an
old man, all fleshless, with white beard and so lamentable an aspect
that he could not restrain his tears. The other wept also. Without
recognizing his own reflection, Julian had a confused remembrance of a
face that resembled it. He uttered a cry; it was his father; and he had
no more thought of killing himself.
So bearing about the burden of his memory he covered many countries;
and he arrived beside a river the crossing of which was dangerous
because of its violence, and because there was a great stretch of mud
on its banks. No one had dared to cross it for a long time.
An old boat, sunk by the stern, reared its prow among the reeds. On
examining it, Julian discovered a pair of oars; and the thought struck
him to employ his existence in the service of others.
He began by establishing a sort of causeway on the bank, which would
permit of descending to the channel; and he broke his nails dislodging
enormous stones, thrust his stomach against them to move them, slid in
the mud, sunk in it, all but perished several times.
Then he repaired the boat with some wreckage, and built himself a cabin
with clay and tree-trunks.
When the ferry became known, travellers presented themselves. They
summoned him from the other bank by waving flags; Julian quickly sprang
into his boat. It was very heavy; and they overloaded it with all sort
of baggage and bundles, not to speak of the beasts of burden, which,
plunging with terror, increased the encumbrance. He asked nothing for
his trouble; some gave him scraps of victuals that they took from
their wallets, or worn-out clothes that they no longer wanted. Rough
characters vociferated blasphemies. Julian reproached them gently, and
they retorted with insults. He contented himself with blessing them.
A little table, a stool, a bed of dead leaves and three earthenware
cups, that was all his furniture. Two holes in the wall served for
windows. On one side, as far as the eye could reach, extended sterile
plains with pale meres on their surface here and there; and in front
of him the great river rolled its greenish waves. In spring the humid
earth had an odour of rottenness. Then a wanton wind would raise the
dust in clouds. It came in everywhere, muddied the water, crunched
under his teeth. A little later, there were clouds of mosquitoes,
whose trumpeting and stinging never ceased day or night. Next came
cruel frosts, which gave things the rigidity of stone and caused a mad
longing to eat flesh.
Months passed without Julian seeing any person. Often he closed his
eyes, trying by way of memory to return to his youth;--and a castle
yard appeared with greyhounds in a porch, serving-men in the hall, and
beneath an arbour of vines a fair-haired youth between an old man in
furs and a lady with a great head-dress; all at once the two corpses
were there. He threw himself flat on his face upon his bed and weeping
repeated:
“Ah, poor father! poor mother! poor mother!” and fell into a swoon in
which the doleful visions continued.
* * * * *
One night as he slept he thought he heard some one calling him. He
listened intently and could make out nothing but the roaring of the
waves. But the same voice repeated:
“Julian!”
It came from the other side, which seemed extraordinary, considering
the breadth of the river.
A third time the call came:
“Julian!”
And the loud voice had the tone of a church-bell.
Lighting his lantern he went out of his cabin. A furious hurricane
filled the night. The darkness was profound, rent here and there by the
whiteness of leaping waves.
After a moment’s hesitation, Julian unfastened the moorings. The water
immediately became calm, the boat glided upon it and touched the other
bank, where a man was waiting.
He was wrapped in a tattered sheet, his face like a plaster mask, and
his two eyes redder than coals. On holding his lantern to him, Julian
saw that he was covered with a hideous leprosy; yet he had in his
bearing a sort of kingly majesty.
As soon as he entered the boat, it sank prodigiously, crushed under his
weight; a shock sent it up again, and Julian began to row.
At each stroke of the oar the surge of the waves heaved up the bow.
The water, blacker than ink, rushed furiously past either side of the
planking. It scooped out abysses, it made mountains, and the skiff now
leaped up, now sank back into depths where it spun round, tossed about
by the wind.
Julian bent his back, stretched his arms, and taking a purchase with
his feet, came back, bending from his waist, in order to get more
power. The hail lashed his hands, the rain ran down his back, the
violence of the wind choked him, he halted. Then the boat was carried
away by the current. But, comprehending that some great thing was
afoot, some order which he durst not disobey, he took to his oars
again; and the creaking of the tholes broke on the clamour of the
tempest.
The little lantern burned in front of him. Birds flying past hid it at
intervals. But he saw always the eyes of the Leper, who sat up in the
stern immobile as a column.
And this lasted long, very long!
When they arrived in the cabin, Julian shut the door; and he saw him
sitting on the stool. The sort of shroud that covered him had fallen
to his haunches; and his shoulders, his chest, his meagre arms, were
hidden under patches of scaly pustules. Enormous wrinkles furrowed his
brow. Like a skeleton, he had a hole in place of a nose; and his bluish
lips gave out a breath as thick as a fog and nauseating.
“I’m hungry,” he said.
Julian gave him what he had, an old piece of bacon and the crusts of a
black loaf.
When he had devoured them, the table, the dish, and the haft of the
knife all bore the same marks as were to be seen on his body.
Next he said, “I’m thirsty!”
Julian went to get his pitcher; and as he took it an aroma came from it
which made his heart swell and his nostrils dilate, it was wine; what
a find! But the Leper put out his arm and emptied the whole pitcher at
one draught.
Then he said, “I’m cold!”
With his candle Julian set light to a bundle of fern in the middle of
the hut.
The Leper went to it to warm himself; and, squatted on his heels, he
trembled in every limb, became weaker; his eyes no longer shone, his
sores ran, and in a voice almost inaudible he murmured:
“Your bed!”
Julian aided him gently to drag himself to it, and even spread over
him, to cover him, the sail of his boat.
The Leper groaned. The corners of his mouth exposed his teeth, a
quicker rattle shook his breast, and at each breath his belly sank in
to his backbone.
Then he closed his eyelids.
“My bones are like ice! Come beside me!”
And Julian, lifting up the canvas, lay down on the dead leaves, beside
him.
The Leper turned his head.
“Undress yourself, so that I can have the warmth of your body!”
Julian stripped off his garments, then, naked as at the day of his
birth, got into bed again, and against his thigh he felt the Leper’s
skin, colder than a serpent and rough as a file.
He tried to cheer him, and the other answered panting:
“Ah, I am dying!... Come close to me, warm me! No, not with your hands!
No, with your whole body!”
Julian stretched himself full length upon him, mouth against mouth and
breast against breast.
Then the Leper caught him in his embrace, and his eyes all at once
assumed the brightness of stars; his hair lengthened out like sunbeams,
the breath of his nostrils had the sweetness of roses; a cloud of
incense rose from the hearth; the waves sang. There at a fulness of
delight, a joy more than human, descended like a flood upon Julian’s
fainting soul; and he whose arms clasped him grew greater and greater;
till he touched either wall of the hut with his head and feet. The
roof flew off, the firmament opened wide,--and Julian mounted up to
the azure spaces, face to face with Our Lord Jesus, who bore him away
into Heaven.
* * * * *
Such is the story of Saint Julian Hospitator, almost exactly as it is
to be seen in a church-window in my native province.
THE GATE-KEEPER
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
Her Majesty the Queen of Bohemia--for story-tellers there will always
be a kingdom of Bohemia--is travelling in the strictest and most
modest incognito, under the name of the Comtesse des Sept-Châteaux and
accompanied only by the old Baroness de Georgenthal, her reader, and
General Horschowitz, her gentleman in waiting.
In spite of their hot-water pans and furs, it has been cold all the
time in their reserved compartment, and when the Queen, tired of her
English novel, or fidgetted by the general’s knitting--for the general
knits--wished to look out at the landscape white with snow, she was
forced to rub a moment with her handkerchief on the carriage-window,
which the frost covered with sparkling crystals and delicate ferns of
ice. It is a singular caprice indeed that her Majesty has had, and well
worthy of a twenty-year-old head, to set out for Paris in mid-winter,
there to meet her mother, the Queen of Moravia, though she had arranged
to see her at Prague next spring. In spite of that, she must needs
start on her journey in ten degrees below zero, the baroness has had
to shake up her old rheumatic bones, the general, in despair, has
left a magnificent bedspread behind him that he was busy knitting for
his daughter-in-law, taking nothing with him to beguile the tedium of
the journey but material for a modest pair of worsted stockings. The
journey has been bad; all Europe is covered with snow, and they have
come half-way across, with many delays and difficulties, on railways
where the service is disorganized by the severity of the season. At
last the end is coming near; this evening, at nine o’clock, they have
dined in the refreshment room at Mâcon, and now, though to-night the
foot-warmers are once more barely lukewarm, and outside the great
flakes whirl in the darkness, the baroness and the general, slumbering
under their furred mantles and their rugs, dream in their corners of
their arrival and their stay in Paris, where the good lady will be
able to fulfil a special little piece of devotion, and where the old
campaigner will betake himself without delay to a certain wool-shop in
the Rue Saint-Honoré, the only one where he can match his green skeins
to his satisfaction.
As for the Queen, she is not sleeping.
Feverish and shivering in her great blue-fox pelisse, her elbow in the
padded rest, and her hand clenched amid the disorder of her magnificent
straw-coloured hair which escapes from her smart travelling toque,
she is reflecting, her great eyes open in the half-shadow, listening
mechanically to the vague and distant music that the tired ears of
travellers fancy they hear in the iron gallop of an express. She
reviews in memory all her existence, poor young Queen, and she reflects
that she is very unhappy.
* * * * *
First she sees herself again as the little princess with red hands
and a flat waist, beside her twin sister, the one who is married far
away in the North, her sister whom she loved so, and who resembled
her so closely that when they were dressed alike they had to have
different-coloured bows put in their hair to distinguish them. That was
before the rising had overthrown her parents’ throne; and she loved the
calm, sleepy atmosphere of the little court of Olmutz, where etiquette
was tempered with homeliness; that was the time when her father, the
good King Louis V., who has since died in exile of a broken heart,
used to take her for a walk across the park, without laying aside
his court-suit and his stars, to drink coffee with her sister at
four o’clock in the afternoon, in a Chinese pavilion overrun with
convolvulus and virgin’s bower, from which the course of the river was
seen and the distant amphitheatre of the hills reddened by the autumn.
Then there was her marriage and the grand state-ball, on that lovely
night in July, when they heard through the open windows the murmur
ascending from the crowd that thronged the illuminated gardens. How
she trembled when she had been left alone for an instant in the
conservatory with the young King! Yet she loved him already, she had
always loved him from her first glimpse of him, when he had advanced,
the white aigrette in his busby, so elegant and supple in his blue
uniform all over diamonds, at each step jingling the curved gold spurs
on his little grey boots with a thousand folds. After the first waltz
Ottokar had taken her arm, and, caressing his long black moustache all
the time, had led her to the conservatory, had made her sit down under
a great palm, then, placing himself beside her and taking her hand
with the most noble ease, had said to her, looking her in the eyes,
“Princess, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?” Then she had
blushed, bowed her head, and replied, repressing with one hand the mad
beating of her heart, “Yes, Sire!” while the furious violins of the
Hungarians attacked all together the first notes of the Czech March,
that sublime song of enthusiasm and triumph!
Alas, how quickly that happiness had taken wings! Six months of error
and illusion, barely six months, and then, one day, when soon to become
a mother, a brutal chance had informed her that she had been deceived,
that the King did not love her, never had loved her, that the very
day after his marriage he had supped with La Gazella, the _première
danseuse_ at the Prague Theatre, a common strumpet. And that was not
all! She had then learned what every one knew but herself, Ottokar’s
old liaison with the Comtesse de Pzibrann, by whom he had three
children, whom he had never quitted amid a hundred passing fancies, and
whom he had had the audacity to make first lady in waiting to his wife.
At one blow the Queen’s love was killed, that frail and timid love
which she had never dared to avow to her husband, and which she now
compared to the pet bird that she had smothered when she was a little
girl through closing her hand suddenly at the noise of a Chinese vase
broken by a housemaid.
Her son! To be sure she had a son, and she loved him; but, dreadful
thought, very often, when seated beside the gilded cradle adorned
with the royal crown in which her little Ladislas was sleeping, the
Queen had felt an icy pang shoot through her heart as she looked at
the child, begotten by a man who had cruelly, cynically outraged her.
Besides, she never had him to herself, at least to herself alone.
Things were not as they had been at home with her good parents, whom--a
fresh grief--a revolution had lately driven far away, and everything in
this old-fashioned and pompous court of Bohemia was done according to
the laws of the most rigid ceremonial. A whole swarm of duennas and dry
nurses, ancient ladies with grand airs and imposing head-gear, bustled
about the royal cradle, and, when the Queen went to look at her son and
embrace him, they would say to her solemnly, “His Highness was coughing
a little during the night.... His Highness’s teeth are troubling
him....” And she felt as if the icy breaths of those women blew on her
mother’s heart to freeze it and extinguish it.
Ah, she was indeed helpless, poor Queen, and life was too cruel!
So sometimes, giving way to vexation and weariness, she obtained
permission from the King to go and see the Queen of Moravia, a refugee
in France; she escaped away, she stole out as if from a prison--alone,
for tradition forbade the Heir Apparent to travel without his
father--and she hastened to pour out all her tears, with her arms round
the neck of her grey-haired mother.
This time she had left suddenly, without asking permission, and after
a hasty kiss on the brow of the sleeping Ladislas; for she was almost
mad with disgust and shame. The King’s debauchery was becoming more
notorious every day; he now had establishments and families in all the
towns of Bohemia, at all his hunting-resorts. It was food for derision
everywhere, and satirical verses were sung in the streets of Prague,
asking what was to become of this illegitimate race, and if Ottokar,
like Augustus the Strong in his day, would not form a squadron of Life
Guards from his bastards. To meet the expense of such a warren, the
King was turning everything into money, was exhausting and burdening
the state. The trade in decorations was particularly scandalous, and a
case was quoted of a tailor in Vienna who had made a fortune by selling
connoisseurs of foreign crosses, for five hundred florins, black coats,
in the pocket and button-hole of which the purchaser found the diploma
and ribbon of Bohemia’s most illustrious order, a military order that
dates back to the Thirty Years’ War.
* * * * *
But what is the matter? For the last minute the train has been slowing
down; it stops. What is the meaning of this halt in the open country,
at dead of night? The general and the baroness have waked up, much
alarmed; and the gentleman in waiting, having let down the window,
leans out into the darkness, and, see, the guard’s lamp, who was
running alongside the carriages in the snow, stops, is raised, and all
at once illumines the general’s long, white, bristling moustache and
his otter cap.
“What’s the matter? What’s the reason of this stoppage?” asks old
Horschowitz.
“The matter is, sir, that we are held up for an hour at least.... Two
feet of snow! No way of getting further!... The Parisians will have to
do without their coffee to-morrow.”
“What? An hour to wait here, in this weather!... You know that the
foot-warmers are cold....”
“What can we do, sir?... They have just telegraphed to Tonnerre for a
gang to clear the line.... But, I repeat, we’re here for an hour at
least.”
And the man goes off with his lamp toward the engine.
“But this is abominable! Your Majesty will catch cold!” chirps the
baroness.
“Yes, I do feel cold,” says the Queen, with a shiver.
The general divines that now is the moment to be heroic; he jumps down
to the rails, sinks knee-deep in the snow and overtakes the man with
the lamp. He says something to him in an undertone.
“I don’t care though it was the Grand Mogul, I couldn’t do anything,”
answers the railwayman. “However, we are opposite a gate-keeper’s
house, there should be a fire there.... And if the lady cares to get
down.... Hey, Sabatier!...”
A second lamp comes up.
“Just go and see if there is a fire in the gate-keeper’s house.”
By great good-fortune there is. The general is happier than if he
had won a battle or finished the last strip of his famous knitted
bedspread. He returns to the Queen’s compartment, announces the result
of his exertions, and, an instant afterwards, the three travellers,
with much stamping of feet to shake off the snow that has gathered
under their shoes, are in the low room of the tiny house, where the
gate-keeper, who has just let them in and has kept on his goatskin,
kneels in front of the fire and puts dead wood on the fire-dogs.
The Queen, seated in front of the cheerful blaze, has thrown her
pelisse over the back of her straw-bottomed chair; she has taken off
her long suède gloves to warm her hands, and is looking about her.
It is a peasant’s room. The floor is hard and uneven underfoot; bunches
of onions hang from the smoky beams; there is an old poacher’s gun on
two nails over the fire-place, and some flowered dishes on the dresser.
The general has just made a wry face on catching sight of two Épinal
pictures fastened to the wall with pins: the portrait of M. de Thiers,
decorated with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, and that of
Garibaldi in a red shirt. But what attracts the young Queen’s attention
is, beside the great bed, and half hidden by the curtains of striped
calico, a wicker cradle, from which the whimpering of a waking child
has just sounded.
In a moment the gate-keeper has left his fire and has gone to the
cradle, and there he is rocking it gently.
“Go bye-bye, my biddie, go bye-bye! It’s nothing, it’s friends of papa.”
He looks a good father, the man in the goatskin, with his bald Saint
Peter’s pate, his fierce old soldier’s moustache, and the two great,
sad wrinkles in his cheeks.
“Is that your little girl?” the Queen asks him, interested.
“Yes, ma’am, she’s my Cecily.... She’ll be three years old next month.”
“But ... her mother?” Her Majesty asks with some hesitation, and, as
the man shakes his head, “you are a widower?”
But he makes another sign of negation. At that the Queen, greatly
moved, rises, goes to the cradle, and looks at Cecily, who has fallen
asleep again, tenderly clasping to her heart a little pasteboard poodle.
“Poor child!” she murmurs.
“Don’t you think, ma’am,” the gate-keeper thereupon says in a hoarse
voice, “don’t you think that a mother must be very heartless to leave
her daughter at that age? As for her leaving me, after all, that is
partly my fault.... I was wrong to marry a wife too young for me, wrong
to let her go to town, where she made undesirable acquaintances. But to
leave this darling!... Is it not a scandal?... Well, well, I’ll have to
rear her all by myself, poor little brat!... It’s difficult, I can tell
you, because of my duties.... At night I have often to leave her there
screaming and crying, when I hear the train whistle.... But in the
day-time, you see, I carry her about with me, and she is quite used to
it already, the darling, she’s not afraid of the railway now.... Why,
yesterday I held her in my left arm, while I held out my flag with my
right. Well, she did not even tremble when the express passed.... What
bothers me most, you know, is sewing her dresses and bonnets. It’s a
good thing that I’ve been a corporal in the Zouaves in my day, and know
a little about needles and thread.”
“But, my poor man,” replies the Queen, “that is a very difficult
task.... See here, I should like to help you.... There must be a
village in the neighbourhood, and in that village some respectable
people who would undertake to look after your little girl.... If it’s
only a question of money....”
But the gate-keeper shook his head again.
“No, ma’am, no, thank you kindly. I am not proud, and I would
cheerfully accept any offer of help for my little Cecily ... but I will
never part from her ... never, not even for an hour!”
“But why?”
“Why?” the man answered in a sad tone. “Because I will trust no one but
myself to make the child what her mother has not been ... a good woman!
But excuse me, would you be so kind as rock Cecily for a little?... I’m
wanted on the line.”
Will it ever be known what the young Queen of Bohemia thought about
that winter night when she nursed a poor gate-keeper’s child for a
whole hour, while the general and the baroness, whose help she had
refused, sat mightily offended by the fire? When the guard opened the
door and called, “Come, ladies and gentlemen, the express is about
to start again ... all aboard!” the Queen laid her purse well filled
with gold, and the bunch of violets from her waist, on little Cecily’s
cradle, then she climbed back into the carriage.
But her Majesty spent only two days in Paris; she went back at once
to Prague, from which she is scarcely ever absent now, and where she
devotes herself entirely to her son’s education. The governesses with
thirty quarterings who used to cast the shadow of their funereal
head-gear over the infancy of the Heir Apparent have only sinecures
now. If there are still kings in Europe when little Ladislas has grown
up, he will be what his father has not been, a good king. At five years
of age he is already very popular, and when he travels with his mother
on those dear Bohemian railways that crawl like four-wheelers, and when
he sees from the window of the saloon-carriage a gate-keeper carrying
a baby on one arm and presenting his little flag with the other, the
royal child, to whom his mother has made a sign, always throws him a
kiss.
MADEMOISELLE PERLE
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
I
What a strange notion indeed of mine to choose Mademoiselle Perle for
queen this evening.
Every year I go to my old friend Chantal’s for Twelfth-night. My
father, whose most intimate friend he was, used to take me there when a
child. I have kept up the custom, and no doubt will continue to keep it
up as long as I live, and as long as there is a Chantal in this world.
The Chantals, I ought to say, lead a singular existence: they live at
Paris as if they were at Grasse, Yvetot, or Pont-à-Mousson.
They have a house with a small garden near the Observatory. There they
live their own life as if they were in the country. Of Paris, the real
Paris, they have no knowledge and no suspicion: they are so far, far
away from it! Sometimes, however, they take a journey, a long journey,
there. Madame Chantal goes to lay in supplies, as they say in the
family. This is how they lay in supplies.
Mademoiselle Perle, who keeps the keys of the pantry-presses (for the
linen-presses are administered by the mistress of the house herself),
Mademoiselle Perle notices that the sugar is running down, that the
preserves are exhausted, that there is not much more left at the bottom
of the coffee-sack.
Thus warned against famine, Madame Chantal inspects the remains, and
takes notes in a note-book. Then, when she has written a great many
figures, she plunges first into long calculations, then into long
discussions with Mademoiselle Perle. The upshot of it is, however,
that they come to an agreement and settle upon the quantities of each
article that they will provide for a quarter, sugar, rice, prunes,
coffee, preserves, tins of green peas, of haricot beans, of lobster,
salt and smoked fish, and so on, and so on.
This done, they fix the day for their shopping, and set out in a cab, a
cab with a rail, to a biggish grocer, whose shop is across the bridges,
in the new districts.
Madame Chantal and Mademoiselle Perle make this expedition in company,
mysteriously, and come home at dinner-time quite exhausted, though
still excited, and shaken up in the cab, the top of which is covered
with parcels and bags, like a removal van.
For the Chantals all Paris on the other side of the Seine is the new
districts, districts inhabited by a strange population, noisy, not too
honest, that passes its days in dissipation, its nights in feasting,
and makes ducks and drakes of its money. Nevertheless the young ladies
are now and again taken to the theatre, the Opéra-Comique or the
Théâtre Français, when the piece is approved by the newspaper that M.
Chantal reads.
The young ladies are now nineteen and seventeen years old; they are two
pretty girls, tall and fresh, very well brought up, too well brought
up, so well brought up that they pass unnoticed like two pretty dolls.
It would never enter my head to pay attentions or to pay court to
Mesdemoiselles Chantal: one scarcely dares to speak of them, they seem
so immaculate, and as for bowing to them, one almost fears he is taking
a liberty.
As for their father, he is a charming man, very well informed, very
frank, very cordial, but whose one desire is repose and peace and
quietness, and who is largely responsible for thus mummifying his
family in order to live as he desires in stagnant immobility. He reads
a great deal, is fond of conversation, is easily touched. The absence
of all contact, elbowing and collisions has made him very sensitive and
thin-skinned. The least thing excites him, agitates him, and hurts him.
Yet the Chantals do have some acquaintances, but restricted
acquaintances, carefully selected in their neighbourhood. They also
exchange two or three annual visits with some relatives who live at a
distance.
As for me, I dine with them on the 15th of August and on Twelfth-night.
The latter is part of my duty, like a Catholic’s Easter communion.
On the 15th of August some friends are invited, but on Twelfth-night I
am the only guest.
II
So this year, as in other years, I have been dining at the Chantals’ to
celebrate Epiphany.
According to custom I embraced M. Chantal, Madame Chantal and
Mademoiselle Perle, and made a profound bow to Mesdemoiselles Louise
and Pauline. They asked me a thousand questions, about town gossip,
about politics, about popular opinion on the events in Tonkin, and
about our representatives. Madame Chantal, a stout lady, whose ideas
always give me the impression that they are squared like so many hewn
stones, had a habit of enouncing the phrase, “That will bear evil
fruit some day,” as the conclusion of every political discussion. Why
have I always imagined that Madame Chantal’s ideas are square? I do
not know, the fact remains that everything she says assumes this shape
in my mind; a square, a big square with four equal angles. There are
other persons whose ideas always seem to be round and rolling like
circles. No sooner have they commenced a phrase on some subject, than
it goes rolling and issues in a dozen, a score, fifty round ideas, big
and little, which I see running one after the other to the farthest
horizon. Other persons, again, have pointed ideas.... But that is
neither here nor there.
We sat down to table as usual, and the dinner passed without anything
being said worth remembering.
At dessert, the Twelfth-cake was brought in. Now, every year M.
Chantal was king. Whether that was a repeated coincidence or a family
arrangement, I do not know, but he used infallibly to find the bean
in his share of the cake, and used to proclaim Madame Chantal queen.
So I was astounded to feel in a mouthful of cake something very hard,
which almost broke a tooth for me. I carefully removed the thing from
my mouth and saw a little china doll no bigger than a bean. In my
surprise, I exclaimed, “Ah!” They looked at me, and Chantal clapped his
hands and shouted, “Gaston’s got it! Gaston’s got it! Long live the
king! Long live the king!”
Everybody repeated in chorus, “Long live the king!” and I blushed up to
my ears, as one will blush, for no reason whatever, in rather foolish
situations. I sat looking down at the cloth, with the scrap of china in
my finger and thumb, forcing a laugh, and at a loss what to say or do,
when Chantal resumed, “Now, you must choose a queen.”
At that I was overwhelmed. In a second, a thousand thoughts, a thousand
suppositions flashed through my mind. Did they mean me to single out
one of the Chantal girls? Was this a plan for making me say which one I
preferred? Was it a gentle, slight, insensible impulse from the parents
towards a possible marriage? The notion of marriage is constantly
lurking in all those houses with grown-up daughters, and takes all
sorts of forms, all sorts of disguises, all sorts of measures. I felt
horribly afraid of compromising myself, and also excessively timid in
face of the obstinately correct and composed attitude of Mesdemoiselles
Louise and Pauline. To elect one of them to the detriment of the other
was, to my mind, as difficult as to choose between two drops of water;
and, besides, I was dreadfully scared by the fear of risking myself
in an affair where I should be led on to marriage against my will by
procedures so discreet, so imperceptible, and so calm as this trumpery
royalty.
But all at once I had an inspiration, and I offered the symbolical
doll to Mademoiselle Perle. They were all surprised at first; then
they undoubtedly appreciated my delicacy and my discretion, for they
applauded furiously. “Long live the queen, long live the queen!” they
shouted.
As for her, poor old maid, she had lost countenance entirely: she
trembled, quite scared, and stammered, “Oh no.... Oh no.... Oh no ...
not me.... I pray you ... not me.... I pray you!”
At that I considered Mademoiselle Perle for the first time in my life,
and began to ask myself what she was.
I was accustomed to seeing her in that house, as one sees the old
tapestry arm-chairs on which one has sat from childhood, without ever
noticing them. Some day, no one knows why, because a sunbeam falls on
the chair, one says, “Why, this is very interesting.” And one discovers
that the wood has been wrought by an artist, and that the covering is
remarkable. I had never taken any notice of Mademoiselle Perle.
She was a member of the Chantal household, and nothing more. But why,
on what footing?--She was a tall, thin person, who kept herself in
the background, but was not insignificant. They treated her friendly,
better than a housekeeper, not so well as a relative. Now, however,
on a sudden I grasped some fine distinctions which I had not troubled
about before! Madame Chantal said “Perle,” the girls, “Mademoiselle
Perle,” and Chantal always called her “Mademoiselle,” though perhaps
more respectfully than they did.
I began to consider her.--What was her age? Forty? Yes, forty.--She
was not an old maid, she was growing old. This observation suddenly
occurred to me. She did her hair, dressed, adorned herself in a
ridiculous fashion, yet for all that she was not ridiculous, she had
such a simple, natural grace about her, a veiled grace, studiously
concealed. What a strange creature, to be sure! Why had I never
observed her better? She did her hair in a grotesque fashion, in
little, droll, old-fashioned ringlets. Yet under this antiquated
Virgin’s hairdressing appeared a broad, calm forehead, scored by two
deep wrinkles, two wrinkles of long-continued griefs, then two blue
eyes, large and gentle, so timid, so startled, so humble, two beautiful
eyes that had remained so innocent; so full of maiden astonishment, of
youthful sensations, and also of disappointments that had entered into
them and softened without troubling them.
Her whole face was intelligent and discreet, one of those faces which
have toned down without being worn out or faded by the fatigues or the
great emotions of life.
What a pretty mouth! and what pretty teeth! Yet one would have said
that she dared not smile!
And suddenly I compared her with Madame Chantal! Why, to be sure!
Mademoiselle Perle was handsomer, a hundred times handsomer, more
intelligent, more noble, more dignified.
I was stupefied with the result of my observations. Champagne was
poured out. I held my glass towards the queen, and proposed her health
in a well-turned compliment. She would have liked, I could see, to
hide her face in her napkin. Then, as she dipped her lips in the clear
wine, every one cried, “The queen drinks, the queen drinks!” At that
she blushed all over and choked; but I could see that she was greatly
beloved in that house.
III
As soon as dinner was over, Chantal took me by the arm. It was the hour
for his cigar, a sacred hour. When he was alone, he went out to smoke
it in the street; when he had any one to dinner, they went up to the
billiard-room, and he smoked as he played. This evening they had even
lighted a fire in the billiard-room in honour of Twelfth-night, and my
old friend took his cue, a very thin cue, which he chalked with great
care, then he said:
“You lead off, my boy!”
For he always called me “my boy,” in spite of my five-and-twenty years;
but then he had seen me when I was a baby.
So I commenced the game; I made some cannons, and missed others; but,
as Mademoiselle Perle was always running through my mind, I suddenly
asked:
“I say, Monsieur Chantal, is Mademoiselle Perle any relation of yours?”
He stopped playing in great surprise, and looked at me.
“What, don’t you know? Have you never heard Mademoiselle Perle’s story?”
“No.”
“Did your father never tell you?”
“No.”
“Well, well, that is strange! That is indeed strange! Why, it is quite
a romance!”
He was silent, then began again:
“If you only knew how singular it is that you should ask me that
question to-day, on Twelfth-night!”
“Why?”
“Ah! Why? Listen. It was forty-one years ago, forty-one years this very
day, Epiphany. We were then living at Roüy-le-Tors, on the ramparts.
But I must first describe the house, in order that you may understand
properly. Roüy is built on a slope, or rather on a knoll which commands
a wide extent of that country. We had a house there with a fine hanging
garden, supported in the air by the old city walls. So the house was in
the town, in the street, while the garden overlooked the plain. There
was also a postern-gate from this garden to the country, at the foot
of a secret staircase which went down in the thickness of the walls,
like those read of in romances. A road passed by this gate, which
was furnished with a big bell, for the peasants used to bring their
provisions that way to escape the long round about.
“You can see the places, can’t you? Well, that year, on Twelfth-day,
it had been snowing for a week. It looked like the end of the world.
It chilled our very soul when we went to the ramparts to look at the
plain, the great white landscape, all white, icy, shining like varnish.
It looked as if the good Lord had wrapped up the Earth to send it to
the lumber-room of old worlds. I can assure you that it was very dreary.
“The whole family was together at that moment, and we were numerous,
very numerous, my father, my mother, my uncle and aunt, my two
brothers, and my four cousins; pretty girls they were. I am married
to the youngest. Of all that company there are only three alive now,
my wife, myself, and my sister-in-law at Marseilles. Bless me, how
a family slips away! It makes me tremble when I think of it. I was
fifteen then; now I am fifty-six.
“Well, we were going to keep Twelfth-night, and we were very merry,
very merry! All were in the drawing-room waiting dinner, when my elder
brother, Jacques, suddenly said, ‛There’s a dog been howling in the
plain for the last ten minutes. It must be some poor beast that is
lost.’
“We had not finished speaking when the garden-bell rang. It had a deep
church-bell tone, which made one think of the dead. We all shivered at
the sound. My father called the servant and told him to go and look.
There was perfect silence as we waited; we were thinking of the snow
that covered all the earth. When the man returned, he declared that he
had seen nothing. The dog was still howling incessantly, and the sound
came from exactly the same place.
“We sat down to table, but we were still a little upset, especially
we young people. All went nicely until the joint, when, hark, the
bell began ringing again, three times in succession, three great,
long peals, which thrilled us to our finger-tips and made us catch
our breath. We sat looking at each other, our forks in the air, still
listening, seized with a sort of supernatural fear.
“At last my mother spoke. ‛It is extraordinary that they should have
waited so long before coming back. Do not go alone, Baptiste; one of
these gentlemen will go with you.’
“My uncle François rose. He was a Hercules, very proud of his strength,
and afraid of nothing on earth. My father said to him, ‛Take a gun. You
never know what it may be.’
“But my uncle only took a stick, and went out at once with the servant.
“We others remained behind, trembling with terror and anxiety, without
eating, without speaking. My father tried to reassure us. ‛You will
see,’ he said, ‛that it will be some beggar or some traveller lost in
the snow. After he rang the first time, seeing that the door was not
opened at once, he has tried to find his way, then, failing to do so,
he has come back to our door.’
“We felt as if our uncle’s absence lasted an hour. Then he returned
furious and swearing. ‛There’s nothing, as I’m alive! Some one’s
playing a trick! There’s nothing but that confounded dog howling a
hundred yards away from the walls. If I had had my gun, I’d have shot
him to make him quiet!’
“We sat down again, but we all continued anxious. We felt that this
was not the end of it, that something was going to happen, and that
presently the bell would ring again.
“And it did sound, at the very moment when we were cutting the Twelfth
cake. All the men got up together. My uncle François, who had drunk
some champagne, declared that he was going to massacre IT, so furiously
that my mother and my aunt caught hold of him to stop him. My father,
in spite of being quite calm and not very fit (he dragged one leg ever
after it had been broken by a fall from a horse), declared in his
turn that he wanted to know what it was, and that he was going. My
brothers, aged nineteen and twenty, ran to get their guns; and, as no
one paid much attention to me, I possessed myself of a rook-rifle and
so prepared to accompany the expedition.
“It set out at once. My father and my uncle led, with Baptiste carrying
a lantern. My brothers Jacques and Paul followed, and I brought up the
rear in spite of my mother’s entreaties, who remained with her sister
and my cousins on the door-step.
“The snow had begun again the last hour, and the trees were laden. The
pines were bending under the heavy dusky mantle, like white pyramids,
or enormous sugar loaves; and through the grey curtain of fine hurrying
flakes it was almost impossible to make out the smaller shrubs, all
pale in the gloom. The snow was falling so quickly that nothing else
could be seen ten paces off. But the lantern threw a great light before
us. When we began to descend the corkscrew staircase hollowed in the
thickness of the wall, I was afraid in good earnest. I felt as if some
one was walking behind me; as if some one was about to catch me by the
shoulders and carry me off; and I wanted to go home. But, as I should
have had to go all the way back through the garden, I did not dare.
“I heard the door to the plain being opened; then my uncle began to
swear afresh. ‛Hang it! he’s off again. If I could see his shadow, I’d
not miss him, the--.’
“It was eerie to see the plain, or rather to feel it was there before
one; for it could not be seen, all that was visible was an endless veil
of snow, above, below, in front, to right, to left, everywhere.
“My uncle spoke again, ‛Wait, there is the dog howling. I’ll go and
show it how I can shoot. That will always be something.’
“But my father, who was a kindly man, replied, ‛Better go and look for
the poor animal that’s crying with hunger. It’s barking for help, poor
wretch. It’s calling like a human being in distress. Let’s go to it.’
“And we set out through that curtain, through that dense unceasing
fall, through that powder that filled the night and the air, that
moved, floated, fell, and froze the flesh as it melted, froze as if it
would burn, with a short sharp sting on the skin at each touch of the
tiny white flakes.
“We sank to the knees in the soft chill dust, and had to step very
high to walk at all. As we advanced the dog’s bark became clearer and
louder. My uncle cried, ‛There it is!’ We halted to observe it, as one
ought to do on encountering an unknown enemy in the dark.
“For my part I could see nothing; then I made up with the others, and I
made it out. The dog was a fearful and fantastic sight; a great black
dog, a sheepdog, with shaggy hair and a head like a wolf, standing on
all fours at the very end of the long beam of light cast by the lantern
on the snow. He did not move; he was quiet now, and was looking at us.
“My uncle said, ‛It is strange, he does not come at us, and he does not
run away. I have a good mind to take a shot at him.’
“But my father said decidedly, ‛No, we must catch him.’
“Thereupon my brother Jacques said, ‛But he is not alone. There’s
something beside him.’
“And there was something beside him, something grey, indistinct. We
began to advance again carefully.
“When the dog saw us approaching, he squatted down on his hindquarters.
He did not look savage, rather he seemed pleased that he had succeeded
in attracting somebody.
“My father went straight up to him and caressed him. The dog licked his
hands, and we saw that he was tied to the wheel of a little carriage,
a sort of toy carriage completely enveloped in three or four woollen
wraps. We took these cloths off carefully, and when Baptiste held his
lantern to the door of the go-cart, which was like a kennel on wheels,
we saw a little baby inside asleep.
“We were so dumbfounded that we could not utter a word. My father was
the first to recover himself, and, as he was a large-hearted man, and
somewhat of a visionary, he laid his hand on the top of the carriage
and said, ‛Poor forsaken child, you shall be one of us!’ And he ordered
my brother Jacques to wheel our find in front of us.
“And my father continued, thinking aloud:
“‘Some love-child whose poor mother has come and rung at my door this
Epiphany night, thinking of the Christ-child.’
“He stopped again, and four times shouted through the night at the
pitch of his voice to the four corners of the heavens, ‛We have taken
it up!’ Then, putting his hand on his brother’s shoulder, he murmured,
‛If you had shot at the dog, François?...’
“My uncle gave no answer, but he made a great sign of the cross in the
darkness, for he was very devout, in spite of his swaggering airs.
“The dog had been untied, and followed us.
“I can assure you our return to the house was a pretty sight indeed.
First we had a lot of trouble to get the carriage up the rampart stair:
but we managed at last, and wheeled it into the hall.
“How amused, and pleased, and frightened mamma was! As for my four
little cousins (the youngest was six), they were like four hens around
a nest. At last the baby, which was still sleeping, was taken out of
its carriage. It was a girl, about six weeks old. And in its clothes we
found ten thousand francs in gold, yes, ten thousand francs, which papa
invested for her dowry. So she was not the child of poor parents ...
but perhaps the child of a nobleman and some small citizen’s daughter
... or else ... we formed a thousand conjectures but we never learned
anything ... no, not a thing ... not a thing.... Even the dog was not
recognized by any one. He was strange to these parts. In any case, he
or she who came three times and rang at our door must have known my
parents well, to have chosen them in this way.
“So that is how Mademoiselle Perle made her entrance at six weeks’ age
to the Chantal family.
“We did not call her Mademoiselle Perle until later, however. She was
baptized Marie Simonne Claire; Claire was to serve as her surname.
“I can tell you it was a funny return to the dining-room with the small
mite, now awake, who gazed about her at the people and the lights with
her big wondering blue eyes.
“We sat down once more and the cake was cut up. I was king, and I chose
Mademoiselle Perle as my queen, just as you did a little ago. She was
all unconscious then of the honour that was done her.
“Well, the child was adopted and brought up as one of the family. She
grew up, years passed on. She was a nice, gentle, obedient child. Every
one loved her, and she would have been dreadfully spoiled, if my mother
had not prevented that.
“My mother was a woman of order and hierarchy. She consented to treat
little Claire as she did her own sons, but at the same time she took
care that the distance between us was clearly marked, and the situation
distinctly laid down.
“Therefore, as soon as the child was old enough to understand, she
explained her story to her, and gently, indeed tenderly, impressed upon
the little one’s mind that her relation to the Chantals was that of an
adopted daughter, welcome, no doubt, but still a stranger.
“Claire grasped the situation with singular intelligence, and with
surprising intuition. She learned to accept and keep the place assigned
to her with such tact, grace, and delicacy that it moved my father to
tears.
“My mother, too, was so touched by the passionate gratitude and the
somewhat timid devotion of the darling, tender creature that she took
to calling her ‛my daughter.’ Sometimes, when the little one had done
something good or delicate, my mother would push her spectacles up on
her brow, always a sign of emotion with her, and repeat, ‛Why, she’s a
pearl, a regular pearl, the child!’ The name stuck to little Claire,
who became and remained for us Mademoiselle Perle.”
IV
M. Chantal ceased speaking. He was seated on the billiard-table,
dangling his feet, his left hand playing with a ball, while his right
fiddled with a cloth which was used for wiping the chalk-marks off
the scoring-slate, and which from its use we called the chalk-cloth.
Rather red, his voice indistinct, he was speaking to himself now, lost
in his recollections, going gently through the bygone things and the
old events that were waking in his mind, as one strolls through the old
gardens of the home where one was brought up, and where each tree, each
path, each plant, the prickly hollies, the sweet-smelling laurels, the
yews, whose fat red berries crush between one’s fingers, evoke at every
step some little fact of our past life, one of those insignificant and
delicious facts that make up the very foundation, the very warp of
existence.
As for me, I stood there facing him, my back leaning against the wall,
and my hands supported on my unused billiard-cue.
After a minute he resumed.
“Ah, me! How pretty she was at eighteen ... and gracious ... and
perfect.... Ah! what a pretty ... pretty ... pretty and kind ...
and good ... and charming girl! ... She had eyes ... blue eyes ...
transparent ... clear ... the like of which I have never seen ...
never!”
He lapsed into silence again. I asked, “Why has she never married?”
He replied, not to me, but to the word “married” that had been let fall:
“Why? Why? She never wished to ... never wished. Though she had thirty
thousand francs dowry, and was asked several times ... she never wished
to! She seemed sad in those days. That was when I married my cousin,
little Charlotte, my wife, to whom I had been engaged for six years.”
I looked at M. Chantal, and it seemed to me that I saw into his soul,
that I suddenly saw into one of those humble and cruel dramas of
honourable hearts, upright hearts, of hearts without reproach, into one
of those mute, unexplored hearts, which no one has understood, not even
those who are their uncomplaining and resigned victims.
And, suddenly impelled by a daring curiosity, I blurted out:
“Should not you have married her, Monsieur Chantal?”
He trembled, looked at me, and said:
“I? Marry whom?”
“Mademoiselle Perle.”
“Why so?”
“Because you loved her better than your cousin.”
He looked at me with strange, round, startled eyes, then he stammered:
“I loved her ... I? ... how? Who told you that?...”
“Why, any one can see it ... and that’s why you were so long in
marrying your cousin, who waited six years for you.”
He dropped the ball that he was holding in his left hand, seized the
chalk-cloth with both hands, and, hiding his face with it, began to sob
into it. He wept in a distressing, ridiculous way, as a sponge weeps
when it is squeezed, from his eyes and nose and mouth all at once. And
he coughed and hawked, blew his nose into the chalk-cloth, wiped his
eyes, sneezed, began running again from every aperture in his face,
with a throaty noise that suggested gargling.
As for me, frightened and ashamed, I wanted to make my escape and was
at my wits’ end to know what to say, or to do, or try.
And suddenly Madame Chantal’s voice sounded on the stairs, “Will you
soon be done with your smoke?”
I opened the door and called, “Yes, Madame, we are coming down.”
Then I rushed to her husband, and seizing him by the elbows said,
“Monsieur Chantal, my good friend Chantal, listen; your wife is calling
you; pull yourself together, pull yourself together at once; we must go
downstairs; pull yourself together.”
He stammered, “Yes ... yes ... I’m coming ... poor girl ... I’m coming
... tell her I’ll be in a moment.”
And he began conscientiously to wipe his face with the cloth that had
been wiping all the marks off the slate for two or three years. When
he finished, he showed half white, half red, his brow, his nose, his
cheeks, his chin all smeared with chalk, and his eyes swollen and still
full of tears.
I took him by the hands and dragged him into his room, murmuring, “I
beg your pardon, I do indeed, Monsieur Chantal, for having given you
pain, ... but ... I did not know ... you ... you understand.”
He pressed my hand, “Yes ... yes ... there are some awkward moments....”
Then he plunged his face into the basin. When he lifted his head he
still did not look presentable, but I thought of a little ruse. As he
looked rather uncomfortably at himself in the glass, I said to him, “It
will do if you tell them that you have some dust in your eye, and you
can let them see it watering as much as you like.”
So he went downstairs rubbing his eyes with his handkerchief. They made
a fuss about him; every one wanted to look for the speck of dust, which
was not to be found, and they related similar cases in which the doctor
had eventually to be called in.
As for me, I had rejoined Mademoiselle Perle, and I was watching her,
tormented by a burning curiosity, a curiosity which was becoming
torture. She must really have been very pretty once, with her gentle
eyes, so large, so calm, so open that they looked as if she never
closed them as other people do. Her dress was rather ridiculous, a
regular old maid’s toilet, and, without making her look a fright, did
not set her off.
I seemed to see into her soul, as I had seen into M. Chantal’s a
little before, as if I surveyed from end to end her humble, simple,
devoted life; but a necessity forced my lips, an imperious necessity
of questioning her, of learning if she too had loved him; if she had
suffered like him from that long-drawn sorrow, secret and acute, which
none knows, none sees, none suspects, but which finds vent at night,
in the solitude of the darkened room. I looked at her, I saw her heart
beating under her muslin bodice, and I asked myself whether that sweet,
frank face had groaned night by night in the moist thickness of her
pillow, and sobbed, her body racked by convulsions, in the fever of her
burning bed.
And I said to her, cautiously, as children do when they break a trinket
to see inside it, “If you had seen M. Chantal crying just now, you
would have been sorry for him.”
She trembled, “What? He was crying?”
“Yes, he was crying!”
“And why was he?”
She seemed very much perturbed. I replied:
“Because of you.”
“Because of me?”
“Yes. He was telling me how much he used to love you, and what it cost
him to marry his present wife instead of you....”
Her pale face seemed to me to lengthen a little; her eyes, always open,
her calm eyes closed suddenly, so quickly that they seemed to have
closed for ever. She slipped from her chair to the floor, and collapsed
there gently, gradually, as a fallen veil might have done.
I cried, “Help, help! Mademoiselle Perle is unwell.”
Madame Chantal and her daughters rushed to her, and, as they went for
water and a napkin and vinegar, I got my hat and escaped.
I hurried away, my heart torn, my mind full of remorse and regret.
And yet now and again I was glad; I felt as if I had done something
commendable and necessary.
I kept asking myself, “Was I wrong? Was I right?” They had that in
their souls like a bullet in a healed-up wound. Will they not be
happier now? It was too late to renew their torture, and not too late
for them to remember with fondness.
And perhaps some evening next spring, moved by a moonbeam falling
through the branches on the grass at their feet, they will take each
other’s hands and clasp them in memory of all that suppressed cruel
suffering; and perhaps, too, that brief clasp will send through their
veins a little of that thrill which otherwise they would never have
known, and will excite in those dead ones, resuscitated in an instant,
the swift, divine sensation of that intoxication, that madness, which
gives lovers more happiness in one thrill than other men can gather in
a lifetime.
THE END.
GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
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6. EVERYMAN.
9. THE BIRDS OF ARISTOPHANES. Translated by DR. B. H. KENNEDY.
11. ALLADINE AND PALOMIDES. By MAURICE MAETERLINCK. Translated
by ALFRED SUTRO.
18. LE CID. By CORNEILLE. [_In French._]
20. INTERIOR. By MAURICE MAETERLINCK. Translated by WILLIAM
ARCHER.
26. THE DEATH OF TINTAGILES. By MAURICE MAETERLINCK. Translated
by ALFRED SUTRO.
28. THE SEVEN PRINCESSES. By MAURICE MAETERLINCK. Translated by
WILLIAM METCALFE.
43. THE INTRUDER. By MAURICE MAETERLINCK.
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