The Iron Pincers or Mylio and Karvel Part 4

FLORETTE--"Why do you cast these rings into the water? Why do you throw them away? Why that imprecation?"

MYLIO--"Go! Go! ye shameful souvenirs of an impure life! Ephemeral pledges of a love as fickle as the waters that are now carrying you away! Go! I prefer the spindle of Florette!"

FLORETTE (takes and kisses the trouvere's hands, and murmurs amid tears)--"Oh, Mylio! I shall die happy!"

MYLIO (closing her in his arms)--"Die! You, die? Sweet, dear child, no!

Oh, no! Will you follow me?"

FLORETTE (sadly)--"You are trifling with me. What an offer do you make to me!"

MYLIO--"Will you accompany me? I know in Blois a worthy woman, to whose house I shall take you. You will remain hidden in the house two or three days. We shall then depart for Languedoc, where I shall meet my brother.

During the journey you shall be my sister; upon our arrival you will become my wife. My brother will bless our union. Will you entrust yourself to me? Will you follow me on the spot? Will you come to my country and live near my brother? All that I am telling you can be easily done."

FLORETTE (has listened to the trouvere with increasing astonishment, she pa.s.ses her two hands over her forehead and says in a tremulous voice)--"Am I dreaming? Is it yourself who ask me whether I would follow you? Whether I would consent to be your wife?"

MYLIO (kneels down before the young serf, takes her two hands and answers pa.s.sionately)--"Yes, sweet child. It is myself who am saying to you: 'Come, you shall be my wife! Will you be Mylio's?'"

FLORETTE--"Whether I will? To leave h.e.l.l for paradise? Yes, I consent to follow you!"

MYLIO (rises and listens in the direction of the hedge)--"It is the voice of Goose-Skin! He is calling for help! What can have happened!"

FLORETTE (clasping her hands in despair)--"Oh! I knew it! It was a dream!"

MYLIO (draws his sword and takes the girl's hand)--"Follow me, dear child; fear nothing. Mylio will know how to defend you."

The trouvere walks rapidly towards the hedge, holding Florette by the hand. The cries of Goose-Skin redouble in the measure that Mylio approaches the hedge that surrounds the garden of the mill, and behind which he causes Florette to conceal herself with the recommendation that she remain silent and motionless. He then leaps over the enclosure, and by the light of the moon he perceives the juggler puffing and blowing and wrestling with a man whose face is concealed under the hood of his brown cloak. At the sight of Mylio running to his help, Goose-Skin redoubles his efforts and succeeds in throwing his adversary down.

Turning thereupon his own enormous weight to account, and thereby easily keeping the hooded man under him, the juggler, who is now out of breath with the struggle, lays himself face down, flat upon his adversary, who, feeling himself crushed under the extraordinary weight, gasps in a rage: "Wretch--vagabond--to--smother--me!"

GOOSE-SKIN (panting for breath)--"Ouf! After victory how delightful, how glorious to rest on one's laurels! Victory! Victory, Mylio! The monster is overcome!"

THE HOODED MAN--"I die--under--this mountain of flesh! Help! Help!--I die--Help!"

MYLIO--"My old Goose-Skin, I shall never forget the service that you have rendered me. Do not move. Keep that fellow down! Do not allow him to rise and flee."

GOOSE-SKIN (stretching himself more and more at his ease over the prostrate body of his adversary)--"Even if I wanted to rise, I could not, I am so completely out of breath. Besides, I feel myself quite comfortable upon the round cushion under me."

THE HOODED MAN--"Help! Murder! This beggar is breaking my ribs--Help!"

MYLIO (quickly stooping down)--"I know this voice! (He removes the hood that hides the face of the vanquished man) Abbot Reynier! The superior of the Abbey of Citeaux!"

GOOSE-SKIN (with a rude up-and-down wabble that draws a moan from the monk)--"An abbot! I have the round body of an abbot for mattress!

Oxhorns! Suppose I take a nap! I would surely dream of pretty nuns and good fare!"

MYLIO (to the monk)--"Ha! Ha! Sir Ribald! Consumed by your l.u.s.tful appet.i.te you could not wait until to-morrow to eat the dainty dish of fritters that you yesterday spoke about to me. Aye, driven by your voracious hunger, you meant to introduce yourself this very night into the house of the infamous Chaillotte, feeling a.s.sured that she would be ready to dance attendance upon you at all hours! Ha! Ha! Sir Priapus!

You are there like a fox caught in a trap!"

GOOSE-SKIN--"I was hidden in the shadow, when I saw this fellow slinking up to the hedge and making ready to climb it. Like a true Caesar, I fell upon him when he was out of his balance--and I shall hold him. I am on top! The enemy is vanquished!"

ABBOT REYNIER--"Oh, you brace of vile jugglers! You will pay dearly for this outrage!"

MYLIO--"You speak truly, Reynier, abbot superior of the monks of Citeaux of the Abbey of St. Victor! To-morrow it will be daylight, and that daylight will expose your shame! You tonsured hypocrites may impose upon simpletons and fools, but my valiant friend Goose-Skin and myself are neither simpletons nor poltroons! We also enjoy a certain power! Now, remember this, Sir Ribald. Should you be foolhardy enough to try to do us some injury in revenge for this night's affair, we shall put it into a song--Goose-Skin for the taverns, myself for the castles. By heaven!

From one end of Gaul to the other the lay will be sung of 'Reynier, Abbot of Citeaux, going at night to snoop fritters at Chaillotte's, the miller's wife, and getting only blows for his pains.'"

GOOSE-SKIN--"You fat monastic debauchee, trust to me for adding all the needed zest to the music!"

ABBOT REYNIER (panting for breath)--"You are sacrilegious wretches--I am here at your mercy--I promise you to keep quiet. But, Mylio, are you after my life? Order this monstrous varlet of yours to roll off me--I am suffocating! Mercy!"

MYLIO--"In order to be properly punished for having dreamed of a paradise of love, you may well tarry a little longer in purgatory, my chaste monk! You, Goose-Skin, keep him fast until you hear me cry: 'Good-evening, Sir Ribald!' You may then rise, and Seigneur Fox may run off with his ears hanging, and take shelter in his holy burrow. Here is my sword, with which you may keep this model of monastic chast.i.ty in check if he should endeavor to rebel against you. To-morrow morning, my valiant Caesar, I shall inform you of any further projects."

GOOSE-SKIN (takes up the sword, changes his posture in such a way that he sits squarely upon the monk's stomach, and, pointing the sword at the face of the prostrate man, says)--"You can go, Mylio; I shall wait for the signal."

The trouvere re-enters the garden and speedily issues out of it with Florette, whom he has wrapped in his cloak. He takes her in his arms and helps her leap over the hedge, and thereupon the two lovers walk rapidly towards the shaded road on which they presently disappear. At the sight of the young serf, whom he immediately recognizes, Abbot Reynier emits a deep sigh of grief and rage, a sigh that is rendered doubly doleful by the weight of the juggler, who, comfortably seated upon the monk's stomach, endeavors to while away the time both to himself and his prisoner by singing the following bucolic:

"Fresh when blooms the violet, And the rose and gladiol', When the nightingale's songs roll, Then I'm lured in love's sweet net, Sing a song much prettier yet, For the love of my own pet, For the love of my Gueulette."

ABBOT REYNIER (in a fainting voice)--"The vagabond--is--flattening out my intestines--he is pressing the life out of--me--"

MYLIO (from the distance)--"Good-evening, Sir Ribald! I can hear you from afar!"

GOOSE-SKIN (rises with difficulty by helping himself up with one hand; with the other he holds the sword pointed at the monk while he thus walks backward in the direction whence the voice of Mylio came)--"Good-evening, Sir Ribald! This is the moral of the adventure: 'He who fries the fish, often sees it eaten by another.'"

CHAPTER IV.

THE GARDEN OF EGLANTINE.

The night and two-thirds of the day have pa.s.sed since the adventures of the previous evening. You now see, son of Joel, a long avenue of odoriferous trees that lead to the Court of Love, otherwise known as the "Session Under the Elm." The session is held in the garden of the castle of Eglantine, Viscountess of Seligny. On either side of the avenue, the walled ditches are filled with limpid water, where swans and other beautiful aquatic birds disport themselves. They swim and frolic in loving couples, and cut gracefully through the water. The golden fish in the ca.n.a.ls, the twittering birds that flutter overhead from branch to branch, seem also to go in couples. Only a poor featherless turtle dove, perched on the top of a dead tree, utters plaintive notes in its lonely singleness. The long alley which is intersected only by the bridge of the ca.n.a.l, runs out upon a gra.s.s-plot that is studded with a thousand flowers and in the center of which a magnificent elm raises its majestic trunk, the thick foliage of whose branches builds a thick dome that is impenetrable to the rays of the sun. It is under this elm that are held the sessions of the Court of Love, a licentious tribunal that is also called the "Chamber of Sweet Vows." The court is presided over by a "Queen of Beauty," who represents Venus. The queen is Marphise, the Marchioness of Ariol. The a.s.sistant female judges are Deliane, the Canoness of Nivelle, Eglantine, Viscountess of Seligny, and Huguette of Montreuel. The male judges at the Court of Love are, first of all, Sir Hercules, Seigneur of Chinon, a redoubtable knight, blind of one eye and ugly, but, it is said, much in demand with the ladies. He wears a rich tunic with flowing sleeves, and on his black and kinky hair a chaplet of gladiolas bound together with a pink ribbon. Next to him in importance is Adam the Hunchback of Arras, a trouvere renowned for his licentious songs; he is short and bears a hump both in front and behind. His eyes sparkle with mischief; he looks like an old monkey. Next comes Master Oen.o.barbus, the theological rhetorician, celebrated for the orthodoxy of his religious controversies with the University of Paris. The ill.u.s.trious disputer is a dry, bilious and bald old man. Nevertheless he affects the dandy, snaps his eyes, squeezes his mouth into the shape of a heart and paints his hollow cheeks. He wears a tunic of pale green silk, and his chaplet of interwoven daisies and violets conceals only partly his scrawny lemon-colored skull. The last of the masculine judges is Foulques, Seigneur of Bercy, only recently back from the Holy Land.

His bronzed and scarred visage testifies to his valiant services beyond the seas. He is young, tall, and despite his somewhat ferocious mien, has a pleasant face.

Garlands of flowers and streamers of ribbons hanging from gilt pillars mark the sacred precincts of the tribunal. Farther away stands a brilliant and choice a.s.sembly--n.o.ble ladies and knights, abbots and abbesses from the neighboring monasteries. Mischievous looking pages and jesting equerries have also put in an appearance at this session of the Court of Love. Among the vast a.s.semblage are the eleven friends of Marphise, who the previous afternoon enjoyed the liberality of her hospitality and joined her in swearing vengeance upon Mylio the Trouvere, a vengeance, however, that he escaped by failing at the rendezvous which engaged him to be in Marphise's orchard at night. The petulant and vindictive little Countess Ursine, the bitterest of all the twelve enraged beauties, can not keep in one place for a single instant.

She bristles from one lady friend to the other with an air of importance and anger; whispers in the ear of one; makes a sign to another, and from time to time exchanges significant looks with Marphise, the President of the tribunal. Two large posts covered with foliage and flowers and each surmounted with a silk flag--one bearing the effigy of Venus, the other that of her son Cupid--mark the entrance to the Court of Love. At the entrance of the enclosure stands Giraud of Lancon, a n.o.ble knight, who officiates as the porter of the Chamber of Sweet Vows. He allows no lady pleader to enter without exacting from her the toll of a kiss. Within the enclosure, and ready for the orders of the tribunal, are William, Seigneur of Lamotte, whose office is Conservator of the High Privileges of Love; Lambert, Seigneur of Limoux, who is the Bailiff of the Joy of Joys; Hugues, Seigneur of Lascy, who is the Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram, and, as such, the one upon whom the duty devolves of introducing the fair pleaders, from whom he also has the right to exact the fee of a kiss; moreover it is his duty to a.s.sist the Bailiff of the Joy of Joys in chaining with streamers of ribbons and flowers those upon whom the tribunal p.r.o.nounces sentence, and to lead them to the Prison of Love--a somber tunnel of verdure furnished with moss couches, and located at a secluded spot of the garden.

Such are the morals of these n.o.ble women and men; such are the pastimes and amus.e.m.e.nts of the n.o.bility of this epoch. Son of Joel, listen and look; but do not feel surprised if at times your heart should leap with indignation or sink with disgust.

Presently silence is ordered. Marphise, the President, opens a little cage with gilt bars that is placed near her. Two white doves fly out, flutter about for a moment, and then perch themselves on one of the branches of the elm where they fall to cooing lovingly. The flight of the doves announces the opening of the session.

MARPHISE (rising)--"Let our Conservator of the High Privileges of Love call the cases that are to come up to-day before the Chamber of Sweet Vows."

WILLIAM OF LAMOTTE (reading from a parchment ornamented with blue and red bows)--"Aigline, high and n.o.ble Lady of La Roche-Aubert, Canoness of Mons-en-Puelle, plaintiff; Sister Agnes, Bernardine nun, known by the surname of the Plump Beauty, defendant."

The two parties to the suit step out of the crowd and approach the precincts of the tribunal, led by the Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram.

Canoness Aigline is handsome and tall, her mien is imperious. She steps forward, proud and arrogant, dressed in a long scarlet robe embroidered with ermine. Her deliberate gait, her eyes, dark, brilliant and bold, her stately beauty, contrast strongly with the humble att.i.tude of her opponent, Sister Agnes, the Bernardine nun known as the Plump Beauty.

The latter wears an una.s.suming robe of l.u.s.trous and well-fitting grey drugget, that, however, sets off her ample proportions. A linen veil, white as snow, frames in her face which shines with freshness and health. Her plump and rosy cheeks are as downy as a peach. A smile that is both pious and arch plays around her mouth, which, although rather large, is appetizingly red and is furnished with two rows of pearly teeth. Her large blue and amorous eyes are devoutly lowered and impart to her the appearance of a purring puss. Her gait, in keeping with her appearance, causes the hem of her dress just to graze the sward, without, however, throwing the folds of her dress into disorder.

Altogether, Sister Agnes presents the aspect of the most charming woman who ever emitted a sigh of love from under her monastic veil or in the oratory of a convent.

At the moment when the stately and haughty canoness, accompanied by the modest and well-rounded sister in grey, pa.s.ses before Giraud of Lancon, a veritable devil in sheepskin with eyes that sparkle with indomitable fire, posted at the entrance of the sacred precincts of the Court, he claims from the two litigants the toll that is due him--a kiss from each. The superb Aigline drops the kiss with the disdainful pride of a rich woman who gives an alms to a poor waif. Sister Agnes, on the contrary, acquits herself of her toll duties with such conscientiousness and suavity that the porter's eyes glisten like two burning coals. The canoness and the Bernardine nun step into the enclosure reserved for the litigants. Aigline advances with resolute steps to the foot of the tribunal, where Marphise sits enthroned in the seat of Venus the Queen of Love, and after making a slight bow, as if the token of deference severely tried her pride, addresses the Court in a sonorous voice: