for you in large quantities, and, for one, she meant to give it up,
though if you were intended to be fat you had in the end simply to put
up with it, just as some persons got bald sooner than others, and no
hair-dresser could help you, not even if he was as airy and as pleased
with himself as that high-and-mighty François over at Manneville. Oh,
yes, but Florian must certainly remember! He was the very skinny one
whom she had in two or three times last autumn, and who had turned out
to be a Huguenot or a Jansenist or something of that sort, so that,
people did say, the dear old Bishop was going to take the proper steps
the very instant he was out again. That was the trouble, though, with
colds at his age, you never knew what they might lead to at the moment
you were least expecting it—
So her talking went, on and on and on, while Florian looked at the
woman,—who was repulsive now even to the eye,—and he reflected: “And it
was for this that I intrepidly assailed the high place, and slaughtered
all those charming monsters! It was for this that I have sacrificed
poor Philippe and my dear Raoul!”
Bed-time alone released him from listening to her; but not from prudent
watchfulness.
That night he roused as Melior slipped from their bed. Through
discreetly half-closed eyelids Florian saw her take from the closet
that queer carved staff which had once belonged to her sister Mélusine.
Now Melior for a while regarded this staff dubiously. She replaced it
in the closet. She took up the night-light from the green-covered table
beside the bed, and she passed out of the room.
He lay still for a moment, then put on his dressing-gown and slippers,
and followed her. Melior turned, with her lamp, at the second corridor,
and went out into the enclosed Thoignet Court-yard, skirted the well,
and so disappeared through the small porch into the Chapel. Florian
followed, quite noiselessly. The paved court was chilly underfoot: as
he went into the porch a spray of ivy brushed his cheek in the dark.
Inside the Chapel three hanging lamps burned before the altar, like
red stars, but they gave virtually no illumination. Florian saw that
Melior had carried her yellow lamp into the alcove where his earlier
wives were buried. She knelt there. She was praying, no doubt, for the
intercession of that meddlesome Hoprig. Florian was rather interested.
Then his interest was redoubled, for of a sudden the place was flooded
with a wan throbbing bluish luminousness. The effigies upon the tombs
of Florian’s wives were changed; and the recumbent marble figures
yawned and stretched themselves. Thus, then, began the unimaginative
working of Hoprig’s holy ring, with a revamping of the affliction put
upon Komorre the Cursed in the old nursery tale, Florian decided; and
these retributory resurrections were rather naïve. He drew close his
dressing-gown, and got well into the shadow of his great-grandfather’s
tomb, the while that his four earlier wives sat erect and looked
compassionately at Melior.
“Beware, poor lovely child,” said the likeness of Aurélie, “for it is
apparent that Florian intends to murder you also.”
“I was beginning to think he had some such notion,” Melior replied,
“for otherwise, of course, he would hardly be fetching home the sword
Flamberge.”
She had arisen from her knees, and there was in the composure with
which she now sat sociably beside the ghost of Carola, on top of
Carola’s tomb, something that Florian found rather admirable. And he
recalled too with admiration the innocence and the unconcern with which
Melior had commented upon his having acquired such a delightfully
quaint and old-fashioned looking sword....
“Yes, for, my dear,” said Carola, “you have permitted him to get tired
of you. It was for that oversight he murdered all of us.”
“But I have no time to put up with the man’s foolishness just now,
when I am going to have a baby,” said Melior, with unconcealed vexation.
“Go seek protection of St. Hoprig,” advised Hortense.
“And how may she escape,” asked Marianne, “when Florian’s lackeys are
everywhere, and Florian’s great wolfhounds guard the outer courts?”
“She can give them the sweet-scented poison which destroyed me,” said
Carola. “But all the gates of Bellegarde are locked fast; and how could
anyone climb down the unscalable high walls of the outer fortress?”
“By means of the strong silken cord which strangled me,” answered
Marianne.
“But who would guide her through the dark to sorcerous Morven?”
“The molten lead which was poured into my ear,” replied Aurélie, “will
go before her glowing like a will-o’-the-wisp.”
“And how can she, in her condition, make so long a journey?”
“Let her take the fine ebony cane which broke my skull,” rejoined
Hortense. “For now the cup of Florian’s iniquity runs over, and all the
implements of his wickedness revolt against him.”
“Come now,” said Melior, “there has been a great deal of nonsense
talked. But you have at last, poor ghost, suggested something really
practical, and something that had occurred to me also. Yes, you are
entirely right, and your suggestion is most sensible, though, to be
sure, it can hardly be ebony: for now that I am quite certain about
Florian I simply owe it to my self-respect to leave him before he
murders me too, and the easiest way to do that of course is to use
my unfortunate and misguided sister’s staff. But ebony, you know, is
perfectly black—”
“Now of what staff can you be talking?”
“Why, but, my dear! As anybody at Brunbelois, even the veriest tidbits
of children, could tell you, it was presented to Mélusine by one of
the most fearful and ruthless demons resident in the Red Sea. It was
the staff the poor darling always rode on. I do not, of course, mean
him: in fact, I only saw him once, on a Saturday, when I was the merest
child. And with all those scales, he could hardly expect anybody to
call him a darling, even if you overlooked his having a head like a
cat. Only much more so, of course, on account of his being larger. No,
I meant that Mélusine rode on it—”
Now Florian was reflecting, “With what a lovely air of innocence she
lied to me about that staff!” And Aurélie was saying, ineffectively,
“Yes, but—”
“—Not as a steady thing, of course, but when she was about some
particularly important enchantment, and wanted to make an impression.
Mélusine was accomplished, and all that, and nobody denies it, but,
if you ask me about being vain, then I can only say that, sister or
not, I believe in being truthful. And as for leaving her things about
helter-skelter, even the crown jewels—for Mélusine was the oldest of us
girls, and Father always spoiled her quite terribly, and Mother never
cared especially for dressing up,—why, we all know what clever people
are in that way: and I need only say that I found this very staff stuck
away in a cupboard, like an old worn-out broom—”
Said Marianne, “Yes, but—”
“—When I was getting my things together to leave Brunbelois. And,
much as I hate to contradict anybody, it has a distinctly red tinge,
so that it could not possibly be ebony. So, what with all the talk,
and Hoprig’s suspicions about Florian, it simply occurred to me that
this staff was not the sort of thing my dear father would care to be
stirring up unpleasant old memories with, by seeing it, after all his
trouble with Mélusine. For, even if Hoprig had been quite wrong, still,
marriage, as I so often think, is really just a lottery—”
“Yes, but,” said Hortense, “but, but, but! one needs to know the charm
that controls the staff—”
“My dear creature! But you are Hortense, are you not? Yes, I remember
Florian told me all about you: and after the manner in which he has
behaved to me, I am perfectly willing to believe that he misrepresented
you in every way. Even if you used to make it a regular habit of flying
at people’s throats like that, I know how many perfectly well meaning
women simply do not realize what an annoyance it is for any one person
to want to do all the talking—”
“I think so too, but—”
“Oh, I am not in the least offended, my dear. It is merely that,
as I was telling you, Hortense, my sister Mélusine was one of the
most potent sorceresses in the known world, and so utterly devoted
to her art that hardly a day passed without at any rate a little
parlor conjuring. And I used often to be playing in the corner with
my building blocks and my dolls when she was at her practising. If I
were to tell you half the things I have witnessed with my own eyes,
you simply would not believe a word of it. Yes, Mélusine was quite
accomplished, there is no denying that. And as I was saying, you know
how children are, and how often they surprise you when you had no
notion they were paying the least attention. Yes, as I often think, it
is the littlest pitchers that have the largest ears—”
“If you know how the cantraps run, then, to be sure—”
“Why, but,” said Melior, now with her air of one who is dealing
patiently with an irrational person, “but everybody knows if it is
not the _Eman hetan_ charm, it has to be either the _Thout tout a
tout_ or the _Horse and hattock_ one. And so, I do hope, you see my
feeling in the matter. Because, of course, appreciating as I do the
perfectly well-meant suggestions of every one of you, still nobody in
my delicate condition exactly likes to go about sliding down ropes and
poisoning the servants, not to speak of the dogs, who, after all, are
not responsible for their master’s doings, and walking nobody knows
how many miles in the dark. So I shall go to Hoprig more carefully,
and quickly too, upon the demon’s staff, vexatious as it is not to
be remembering his name. I distinctly remember there was a Z in it,
because there always seemed to me something romantic about a Z, and
that he had talons like an eagle; but it was not Bembo, or Celerri, or
El-Gabal—No, it has quite gone out of my mind, but, in any event, I am
much obliged to all of you. And no doubt it will come back to me the
moment I stop trying to remember—”
Thus speaking, Melior arose from the tomb, and left the Chapel
reflectively. A brief silence followed, a silence that was broken by
Marianne. She said, “Poor Florian!”
“He had his faults of course,” assented Hortense, “but really, to a
person of any sensibility—Do peep, my love, and tell me if my skirts
are down properly—”
Now Florian came forward, as statelily as anybody can walk in bedroom
slippers, just as his wives were settling back upon their various tombs.
“Dear ladies,” said he, “I perceive with real regret that not even
death is potent enough to allay your propensities for mischief making.”
“Oh, oh!” they cried, each sitting very erect, “here is the foul
murderer!”
“Parbleu, my pets, what grievance, after all, have you against me? Are
you not happier in your present existence than when you lived with me?”
“I should think so, indeed!” replied Carola, indignantly. “Why,
wherever do you suppose we went to?”
“I do not inquire. It is a question raised by no widower of real
discretion: he merely inclines in this, as in most matters, to be
optimistic. Yet come now, let us be logical! Is it quite right for you
four to complain against me, and to harbor actual animosity, on account
of what was in the beginning just the natural result of my rather hasty
disposition, and in the end my quadruple misfortune? Do you, Carola,
for example, honestly believe that, after having been blessed with your
affection, I could ever be actually satisfied with Melior?”
“For one, I certainly see nothing in her. And I really do think,
Florian—”
“Nor I, either,” said Aurélie, “nor could any rational person. And for
your own good, I must tell you quite frankly, Florian—”
“Though, heaven knows,” said Marianne, “it is not as if any of us could
envy the poor idiot for being your wife—”
“It is merely that one cannot help wondering,” said Hortense, “that
even you should have had no more sense or good taste—”
So for an instant the sweet voices were like a choir of birds in
fourfold descant: and they thrilled him with remembered melodies,
vituperative and plaintive and now strangely dear. Then came the
changing. All, Florian saw in that queer bluish light, were pitiably
eager to talk about Melior, and to explain to him exhaustively just
what a fool he had been, and how exactly like him was such behavior.
But the magic of Hoprig’s revivifying ring was spent: and color and
flexibility were going away from the pretty bodies, so that their lips
could but move stiffly and feebly now, without making the least noise.
It was really heart-breaking, Florian thought, to see these lovely
women congeal into stone, and be thus petrified upon the verge of
candors which would have completely freed their minds.
Then that strange throbbing bluish light was gone: and Florian was
alone in the dark Chapel where only three dim lamps were glowing like
red stars. An ordinary person would have estimated that this gloom did
but very inadequately prefigure Florian’s future. But a Puysange knew
perfectly where next to apply for help against any and all saints.
_23._
_The Collyn in the Pot_
Florian went from the Chapel to the secret chamber which nobody else
cared to enter. At this last pinch he was resolved to enlist in his
defence that power which was at least as strong as Hoprig’s power. So
Florian carried with him wine and wafers.
He opened a wicker basket, wherein was an earthen pot. Inside this
pot lay, upon strips of white and black wool, a small, very smooth
dun-colored creature that had the appearance of a cat. Florian with a
green-handled little knife pricked the end of his ring-finger until
he got the necessary blood; and presently the Collyn of Puysange had
opened her yellow eyes and was licking daintily her lips so as to lose
no drop of the offering. Florian fed her also with the wine and wafers.
“Whither,” asked Florian then, “will the staff carry Melior?”
The Collyn answered, in a tiny voice: “To the hut which is between
Amneran and Morven. For that hut is the outpost of romance, and is as
near as the demon’s staff may dare approach to the hermitage of Holy
Hoprig.”
“Where is that hermitage?”
“Upon Morven, upon the highest uplands of Morven, between a thorn-tree
and an ash-tree, and beneath an oak-tree.”
“What is my patron saint doing in this place?”
“Master, I also keep away from these saints. But it is rumored that
this Hoprig is now somewhat recklessly exercising the privileges of
sainthood; that his doings are not very favorably looked down upon; and
that the angels, in particular, are complaining because of his frequent
demands on them.”
“That does not sound at all well,” said Florian, “and certainly there
is no precedent for the wife of a Puysange consorting with people who
annoy the angels.”
The Collyn yawned: and for a while she looked at Florian somewhat as
ordinary cats regard a mouse-hole.
“Master, I would not bother about this last wife. Why should you count
so scrupulously one woman more or less on the long list?”
“It is not the woman I wish to keep. Faith of a gentleman, no! But I
must keep my plighted word.”
“Master,” said the cool and tiny voice, “you are thrusting yourself
into a dangerous business. For this woman is now under Hoprig’s
protection, and the powers of these saints are not to be despised.”
“That is true, but I must hold to my bargain with Monsieur Janicot. The
pious old faith that made my living glad has been taken away from me,
the dreams that I preserved from childhood have been embodied for my
derision. I see my admirations and my desires for what they are, and
this is a spectacle before which crumbles my self-conceit. The past,
wherein because of these empoisoned dreams I stinted living, has become
hateful: and of my hopes for the future, the less said the better. All
crumbles, Collyn: but Puysange remains Puysange.”
“I wonder, now,” the cat asked, innocently, “if that means anything?”
“Yes, Collyn,” Florian answered: “it means that I shall keep my own
probity unstained, keep honor at least, whatever else goes by the
board. One must be logical. My quiet unassuming practise of religion
and my constant love which once derided time and change—and in fact,
the entire code of ideals by which I have lived so comfortably for
all of thirty-six years,—appear to have been founded everywhere upon
delusion and half-knowledge. Yet Helmas, I find, was truly wise. I also
shall keep up my dignity by not letting even fate and chance upset me
with their playfulness, and I shall continue to do what was expected
of me yesterday. For the code by which I have lived contents me, or,
rather, I am subdued to it. So I must go on living by it while living
lasts.”
“Yet if this romantic code of yours be based upon nothing—”
“If I have wholly invented it, without the weaving into its fabric of
one strand of fact,—why, then, all the more reason for me to be proud
of and to cherish what is peculiarly mine. Do my dreams fail me? That
is no reason why I should fail my dreams, which indeed, Collyn, have
erred solely in contriving a more satisfactory world than Heaven seems
able to construct.”
“And does all this, too, mean something?”
“A pest! it seems to mean at least my destruction, since it is an
article of my code that a gentleman may not in any circumstances
break his word. For the rest, I find that abstract questions of right
and wrong are too deep for me, too wholly based upon delusion and
half-knowledge, so I shall meddle with them no more. Good and evil must
settle their own vaporous battles, with which I am no longer concerned.”
“To fling down your cards in a rage profits nobody.”
“But do I indeed rage? Do I speak bitterly? Well, for thirty-six years
I have taken sides, and for thirty-six years I have been the most
zealous of churchmen, only to find at the last that not one of my
irregularities has been charged off. I can assure you, Collyn, that
it is quite vexing to have the business credit of one’s religion thus
shaken by the news that so much piety has ended with more debts than
assets.”
The small predatory beast still waited warily: and never for an instant
did her unwinking tilted yellow eyes leave looking at Florian.
“So many of you I have served! your father, and your grandfather, and
all the others that for a brief while were here. And in the end you all
come to nothing.”
“Ah, Collyn, if the life of a Puysange be of no account,—although that
is an unprecedented contention, let me tell you,—then so much the more
reason for me to shape what remains of that life to my own liking.”
Florian thought for a while. Florian shrugged. That was the deuce
of listening to yourself when you were talking. Florian, who had
come hither to purchase aid from the Collyn, had logically convinced
himself, through this sad trick of heeding his own words, that Puysange
must stand or fall unaided. Yes, vexing as it was, that which he had
spoken with so much earnestness was really true.
“All these years,” said Florian, rather sadly, “you have lain here at
my disposal, prepared to serve me in my need, with no small power. And
I, unlike the others of my race, have bought of you nothing. What I
have wanted I have taken, asking no odds of anyone, whether here or
below. It is true I have made to Heaven some civil tenders, in the
shape of good works and church-windows, just as I have been at pains
to supply you with blessed wine and wafers. It seemed well in logic to
preserve a friendly relation with both sides. For the rest, whatever I
felt my life to lack I have myself fetched into it, even holiness and
beauty, even”—Florian smiled,—“even Melior and Hoprig. It is perhaps
for this self-sufficiency that I am punished in a world wherein people
are expected to live and to act in herds because of their common
distrust of the future and of one another. I do not complain; and I
remain self-sufficient.”
“In fact, with me to aid you, master, you need lack for nothing.”
That was precisely what Florian had been thinking when he came hither.
But Florian had since then been listening to that most insidious of
counsellors, himself. He was utterly convinced; and one must be logical.
So Florian replied languidly:
“My dear creature! but I do not require your aid. Instead, I am come
to declare you free from your long bondage to the house of my fathers.
Yes, you are free, with no claim upon me, alone of all my race, since
now that I renounce good I shall put away evil also. For I am Puysange:
I dare to look into my own heart, and I can find there no least
admiration for Heaven or for Heaven’s adversaries. It may be I am fey:
I speak under correction, since that is not a condition with which I
have had any experience. But it seems to me that gods and devils are
poor creatures when compared to man. They live with knowledge. But man
finds heart to live without any knowledge or surety anywhere, and yet
not to go mad. And I wonder now could any god endure the testing which
all men endure?”
At this sort of talking the Collyn purred.
“Master, you shall evade that testing, for you shall have unbounded
knowledge. Ah, but what secrets and what powers I will give you, my
proud little master, for a compact and a price.”
“No: I have no doubt the powers you offer are very pleasant, very
amusing to exercise, and all that; but I have had quite enough of
compacts.”
“I will give you the master-word of darkness, that single word which
death speaks to life, and which none answers. I will give you the power
of the crucified serpent, and the spell which draws the sun and the
moon to bathe in a silver tub and do your will. There is wealth in
that spell, the wealth which purchases kingdoms. And I will give you,
who have smiled so long, the power to laugh. I will do more, my proud
little master: for I will give you the bravery to weep—”
But Florian answered: “You cannot give me anything worthy of comparison
with that which I once had, and now have lost. I had my dreams of
beauty and of holiness. I had the noblest dreams imaginable. These
dreams I have embodied as no other man has ever done before me: these
dreams I have made vital things, and I have introduced them into my
living, full measure. No, you can give me nothing worthy of comparison
with what I have lost. And you are free. In all these years the one
service I have asked of you, who have been so long the mainstay and the
destroyer of Puysange, is now at the last to reveal to me the shortest
way to my patron saint.”
“From these saints you will get a quick and ugly shrift: from me long
years of ease and wisdom, master,—utter wisdom, and no more restless
doubtings about anything.”
Florian felt of a sudden that this small fawning creature was
loathsome: and just as suddenly, Florian too was weary of all things
that are and of all that was ever to happen anywhere.
“No, Collyn, I repudiate your wicked aid; and I set you free, not
really hating evil or good either. But I honestly prefer to owe
allegiance to nobody except myself. Because of that preference I
shall go undefended to yet another high place in quest of my embodied
dreams,—now for a second time, and now with a somewhat different
intent.”
“You march toward death and toward utter destruction, my proud little
master, when even now my power might save you. There is no other power
that would befriend you now, for you march up against Heaven.”
“Yes, yes! that is regrettable of course, it tends to establish a bad
precedent. But it is my ill luck to be both a gentleman and a poet,—a
poet who, I can assure you,” Florian said, hastily, “has never written
any verses. That, at least, nobody can charge me with. Now to a
gentleman destruction is preferable to dishonor: and to a married poet,
Collyn, there are worse things than death.”
_24._
_Marie-Claire_
Florian left Bellegarde at dawn. For once, he did not travel in his
favorite bottle-green and silver. Good taste suggested that a plain
black suit with his best Mechlin ruffles, was the appropriate wear in
which to court destruction. Thus clad, he girded on Flamberge, and set
out as merrily as might be, afoot: no horse could come to the top of
Morven, where once had stood the grove of Virbius.