OF ADVERSITY. OF A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. OF A FAIR STRANGER
TO rob oneself of a friend is to commit a felony against the heart; and
where is the man who can afford to do that? The pangs of the heart,
believe me, are less to be supported than those of the stomach; for I
groaned under the stings of both in this the season of my adversity. A
pennyworth of bread will avail against the one, but in that other case
a man must outlive his recollection, and forget a thousand deeds of
kindness to heal the breach left gaping in his gratitude.
This is why I looked so long at the gentle Babieca without making a
decision. To part with him was necessary to the lives of us both, as I
could furnish food and lodging for neither; but much as I looked into
his quiet eyes, or gazed upon his shapeliness, or stroked his friendly
nose, I was as barren of expedients as I was of fortune or good
prospects.
It was indeed a wrench to sell this honest creature, and I let the best
part of the day go by ere I could persuade myself to suffer it. Then,
gathering up Babieca’s bridle, I led him through the town to make money
of his qualities. Coming to the market square, I asked a water-seller
to direct me to a dealer in horses. This he did--to one Cacheco, whom
he recommended stoutly as a man of purity in trade.
I found the Señor Cacheco in a corner of the market-place, seated
such an enviable distance in the shade that I saw the sagacity of his
character at once; for I tell you, reader, that any person who can make
good his claims to a spot so sheltered against the sweating market
hordes is not by any means to be looked on lightly. His stock consisted
of three or four ponies of an inferior sort and an ass that had the
mange.
This worthy was greatly at his ease beneath a pony’s belly, a
situation that gave him some protection from the flies. His face was
one that hardly invited confidence in his rectitude, being nothing
like so pretty as the reference I had received; besides he squinted
villainously, and would not look at you straightly out of the middle
of the eyes, but leered out of the corners. He got up slowly, yawned,
stretched his limbs, approached me with a sidling gait, and asked if I
wished to make a purchase.
“On the contrary, I have this horse to sell.”
“Oh, it’s a horse,” said he. “I would never have guessed that, I am
sure, now. He makes such a noise when he draws his breath that I
supposed he was related to the windmill family.”
I rated Cacheco for this impudence, and told him that he lied.
“He is as sound as a trumpet, you rogue, and I’ll defy the Devil to
prove that Babieca is otherwise.”
“Take him to the Devil, then,” said the fellow coarsely, “and see if he
will buy him. Besides, he hath a curby hock.”
I admitted that to be the case, but spoke about his pedigree.
“Pedigree!” cried the rude fellow. “My business is in horses, not in
pedigrees. Am I a man of fortune, then, that I should buy a pedigree? I
will give you five crowns.”
“Five crowns, you rogue! Why, he has been in my family for years!”
“An heirloom, I see,” said the horse-dealer. “Old Mutacho, the dealer
in the antique, is over there across the market. You will find him fast
asleep like a tortoise, with his head resting against the thigh piece
of the Cid.”
In the height of this altercation I heard a titter of laughter. Feeling
hot and discomposed already with an argument in which I showed to
no advantage, I looked about to see from whom it might proceed. It
surprised me to discover that I was providing a spectacle for one who
appeared to make no secret of the fact that he was enjoying it.
“You are amused, sir?” I said, addressing this person sternly, for I
felt myself upon the verge of a passion.
“Very,” said he, at his leisure and in a soft voice.
“May I ask, sir, in what particular I have the happiness to amuse you?”
“My dear friend,” said this person, more at his leisure than ever, “it
would take me a long while to render it clear to you, and the heat is
excessive; but if you will do me the honour to repair to my lodgings, I
may be able to explain the whole matter over a bottle of wine. And may
I pray you to bring the admirable Babieca, for next to the friendship
of his master I am sure I shall value his before anything else in the
world.”
Now, in the circumstances, such an address was extremely singular, but
the courtesy with which it was accompanied was so fine, and the air and
bearing of the person who employed it were so admirable, that I knew at
once that I had been accosted by a man of birth. Taking off his hat,
which was adorned with a long white plume, he bowed to the ground; and
while I hoped that my demeanour was in nowise behind his own, I could
not refrain from feeling how much honour his true Spanish politeness
did him.
“You are of Castile, sir, I am sure?”
“Ah no,” said he, in a soft, lisping accent, “I can make no claim to be
one of your adorable nation.”
“Then, sir, may I ask to whom I have the honour of paying my addresses?”
“Truly. I am Monsieur le Comte de Nullepart, Marquis de Outre le Mer,
Sieur des Champs Elysées. And you, sir--and you?”
“I am one Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas, a name which has yet to
declare itself, Sir Count, in this part of our peninsula, but which has
been held in high esteem in our northern province of Asturias for many
hundreds of years.”
“We are choicely met, Don Miguel, and if you will do me the signal
honour of accompanying me to supper, I shall be the happiest man in the
world.”
Upon an invitation of such courtesy you will readily suppose, good
reader, it was not for me to refuse. For his musical speech, the
delicate breeding of his air, the distinction of his dress, sombre and
chaste, yet handsome and well fitting, all proclaimed his quality.
His face looked melancholy, yet now and again a tender and sweet smile
would suffuse it, and change it altogether as if by the magic of poetry.
The companion I had found in this strange and providential fashion
would not hear of my parting with Babieca, although within five minutes
of our acquaintance I must have revealed to him my bitter poverty,
for he was such a one to whom the proudest bosom unfolds its secrets.
There was some kind of enchantment in his face, and I took no shame
from telling him that I was in the world alone, and that fortune had
rebuffed me.
“Ah, Fortune, Fortune!” said he. “She is the Proud Princess whom we woo
all our days, and who kills us with melancholy because she will have
none of us. Did you ever meet one, my dear Don Miguel, upon whom she
had smiled?”
“No, Sir Count,” said I, “I have yet to have that happiness. She did
not smile upon my father, and she hath not smiled upon me.”
“The proud jade is a chimera,” said the Count of Nullepart. “We seek
her all our days, and when at last we have come up with her, and we
press her to our bosom--lo! she is not, and we find ourselves embracing
the air. But come, my dear Don Miguel, we will eat in our inn, and
leave philosophy until after supper.”
I know not, reader, what providence it was that brought the Count of
Nullepart and myself together, but as I led Babieca to this inn at
his behest, he linked his arm through mine, and he became my brother.
The tender melancholy of his smile, the music of his speech, lulled
my mind not only with the superiority of his condition, but also with
the nobility of his intelligence. Strangely his course was pointed to
that fonda at which I had eaten my breakfast in the doubtful company of
Sir Richard Pendragon early that day. Perhaps, however, this was not
so remarkable, because the hostelry of “The Three Feathers” was the
largest and fairest inn in the whole of the city.
It was with very different feelings that I sat at table in the company
of this true gentleman, to those with which I had waited on the good
pleasure of one whose gentility depended on his name. The fare of which
we partook had been prepared with delicacy; the innkeeper served us in
person with a deference which had its root in a desire to please my
companion; the wine was of the first quality and was chosen well; and
the discourse that flowed from the lips of the Count of Nullepart was
the most charming of all--that of one who knows the world and is minded
to forget it.
“There are no adventures outside of the soul,” he said, toying with his
cup of wine with white, slender, and tapering hands. “What are these
poor five wits of ours in comparison with the infinite senses of the
inner nature? We lock our teeth, yet taste nothing; we open our eyes,
yet see nothing; we incline our ears, yet hear nothing; we excite our
nostrils, yet smell no perfume; we prick ourselves with a dagger, yet
there is nothing we can feel. It is the same with this Princess Fortune
that we talk about: we seek her forever, yet find her not. There is no
princess, my friend, there is no princess.”
“I think, Sir Count,” said I, “the point is debatable. My father went
in quest of her, yet did not find her, and I have not found her myself;
but one of these days I will--I am determined upon it.”
“And when you have done so, dear Don Miguel, you will press her to your
bosom, and she will melt in the air.”
After our supper (which, according to my taste, was of the most perfect
kind), the Count of Nullepart drew a flageolet from his pocket and
played a melody. It was very graceful, low-voiced, and melancholy, and
being his own composition, was performed with the true delicacy of the
amateur.
The hours chased one another away, for the Count of Nullepart had
a full mind and spoke of many things. When there came a lull in
our converse he would take up the flageolet again and improvise
other melodies. Or he would call for the dice and throw a main for
amusement’s sake, for I had nothing better than Babieca to wager, and
with our northern caution I was unwilling to risk my all on a single
cast.
I know not what hour of the evening it was, but it must have been hard
by to midnight, when our curiosity, which hitherto had been wholly
engaged with one another, was diverted by the arrival of a guest. My
companion was improvising an air on his instrument, when something of
a commotion was heard at the door, and to our surprise a lady without
attendance stepped into the inn and called for the servants in a loud
clear voice.
The manner of her entrance caused the Count of Nullepart to lay
his flageolet on the table, and to regard the fair intruder with a
curiosity equal to that she had awakened in me. Fair she was indeed,
since we could discern enough of her face to tell us so much. She was
both young and frail, hardly more than a child, and she was habited
in a coarse grey riding-dress that was covered with dust. But she had
a most proud and fearless face; and when the landlord came forward in
answer to her summons, in spite of her plain and almost rustic attire,
she addressed him with so much insolence that she might have been a
queen.
“Fellow,” she said, “my horse hath a shoe cast. Put him to bed with
some oats and good straw, and do you see to it that a smith is summoned
at five of the morning. At six I go upon my journey.”
The landlord bowed with proper humility, and declared that he would
attend her commands.
“That is well,” said she. “And do you bring me some food, for I have
not broken my fast since an hour before noon.”
When the landlord had gone about these behests, she sank down on
a settle in a condition of extreme weariness, threw down her whip
petulantly, drew off her riding gauntlets, and flung them upon the
floor.
In the meantime the Count of Nullepart had filled his cup out of the
last of the numerous bottles of wine to which we had yielded ourselves,
and he now carried it across the room with a wonderful air.
“Madam,” he said, proffering this beaker with an indescribable grace,
“if I may serve you, you will make me happy.”
“I thank you, friend,” she said, accepting the goblet, and sipping the
wine without any hesitation at all.
“With your permission, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart, “I will
go forth and see to it that your horse is bedded worthily and hath a
supper of oats.”
“Do so, friend, and I will thank you for your service.”
The little lady spoke with the sweet insolence of one who is accustomed
to be served.
While the Count of Nullepart was away on this errand of courtesy, I was
fain to cudgel my brains to find out who this fair stranger might be.
That a young gentlewoman should ride into Toledo at midnight without
attendance must have been an unheard-of matter. Yet again, her quality
was not in anywise declared in her dusty and rumpled habit; but in its
despite, her air, her bearing, the adorable beauty of her countenance,
made her the most enchanting figure upon whom it had ever been my hap
to set my eyes. To have encountered two such persons in a single day as
the Count of Nullepart and this lady was a clear proof that fortune was
not so entirely unpropitious as she seemed.
When the Count of Nullepart returned, which he did very soon, he set
himself to bestir the landlord in the matter of the lady’s supper; and
he besought her to accept a share of our table, which was the most
favourably situated in the room.
The lady accepted every office that the count rendered her with the
most charming and easy complaisance in the world, and when she came and
took a seat with us, I observed with a thrill of delight that, fair as
she looked from a distance, when she came near she appeared still more
enchanting. Every line in the youthful face was moulded in the most
sensitive manner. When a serving-maid had brought her supper, her eyes
fell on the flageolet that lay on the table. She gave it to me, and
said,--
“Play a melody. It will amuse me while I eat.”
I had to protest, shyly enough, I am afraid, that I had no skill in
this instrument; whereon she lifted her eyes imperiously to the Count
of Nullepart, and said,--
“You play a melody to amuse me while I eat.”
Immediately the count broke into one of the choicest of his
performances, and did it so rarely, with such elegance and mastery, as
to make it divine; and yet I believe it amused him vastly, that the
sweet little madam in whose behalf his handsome face was empurpled, and
at whose command the veins swelled in his neck, paid not the least heed
to his efforts, but munched away ravenously at the bread and meat that
was laid before her, and sipped her wine with perfect unconcern.
Since that distant evening in the inn, whenever I have met a lady who
is reputed to be peerless in beauty, before committing myself to an
opinion upon the subject of her charms, my mind has reverted to this
delectable creature. And I have yet to observe one that could compare
with this perfection of youthful womanhood. It did not matter into what
courses her hunger led her, nought could lessen the austere fascination
of a countenance which was tempered a little by the unconscious
coquetry of its glance.
When she had eaten and had drunk her wine, she waved an imperious hand
to the Count of Nullepart to cease his exertions; and although it was
clear to us she had not heeded a note of his performance, she said
calmly, “Friend, I thank you. You play very fairly well.”
Had the Count of Nullepart not been one of the greatest breeding, I am
sure he must have been consumed with laughter.
The little lady then turned to me, and said with an air that it is the
business of all to obey, “Fetch me the innkeeper, if you please.”
I obeyed the behest with alacrity; and when the landlord came into her
presence, she ordered the best sleeping-chamber in the inn to be set in
readiness for her use, since it was her goodwill and pleasure to take a
few hours’ rest.
The innkeeper was obliged, with some agitation, to inform her that, so
far from being able to place the best apartment at her disposal, he
could not even place the worst, as one and all were in occupation.
“Then lay down a fresh truss of straw, and I will sleep with my horse,”
she said imperiously.