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!”