THE MUSE IN DRAGGLED SKIRTS
Argenton! That was strange, so strange that I started on my stool at
the end of the table, and half rose. Of course they were passwords,
but why Argenton? Argenton was the lordship of Monsieur de Commines,
to whom I looked for protection; why Argenton?
Bowing again, but with a warmer courtesy, he motioned her to take his
place at the inner side of the table while he, drawing the end of stool
a foot or two back towards the corner, sat, half-concealed by her
shrouded bulk.
"Mademoiselle will excuse me uncovering?" he said, touching his
slouched hat, "and will also remember we are not alone."
Turning, she glanced down at us as we sat in the light of our one
guttering candle. It was my first glimpse of her face, but so deep was
her hood I saw no more than an oval of pallor in the darkness of its
cavity.
"I think," said she contemptuously, with a glance at the scattered
group in the alcove, "we could soon be alone if Monseigneur thought it
desirable."
Of the hint and the contempt I alike took no notice, of the latter
because of the former; the threat that underlay it fixed me to my seat.
To have moved then, was to move upon compulsion. But as we continued
our play with the dice as if the words had never been said, her
companion interposed hastily.
"No, no. I confess I thought of that before you came. But brawling
would serve neither you nor me, no, nor those who--who--trust us."
"That there is trust between us, Monseigneur, I am glad to know," she
answered, "for as yet, I have not seen much of it--on one side."
So far they had spoken with no pretence at concealment, their object, I
surmised, being to disabuse us of all suspicion of deep matters. But
now their voices fell to a murmur, over which the click of the dice on
the wood of the table sounded to my tense nerves like a clash of
swords. Let it be remembered that I was but a country lad. All this
was new to me, and the pricking threat of danger, the secrecy, the very
air of Paris itself, fired my blood.
And so the minutes passed; the girl--I was sure she was a girl, so
sweet was her voice, so gentle, and with a stirring music in it that
was strange to me in women's voices. Since then I have heard a like
music throbbing from a bird's song in the pure blue of a summer's noon,
and been thrilled by it as I was then; yes, I was sure it was a girl.
The girl it was who spoke most, spoke with a varying mood that charmed
and angered me; even when mechanically flinging the dice I feigned not
to see the eagerness, the insistence, the passion, the pleading whose
murmured words fell like tears. What right had that stolid clod--clod
was what Paris had called us in her streets, and the name stuck--what
right had he to be so coldly unmoved, so silent, that he only answered
her by a word or a gesture of denial? But she would take no denial,
and with the brave spirit of a good woman returned to her pleading,
pushing the petition home urgently, even strengthening her arguments by
two outstretched arms, and a hand upon his shoulder. How did I know
all that? Ah! every clod on which the sun strikes has a soul within
it, and so I knew.
Yet what did he answer?
"All must be as the King wills," said he, his words roughening with
distinctness as if he were not altogether sorry to be overheard. "All
as the King wills, remember that, Mademoiselle. He is the potter, I
the clay; he is everything, I nothing--nothing."
"Nothing!" she echoed, her voice rising level with his own, "why! all
France knows that you are the King in everything but name. What you
say to-day, Louis says to-morrow; why deny it? Let us come to the bare
truth. We desire peace, desire it with all our heart, and you say you
will do nothing. Is that to be your answer, Monseigneur?"
"Not that I will do nothing, but that I am nothing. If all France
thinks it knows better, then all France is a fool. I sleep in his
chamber, I tend him, I wait upon him, I valet him--I think no shame of
that; he is the greatest King and wisest man in Christendom--I do these
things, but--I am nothing. Or," he went on, after a pause, "if I am
something--anything, it is because I am careful to be nothing. By a
breath he undoes me, and I would not have it different. France grows
great by the greatness of its Kings, and if France falls, it will be
because the King has let the shadow of the people fall upon the throne."
"Then--is it ruin?" I do not think she meant the words to be heard,
but she was shaken out of herself, and spoke louder than she knew.
"Must a great house fail that greatness may grow yet a little greater?
And so little greater, so very little! Much to us, Monseigneur, ah!
you can never guess how much, but so little to France. Is that your
answer, ruin, ruin, ruin?"
A silence fell, and I will not deny that though I still fingered the
dice my breath was held to catch the reply. It came slowly, gravely,
spoken as a man speaks who knows his own weight, and the weight his
words cannot help but carry.
"I, too, desire peace, but all is as the King wills."
Whether she would have urged him afresh I do not know, but opportunity
was wanting. All through supper, and afterward, sounds of carousals
had come across the courtyard from the common room, hoarse bursts of
song, hoarser laughter, roared out oaths, and the occasional scuffle of
feet stamping on the sanded floor. Then came a time of quiet, and had
I but known my Paris better I would have guessed that then was the time
of danger. While Paris is noisy, Paris, by a paradox, is safe and
tranquil; when Paris thinks, and speaks under its breath, then Paris is
dangerous.
But of the many wild beasts that couch in France, Paris was the one of
which I knew the least, and when I thought the night drew to peace,
Paris was already on the spring. A door opened more quietly than a
door is commonly opened with a half-drunk reveller's hand upon the
latch; from the courtyard a voice or two spoke out, spoke shortly and
without clamour. Then, unheralded by warning, came the third
interruption of the night. Both wings of the door were flung open, and
in the space a figure showed itself, which, apart from its sudden
appearance, must still have drawn our eyes.
It was a man so beragged, and so variously bepatched as to be
ridiculous, were it not that aged poverty is always pathetic. Every
stuff of the looms had gone to his clothing, every shade of the dyer,
faded and weatherstained, peeped and twinkled in the mendings of his
tatters. But the eye soon shifted from these frank advertisements of
starved penury, and wandering to his face, stayed there, fixed by a
fascination that defies analysis. Let a soul but look out of window,
and whether it be naked Priapus plastered to the crown with filth, or
Saint Francis of the birds--are there not many gods in the Olympus of
the mind?--they who see it must needs look back, and never heed what
are the drapings of flesh through which it peers.
From under a dirty linen cap, from which, in a derision of gaiety,
drooped a draggled red feather, three or four grey locks strayed across
a noble forehead till they met and thickened a line of delicate brows.
The nose was thin, hooked, and cruel, pinched in at the nostrils to a
fixed sneer; the cheeks lean and smooth, but covered with a network of
fine wrinkles branching from below the eyes. Over a loose, full-lipped
mouth, red, sensuous, and smiling, fell an almost white moustache,
caught up into an audacious curve at the ends; the chin was bearded by
a straggle of thin silver hair drawn to a point.
But, more than all the rest, the eyes marked him for a man of brains,
so full were they, so lustrous, and yet so piercing; age might whiten
him, shrivel him; an evil life, hard lived, might shake his nerve, but
the eyes and the brain and the soul of the man bated no jot of their
strength. Behind him--strangely like, and yet strangely
unakin--tiptoeing or stooping low to see the better, was such a
gathering of rabble as a casting of nets will draw from the denser,
fouler slums of any great city.
Laying a long-fingered, delicate, much-soiled hand upon his breast, he
bowed satirically.
"Mesdames and Messieurs, and you, the disguised princes of the blood in
the dark yonder, you sweepings of the hedgerows who cannot eat in the
presence of men more like Almighty God in intelligence than yourselves,
you are welcome every one of you. We looked for tribute from two of
earth's scum," he went on, posing himself negligently, one foot
advanced, a fist doubled on a hip, the fingers of the other playing
with his straggled beard point, "and lo! there are seven great and
small; therefore, as seven is to two, and the product to the emptiness
of our pockets, so is our welcome."
By this time all, whether within the room, or without, were on their
feet, but the seven of which he spoke so gibingly were still in three
groups. But he who called himself Narbonne was naturally the spokesman
of us all and he it was who answered.
"Take your jest elsewhere, and your filthy crew with it," he said
coldly. "Piff! your very smell is an offence."
But the other never stirred, nor did the smile leave his face; only his
eyes narrowed, and his full mouth grew hard, the lips tightening till
the stumps showed in the gums.
"'Tis the oil of the student," he answered suavely; "the literary
flavour as we in Paris know it, or maybe, your nostrils are
unaccustomed to the sweet-smelling flowers of Parnassus? To some poor
souls the perfume of poesy is as strange as the odour of sanctity.
They have my pity!"
"Again, I tell you, take your jest elsewhere."
"Jest! My friend, you cannot have lived in courts. Now, I know court
life as I know my barren pouch. Jest? Does our brother Louis jest
when he knocks at the door of high and low and says, Pay me my taxes?
His is a door of wood, mine that yet harder, more tightly fitting door,
the human heart! You do not understand? Listen then! Francis the
First, King of Divine Song, Prince of all Poets, Elder Brother to the
Nine Muses and Father of the Lord knows what, levies tribute, and by
God! Messieurs and Mesdames, he'll see it paid! These," and he
pointed, thumb across shoulder, to the tattered slum bullies, thieves,
cut-throats, and night-walkers, who had pushed him forward almost to
the edge of the table, "these are our honourable tax-collectors, lambs
almost as gentle as our brother Louis' own. Do you pay, Messieurs, or
must the law take its course?"
From his place in the alcove, he who had been the women's attendant
stepped forward.
"Let me deal with the rabble, Monseigneur."
"Silence, sir, know your place--and mine," he added significantly.
Then, turning to the fellow across the table he went on sternly, "and
you, leave the King's name out of your mummery, or your fool's wit may
not save your neck."
"I have looked through a halter ere now, and come away neither sadder
nor wiser than you see me. God forbid I should ever be one or other.
I have even given my Testament to the world, a thing few men do and
live. Alas! How the world changes. But that is past and the bird
sings no longer.
_Ou sont les gratieux gallards
Que je suy voye au temps jadis,
Si bien chantans, si bien parlans,
Si plaisans en faicts et en dicts?_
Hung, I sadly fear, hung, every mother's son of them! But the bird
still sits upon the bough, and if in age it sings less, still needs
must that it fills its craw, so, come, sir, pay up! Like my brother
Louis, I try smooth means first, but, also like my brother Louis, I do
not stop there; and, again like my brother Louis, when I squeeze I
squeeze hard.
_Necessité fait gars mesprendre,
Et faim saillir le loup des boys,_
"François, the one and only King of Song, has spoken!"
"François? What? Art thou that François Villon?"
The fellow laughed as he bowed with a flourish.
"Monsieur has said it!"
"François Villon? And not hanged yet?"
Again he laughed, but this time without merriment; the gibe and the
contempt were alike bitter.
"Again Monsieur has said it! Twice, no, when I come to think of it,
thrice Montfauçon has sighed for me, and yet I live. By my faith! I
begin to think I shall die in my bed if I do not first starve in the
streets!"
"François Villon----"
"I have said it, I have said it; King François Villon, François the
first, François the last, François Villon, the lover of all the Muses
and every pretty woman in the world! And now that you know me,
Monsieur, your purse, that François Villon the man and his tax
collectors may drink and bless you. What? You will not? Ah, be
persuaded, be gently persuaded, what is a purse or two, a handful of
beggarly coins, compared with--Mademoiselle is with you, is she not?
Then God forbid that I should finish the comparison. As a poet I hate
ugly realities, as a man I love pretty women, and François Villon the
man--Alas! we all have our passions, our frailties, you understand; eh?
Look at us, we can be rough at times, just as our brother Louis can,
and not having seen Mademoiselle's face I do not know if it is worth
our while to quarrel. One peep, Mademoiselle, one little glimpse for
the poet; the man, whose delights are not altogether pleasures of the
mind, can come later if it is worth his while; one look, just one," and
leaning across the narrow table he stretched out a long arm as if to
twitch her hood aside.
"_Mon Dieu_! Monseigneur," she cried, not shrinking back, but holding
herself erect just out of reach of the foul and twitching fingertips.
"Is there no one to kill this infamous wretch?"
In a flash her neighbour's sword was out, and with its point at
Villon's throat he cried;
"Another inch, and she shall see it done!"
To do him justice, Villon never flinched, but stood there silent, rigid
as a statue, his loose lips parted in an evil smile, his eyes searching
the shaded faces of the two fronting him. But if he held his peace,
those about him did not. Look on us! he had said, and said wisely. It
was a frank warning, a cynical invitation to repulsion and disgust.
From noisome cellars and crazy garrets, down rotting stairways, by
crooked sunless lanes, from thieves' dens and nameless stews of vice
where neither law, honour, or sweetness of life ever went, they had
come, these garbage rats of the sewers of Paris, of which he said, Look
on us! And the brand of their lives was red on them, as if stamped by
the hangman's iron. Weasel face, rat face, wolf face; look on us!
human brutes every one. And like brutes they bore themselves,
growling, snarling, spitting; their teeth bared to bite.
Little by little they had pressed in after Villon, little by little
they had spread themselves through the room, but mostly at the upper
end, guessing that the sweetest pickings lay there, and in a herd, as
if they drew a natural brute courage from the feel and jostle of
numbers. Never for an instant were they still, but shifted restlessly
like wolves in a cage; never for an instant were they silent, and when
the chief brute of them all, he of the God-given brain, laid upon the
altar of service to the devil, said, Look on us! a guttural chorus rose
that gave point and barb to the menace. They knew the power of evil
and gloried in it. Arms were shaken in the air, arms in sleeves, arms
in tatters, arms bare, women's arms, men's arms, and in every fist was
a weapon, a knife, a cleaver, a bludgeon, anything that could maim or
bruise, even cobble stones torn from the streets were flourished above
shock heads, the slime of the kennel still wet upon them.
With the blade at Villon's throat the chorus swelled to a roar, and I
was passing up behind Martin's back, my own sword half drawn, when he
stopped me.
"No, no, Monsieur Gaspard," he whispered, clinging to my sleeve as he
had clung to Roland's bridle the day Solignac was burned. "Let them
settle it among themselves; our way is by the window opposite. What
have we to do with other men's brawls. Once in the courtyard and----"
He stopped short and swung round on his heel. "_Dame_! there is the
fellow who struck Ninus across the muzzle! With you, Monseigneur, with
you! A Hellewyl! a Hellewyl! Only for heaven's sake, let the women
stand back." And before I could follow his change of mood he had flung
our candle into a corner and was leaning across the table side by side
with him I have called Monsieur Narbonne. "We pay no debts in Paris,
do we not?" he cried, jerking a knee on to the table with his left hand
while he lunged with the right, "My faith! but we do, we of Flanders!"
and his blade went home.
It was first blood for us. From behind Villon was drawn back out of
reach of the point at his throat, over went the table between
us--Martin saving himself by a backward leap--and what happened
thereafter I cannot tell. Twice I was hurt; once by a stone on the
shoulder, and once by a stab instinctively parried in the dark by my
left arm. But the putting out of the light saved us. Through the
windows a straggle of moonbeams fell on the yelling, rascally mob, but
left us in gloom. If they were outlines we were shadows, so like the
fuller darkness as to be hardly visible, and the shadows had the
advantage. Of two things the room seemed full; noise, the din of
cursing voices, shuffling feet, groans, obscenities, and a faint play
of light like the flight of dull fireflies as the moon caught the
twisting flats of steel.
Then the end came, but from without, not from within; a knocking at the
inn door that grew louder and louder, and as it grew the babel within
sobered. The kennel crew knew its meaning better than we. By ones and
twos, and then in a swarm, the mob fled. François the First and Last,
King of Song, and High Priest of all the rest of his blatancy, heard
Montfauçon call for the fourth time, and had no heart to dance upon
nothing to the music of that sinister voice.