CHAPTER XIIOF ADVERSITY. OF A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. OF A FAIR STRANGER
Torob 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, yethandsome 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. Thetender 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 shehad 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 ofNullepart, “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 onthe 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 saidcalmly, “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.