From that day the son never remained long at his father's house. Each time he came he found his father harsher and more impatient--his mother ever with the same love, but more reserved towards him--Mary, tranquil, but silent when the men spoke; she also showed herself but seldom.
On a bright day late in autumn, we find Clement once more in the room in which, as a boy, he had passed the time devoted to his cure. One of his friends and fellow-students had accompanied him; they had both passed the usual time at the University, and they were just returned from a long journey, in the course of which Wolf had been unwell, and wished to recruit himself in the quiet of the village. Clement was obliged to acquiesce, although, amongst all his friends, this was the very one he thought most unlikely to suit his father. He managed, however, to fall into the ways of thinking of the old people with unexpected tact and dexterity, and particularly won the mother's heart by the lively interest he pretended to take in all household matters; he was also able to give her many little bits of advice, and relieved a complaint under which she laboured by some simple remedy; for he had prepared himself to succeed an old uncle who was an apothecary, a profession for which his inclinations and acquirements really unfitted him; yet he was of an easy disposition and delighted to be quiet and to enjoy himself from time to time. He had never had much real feeling in common with Clement, and so at his first step into the rectory he felt himself in an utterly strange atmosphere, and would certainly have seized the smallest excuse for leaving a circle which constrained and wearied him, had not the blind girl struck him, at the first glance, as a remarkable problem to be solved. It is true she avoided him as much as she could. The first time he took her hand she withdrew it from his with an inexpressible disquietude, and quite lost her self-command, yet he hung about her for hours at a time, watched her way of managing affairs, and examined with a gay recklessness, which it was impossible to be angry with, the means by which she kept up a communication with the outer world, and studied the way in which the senses she had preserved, made up for the one she had lost; he could not understand why Clement thought so little of her.He, however, avoided meeting her more than ever, and particularly when he found her in Wolf's company; then he grew pale and turned away, and the villagers often met him in lonely forest paths, seemingly lost in gloomy reveries.
He was returning one evening from a melancholy distant wandering, and had just passed from the wood into the corn-fields, when he met Wolf advancing towards him. Wolf was more excited than usual. After a long visit to Mary, who had interested him even more than ever, he had gone to the little village inn, and had drunk so much of the country wine, that he took a fancy to wander about the fields in the cool of the evening to refresh himself.
"You will not get rid of me so soon!" he cried to Clement. "I must study your little blind witch a little more first; she is cleverer than a dozen women in the town, who only use their eyes to ogle God's man; and now she keeps me in order; it is really marvellous!"
"So much the better for you if she tames you a little." said Clement, sharply.
"Tame! that she will never make me! when I look at her, and her graceful figure and beautiful face, faith, it is not to grow tamer! Don't believe that I would do her any harm; but do you know that I sometimes think that if she did ever love any one, it would be a wonderful love; one like her, who sees not, onlyfeels, and suchfeeling, so delicate and strong and charming, such as one never can find elsewhere; he will be a happy man round whose neck she throws her arms!"
"You would do better to keep your thoughts to yourself."
"Why? whom do they harm? and whom should I injure if I were to make her, at least, a little in love with me, just to see how the nerves will extricate themselves out of the difficulty? so much of the inner fire is usually cooled by the eyes--but here--
"Beware how you try experiments upon her!" Clement burst out. "I tell you solemnly, that for the future, I will neither hear nor see aught of this--so beware!"
Wolf cast a keen side-long glance at him, seized his arm, and said laughing, "I really believe that you are in love with the girl and want to keep the experiment for yourself. How long have you grown so particular? you used to listen readily enough when I said what I thought of women."
"I am not your teacher! What have I to do with your foul thoughts? But I think that Ihavea right to prevent your sullying one with them who is so dear to me, and who is a thousand times too pure to breathe the same air with you."
"Oho! oho!" said Wolf, carelessly. "Too good! too good! you are a fine fellow, Clement! a very fine fellow! out of my sunshine, my dear boy."
He gave him a slight blow and turned away. Clement stood still; his cheeks grew suddenly pale. "You shall explain what you mean by these words," he said sternly.
"Not such a fool! ask others if you want to know. You will soon find one who has a greater fancy to preach to deaf ears than I have."
"What do you mean? Who are the others? Who dares to speak ill of her? Who?"
He held Wolf with a hand of iron. "Fool!" growled Wolf, angrily; "you spoil my walk with your tedious cross-questionings. Let me go free!"
"Not from this place do you move till you have given me an explanation;" said Clement, wild with rage.
"Indeed! Go and settle it with the sacristan's son if you happen to be jealous; poor devil! to go on with him till he was ready to jump out of his skin, and then to give him his marching orders. Pah! is that honourable? He complained to me, and I consoled him. She is just like other women, I told him, a coquette. Now she is trying it on upon me, but we know how to manage matters, and are not going to let our mouths be shut, and have other good fellows fall into the same snare."
"Retract your words!" shouted Clement, almost beside himself, shaking Wolf violently by the arm.
"Why? It is true, and I can prove it. Go--you are a child!"
"And you--are a scoundrel!"
"Oho! now it is your turn to eat your words."
"I retract not a syllable!"
"Then you know the consequences. You shall hear from me as soon as I get to town."
Therewith he turned coolly away from him and went towards the village. Clement stood for a time rooted to the spot. "Miserable wretch!" burst from his lips. His bosom laboured violently--a bitter agony nested within it. He threw himself upon the ground amongst the corn, and lay long, recalling a thousand times over each word which had so terribly moved him.
When he returned to the house late in the evening, he found, contrary to his expectation, that the family were still together.
Wolf was not there. The old man paced with firm steps through the chamber; his mother and Mary sate with their work in their laps, contrary to the custom of the house at so late an hour. When Clement entered, his father paused in his walk, and turned his head gravely towards him.
"What had passed between you and your friend? He departed whilst we were in the fields, and has left but a scanty greeting behind him; when we returned home we found a messenger removing his luggage. Have you quarrelled? Why else should he have left this house so hastily?"
"We had a dispute. I am happy not to find him under this roof."
"And what did you quarrel about?"
"I cannot tell you, father. I would willingly have avoided it; but there are things which an honest man cannot hear spoken. I long knew that he was wild, and spared neither himself nor others; but I never saw him before as he was to-day."
The father looked steadily at his son, and asked in a low voice--
"And how will it be arranged?"
"As is the custom amongst men of honour," answered Clement, firmly.
"Do you know howChristiansare accustomed to arrange quarrels?"
"Idoknow, but cannot do it. If he had insultedme, I could have forgiven him, and spared him his punishment; but he has slandered one who is dearer to me than myself."
"A woman, Clement?"
"Yes, a woman!"
"And you love this woman?"
"I love her!" said the young man, in a low voice.
"I thought that it was thus." cried the old man. "The town has destroyed you. You have become one of the children of this world, following after strange women, and swaggering for them, and making of them the false idols of your folly! But I tell you that, so long as I live, I will labour to bring you back to the Lord, and will shatter your idols! Has God wrought a miracle in you that you should deny him? Aye, it were better that you sate still in darkness, and that the door had for ever remained shut through which the spirit of lies has crept into your heart!"
The young man restrained himself with difficulty. "Who has given you the right, father," he cried at last, "who has given you the right of accusing me of ignoble inclinations? Because I must do what must be done in this world to restrain the insolence of the base, amItherefore base? There are different ways of fighting against the spirit of evil. Yours is the way of peace, because you have to deal with men in the aggregate. I stand opposed to a single man, and know what I have to do."
"Thoucanst not change him," the old man cried angrily: "wilt thou tread God's ordinances under thy feet? He is no son of mine who raises his hand against his brother. I forbid the meeting in the strength of my priestly and paternal power. Beware how you brave it."
"So you cast me from your house," said Clement gloomily. The mother, who had burst into tears, arose, and rushed towards her son. "Mother," he said sternly, "I am a man, and may not be false to myself." He approached the door, and glanced over towards Mary, who sought him sorrowfully with her great blind eyes. His mother followed him; her sobs choked her voice. "Do not retain him, wife," cried the old man; "he is no longer a child of ours if he be not a child of God. Let him go whither he will; he is dead to us."
Mary heard the door shut, and the mother fall to the ground with a cry from her inmost mother's heart. Then the palsied feeling which had kept her seated went from her. She arose, went to the door, and with a powerful effort bore the fainting woman to her bed. The old man stood by the window and spoke not a word; his clasped hands trembled violently.
A quarter of an hour later, some one knocked at the door of Clement's room. He opened it, and Mary stood before him. The room was in confusion. She struck her foot against his travelling trunk, and said sorrowfully, "What are you going to do, Clement?" Then his rigid grief gave way; he seized her hands, and pressed his eyes, in which the hot tears stood, against them. "Imustdo it," he said; "I have long felt that I have lost his love; perhaps he will feel, when I am far away from him, that I have never ceased to be his son."
She raised him up. "Do not weep so, or I shall never have the strength to utter what Imustsay. Your mother would say it, did your father not forbid her. The sound of his voice told me how hard it was for him to be so stern; but thus he will remain. I know him well. He believes that his sternness is a duty to God, to make him offer up his own heart as a sacrifice."
"And doyouthink that it is required of him?"
"No, Clement! I know but little of the world, and know not the nature of the laws which force men of honour to fight. But I know you well enough to know that the mere opinion of the world would never prevent your considering honestly what is right and what is wrong--even in this case. You may owe it to the world, and to the woman you love;--but still, you owe more to your parents than to either. I know not the girl they have slandered, and may not be able quite to understand the depth of the pain it must give you not to do all for her.--Do not interrupt me. Do not think that I have any fear that for her sake you might withdraw from me those last scanty remains of friendship these last years of separation have spared me.--I give you up utterly to her, if she but makes you happy.--But you have no right to do, even for her sake, what you contemplate doing, even were she a thousand times dearer to you than father or mother. You have no right to leave your father's house in anger, and so close the door for ever on yourself. Your father is old, and will take his opinions to the grave with him. He would have had to sacrifice the essence and substance of his whole life if he had given way. You sacrifice to him the passing respect that you may possess in the eyes of strangers. For if the girl you love so can desert you because you refuse to bring down your father's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave, she has never, never been worthy of you"--
Her voice failed her. He had thrown himself on a chair, and groaned bitterly. She stood ever near the door, and waited for his answer. Across her brow lay a strange anxious expression, as if she listened even to him with her very eyes. Suddenly he sprang up, laid his hands upon her shoulders, and cried, "It was fortheethat I would have done it, and forthysake alone will conquer my own heart!" Then he rushed past her, and down the narrow stairs.
She remained above. His last words had quivered in her very soul, and a stream of blissful thoughts swept through her fearful, half-incredulous heart. She seated herself trembling on the travelling-trunk. "For thee! For thee!" still rang in her ears. She almost feared his return. If he should have meant differently?--and how was it possible that he should not mean differently? What was she to him?
At last she heard him returning--her agitation gained on her; she arose, and moved towards the door. He entered, clasped her in his arms, and told her all!
"It isIwho am blind," he cried; "youare the seeing one--the prophetess! What were I now without thy light? Lost for all eternity! driven from all the hearts I love through mine own miserable blindness! And now--now--all again mine--aye, and more than I knew of--more than I dared to hope for!"
She hung mute and agitated upon his neck; all her long-suppressed love burst forth, and glowed in her kisses, despising the tepid rendering of mere words.
The day dawned upon their happiness.
Now he learned, too, what she had so long kept silent, and what this same room had seen, in which they now, for ever irrevocably united, pressed each other's hands, and parted in the light of the breaking day.
In the course of the day a letter arrived from Wolf, dated the night before, from the next village. "Clement need not trouble himself," he wrote. "He retracted all he had said; he knew best that it was all an idle lie; anger and wine had put it into his head. He had really thought, when he saw him so cold about it, that it would only have cost him a word to win the girl; and when he saw that Clement was in earnest, he had slandered what he felt was for ever beyond his reach. He should not think him worse than he was, and excuse him to the girl and his parents, and not quite give him up for ever."
When Clement read these lines to Mary, she said, with some emotion, "I only pity him. I never felt comfortable when he was near me, and how much he might have spared both us and himself! But I can think of him calmly now. How much have I to thank him for!"
When holy Saint Louis wore the crown of France, the good old town of Arras was just six hundred years younger than it is now. That she was a thousand times merrier she had to thank, not her youth alone, but, before even that, the noble guild of poets who resided within her walls, and who, by their ballads and miracle-plays, and pleasant rhyming romances, spread her fame over all fair France.
Now it happened one early spring about the time, that in a garden in Arras, behind the house of one of these valiant singers, a young woman was busied tying up vines to their trellises. She was beautifully formed, of that pleasant roundness that usually indicates a cheerful soul within, and she had a sweet, gentle face. Her calm dark eyes swept now and then over the garden as if they knew neither joy nor sorrow; but her hands were active and dreamed not. After the fashion of well-to-do townswomen, she wore her fair hair adorned with many an artful ribbon ornament, and her gown was tucked up for work, and, perhaps, possibly also, for the sake of her darling little feet.
As the charming vision wandered in her tranquil activity still further into the garden, there appeared at the door of the house which opened into it, a man, who formed both in face and manner a most remarkable contrast to her. He was of middle size, with a keen eye, and irregular features. His black cloak indifferently concealed his high left shoulder, and his legs seemed to have been made after very different patterns. But still his figure, however incongruous its parts might seem, was brought into a striking unison by the boldness and vivacity of his carriage; and about his mouth there played an expression that must have made him dangerous in sarcasm, or very charming in a more kindly humour.
He gazed for a while at the fair young gardener, and seemed to enjoy her beauty. He shook his head irresolutely. At last he plucked the barrel-cap with the green cock's-feather deeper over his forehead, and strode towards her.
The fair woman looked round, her cheek coloured slightly, and her eyes brightened. She let her hands fall by her side, and gazed silently at him as he neared her.
"Good-day, Marion!" said the man, almost roughly. "Is there any one beside yourself in the garden?"
"No, Adam."
"It is well--I wish to speak with you. You are a good wife, Marion, and do your duty; but yet I must tell you that I cannot endure you any longer!"
The bright cheeks grew pale as death; but she was silent and looked steadily before her.
"No!" continued Adam; "longer I cannot bear it! You are very lovely, Marion, and that I know now, four weeks after our wedding, better than I did when I courted you, but--you are so wearisome, Marion! I will not say that you are absolutely without sense; but the Holy Virgin only knows whether it is asleep, or waiting in good hope of some mighty thought, when it is to appear. I have waited long for it, and now my patience is at an end. Have you once, only once, since we have been man and wife chattered amusingly, or made one single joke? or have my brightest strokes of wit ever found more favour from you than half a smile? Have you not ever gone calmly on your way like a statue? What is the use of my now and then making the discovery that you really are flesh and blood, when from morning to night I am obliged to laugh at my own jokes by myself, and so applaud my own rhymes with my own hands. Fool that I was! I should have thought of it sooner--when I fell in love with you!Now, I thought, she will begin to thaw! Confess yourself--have we not wearied each other as thoroughly as any wedded pair in Christendom?"
The young wife remained obstinately silent, but her eyes filled with heavy drops. Adam broke a young twig hastily from the tree, and continued--
"I will not say that other women are, in the long-run, better, or more amusing--I do not say so; and I have at least to thank you for showing me so early that I have made a great mistake in taking a wife. But, for the third time--I can stand it no longer! Am I to mope and fritter away my young life in this hole, merely because I had the luck to think you pretty? And am I never to set foot in Paris, at the king's court, in the chambers of princes, where my talent would bring me honour and distinction?--and never set a foot in the houses of learned doctors of the University, where there are more clever things said in one hour than you produce in a year? and all this because you are a pretty woman--for you are one--and, by chance, my proper wife! May the devil bake me into a pancake if I stand it!"
He paced up and down a few times, gesticulating vehemently, glanced sideways at his wife, and began again.
"Are you not a standing proof that I am right? Why don't you cry, as any other ordinary woman would do, and fall upon my neck and beseech me to remain, and say that I am your darling Adam--your only love--your handsome Adam, though, by-the-bye, I am not handsome, and promise everything, whether you can perform it or not? There you stand, and don't know how to help yourself! Am I to give up my art and my young years for the pleasure of staring at you? And supposing we should have children, and they take after you! Do you expect that I shall be able to compose the stupidest birthday ode, with six or seven boys and girls, all as lovely as pictures, and as stupid, sitting round me and staring at me? But we will not part in enmity; and so I tell you, in all love and friendship, that you can no longer be my wife! I will away to Paris as soon as I can raise money enough for the journey; you can return to your parents, or, if you like, you can go to my old uncle, who is so fond of you; he will take good care of you--you shall want for nothing; and if you should have a child, I will keep it as my own--but, remain with you Icannot, Marion! By my soul's salvation! a poet I am, and a poet I will remain--and weariness is poison to the merrie art! Now I am going to my uncle--be a good girl, and let us part friends."
He stretched out his hand towards her, but she saw it not for tears. He thought it needless on that account to wait and see whether she would behave as he had told her other women would do under the circumstances; he turned hastily towards the door and disappeared into the house.
An hour after the wedded pair had thus parted "in friendship," the door of a stately house, in which lived the rich senator, Adam's uncle, was thrown open, and Adam stepped hastily out, in high excitement. He hurried onwards without regarding which way he took, and now and then scraps of his internal conversation with himself burst forth, as he clenched his fist or twisted his fingers in his long round-cut hair.
"The old shark!" he growled. "And yet he had got rags of virtuous poverty to cover the nakedness of his avarice! What is it to him if I and my wife choose to agree to a friendly separation? I wish he would take her himself, if it were not a pity for her, pretty young thing! Truly, whether I moulder here or not touches not his money-bags; but, to travel and to see the world, and gain wisdom--ay! that pinches Master Money-bags sore! Pah! because he gave me the cottage, and arranged my household, am I to freeze in Arras, and blunder about with those rogues of balladmakers, and hide my light under a bushel? If I am obliged to travel like a mountebank, and train dogs and apes to get to Paris, I'll do it! I'll show the old gold-scratcher that Adam de la Halle is no petticoat knight, but knows how to follow his own way."
And this same way of his own carried him this time to the Three Golden Lilies, the best tavern in the good old town of Arras. There were but few guests in the drinking-room at this hour. Adam seated himself in a corner, and did not look up until the host, bringing him wine, greeted him respectfully,
"You come as if called for, Master Adam," said mine host of the Lilies. "There is one of my guests, see you--the man sitting yonder by the stove and looking towards you. Well, a week ago he brought a troop of players into the town, to play the great passion-piece at Easter, in the cathedral The reverend gentlemen there sent for them; and now it wants fourteen days to the time, and they are all loitering about idle and eating their pay before they get it; and their director lodges with me, and drinks stoutly on the score. 'Sir,' I said to him just before you came in, 'sir,' said I, 'if you could manage to scrape together a little money by your art in the mean time, it would do both you and me good.'--'Ay!' said he, 'if we had only a decent piece, a mystery, or a miracle; for I have left my whole bundle of plays behind at Cambria, all except the passion-piece.'--'Eh, sir!' said I. 'Here with us the country is alive with gay minstrels, troubadours, and ballad-singers and there is Master Adam de la Halle, who is worth them all put together.'--'By St. Nicholas,' said my man, 'I would give him half the receipts if he would write me a piece, and it succeeded'--and just at that moment you came through the door, and so he sent me to ask you."
Adam rose up, swallowed his wine hastily, and then went straight to the leader of the strollers, who sprang from his seat respectfully, and bowed low. They conversed for a short time, and then shook hands. "So be it," said Adam; "within eight days your people shall play. And the day after I shall receive my money, and now our Lady preserve you. I will go and set about your affair at once." So he went, and after his fashion, he growled something between his teeth, that sounded very much like "I'll make them remember me."
Eight days had passed away, and Marion sat in her chamber one afternoon, with eyes red with weeping, and cheeks pale with sorrow, so intently engaged turning over old letters which she had in her lap that she did not hear the door open, and one of her old playmates enter. When her friend called her by name, she sprang up startled. "Good day, Perette," she said; "what brings you here?" "or rather, what keepsyouhere?" answered the girl, saucily; "you sit and you cry, and you never think of going near the Three Lilies, where your husband's new piece is to be acted by the strange players. What a wife you are! I should be the first to go if I had a husband who could charm half the town into the courtyard of an old inn. What have you got there? Have you been studying all the old songs your Adam made on you? I should think that you ought to have them all at your fingers' ends now like your rosary." The poor wife began to weep bitterly. "Don't you know then," she sobbed, "and is not the whole town of Arass talking about it--that he is going to Paris, and intends to leave me behind, and is never, never coming back again?" "Bah! nonsense," cried Perette, "what has put all that into your head?" "He said it to me himself, word for word; and since that time he has never eaten at home, and only returns very late at night, and sleeps below in the saloon." "Well, well, he has had his hands full of his new play, and then men are always fanciful, Marion, and must always be doing something to plague us; but, God be praised! all are not dead that do not laugh. Dry your eyes, be a sensible woman, and come with me to the play. What will your husband think of you if you don't even wish to see a play he has written himself?"
So half comforting, half scolding, she drew the sorrowing young wife out of her room to the Three Lilies.
There all was gay enough. A number of the townspeople were seated on benches in the spacious courtyard. The windows of the low buildings at the side had been chosen as boxes by the more distinguished of the burghers. And the stage was erected in a large barn at the end of the yard, the mighty doors having been removed for that purpose. Marion and Perette arrived at the moment of the exit of Dame Avaritia, who had spoken the prologue, and assured many rich burghers of the town of her further protection. Not a place was left free for our two fair sight-seers, either in the courtyard, or at the windows. But Perette was not to be daunted, and knowing the house, she made her way through a side building, and advanced with Marion up to the barn. Here they placed themselves behind the great linen cloths with which the stage had been fenced off, and peeped through a rent in the curtain at the play, unhindered by the actors, who, in their fantastic dresses, sought to pay their court to the two pretty women. Marion took not the slightest notice of them, and stood rooted to one spot. Perette exercised the sharpness of her little tongue on the player folk now and then, and, in common parlance, gave them quite as good, or perhaps better than they brought.
But Master Adam, little dreaming that his young wife was watching him, had, in the meantime, advanced from the other side in his own character and costume.
He began in smooth verses to bewail his sorrows. He wanted to go to Paris, and never asouhad he in his pockets, and hismillionaireof an uncle had, just at this moment, been attacked by the most hopeless complaint in the world, an obstinate avarice, so that from him there was nothing to hope. To him entered a doctor, whom Adam consulted as to whether it was possible to cure avarice, for he could show him a splendid specimen of it, if he wished to try his hand. Whereupon the doctor broke forth into a learned dissertation on the different varieties of the disease, distinguishing those curable from those incurable; and in the case which Adam described, he had but little doubt that he could be of service, if he was only permitted to see the patient himself. Then a third personage advanced, so ridiculously like Adam's venerable uncle in figure and manner and dress, that the laughter of the spectators seemed never coming to an end. To this worthy gentleman the doctor advanced with great politeness, felt his pulse, and looked gravely at his tongue, asked about this and that, and then made some more pointed inquiries about specific symptoms of the miser fever, from which he understood he suffered. Upon which the old gentleman burst into a great rage, upbraided his rascally nephew soundly for accusing him of having such a scandalous complaint, and declared the grounds upon which he refused to assist him on his journey to Paris. The principal reason was, that Adam was only just married, and had already grown tired of his wife, who nevertheless was, as all Arras knew, a perfect model of beauty and virtue.
In ever-increasing irritation had poor Marion been an unsuspected participator in all this conversation--and who could blame a virtuous wife for feeling irritated--when all at once she saw her domestic sorrows made a butt for a laughing public. She took no heed of the polished verses and comical grimaces with which the conversation of the three actors was adorned, and which so delighted the audience. With a bitter anxiety, and forgetting all else, she now listened to the answer her husband was to give to her uncle. When, however, Adam drily explained to the audience that a pretty woman was not necessarily an amusing one, and that his Marion's mouth was better adapted for kisses than conversation, that nevertheless no one grew wiser by kissing, but, on the contrary, by witty conversation; and that he would present any one amongst them, who had ever heard his Marion give utterance to an observation at all bordering on the witty, the sum of two golden crowns; then the poor listener could no longer restrain herself. With one bound she was on the stage, and stood with glowing eyes and angry brow directly opposite to him who had so basely slandered her.
"Are you not ashamed, Adam?" she cried in the midst of his harangue; "are you not ashamed to speak thus of your own wedded wife before all the town? Oh, if you had ever loved me, only a little, a little, that speech would never have passed your lips! And now tell me, have I deserved it from you? Have I ever caused you one hour's grief? Have I not done everything to please you? And now will you speak ill of me before all Arras?"
So angry and heart-grieved, amidst tears and sobbings, scolded the poor beauty. The audience who took it all for part of the play, laughed at first, aye, and some amongst them were mischievous enough to enjoy their neighbour's domestic discomfort. When, however, they began to see that it was the veritable Marion herself, the worst of them lost their gaiety and stared astonished at the stage. But Adam, much as he was startled at first by this sudden apparition, quickly recovered himself, and cried loudly and undauntedly, "My good fellow-townsmen, this does not belong to our play; this woman fell suddenly in amongst us, and does not belong to our company at all. Let me entreat some of you to lead her away. You hear that she does not talk verse, like all the actors who have the honour of performing this most remarkable farce before your worthinesses!" Therewith, he took Marion gently by the hand, to lead her from the stage. But she shook herself free, and encouraged by the demand of some amount the spectators, that she should be permitted to remain, and fight for her own cause, cried, "Aye! and Iwill, I say too! and make you all the judges of whether I have not been badly played upon. It is true that I am naturally silent, but is it to be considered a fault, on my part, if I do what you men are always throwing in the teeth of us poor women, letting alone all useless chattering, and listening quietly to what my husband has to say?" "Marion is right." "Long live Marion! she shall speak again!" shouted the spectators, laughing, and waving her encouragement. "And," she continued, growing even more eloquent, "if I have no right to be here because I do not speak verses, I know enough and of the very best too! My husband, who slanders me now, wrote them on me himself before we were married; and you shall hear them that you may know how double-tongued he is, and what fair words he once had for my praise, although he now has only complaints."
Therewith she stepped to the edge of the stage and sang the following verses, with a voice that threatened to desert her--
"Cheeks as red and eyes as dancing,Arms and necks like lilies glancing,You may find in Arras town.Hearts as soft and limbs as rounded,Forms with every grace surrounded,You may meet with, up and down!But with wisdom no one's blest,Like the maiden I love best!"
"Cheeks as red and eyes as dancing,
Arms and necks like lilies glancing,
You may find in Arras town.
Hearts as soft and limbs as rounded,
Forms with every grace surrounded,
You may meet with, up and down!
But with wisdom no one's blest,
Like the maiden I love best!"
A shout of laughter answered this strophe; some began to sing theréfrainand others joined them. But a voice from the crowd asked, "But how can you prove, fair Marion, that this lady of whom he talks is not another than yourself?" "Listen again," cried Marion, "there is no doubt about it." Then she sang--
"Others may more sweetly sing,Lighter through the dancers swing,Never a straw I care!Prattle half an hour free,Marion's rosy lips to me,That's a pleasure rare!Prettier, wittier ne'er was known,Than my Marion, darling one!"
"Others may more sweetly sing,
Lighter through the dancers swing,
Never a straw I care!
Prattle half an hour free,
Marion's rosy lips to me,
That's a pleasure rare!
Prettier, wittier ne'er was known,
Than my Marion, darling one!"
This time the whole audience sang theréfrainwith her, and then resounded loud cheerings for the songstress, who stood with the tears still in her eyes, frightened at her own boldness, but lovelier than ever on the stage. Adam sprang from the back of the scene and cried, "Silence, good burghers all! I too have a word to say." All were silent, and curious to know how he would manage to bring himself into grace again. He said, "There is not one amongst you who cannot perceive that my dear wife here has blamed me terribly, and managed to get all the laughter on her side; for that, I thank her from the very bottom of my soul: I tell you all truly that my heart quivered with joy at each word she spoke, and when, at last, she hit upon the charming idea of making my own words witness against me, I said quietly to myself, Master Adam, you are a rogue if you desert such a model of a wife, though it rained honours and doubloons in Paris! and so I come penitently hoping that my dear fellow-townsmen will intercede for me with my wife, that she may take her insolent, reckless husband back to her heart and love, and forget what his slanderous tongue has said of her."
As he said this with ah emotion, which no one had ever seen him under before, there was a deep silence in the court--Marion smiled at him with an assuring kindness--fell upon his neck, and said, "You dear, mischievous man." Then broke from all the windows and benches a universal shout of congratulation. But Adam, freeing himself from the arms of his wife, grasped her hand firmly, and cried, "I owe you the third song." it runs thus--
"Let those who will to Paris wander,And time and gold for learning squander,For me I mean at home to rest!All the knowledge that's worth knowingLies, fresh springing, ever blowing,In a gentle woman's breast.Wiser woman ne'er was knownThan the one----I call mine own!"
"Let those who will to Paris wander,
And time and gold for learning squander,
For me I mean at home to rest!
All the knowledge that's worth knowing
Lies, fresh springing, ever blowing,
In a gentle woman's breast.
Wiser woman ne'er was known
Than the one----I call mine own!"
We need hardly say how gaily all joined in theréfrainthis time. Just, however, as they were all in full song, there arose a noise of contention before the house; certain people had kindly let Adam's uncle know that his nephew had introduced his honourable presentment on the stage, and the old gentlemen came, with a company of archers, firmly determined to make his irreverent nephew pay dearly for his indiscretion. The people were now busied in the house explaining to him the favourable turn things had taken, and when he heard of Adam's recantation and the renunciation of the Paris idea, he permitted himself to be pacified, became gracious and forgave the saucy poet, who approached humbly with Marion on his arm; and in order to strike a joyous blow against the accusation of avarice, he gave a grand banquet that very evening at the Three Lilies, where Marion was obliged to dance with all the great people of the town.
The play was quite spoilt for the good burghers of Arras; but we have, however, so much faith in their good heartedness, as to believe that the miracle, as performed by Marion, pleased them more than if, as was originally intended, the angel Gabriel and half a dozen of his body guard, had descended from heaven and kicked Dame Avaritia out of the country with due honour. It is possible that there might have been never a miser the less in Arras for it, and now, at least, there was one happy pair the more.
The sun had not yet risen. Over Vesuvius lay a broad grey sweep of mist, which spread itself out towards Naples, and overshadowed the little towns along the coast. The sea was tranquil, but on the Marina, which is situate in a narrow inlet under the high Torrentine cliffs; fishermen and their wives were already busied, dragging in with stout ropes the net boats, which had been fishing at sea during the night. Others cleaned up their boats, shook out the sails, and brought oars and spars out of the great railed vaults, cut deep in the rock, in which they kept their tackle at night. No one was idle. For even the old people, who were no longer able to go to sea, ranged themselves amongst the long rows of those who drew the nets, and here and there there stood an old woman with her distaff on one of the flat roofs, or took care of the children, whilst her daughter helped her husband at his work.
"Look there, Rachella! there is our padre, Eurato," said an old woman, to a little thing of ten years old, who swung its little spindle by her side; "He has just stepped into the boat. Antonino is going to take him over to Capri. Maria Santissima! how sleepy the holy man looks still!" and therewith she waved her hand towards a kindly looking little priest, who had seated himself cautiously in a boat below her, having first carefully raised his black coat and spread it over the seat. The people on the shore paused in their work to see their padre start, who nodded and greeted them kindly right and left.
"Why must he go to Capri, grandmother?" asked the child. "Have the people over there got no priest of their own that they are obliged to borrow ours?"
"Do not be so silly," answered the old woman, "They have plenty of priests, and beautiful churches, and a hermit too--which we have not. But there is a noble signora there, who stopped once a long time here at Lorento, and was so ill that the padre was often obliged to carry her the Hoste, when she did not think that she should live through the night. Well, the Holy Virgin helped her, and she got strong and well again, and was able to bathe every day in the sea. When she went from here to go over to Capri, she left a pretty heap of ducats behind for the Church and the poor people, and said that she would not go until our padre promised to visit her over there, that she might confess to him, for it is wonderful how fond she is of him; and we may bless ourselves that we have a padre who has gifts like an archbishop, and who is asked after by all the great people. The Madonna be with him." And therewith she nodded down towards the boat which was just putting off.
"Shall we have fine weather, my son?" asked the little priest, looking thoughtfully towards Naples.
"The sun is not up yet," answered the young man; "It will soon scatter that bit of fog when it rises."
"So, let us start at once, and avoid the heat." Antonino was in the act of grasping the long oar, in order to push off the boat, when he suddenly checked himself, and looked up towards the steep path which led from the little town of Lorento, down towards the Marina.
A slender girlish form was visible above, tripping hastily over the rough stones, and waving a handkerchief She carried a small bundle under her arm, and was poorly enough dressed; yet she had an almost noble, though rather wild way of throwing her head back on her shoulders, and the black tresses which she wore twined round her forehead decked her like a coronet.
"What are we waiting for?" asked the little priest.
"There is some one coming down who wants to go to Capri. If you will permit it, padre, we shall not go the slower, for it is only a young girl, hardly eighteen."
Just as he spoke the girl appeared round the end of the wall which bordered the winding path. "Lauretta!" cried the padre, "what can she want in Capri?"
Antonino shrugged his shoulders. The girl approached with hasty steps, looking straight before her.
"Good day! La Rabbiata!" cried some of the young sailors. They might indeed have said more if the proximity of their padre had not kept them a little in order, for the short defiant manner with which the girl received their greetings seemed to irritate them vastly.
"Good day, Lauretta!" cried the padre, "how goes it with you? Do you want to go over to Capri with us?"
"If you will permit me, padre."
"You must ask Antonino there. He is the patron of the boat. Every one is master of his own, and God of us all."
"Here is a half Carolus," said Lauretta, without looking at the young boatman, "can I go over for it?"
"You may want it more than I;" murmured Antonino, and moved some baskets filled with oranges on one side to make room. He was going to sell them at Capri, for the rocky islet does not produce enough for its numerous visitors.
"I will not go with you for nothing." said the girl; and the dark eyebrows drew together.
"Come, my child." said the padre, "he is an honest young fellow, and does not want to get rich from your poverty; there--step in," and he reached her his hand, "and seat yourself near me. See there! He has spread his jacket for you that you may sit the softer. He was not half so thoughtful of me. But young blood! young blood! It is always so! They will take more care of one little girl, then of ten holy fathers."
"Well, well! you need not make any excuses, 'Tonino; it is God's law that like should cling to like."
In the mean time, Lauretta had slipped into the boat, and seated herself, first pushing the jacket on one side without saying a word. The young fisherman let it be, and muttered something between his teeth. Then he pushed stoutly against the beach, and the little bark flew lightly out into the bay.
"What have you got in your bundle?" asked the padre, as they swept over the sea, just beginning to be freckled with the first sunbeams.
"Thread, silk, and a little loaf, padre, I am going to sell the silk to a woman in Capri, who makes ribbons, and the thread to another."
"Did you spin it yourself?"
"Yes, padre."
"If I remember rightly, you have learned to weave ribbons too?"
"Yes, padre, but my mother is so much worse, that I cannot leave her for long at a time; and we are too poor to buy a loom."
"Much worse! Dear, dear, when I saw her at Easter, she was sitting up."
"The spring is always the worst time for her. Since we had the great storm and the earthquake, she has been obliged to keep her bed from pain."
"Don't weary of prayers and supplications to the Holy Virgin, my child,--she alone can help her. And be good and industrious, that your prayers may be heard."
After a pause. "As you came across the beach, they called after you, 'Good day, La Rabbiata.' Why do they call you so? It is not a pretty name for a Christian girl, who ought to be humble and gentle."
The girl's brown face glowed, and her eyes sparkled.
"They laugh at me, because I will not dance and sing and gossip, like the others. They might let me go my own way. I do them no harm."
"But you might be friendly with every one. Others, who lead easier lives may dance and sing; but kindly words may be given even by a sorrowful heart."
She looked steadily down, and drew the black eyebrows still closer together, as if she wished to shroud the dark eyes entirely under them. For a while they, voyaged on in silence. The sun now stood glorious over the mountains. The peak of Vesuvius ranged high over the bank of mist which still wrapped its flanks, and the houses on the plains of Lorento gleamed whitely from amongst the green orange gardens.
"Have you never heard any thing more of that painter, Lauretta," asked the padre, "that Neapolitan, who wanted to marry you?"
She shook her head.
"He wanted to paint your picture--why did you drive him away?"
"Why did he want it? There are plenty prettier than I. And then, who knows what he might have done with it? He might have bewitched me with it, and endangered my soul, or even have killed me, my mother says."
"Don't believe such wicked things," said the padre, gravely, "Are you not always in the hand of God, without whose permission not a hair can fall from your head? And do you think that a man with a poor picture like that can be stronger than the Lord God? You might have seen that he wished you well. Would he have wanted you to marry him if he had not?"
She was silent.
"Then why did you send him away? They said that he was an honest man and well to do, and could have kept you and your mother in comfort. Much more so than you can do now with your poor spinning and silk-weaving."
"We are poor people." she said, impetuously. "And my mother has been ill a long time. We should only have been a burden to him; and I am not fit to be a signora. When his friends came to see him, he would have been ashamed of me."
"What nonsense! I tell you that he was a good man, and, moreover, he was willing to settle in Lorento. Another like him will not come again in a hurry; he seemed sent straight from heaven to assist you."
"I will never have a husband, never!" she said almost fiercely, and as if to herself.
"Have you taken a vow, or do you intend to enter a cloister?"
She shook her head.
"The people are right in accusing you of obstinacy, even if the name be not a pretty one. Do you forget that you are not alone in the world, and that this resolution of yours makes your sick mother's life and illness still more bitter? What possible grounds can you have for casting aside each honest hand which stretches itself out to assist you and her? Answer me, Lauretta?"
"I have, indeed, good grounds," she said, low and hesitatingly, "but I cannot tell them."
"Not tell them? not even to me? not even to your old father confessor, whom you used to trust, and who you know means so well towards you? Will you?"
She nodded.
"So, lighten your heart, my child. If you areinthe right, I will be the first todoyou right; but you are young, and know but little of the world, and you might repent by-and-by at having ruined your happiness for life for the sake of a childish fancy."
She cast a shy, rapid glance towards the young man, who sat rowing steadily behind them in the boat, with his woollen cap plucked deeply over his brows, gazing sideways at the sea, and seemingly lost in his own reflections. The padre observed her glance, and bent his head nearer to her.
"You did not know my father," she whispered, and her eyes gleamed darkly.
"Your father! he died, if I remember rightly, when you were hardly ten years old. What can your father, whose soul may be in Paradise, have to do with your caprice?"
"You did not know him, padre: you did not know that he was the cause of all my mother's illness."
"How so?"
"Because he ill-treated her, and beat her, and trampled her under his feet! I remember the night well when he used to come home in a rage! She never said an angry word to him--did all that he wished; but he beat her till I thought my heart would have broken, and used to draw the coverlid over my head, and pretend to be asleep, but cried all the night through. And when he saw her lying on the floor, he changed suddenly, and raised her up, and kissed her, till she cried that he was suffocating her. My mother forbad me ever to say a word about it. But it had such an effect upon her, that she has never been well all these long years since he has been dead; and if she should die soon, which the Madonna forbid, I know well who killed her."
The little priest shook his head, and seemed undecided as to what extent he should justify his penitent. At last he said,
"Forgive him, as your mother has forgiven him. Do not fasten your thoughts on that sad picture, Lauretta. Better times will come for you, and you will forget all this."
"Never shall I forget it," she cried, shuddering; "and I tell you, padre, that I will remain a maiden, and be subject to no one who may ill-treat me one moment and caress me the next. If any one tries to strike me or to kiss me now, I know how to defend myself; but my mother could not defend herself, or ward off the blows or the kisses, because she loved him; and I will love no one so much as to give him the power of making me ill and miserable."
"Now, are you not a child, talking as a child, and knowing nothing of what happens in the world? Are all men like your father, giving way to every fancy and ill-humour, and beating their wives? Have you not seen kind-hearted men enough who live in peace and unity with their wives?"
"No one knew either how my father treated my mother, for she would have died a thousand times rather than have said any thing, or complained of him, and all because she loved him. If that is what love does, closing one's lips when one should cry for help, and disarming one against worse than one's worst enemy could do, never shall my heart entrust itself to a man's keeping."
"I tell you that you are a child, and do not know what you are talking about. Much this heart of yours will ask you whether it is to love or not when its time is come! All those fine fancies you have got into that little head won't help you muchthen! And that painter, did you also inform him that you expected him to ill-treat you?"
"His eyes looked sometimes as my father's used to do when he caressed my mother, and wanted to take her in his arms and make friends with her--I know those eyes! A man can give that look, too, who can think of beating his poor wife, who has never done him ill. I shuddered when I saw those eyes again."
Then she remained obstinately silent The padre, too, did not speak. He ran over in his mind many pretty speeches, which he thought might suit the girl's case; but the neighbourhood of the young fisherman, who had become more restless towards the end of the confession, closed his mouth.
When, after a voyage of two hours, they gained the little harbour of Capri, Antonino bore the padre from the boat, over the last shallow waves, and placed him respectfully upon the shore; but Lauretta would not wait until he waded back to fetch her; she drew her clothes together, and taking her shoes in one hand and her bundle in the other, splashed hastily to the shore.
"I am going to stop some time at Capri to-day," said the padre, "so you need not wait for me; possibly I may not return home till to-morrow. And you, Lauretta, remember me to your mother; I shall see you again this week. You are going back to-night?"
"If I have an opportunity," said the girl, arranging her dress.
"You know that I must go back," said Antonino, in what he intended as a tone of indifference; "I will wait for you till the Ave Maria; if you do not come then, it will be all the same to me."
"You must be in time, Lauretta," said the little priest; "you must not leave your mother alone all night. Is it far where you are going?"
"To Anacapri."
"And I to Capri. God guard you, my child! and you, my son!"
Lauretta kissed his hand, and said a farewell, which the padre and Antonino might have divided between them. Antonino, however, did not claim his share of it; he took off his cap to the padre, and did not look at Lauretta.
When, however, they had both turned their backs upon him, he permitted his glance to follow the padre as he strode carefully up the stony beach, but for a very short distance, and then directed it to the girl, who was mounting the hill to the right, holding his hand over his eyes to shade them from the bright sun. When she reached the place where the road begins to run between the walls, she paused for a moment, as if to take breath, and turned round. The Marina lay at her feet, above her towered the steep cliffs, and before her spread the sea in all its azure beauty. It was, indeed, a view well worth the pause.
Chance so willed it that her glance, sweeping past Antonino's boat, encountered the one which he had sent after her. They both made a movement, like persons who wish to excuse themselves--"a mere matter of accident;" and then the girl continued her way with closely-compressed lips.