THE BET - by ANTON P. CHEKHOV

 

I

It was a dark autumn night. The old banker was pacing from corner to corner of his study, recalling to his mind the party he gave in the autumn fifteen years before. There were many clever people at the party and much interesting conversation. They talked among other things of capital punishment. The guests, among them not a few scholars and journalists, for the most part disapproved of capital punishment. They found it obsolete as a means of punishment, unfitted to a Christian State and immoral. Some of them thought that capital punishment should be replaced universally by life imprisonment.

“I don’t agree with you,” said the host. “I myself have experienced neither capital punishment nor life-imprisonment, but if one may judge a priori, then in my opinion capital punishment is more moral and more humane than imprisonment. Execution kills instantly, life-imprisonment kills by degrees. Who is the more humane executioner, one who kills you in a few seconds or one who draws the life out of you incessantly, for years?”

“They’re both equally immoral,” remarked one of the guests, “because their purpose is the same, to take away life. The State is not God. It has no right to take away that which it cannot give back, if it should so desire.”

Among the company was a lawyer, a young man of about twenty-five. On being asked his opinion, he said:

“Capital punishment and life-imprisonment are equally immoral; but if I were offered the choice between them, I would certainly choose the second. It’s better to live somehow than not to live at all.”

There ensued a lively discussion. The banker who was then younger and more nervous suddenly lost his temper, banged his fist on the table, and turning to the young lawyer, cried out:

“It’s a lie. I bet you two millions you wouldn’t stick in a cell even for five years.”

“If you mean it seriously,” replied the lawyer, “then I bet I’ll stay not five but fifteen.”

“Fifteen! Done!” cried the banker. “Gentlemen, I stake two millions.”

“Agreed. You stake two millions, I my freedom,” said the lawyer.

So this wild, ridiculous bet came to pass. The banker, who at that time had too many millions to count, spoiled and capricious, was beside himself with rapture. During supper he said to the lawyer jokingly:

“Come to your senses, young roan, before it’s too late. Two millions are nothing to me, but you stand to lose three or four of the best years of your life. I say three or four, because you’ll never stick it out any longer. Don’t forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary is much heavier than enforced imprisonment. The idea that you have the right to free yourself at any moment will poison the whole of your life in the cell. I pity you.”

And now the banker, pacing from corner to corner, recalled all this and asked himself:

“Why did I make this bet? What’s the good? The lawyer loses fifteen years of his life and I throw away two millions. Will it convince people that capital punishment is worse or better than imprisonment for life? No, no! all stuff and rubbish. On my part, it was the caprice of a well-fed man; on the lawyer’s pure greed of gold.”

He recollected further what happened after the evening party. It was decided that the lawyer must undergo his imprisonment under the strictest observation, in a garden wing of the banker’s house. It was agreed that during the period he would be deprived of the right to cross the threshold, to see living people, to hear human voices, and to receive letters and newspapers. He was permitted to have a musical instrument, to read books, to write letters, to drink wine and smoke tobacco. By the agreement he could communicate, but only in silence, with the outside world through a little window specially constructed for this purpose. Everything necessary, books, music, wine, he could receive in any quantity by sending a note through the window. The agreement provided for all the minutest details, which made the confinement strictly solitary, and it obliged the lawyer to remain exactly fifteen years from twelve o’clock of November 14th, 1870, to twelve o’clock of November 14th, 1885. The least attempt on his part to violate the conditions, to escape if only for two minutes before the time freed the banker from the obligation to pay him the two millions.

During the first year of imprisonment, the lawyer, as far as it was possible to judge from his short notes, suffered terribly from loneliness and boredom. From his wing day and night came the sound of the piano. He rejected wine and tobacco. “Wine,” he wrote, “excites desires, and desires are the chief foes of a prisoner; besides, nothing is more boring than to drink good wine alone,” and tobacco spoils the air in his room. During the first year the lawyer was sent books of a light character; novels with a complicated love interest, stories of crime and fantasy, comedies, and so on.

In the second year the piano was heard no longer and the lawyer asked only for classics. In the fifth year, music was heard again, and the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched him said that during the whole of that year he was only eating, drinking, and lying on his bed. He yawned often and talked angrily to himself. Books he did not read. Sometimes at nights he would sit down to write. He would write for a long time and tear it all up in the morning. More than once he was heard to weep.

In the second half of the sixth year, the prisoner began zealously to study languages, philosophy, and history. He fell on these subjects so hungrily that the banker hardly had time to get books enough for him. In the space of four years about six hundred volumes were bought at his request. It was while that passion lasted that the banker received the following letter from the prisoner: “My dear gaoler, I am writing these lines in six languages. Show them to experts. Let them read them. If they do not find one single mistake, I beg you to give orders to have a gun fired off in the garden. By the noise I shall know that my efforts have not been in vain. The geniuses of all ages and countries speak in different languages; but in them all burns the same flame. Oh, if you knew my heavenly happiness now that I can understand them!” The prisoner’s desire was fulfilled. Two shots were fired in the garden by the banker’s order.

Later on, after the tenth year, the lawyer sat immovable before his table and read only the New Testament. The banker found it strange that a man who in four years had mastered six hundred erudite volumes, should have spent nearly a year in reading one book, easy to understand and by no means thick. The New Testament was then replaced by the history of religions and theology.

During the last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an extraordinary amount, quite haphazard. Now he would apply himself to the natural sciences, then he would read Byron or Shakespeare. Notes used to come from him in which he asked to be sent at the same time a book on chemistry, a text-book of medicine, a novel, and some treatise on philosophy or theology. He read as though he were swimming in the sea among broken pieces of wreckage, and in his desire to save his life was eagerly grasping one piece after another.

II

The banker recalled all this, and thought:

“To-morrow at twelve o’clock he receives his freedom. Under the agreement, I shall have to pay him two millions. If I pay, it’s all over with me. I am ruined for ever ...”

Fifteen years before he had too many millions to count, but now he was afraid to ask himself which he had more of, money or debts. Gambling on the Stock-Exchange, risky speculation, and the recklessness of which he could not rid himself even in old age, had gradually brought his business to decay; and the fearless, self-confident, proud man of business had become an ordinary banker, trembling at every rise and fall in the market.

“That cursed bet,” murmured the old man clutching his head in despair... “Why didn’t the man die? He’s only forty years old. He will take away my last farthing, marry, enjoy life, gamble on the Exchange, and I will look on like an envious beggar and hear the same words from him every day: ‘I’m obliged to you for the happiness of my life. Let me help you.’ No, it’s too much! The only escape from bankruptcy and disgrace—is that the man should die.”

The clock had just struck three. The banker was listening. In the house every one was asleep, and one could hear only the frozen trees whining outside the windows. Trying to make no sound, he took out of his safe the key of the door which had not been opened for fifteen years, put on his overcoat, and went out of the house. The garden was dark and cold. It was raining. A damp, penetrating wind howled in the garden and gave the trees no rest. Though he strained his eyes, the banker could see neither the ground, nor the white statues, nor the garden wing, nor the trees. Approaching the garden wing, he called the watchman twice. There was no answer. Evidently the watchman had taken shelter from the bad weather and was now asleep somewhere in the kitchen or the greenhouse.

“If I have the courage to fulfil my intention,” thought the old man, “the suspicion will fall on the watchman first of all.”

In the darkness he groped for the steps and the door and entered the hall of the garden-wing, then poked his way into a narrow passage and struck a match. Not a soul was there. Some one’s bed, with no bedclothes on it, stood there, and an iron stove loomed dark in the corner. The seals on the door that led into the prisoner’s room were unbroken.

When the match went out, the old man, trembling from agitation, peeped into the little window.

In the prisoner’s room a candle was burning dimly. The prisoner himself sat by the table. Only his back, the hair on his head and his hands were visible. Open books were strewn about on the table, the two chairs, and on the carpet near the table.

Five minutes passed and the prisoner never once stirred. Fifteen years’ confinement had taught him to sit motionless. The banker tapped on the window with his finger, but the prisoner made no movement in reply. Then the banker cautiously tore the seals from the door and put the key into the lock. The rusty lock gave a hoarse groan and the door creaked. The banker expected instantly to hear a cry of surprise and the sound of steps. Three minutes passed and it was as quiet inside as it had been before. He made up his mind to enter.

Before the table sat a man, unlike an ordinary human being. It was a skeleton, with tight-drawn skin, with long curly hair like a woman’s, and a shaggy beard. The colour of his face was yellow, of an earthy shade; the cheeks were sunken, the back long and narrow, and the hand upon which he leaned his hairy head was so lean and skinny that it was painful to look upon. His hair was already silvering with grey, and no one who glanced at the senile emaciation of the face would have believed that he was only forty years old. On the table, before his bended head, lay a sheet of paper on which something was written in a tiny hand.

“Poor devil,” thought the banker, “he’s asleep and probably seeing millions in his dreams. I have only to take and throw this half-dead thing on the bed, smother him a moment with the pillow, and the most careful examination will find no trace of unnatural death. But, first, let us read what he has written here.”

The banker took the sheet from the table and read:

“To-morrow at twelve o’clock midnight, I shall obtain my freedom and the right to mix with people. But before I leave this room and see the sun I think it necessary to say a few words to you. On my own clear conscience and before God who sees me I declare to you that I despise freedom, life, health, and all that your books call the blessings of the world.

“For fifteen years I have diligently studied earthly life. True, I saw neither the earth nor the people, but in your books I drank fragrant wine, sang songs, hunted deer and wild boar in the forests, loved women... And beautiful women, like clouds ethereal, created by the magic of your poets’ genius, visited me by night and whispered to me wonderful tales, which made my head drunken. In your books I climbed the summits of Elbruz and Mont Blanc and saw from there how the sun rose in the morning, and in the evening suffused the sky, the ocean and the mountain ridges with a purple gold. I saw from there how above me lightnings glimmered cleaving the clouds; I saw green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, cities; I heard syrens singing, and the playing of the pipes of Pan; I touched the wings of beautiful devils who came flying to me to speak of God... In your books I cast myself into bottomless abysses, worked miracles, burned cities to the ground, preached new religions, conquered whole countries..

“Your books gave me wisdom. All that unwearying human thought created in the centuries is compressed to a little lump in my skull. I know that I am cleverer than you all.

“And I despise your books, despise all worldly blessings and wisdom. Everything is void, frail, visionary and delusive as a mirage. Though you be proud and wise and beautiful, yet will death wipe you from the face of the earth like the mice underground; and your posterity, your history, and the immortality of your men of genius will be as frozen slag, burnt down together with the terrestrial globe.

“You are mad, and gone the wrong way. You take falsehood for truth and ugliness for beauty. You would marvel if suddenly apple and orange trees should bear frogs and lizards instead of fruit, and if roses should begin to breathe the odour of a sweating horse. So do I marvel at you, who have bartered heaven for earth. I do not want to understand you.

“That I may show you in deed my contempt for that by which you live, I waive the two millions of which I once dreamed as of paradise, and which I now despise. That I may deprive myself of my right to them, I shall come out from here five minutes before the stipulated term, and thus shall violate the agreement.”

When he had read, the banker put the sheet on the table, kissed the head of the strange man, and began to weep. He went out of the wing. Never at any other time, not even after his terrible losses on the Exchange, had he felt such contempt for himself as now. Coming home, he lay down on his bed, but agitation and tears kept him a long time from sleeping...

The next morning the poor watchman came running to him and told him that they had seen the man who lived in the wing climb through the window into the garden. He had gone to the gate and disappeared. The banker instantly went with his servants to the wing and established the escape of his prisoner. To avoid unnecessary rumours he took the paper with the renunciation from the table and, on his return, locked it in his safe.

TREES - by Joyce Kilmer

 

TREES by Joyce Kilmer I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

 

 

LET’S PLANT A TREE - by Aileen Fisher

LET’S PLANT A TREE by Aileen Fisher It’s time to plant a tree, a tree.What shall it be? What shall it be ? Let’s plant a pine - we can’t go wrong:a pine is green the whole year long. Let’s plant a maple - more than one,to shade us from the summer sun. Let’s plant a cherry - you know why:there’s nothing like a cherry pie ! Let’s plant an elm, the tree of grace,where robins find a nesting place. Let’s plant an apple - not too small,with flowers in spring and fruit in fall. Let’s plant a fir - so it can bea lighted outdoor Christmas tree. Let’s plant a birch, an oak, a beech,there’s something extra-nice in each…in winter, summer, spring or fall.Let’s plant a… why not plant them ALL ?

 

THE ROAD TO A WOMAN'S HEART - by Sam Slick

 

As we approached the inn at Amherst, the Clockmaker grew uneasy. "It's pretty well on in the evening, I guess," said he, "and Marm Pugwash is as onsartin in her temper as a mornin' in April; it's all sunshine or all clouds with her, and if she's in one of her tantrums she'll stretch out her neck and hiss like a goose with a flock of goslin's. I wonder what on airth Pugwash was a-thinkin' on when he signed articles of partnership with that are woman; she's not a bad lookin' piece of furniture, neither, and it's a proper pity sich a clever woman should carry sich a stiff upper lip. She reminds me of our old minister Joshua Hopewell's apple-trees.

"The old minister had an orchard of most particular good fruit, for he was a great hand at buddin', graftin', and what not, and the orchard (it was on the south side of the house) stretched right up to the road. Well, there were some trees hung over the fence, I never seed such bearers: the apples hung in ropes, for all the world like strings of onions, and the fruit was beautiful. Nobody touched the minister's apples, and when other folks lost their'n from the boys, his'n always hung there like bait t' a hook, but there never was so much as a nibble at 'em. So I said to him one day, 'Minister,' said I, 'how on airth do you manage to keep your fruit that's so exposed, when no one else can't do it nohow?' 'Why,' says he, 'they are dreadfully pretty fruit, ain't they?' 'I guess,' said I, 'there ain't the like on 'em in all Connecticut.' 'Well,' says he, 'I'll tell you the secret, but you needn't let on to no one about it. That are row next the fence, I grafted it myself: I took great pains to get the right kind. I sent clean up to Roxberry and away down to Squawneck Creek.' I was afeard he was a-goin' to give me day and date for every graft, bein' a terrible long-winded man in his stories; so says I, 'I know that, minister, but how do you preserve them?' 'Why, I was a-goin' to tell you,' said he, 'when you stopped me. That are outward row I grafted myself with the choicest kind I could find, and I succeeded. They are beautiful, but so etarnal sour, no human soul can eat them. Well, the boys think the old minister's graftin' has all succeeded about as well as that row, and they sarch no further. They snicker at my graftin', and I laugh in my sleeve, I guess, at their penetration.'

"Now, Marm Pugwash is like the minister's apples, very temptin' fruit to look at, but desperate sour. If Pugwash had a watery mouth when he married, I guess it's pretty puckery by this time. However, if she goes to act ugly, I'll give her a dose of 'soft sawder' that will take the frown out of her frontispiece and make her dial-plate as smooth as a lick of copal varnish. It's a pity she's such a kickin' devil, too, for she has good points, good eye, good foot, neat pastern, fine chest, a clean set of limbs, and carries a good - But here we are. Now you'll see what 'soft sawder' will do."

When we entered the house, the travelers' room was all in darkness, and on opening the opposite door into the sitting-room we found the female part of the family extinguishing the fire for the night. Mrs. Pugwash had a broom in her hand, and was in the act (the last act of female housewifery) of sweeping the hearth. The strong flickering light of the fire, as it fell upon her tall, fine figure and beautiful face, revealed a creature worthy of the Clockmaker's comments.

"Good evening, marm," said Mr. Slick. "How do you do? and how's Mr. Pugwash?" "He!" said she: "why, he's been abed this hour. You don't expect to disturb him this time of night, I hope?" "Oh, no," said Mr. Slick, "certainly not, and I am sorry to have disturbed you, but we got detained longer than we expected; I am sorry that..." "So am I," said she, "but if Mr. Pugwash will keep an inn when he has no occasion to, his family can't expect no rest."

Here the Clockmaker, seeing the storm gathering, stooped down suddenly, and, staring intently, held out his hand and exclaimed: "Well, if that ain't a beautiful child! Come here, my little man, and shake hands along with me. Well, I declare, if that are little feller ain't the finest child I ever seed. What, not abed yet? Ah, you rogue, where did you get them are pretty rosy cheeks? Stole them from mama, eh? Well, I wish my old mother could see that child, it is such a treat. In our country," said he, turning to me, "the children are all as pale as chalk or as yaller as an orange. Lord! that are little feller would be a show in our country. Come to me, my man." Here the "soft sawder" began to operate. Mrs. Pugwash said, in a milder tone than we had yet heard, "Go, my dear, to the gentleman; go, dear." Mr. Slick kissed him, asked him if he would go to the States along with him, told him all the little girls would fall in love with him, for they didn't see such a beautiful face once in a month of Sundays. "Black eyes, let me see, - ah, mama's eyes, too, and black hair also; as I am alive, you are mama's own boy, the very image of mama." "Do be seated, gentlemen," said Mrs. Pugwash. "Sally, make a fire in the next room." "She ought to be proud of you," he continued. "Well, if I live to return here, I must paint your face, and have it put on my clocks, and our folks will buy the clocks for the sake of the face. Did you ever see," said he, again addressing me, "such a likeness between one human and another, as between this beautiful little boy and his mother?" "I am sure you have had no supper," said Mrs. Pugwash to me; "you must be hungry, and weary, too. I will get you a cup of tea." "I am sorry to give you so much trouble," said I. "Not the least trouble in the world," she replied; "on the contrary, a pleasure."

We were then shown into the next room, where the fire was now blazing up, but Mr. Slick protested he could not proceed without the little boy, and lingered behind to ascertain his age, and concluded by asking the child if he had any aunts that looked like mama.

As the door closed Mr. Slick said, "It's a pity she don't go well in gear. The difficulty with those critters is to git them to start: arter that there is no trouble with them, if you don't check 'em too short. If you do they'll stop again, run back and kick like mad, and then Old Nick himself wouldn't start 'em. Pugwash, I guess, don't understand the natur' of the crittur; she'll never go kind in harness for him. When I see a child," said the Clockmaker, "I always feel safe with these women-folk; for I have always found that the road to a woman's heart lies through her child."

"You seem," said I, "to understand the female heart so well, I make no doubt you are a general favorite among the fair sex." "Any man," he replied, "that understands horses has a pretty considerable fair knowledge of women, for they are jist alike in temper, and require the very identical same treatment. Encourage the timid ones, be gentle and steady with the fractious, but lather the sulky ones like blazes.

"People talk an everlastin' sight of nonsense about wine, women and horses. I've bought and sold 'em all, I've traded in all of them, and I tell you there ain't one in a thousand that knows a grain about either on 'em. You hear folks say, Oh, such a man is an ugly-grained critter, he'll break his wife's heart; jist as if a woman's heart was as brittle as a pipe-stalk. The female heart, as far as my experience goes, is jist like a new india-rubber shoe: you may pull and pull at it till it stretches out a yard long, and then let go, and it will fly right back to its old shape. Their hearts are made of stout leather, I tell you; there's a plaguy sight of wear in 'em.

"I never knowed but one case of a broken heart, and that was in t'other sex, one Washington Banks. He was a sneezer. He was tall enough to spit down on the heads of your grenadiers, and near about high enough to wade across Charlestown River, and as strong as a tow-boat. I guess he was somewhat less than a foot longer than the moral law and catechism, too. He was a perfect pictur' of a man; you couldn't fault him in no particular, he was so just a made critter; folks used to run to the winder when he passed, and say, 'There goes Washington Banks; beant he lovely!' I do believe there wasn't a gal in the Lowell factories that warn't in love with him. Sometimes, at intermission, on Sabbath-days, when they all came out together (an amazin' handsom' sight, too, near about a whole congregation of young gals), Banks used to say, 'I vow, young ladies, I wish I had five hundred arms to reciprocate one with each of you; but I reckon I have a heart big enough for you all; it's a whopper, you may depend, and every mite and morsel of it at your service.' 'Well, how you do act, Mr. Banks!' half a thousand little clipper-clapper tongues would say, all at the same time, and their dear little eyes sparklin' like so many stars twinklin' of a frosty night.

"Well, when I last seed him he was all skin and bone, like a horse turned out to die. He was teetotally defleshed, a mere walkin' skeleton. 'I am dreadful sorry,' says I, 'to see you, Banks, lookin' so peaked. Why, you look like a sick turkey-hen, all legs! What on airth ails you?' 'I'm dyin', says he, 'of a broken heart.' 'What!' I says I, 'have the gals been jiltin' you?' 'No, no,' says he; 'I beant such a fool as that, neither.' 'Well,' says I, 'have you made a bad speculation?' 'No,' says he, shakin' his head, 'I hope I have too much clear grit in me to take on so bad for that.' 'What under the sun is it, then?' said I. 'Why,' says he, 'I made a bet the fore part of the summer with Leftenant Oby Knowles that I could shoulder the best bower of the Constitution frigate. I won my bet, but the anchor was so etarnal heavy that it broke my heart.' Sure enough, he did die that very fall; and he was the only instance I ever heard tell of a broken heart."

Sam Slick is a character created in 1835 by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, a Nova Scotian judge and author. With his wry wit and Yankee voice, Sam Slick of Slicksville put forward his views on "human nature" in a regular column in the Novascotian. The twenty-one sketches were published in a collection entitled The Clockmaker or, also known as, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slicksville First Series in 1836 and supplemented by an additional 12 unpublished or new sketches. The book was Canada's first international bestseller and was hugely popular not only in Nova Scotia, but also in Britain and the United States.

Slick’s wise-cracking commentary on the colonial life of Nova Scotia and relations with the U.S. and Britain struck a note with readers, which lead to a second series in 1838 and a third in 1840. The satirical sketches, mocking both Canadians and Americans, made Haliburton one of the most popular writers of comic fiction in English of that era. The Clockmaker, which was also translated into German, established Haliburton as one of the founders of North American humour. As Arthur Scobie notes in The Canadian Encyclopedia, The Clockmaker stories, "proved immensely popular and, ironically, have influenced American humour as much as Canadian."

ENCOURAGEMENT IS... - by Catherine Pulsifer

ENCOURAGEMENT  IS... by  Catherine Pulsifer   Encouragement is . . . the person who takes the time to listen the person who supports you while others turn their back the person who lends that helping hand the person who has faith in you to be all you can the person who shares what they have the person who has confidence in you and your plans the person who gives you hope to see the project through the person who listens and does not judge Encouragement you see is not a noun but a person taking action showing kindness and compassion.

 

 

A STROLL - by Guy de Maupassant

 

When Old Man Leras, bookkeeper for Messieurs Labuze and Company, left the store, he stood for a minute bewildered at the glory of the setting sun. He had worked all day in the yellow light of a small jet of gas, far in the back of the store, on a narrow court, as deep as a well. The little room where he had been spending his days for forty years was so dark that even in the middle of summer one could hardly see without gaslight from eleven until three.

It was always damp and cold, and from this hole on which his window opened came the musty odor of a sewer.

For forty years Monsieur Leras had been arriving every morning in this prison at eight o'clock, and he would remain there until seven at night, bending over his books, writing with the industry of a good clerk.

He was now making three thousand francs a year, having started at fifteen hundred. He had remained a bachelor, as his means did not allow him the luxury of a wife, and as he had never enjoyed anything, he desired nothing. From time to time, however, tired of this continuous and monotonous work, he formed a platonic wish: “Gad ! If I only had an income of fifteen thousand francs, I would take life easy.”

He had never taken life easy, as he had never had anything but his monthly salary. His life had been uneventful, without emotions, without hopes. The faculty of dreaming with which every one is blessed had never developed in the mediocrity of his ambitions.

When he was twenty-one he entered the employ of Messieurs Labuze and Company. And he had never left them.

In 1856 he had lost his father and then his mother in 1859. Since then the only incident in his life was when he moved, in 1868, because his landlord had tried to raise his rent.

Every day his alarm clock, with a frightful noise of rattling chains, made him spring out of bed at 6 o'clock precisely.

Twice, however, this piece of mechanism had been out of order, once in 1866 and again in 1874; he had never been able to find out the reason why. He would dress, make his bed, sweep his room, dust his chair and the top of his bureau. All this took him an hour and a half.

Then he would go out, buy a roll at the Lahure Bakery, in which he had seen eleven different owners without the name ever changing, and he would eat this roll on the way to the office.

His entire existence had been spent in the narrow, dark office, which was still decorated with the same wall paper. He had entered there as a young man, as assistant to Monsieur Brument, and with the desire to replace him.

He had taken his place and wished for nothing more.

The whole harvest of memories which other men reap in their span of years, the unexpected events, sweet or tragic loves, adventurous journeys, all the occurrences of a free existence, all these things had remained unknown to him.

Days, weeks, months, seasons, years, all were alike to him. He got up every day at the same hour, started out, arrived at the office, ate luncheon, went away, had dinner and went to bed without ever interrupting the regular monotony of similar actions, deeds and thoughts.

Formerly he used to look at his blond mustache and wavy hair in the little round mirror left by his predecessor. Now, every evening before leaving, he would look at his white mustache and bald head in the same mirror. Forty years had rolled by, long and rapid, dreary as a day of sadness and as similar as the hours of a sleepless night. Forty years of which nothing remained, not even a memory, not even a misfortune, since the death of his parents. Nothing.

That day Monsieur Leras stood by the door, dazzled at the brilliancy of the setting sun; and instead of returning home he decided to take a little stroll before dinner, a thing which happened to him four or five times a year.

He reached the boulevards, where people were streaming along under the green trees. It was a spring evening, one of those first warm and pleasant evenings which fill the heart with the joy of life.

Monsieur Leras went along with his mincing old man's step; he was going along with joy in his heart, at peace with the world. He reached the Champs-Elysees, and he continued to walk, enlivened by the sight of the young people trotting along.

The whole sky was aflame; the Arc de Triomphe stood out against the brilliant background of the horizon, like a giant surrounded by fire. As he approached the immense monument, the old bookkeeper noticed that he was hungry, and he went into a wine dealer's for dinner.

The meal was served in front of the store, on the sidewalk. It consisted of some mutton, salad and asparagus. It was the best dinner that Monsieur Leras had had in a long time. He washed down his cheese with a small bottle of burgundy, had his after-dinner cup of coffee, a thing which he rarely took, and finally a little pony of brandy.

When he had paid he felt quite youthful, even a little moved. And he said to himself: “What a fine evening! I will continue my stroll as far as the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne. It will do me good.” He set out. An old tune which one of his neighbors used to sing kept returning to his mind. He kept on humming it over and over again. A hot, still night had fallen over Paris. Monsieur Leras walked along the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne and watched the cabs drive by. They kept coming with their shining lights, one behind the other, giving him a glimpse of the couples inside, the women in their light dresses and the men dressed in black.

It was one long procession of lovers, riding under the warm, starlit sky. They kept on coming in rapid succession. They passed by in the carriages, silent, side by side, lost in their dreams, in the emotion of desire, in the anticipation of the approaching embrace. The warm shadows seemed to be full of floating kisses. A sensation of tenderness filled the air. All these carriages full of tender couples, all these people intoxicated with the same idea, with the same thought, seemed to give out a disturbing, subtle emanation.

At last Monsieur Leras grew a little tired of walking, and he sat down on a bench to watch these carriages pass by with their burdens of love. Almost immediately a woman walked up to him and sat down beside him. “Good-evening, papa,” she said.

He answered: “Madame, you are mistaken.”

She slipped her arm through his, saying: “Come along, now; don't be foolish. Listen...”

He arose and walked away, with sadness in his heart. A few yards away another woman walked up to him and asked: “Won't you sit down beside me?” He said: “What makes you take up this life?”

She stood before him and in an altered, hoarse, angry voice exclaimed:

“Well, it isn't for the fun of it, anyhow!”

He insisted in a gentle voice: “Then what makes you ?”

She grumbled: “I've got to live ! Foolish question !” And she walked away, humming.

Monsieur Leras stood there bewildered. Other women were passing near him, speaking to him and calling to him. He felt as though he were enveloped in darkness by something disagreeable.

He sat down again on a bench. The carriages were still rolling by. He thought: “I should have done better not to come here; I feel all upset.” He began to think of all this venal or passionate love, of all these kisses, sold or given, which were passing by in front of him. Love ! He scarcely knew it. In his lifetime he had only known two or three women, his means forcing him to live a quiet life, and he looked back at the life which he had led, so different from everybody else, so dreary, so mournful, so empty.

Some people are really unfortunate. And suddenly, as though a veil had been torn from his eyes, he perceived the infinite misery, the monotony of his existence: the past, present and future misery; his last day similar to his first one, with nothing before him, behind him or about him, nothing in his heart or any place.

The stream of carriages was still going by. In the rapid passage of the open carriage he still saw the two silent, loving creatures. It seemed to him that the whole of humanity was flowing on before him, intoxicated with joy, pleasure and happiness. He alone was looking on. To-morrow he would again be alone, always alone, more so than any one else. He stood up, took a few steps, and suddenly he felt as tired as though he had taken a long journey on foot, and he sat down on the next bench.

What was he waiting for ? What was he hoping for ? Nothing. He was thinking of how pleasant it must be in old age to return home and find the little children. It is pleasant to grow old when one is surrounded by those beings who owe their life to you, who love you, who caress you, who tell you charming and foolish little things which warm your heart and console you for everything.

And, thinking of his empty room, clean and sad, where no one but himself ever entered, a feeling of distress filled his soul; and the place seemed to him more mournful even than his little office. Nobody ever came there; no one ever spoke in it. It was dead, silent, without the echo of a human voice. It seems as though walls retain something of the people who live within them, something of their manner, face and voice. The very houses inhabited by happy families are gayer than the dwellings of the unhappy. His room was as barren of memories as his life. And the thought of returning to this place, all alone, of getting into his bed, of again repeating all the duties and actions of every evening, this thought terrified him. As though to escape farther from this sinister home, and from the time when he would have to return to it, he arose and walked along a path to a wooded corner, where he sat down on the grass.

About him, above him, everywhere, he heard a continuous, tremendous, confused rumble, composed of countless and different noises, a vague and throbbing pulsation of life: the life breath of Paris, breathing like a giant.

The sun was already high and shed a flood of light on the Bois de Boulogne. A few carriages were beginning to drive about and people were appearing on horseback.

A couple was walking through a deserted alley.

Suddenly the young woman raised her eyes and saw something brown in the branches. Surprised and anxious, she raised her hand, exclaiming: “Look ! what is that ?”

Then she shrieked and fell into the arms of her companion, who was forced to lay her on the ground.

The policeman who had been called cut down an old man who had hung himself with his suspenders.

Examination showed that he had died the evening before. Papers found on him showed that he was a bookkeeper for Messieurs Labuze and Company and that his name was Leras.

His death was attributed to suicide, the cause of which could not be suspected. Perhaps a sudden access of madness !

REMEMBER WELL, REMEMBER NOT - by Edmund Wong, Hong Kong

REMEMBER  WELL,  REMEMBER  NOT by Edmund Wong, Hong Kong When you should see the passing of the train,Remember not the voice that trails behind;When you should hear the falling of the rain,Remember not the day that once was fine. Imagine, instead, the meadow that we’ll sitOn hand in hand beneath the linden tree;If you are weak against the taxing heat, I will then let you hop on me, as freeAs clouds, and wander over the tranquil valeAnd brook, where I pick roses up along,Whose odor I can’t tell, in the mild gale,From my sweet Lily’s native scent, so strongThat it sets off the passion of my sweats.We need not books of tales to pass our time,Nor time will seize the treasure in our chests,For you‘re my fairy queen who lives in mine. When you should see the passing of the hearse,Remember well the reason of this verse,Be not sorry, nor sad, and miss me like a fool,As all of me is nothing else but you.

 

 

THE EXTRAVAGANT, MEMORABLE LIFE - by Bill Darrah

 

THE EXTRAVAGANT, MEMORABLE LIFE  by  Bill Darrah When I die you may choose to cry, but please do not wonder whyI was chosen to die. No one on Earth was designed to wonder whyWe must surrender our lives to the unknown future of an eternity weCan only rely upon as our enduring supply of true life, comfort, Extravagant love, and most importantly true inner peace. PleaseDo not cry for the memories lost between you and I but rather forThe memories you and I earnestly earned together as well as theMemories I will now strive for through my eternity my soul feelsFree to fulfill, always remembering those unforgettable memoriesI shared with you. As hard as it is for you to see me leave, pleaseDo not let your grief prevent and hinder the strength you need toMake new, more meaningful memories by allowing the peace of myPassing, I can truly feel for the first time, to overcompensate yourPainful thoughts and feelings of any regret for the abundant lifeYou were hoping for me with you I have once lived now restored inMy soul forever for you to feel joyful and rejuvenated about as ourThoughts of love merge together now in your time of encouragingNeed and in my time of remembrance of you loving me endlessly,Almost as much as I love you. With my peaceful passing I thankfullyExtend this deeply heartfelt message of love to help you build aStronger, more meaningful life of peace not only for yourself, butAlso for anyone else in need of a more soothing peace yourExtravagant love willingly provides.

 

 

THE INFANT'S SKULL or THE END OF THE WORLD - A Tale of the Millennium - by Eugène Sue - Part I - THE CASTLE OF COMPIEGNE

 

Louis V (c. 966 or 967 – 21 May 987), 

also known as Louis the Do-Nothing (Louis le Fainéant)

CHAPTER I

THE FOUNTAIN OF THE HINDS

A spring of living water, known in the neighborhood by the appropriate name of the "Fountain of the Hinds," empties its trickling stream under the oaks of one of the most secret recesses of the forest of Compiegne. Stags and hinds, deers and does, bucks and she-goats come to water at the spot, leaving behind them numerous imprints of their steps on the borders of the rill, or on the sandy soil of the narrow paths that these wild animals have worn across the copse.

One early morning in the year 987, the sun being up barely an hour, a woman, plainly dressed and breathing hard with rapid walking, stepped out of one of these paths and stopped at the Fountain of the Hinds. She looked in all directions in surprise as if she expected to have been preceded by some one at the solitary rendezvous. Finding her hopes deceived, she made an impatient motion, sat down, still out of breath, on a rock near the fountain, and threw off her cape.

The woman, barely twenty years of age, had black hair, eyes and eye-brows; her complexion was brown; and cherry-red her lips. Her features were handsome, while the mobility of her inflated nostrils and the quickness of her motions betokened a violent nature. She had rested only a little while when she rose again and walked up and down with hurried steps, stopping every now and then to listen for approaching footsteps. Catching at last the sounds of a distant footfall, she thrilled with joy and ran to the encounter of him she had been expecting. He appeared. It was a man, also in plain garb and in the vigor of age, large-sized and robust, with a piercing eye and somber, wily countenance. The young woman leaped at a bound into the arms of this personage, and passionately addressed him: "Hugh, I meant to overwhelm you with reproaches; I meant to strike you; but here you are and I forget everything," and in a transport of amorous delight she added, suiting the deed to the words: "Your lips! Oh, give me your lips to kiss!"

After the exchange of a shower of kisses, and disengaging himself, not without some effort, from the embrace of the fascinated woman, Hugh said to her gravely: "We cannot indulge in love at this hour."

"At this hour, today, yesterday, tomorrow, everywhere and always, I love and shall continue to love you."

"Blanche, they are foolhardy people who use the word 'always,' when barely fourteen years separate us from the term assigned for the end of the world! This is a grave and a fearful matter!"

"What! Can you have given me this early morning appointment at this secreted place, whither I have come under pretext of visiting the hermitage of St. Eusebius, to talk to me about the end of the world ? Hugh ... Hugh.... To me there is no end of the world but when your love ends!"

"Trifle not with sacred matters! Do you not know that in fourteen years, the first day of the year 1000, this world will cease to be and with it the people who inhabit it ?"

Struck by the coldness of her lover's answers, Blanche brusquely stepped back. Her brows contracted, her nostrils dilated, her breast heaved in pain, and she darted a look at Hugh that seemed to wish to fathom the very bottom of his heart. For a few instants her gaze remained fixed upon him; she then cried in a voice trembling with rage: "You love some other woman ! You love me no more !"

"Your words are senseless !"

"Heaven and earth ! Am I also to be despised.... I the Queen!... Yes, you love some other woman, your own wife, perhaps; that Adelaide of Poitiers whom you promised me you would rid yourself of by a divorce !" Further utterances having expired upon her lips, the wife of King Louis the Do-nothing broke down sobbing, and with eyes that glistened with fury she shook her fists at the Count of Paris: "Hugh, if I were sure of that, I would kill both you and your wife; I would stab you both to death!"

"Blanche," said Hugh slowly and watching the effect of his words upon the face of the Queen, who, with eyes fixed upon the ground, seemed to be meditating some sinister project: "I am not merely Count of Paris and Duke of France, as my ancestors were, I am also Abbot of Saint Martin of Tours and of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, abbot not only by virtue of my cowl—but by virtue of my faith. Accordingly, I blame your incredulity on the subject of the approaching end of the world. The holiest bishops have prophesied it, and have urged the faithful to hasten to save their souls during the fourteen years that still separate them from the last judgment.... Fourteen years!... A very short period within which to gain the eternal paradise!"

"By the hell that burns in my heart, the man is delivering a sermon to me!" cried the Queen with an outburst of caustic laughter. "What are you driving at? Are you spreading a snare for me? Malediction! this man is a compound of ruse, artifice and darkness, and yet I love him! I am insane!... Oh, there must be some magic charm in this!" and biting into her handkerchief with suppressed rage, she said to him: "I shall not interrupt again, even if I should choke with anger. Proceed, Hugh the Capet! Explain yourself!"

"Blanche, the approach of the dreadful day when the world is to end makes me uneasy about my salvation. I look with fright at our double adultery, seeing we are both married." Stopping with a gesture a fresh explosion of rage on the part of the Queen, the Count of Paris added solemnly raising his hand heavenward: "I swear to God by the salvation of my soul, were you a widow, I would obtain a divorce from the Pope, and I would marry you with holy joy. But likewise do I swear to God by the salvation of my soul, I wish no longer to brave eternal punishment by continuing a criminal intercourse with a woman bound, as I am myself, by the sacrament of marriage. I wish to spend in the mortification of the flesh, in fasting, abstinence, repentance and prayer the years that still separate us from the year 1000, to the end that I may obtain from our Lord God the remission of my sins and of my adultery with you. Blanche, seek not to alter my decision. According as the caprice of your love led you, you have alternately boasted over and cursed the inflexibility of my character. Now, what I have said is said. This shall be the last day of our adulterous intercourse. Our carnal relations shall then end."

While Hugh the Capet was speaking, the wife of Louis the Do-nothing contemplated his face with devouring attention. When he finished, so far from breathing forth desperate criminations, she carried both her hands to her forehead and seemed steeped in mediation. Looking askance upon Blanche, the Count of Paris anxiously waited for the first word from the Queen. Finally, a tremor shook her frame, she raised her head, as if struck by a sudden thought, and curbing her emotions she asked: "Do you believe that King Lothaire, the father of my husband Louis, died of poison in March of last year?"

"I believe he was poisoned."

"Do you believe that Imma, his wife, was guilty of poisoning her husband?"

"She is accused of the crime."

"Do you believe Imma guilty of the crime?"

"I believe what I see."

"And when you do not see?"

"Doubt is then natural."

"Do you know that in that murder Queen Imma's accomplice was her lover Adalberon, bishop of Laon?"

"It was a great scandal to the church!"

"After the poisoning of Lothaire, the Queen and the bishop, finally delivered from the eyes of her husband, indulged their love more freely."

"A double and horrible sacrilege!" cried the Count of Paris with indignation. "A bishop and a Queen adulterers and homicides!"

Blanche seemed astonished at the indignation of Hugh the Capet and again contemplated him attentively. She then proceeded with her interrogatory:

"Are you aware, Count of Paris, that King Lothaire's death is a happy circumstance for you—provided you were ambitious? Bishop Adalberon, the accomplice and lover of the Queen, that bishop, expert in poisons, was your friend!"

"He was my friend before his crime."

"You repudiate his friendship, but you profit by his crime. That is high statecraft."

"In what way, Blanche, have I profited by that odious crime? Does not the son of Lothaire reign to-day? When my ancestors, the Counts of Paris, aspired at the crown they did not assassinate the kings, they dethroned them. Thus Eudes dethroned Charles the Fat, and Rothbert, Charles the Simple. A transmission of crowns is easy."

"All of which did not prevent Charles the Simple, the nephew of Charles the Fat from re-ascending the throne, the same as Louis Outer-mer, the son of Charles the Simple, also resumed his crown. On the other hand, King Lothaire, who was poisoned last year, will never reign again. Whence we see, it is better to kill the kings than to dethrone them ... if one wishes to reign in their stead. Not so, Count of Paris?"

"Yes, provided one does not care for the excommunications of the bishops, nor for the eternal flames."

"Hugh, if perchance my husband, although young, should die?... That might happen."

"The will of the Lord is all-powerful," answered Hugh with a contrite air. "There be those who to-day are full of life and youth, and to-morrow are corpses and dust! The designs of God are impenetrable."

"So that if perchance the King, my husband, should die," rejoined Blanche, without taking her eyes from the face of the Count of Paris, "in short, if some day or other I become a widow—your scruples will then cease ... my love will no longer be adulterous, would it, Hugh?"

"No, you would then be free."

"And will you remain faithful to what you have just said ... 'Blanche, I swear to God by the salvation of my soul, if you should become a widow I shall separate from my wife Adelaide of Poitiers, and I shall marry you with a pure and holy joy.' ... Will you be faithful to that oath?"

"Blanche, I repeat it," answered Hugh the Capet avoiding the Queen's eyes that remained obstinately fixed upon him. "I swear to God by the salvation of my soul, if you become a widow I shall demand of the Pope permission to divorce Adelaide of Poitiers, and I shall marry you. Our love will then have ceased to be criminal."

An interval of silence again followed the words of the Count of Paris, whereupon Blanche resumed slowly:

"Hugh, there are strange and sudden deaths."

"Indeed, strange and sudden deaths have been seen in royal families."

"None is safe from accident. Neither princes nor subjects."

"Only the will of heaven disposes of our fates. We must bow before the decrees of God."

"My husband, Louis, the Do-nothing, is, like all other people, subject to death and the decrees of Providence."

"Indeed, kings as well as subjects."

"It may then happen, although he is now barely twenty, that he die suddenly ... within a year ... within six months ... to-morrow ... to-day...."

"Man's end is death."

"Should that misfortune arrive," the Queen proceeded after a pause, "there is one thing that alarms me, Hugh, and on which I desire your advice."

"What, my dear Blanche?"

"Calumniators, seeing Louis dies so suddenly, might talk ... about poison."

"A pure conscience despises calumny. The wicked may be disregarded."

"Oh, as to me, I would despise them. But, you, Hugh, my beloved, whatever may be said, would you also accuse me of being a poisoner? Would you pass such a judgment upon me?"

"I believe what I see.... If I do not see, I doubt. Blanche, may the curse of heaven fall upon me if I ever could be infamous enough to conceive such a suspicion against you!" cried Hugh the Capet taking the Queen in his arms with passionate tenderness. "What! If the Lord should call your husband to Him He would fulfil the most cherished dreams of my life! He would allow me to sanctify with marriage the ardent love that I would sacrifice everything to, everything except my eternal salvation! And would I, instead of thanking God, suspect you of an odious crime! You the soul of my life!"

The Queen seemed overwhelmed with ecstacy. Hugh the Capet proceeded in a low and tremulous voice: "Oh, joy of my heart, if some day you should be my wife before God, our souls would then merge in one and in a love that would then be pure and holy. Then, Oh joy of Heaven, we shall not age! The end of the world approaches. Together we shall quit life full of ardor and love!" saying which the Count of Paris drew his mouth close to the lips of the Queen. The latter closed her eyes and muttered a few words in a faint voice. Hugh the Capet, however, suddenly and with great effort disengaged himself from Blanche's arms exclaiming: "A superhuman courage is needed to overcome the passion that consumes me! Adieu, Blanche, well-beloved of my heart, I return to Paris!"

With these words Hugh the Capet disappeared in the copse, while the Queen, overpowered with passion and the struggle within herself, followed him with her eyes: "Hugh, my lover, I shall be a widow, and you King!"

CHAPTER II

THE IDIOT

Among the household serfs of the royal domain of Compiegne was a young lad of eighteen named Yvon. Since the death of his father, a forester serf, he lived with his grandmother, the washerwoman for the castle, who had received permission from the bailiff to keep her grandson near her. Yvon was at first employed in the stables; but having long lived in the woods, he looked so wild and stupid that he was presently taken for an idiot, went by the name of Yvon the Calf, and became the butt of all. The King himself, Louis the Do-nothing, amused himself occasionally with the foolish pranks of the young serf. He was taught to mimic dogs by barking and walking on all fours; he was made to eat lizards, spiders and grass-hoppers for general amusement. Yvon always obeyed with an idiotic leer. Thus delivered to the sport and contempt of all, since his grandmother's death, the lad met at the castle with the sympathy of none except a poor female serf named Marceline the Golden-haired from the abundant gold-blonde ornament of her head. The young girl was a helper of Adelaide, the favorite lady of the Queen's chamber.

The morning of the day that Blanche and Hugh the Capet had met at the Fountain of the Hinds, Marceline, carrying on her head a bucket of water, was crossing one of the yards of the castle towards the room of her mistress. Suddenly she heard a volley of hisses, and immediately after she saw Yvon enter the yard pursued by several serfs and children of the domain, crying at the top of their voices: "The Calf!" "The Calf!" and throwing stones and offal at the idiot. Marceline revealed the goodness of her heart by interesting herself in the wretch, not that Yvon's features or limbs were deformed, but that the idiotic expression of his face affected her. He was in the habit of dressing his long black hair in five or six plaids interwoven with wisps of straw, and the coiffure fell upon his neck like as many tails. Barely clad in a sorry hose that was patched with materials of different colors, his shoes were of rabbit or squirrel skin fastened with osiers to his feet and legs. Closely pursued from various sides by the serfs of the castle, Yvon made several doublings in the yard in order to escape his tormentors, but perceiving Marceline, who, standing upon the first step of the turret stairs that she was about to ascend, contemplated the idiot with pity, he ran towards the young girl, and throwing himself at her feet said joining his hands: "Pardon me, Marceline, but protect poor Yvon against these wicked people!"

"Climb the stairs quick!" Marceline said to the idiot, pointing up the turret. Yvon rose and swiftly followed the advice of the serf maid, who, placing herself at the door, lay down her bucket of water, and addressing Yvon's tormentors, who were drawing near, said to them: "Have pity for the poor idiot, he harms no one."

"I have just seen him leap like a wolf out of the copse of the forest from the side of the Fountain of the Hinds," cried a forester serf. "His hair and the rags he has on are wet with dew. He must have been in some thicket spreading nets for game which he eats raw."

"Oh, he is a worthy son of Leduecq, the forester, who lived like a savage in his den, never coming out of the woods!" observed another serf. "We must have some fun with the Calf."

"Yes, yes, let us dip him up to his ears in the neighboring pool in punishment for spreading nets to catch game with," said the forester; and taking a step toward Marceline who remained at the door: "Get out of the way, you servant of the devil, or we shall give you a ducking along with the Calf!"

"My mistress, Dame Adelaide, a lady of the Queen's chamber, will know how to punish you if you ill-treat me. Begone, you heartless people!"

"The devil take Adelaide! To the pool with the Calf!"

"Yes, to the pool with him! And Marceline also! A good mud-bath for both!"

At the height of the tumult, one of the casements of the castle was thrown open, and a young man of twenty years at most leaned out and cried angrily: "I shall have your backs flayed with a sound strapping, you accursed barking dogs!"

"The King!" exclaimed the tormentors of Yvon, and a minute later all had fled by the gate of the yard.

"Halloa, you girl!" called out Louis the Do-nothing to Marceline who was taking up her bucket of water. "What was the cause of the infernal racket made by that noisy pack?"

"Seigneur," answered Marceline trembling, "they wanted to ill-treat poor Yvon."

"Is the Calf about?"

"Seigneur, I know not where he is gone to hide," explained the maid who feared lest Yvon, barely escaped from one set of tormentors, should fall into the hands of the whimsical King. As the latter thereupon withdrew from the window, Marceline hastened to ascend the stair of the turret. She had scarcely mounted a dozen steps when she saw Yvon crouching with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. At the sight of the maid he shook his head and with a voice full of emotion said: "Good you; oh, you good! Marceline good!" and he fixed his eyes so full of gratitude upon her that she observed aloud with a sigh: "Who would believe that this wretch, with eyes at times so captivating, still is deprived of reason?" and again laying down her bucket she said to the idiot: "Yvon, why did you go this morning into the forest? Your hair and rags are really moist with dew. Is it true that you spread nets to take game?" The idiot answered with a stupid smile, swaying his head backward and forward. "Yvon," said Marceline, "do you understand me?" The idiot remained mute, but presently observing the bucket of water that the maid had laid down at his feet, he lifted it up, placed it on his own head, and motioned to Marceline to go up ahead of him. "The poor creature is expressing his gratitude as well as he can," Marceline was thinking to herself when she heard steps above coming down the stairs, and a voice cried out:

"Oh, Calf, is it you?"

"That is the voice of one of the King's servants," said Marceline. "He is coming for you, Yvon. Oh, you are going to fall into another tormentor's hands!"

Indeed, one of the men of the royal chamber appeared at the turning of the winding stairs and said to the idiot: "Come, get up quick and follow me! Our lord the King wishes to amuse himself with you, you double Calf!"

"The King! Oh! Oh! The King!" cried Yvon with a triumphant air, clapping his hands gayly. The bucket being left unsupported on his head, fell and broke open at the feet of the King's servitor whose legs were thereby drenched up to his knees.

"A plague upon the idiot!" cried Marceline despite all her good-heartedness. "There is the bucket broken! My mistress will beat me!"

Furious at the accident that drenched his clothes, the royal servitor hurled imprecations and insults upon Yvon the Calf, who, however, seeming not to notice either the imprecations or the insults, continued to repeat triumphantly: "The King! Oh! Oh! The King!"

CHAPTER III

LOUIS THE DO-NOTHING

Like his wife Louis the Do-nothing was barely twenty years of age. Justly nicknamed the "Do-nothing," he looked as nonchalant as he seemed bored. After having scolded through the window at the serfs, whose noise annoyed him, he stretched himself out again upon his lounge. Several of his familiar attendants stood around him. Yawning fit to dislocate his jaws, he said to them: "What a notion that was of the Queen's to go at sunrise with only one lady of the chamber to pray at the hermitage of St. Eusebius! Once awakened, I could not fall asleep again. So I rose! Oh, this day will be endless!"

"Seigneur King, would you like to hunt?" suggested one of the attendants. "The day is fine. We would certainly kill some game."

"The hunt fatigues me. It is a rude sport."

"Seigneur King, would you prefer fishing?"

"Fishing tires me; it is a stupid pastime."

"Seigneur King, if you call your flute and lute-players, you might enjoy a dance."

"Music racks my head, and I cannot bear dancing. Let's try something else."

"Seigneur King, shall your chaplain read to you out of some fine work?"

"I hate reading. I think I could amuse myself with the idiot. Where is he?"

"Seigneur King, one of your attendants has gone out to find him.... I hear steps.... It is surely he coming."

The door opened and a servitor bent the knee and let in Yvon. From the moment of his entrance Yvon started to walk on all fours, barking like a dog; after a little while he grew livelier, jumped and cavorted about clapping his hands and shouting with such grotesque contortions that the King and the attendants began to laugh merrily. Encouraged by these signs of approbation and ever cavorting about, Yvon mimicked alternately the crowing of a rooster, the mewing of a cat, the grunting of a hog and the braying of an ass, interspersing his sounds with clownish gestures and ridiculous leaps, that redoubled the hilarity of the King and his courtiers. The merriment was at its height when the door was again thrown open, and one of the chamberlains announced in a loud voice from the threshold where he remained: "Seigneur King, the Queen approaches!" At these words the attendants of Louis, some of whom had dropped upon stools convulsing with laughter, rose hastily and crowded to the door to salute the Queen at her entrance. Louis, however, who lay stretched on his lounge, continued laughing and cried out to the idiot: "Keep on dancing, Calf! Dance on! You are worth your weight in gold! I never amused myself better!"

"Seigneur King, here is the Queen!" said one of the courtiers, seeing Blanche cross the contiguous chamber and approach the door. The wing of this door, when thrown open almost reached the corner of a large table that was covered with a splendid Oriental piece of tapestry, the folds of which reached to the floor. Yvon the Calf continued his gambols, slowly approaching the table, and concealed from the eyes of the King by the head-piece of the lounge on which the latter remained stretched. Ranged at the entrance of the door in order to salute the Queen, the prince's attendants had their backs turned to the table under which Yvon quickly blotted himself out at the moment when the seigneurs were bowing low before Blanche. The Queen answered their salute, and preceding them by a few steps moved towards Louis, who had not yet ceased laughing and crying out: "Ho, Calf, where are you? Come over this way that I may see your capers.... Have you suddenly turned mute, you who can bark, mew and crow so well?"

"My beloved Louis is quite merry this morning," observed Blanche caressingly and approaching her husband's lounge. "Whence proceeds the mirth of my dear husband?"

"That idiot could make a dead man laugh with his capers. Ho, there, Calf! Come this way, you scamp, or I'll have your bones broken!"

"Seigneur King," said one of the attendants after glancing around the room for Yvon, "the Calf must have escaped at the moment when the door was opened to admit the Queen. He is not here, nor in the adjoining room."

"Fetch him back, he can not be far!" cried the King impatiently and with rising anger. "Bring him back here immediately!"

One of the seigneurs hurried out to execute the King's orders, while Blanche letting herself down near him, said, smiling tenderly: "I shall try, my beloved seigneur, to enable you to wait patiently for the idiot's return."

"Fetch him back. All of you run after him; the more of you look after him, the quicker will he be found."

Bowing to the King's orders, the courtiers trooped out of the apartment in search of Yvon.

CHAPTER IV

A ROYAL COUPLE

Blanche remained alone with her husband, whose face, that for a moment had brightened up, speedily resumed its normal expression of lassitude. The Queen had thrown off her simple vestment of the morning to don a more elaborate costume. Her black hair, braided with pearls, was combed with skill. She wore an orange colored robe of rich material, with wide flowing sleeves, leaving half exposed her breast and shoulders. A collar and gold bracelets studded with precious stones ornamented her neck and arms. Still reclining on his lounge, now shared by his wife who sat down at its edge, Louis did not even bestow a glance upon her. With his head leaning upon one of the pillows, he was mumbling: "You will see the clumsy fellows will turn out more stupid than the idiot; they will not catch him."

"In such a disastrous event," replied Blanche with an insinuating smile, "I shall have to console you, my darling. Why is your face so careworn? Will you not deign as much as to throw your eyes upon your wife, your humble servant?"

Louis indolently turned his head towards his wife and said: "How dressed up you are!"

"Does this dress please my amiable master?" inquired the Queen caressingly; but noticing that the King suddenly shivered, became gloomy and brusquely turned away his head, she added: "What is the matter, Louis?"

"I do not like the color of that dress!"

"I am sorry I did not know the color of orange displeased you, dear seigneur. I would have guarded against putting it on."

"You were dressed in the same color on the first day of this month last year."

"My memory is not as perfect as yours on the subject, my dear seigneur."

"It was on the second of May of last year that I saw my father die, poisoned by my mother!" answered the King mournfully.

"What a sad souvenir! How I now hate this accursed orange color, seeing it awakens such recollections in your mind!"

The King remained silent; he turned on his cushions and placed his hands over his eyes. The door of the apartment was re-opened and one of the courtiers said: "Seigneur, despite all our search, we have not been able to find Yvon the Calf; he must have hidden in some corner; he shall be severely punished soon as we find him again." Louis made no answer, and Blanche motioned the courtier with an imperious gesture to retire. Left again alone, and seeing her husband more and more mentally troubled, Blanche redoubled her blandishments, seeking to provoke a return of her caresses: "Dear seigneur, your sadness afflicts me."

"Your tenderness is extreme ... this morning. Quite different from usual."

"My tenderness for you increases by reason of the sorrow that I see you steeped in, dear seigneur."

"Oh, I lost everything with my father's death," Louis murmured despondently, and he added with concentrated fury:

"That felonious bishop of Laon! Poisoner and adulterer! Infamous prelate! And my mother! my mother his accomplice! Such crimes portend the end of the world! I shall punish the guilty!"

"Pray, my seigneur, do forget that dark past. What is it you said about the end of the world? It is a fable."

"A fable! What! Do not the holiest bishops assert that in fourteen years the world must come to an end ... in the year 1000?"

"What makes me question their assertion, Louis, is that, while announcing the end of the world, these prelates recommend to the faithful to part with their goods to the Church and to donate their domains to them."

"Of what use would it be to keep perishable riches if soon everything is to perish?"

"But then, dear seigneur, if everything is to perish, what is the Church to do with the goods that she is eternally demanding from the faithful?"

"After all, you are right. It may be another imposture of the tonsured fraternity. Nor should anything of the sort surprise us when we see bishops guilty of adultery and poisoning."

"You always come back to those lugubrious thoughts, dear seigneur! Pray forget those unworthy calumnies regarding your mother.... Just God! Can a woman be guilty of her husband's murder! Impossible! God would not permit it!"

"But did I not witness the agony and death of my father! Oh, the effect of the poison was strange ... terrible!" said the King in somber meditation. "My father felt his feet growing cold, icy and numb, unable to support him. By degrees the mortal lethargy invaded his other members, as if he were being slowly dipped into an ice bath! What a terrible spectacle that was!"

"There are illnesses so sudden, so strange, my beloved master.... When such crimes are charged, I am of those who say: 'When I see I believe, when I do not see I refuse to accept such theories.'"

"Oh, I saw but too much!" cried Louis, and again hiding his face in his hands he added in a distressful voice: "I know not why these thoughts should plague me to-day. Oh, God, have pity on me. Remove these fears from my spirit!"

"Louis, do not weep like that, you tear my heart to pieces. Your sadness is a wrong done to this beautiful May day. Look out of the window at that brilliant sun; look at the spring verdure of the forest; listen to the gay twittering of the birds. Why, all around us, everything in nature is lovely and joyous; you alone are sad! Come, now, my beautiful seigneur," added Blanche taking both the hands of the King. "I am going to draw you out of this dejection that distresses me as much as it does you.... I am all the gladder at my project, which is intended to please and amuse you."

"What is your project?"

"I propose to spend the whole day near you. We shall take our morning meal here. I have issued orders to that effect, my indolent boy. After that we shall go to mass. We shall then take a long outing in a litter through the forest. Finally.... But, no, no, the surprise I have in store for you shall remain a secret. It shall be the price of your submission."

"What is the surprise about?"

"You will never have spent such a delightful evening.... You whom everything tires and whom everything is indifferent to ... you will be charmed by what I have in store for you, my dear husband."

Louis the Do-nothing, a youth of indolent and puerile mind, felt his curiosity pricked, but failed to draw any explanation from Blanche. A few minutes later the chamberlains and servants entered carrying silver dishes and gold goblets, together with the eatables that were to serve for the morning repast. Other attendants of the royal chamber took up the large table covered to the floor with tapestry and under which Yvon the Calf had hidden himself, and carried it forward to the lounge on which were Louis and Blanche. Bent under the table, and completely concealed by the ample folds of the cover which trailed along the floor, the idiot moved forward on his hands and knees as, carried by the servants, the table was being taken towards the royal lounge. When it was set down before Louis and Blanche, Yvon also stopped. Menials and equerries were preparing to render the habitual services at table when the Queen said smiling to her husband: "Will my charming master consent that to-day I be his only servant?"

"If it please you," answered Louis the Do-nothing, and he proceeded in an undertone: "But you know that according to my habit I shall neither eat nor drink anything that you have not tasted before me."

"What a child you are!" answered Blanche smiling upon her husband with amiable reproach. "Always suspicious! We shall drink from the same cup like two lovers."

The officers of the King left upon a sign from the Queen. She remained alone with Louis.

CHAPTER V

THE FOUNDING OF A DYNASTY

Day was waning. Darkness began to invade the spacious apartment where seventy-five years before Francon, archbishop of Rouen, informed Charles the Simple that he was to give his daughter Ghisele together with the domains of Neustria to Rolf the Norman pirate, and where now King Louis and his wife Blanche had spent the day.

Louis the Do-nothing was asleep at full length upon his lounge near to the table that was still covered with the dishes and vases of gold and silver. The King's sleep was painful and restless. A cold sweat ran down his forehead that waxed livid by the second. Presently an overpowering torpor succeeded his restlessness, and Louis remained plunged in apparent calmness, although his features were rapidly becoming cadaverous. Standing behind the lounge with his elbows resting against its head, Yvon the Calf contemplated the King of the Franks with an expression of somber and savage triumph. Yvon had dropped his mask of stupidity. His features now revealed undisguised intelligence, hidden until then by the semblance of idiocy. The profoundest silence reigned in the apartment now darkened by the approach of night. Suddenly, emitting a deep groan, the King awoke with a start. Yvon stooped down and disappeared behind the lounge while the King muttered to himself: "There is a strange feeling upon me.... I felt so violent a pain in my heart that it woke me up...." then looking towards the window: "What! Is it night!... I must have slept long.... Where is the Queen?... Why was I left alone?... I feel heavy and my feet are cold.... Halloa, someone!" he called out turning his face to the door, "Halloa, Gondulf!... Wilfrid!... Sigefried!" At the third name that he pronounced, Louis' voice, at first loud, became almost unintelligible, it sunk to a husky whisper. He sat up. "What is the matter with me? My voice is so feeble that I can hardly hear myself. My throat seems to close ... then this icy feeling ... this cold that freezes my feet and is rising to my legs!" The King of the Franks had barely uttered these words when a shudder of fear ran through him. He saw before him Yvon the Calf who had suddenly risen and now stood erect behind the head of the lounge. "What are you doing there?" asked Louis, and he immediately added with a sinking voice: "Run quick for some one.... I am in danger....", but interrupting himself he observed: "Of what use is such an order; the wretch is an idiot.... Why am I left thus alone?... I shall rouse myself," and Louis rose painfully; but hardly had he put his feet down when his limbs gave way under him and he fell in a heap with a dull thud upon the floor. "Help! Help!... Oh, God, have pity upon me!... Help!"

"Louis, it is too late!" came from Yvon in a solemn voice. "You are about to die ... barely twenty years old, Oh, King of the Franks!"

"What says that idiot? What is the Calf doing here?"

"You are about to die as died last year your father Lothaire, poisoned by his wife! You have been poisoned by Queen Blanche!"

Fear drew a long cry from Louis; his hair stood on end over his icy forehead, his lips, now purple, moved convulsively without producing a sound; his eyes, fixed upon Yvon, became troubled and glassy, but still retaining a last glimmer of intelligence, while the rest of his body remained inert.

"This morning," said Yvon, "the Count of Paris, Hugh the Capet, met your wife by appointment in the forest. Hugh is a cunning and unscrupulous man. Last year he caused the poisoning of your father by Queen Imma and her accomplice the bishop of Laon; to-day he caused you to be poisoned by Blanche, your wife, and to-morrow the Count of Paris will be King!" Louis understood what Yvon was saying, although his mind was beclouded by the approach of death. A smile of hatred contracted his lips. "You believed yourself safe from danger," Yvon proceeded, "by compelling your wife to eat of the dishes that she served you. All poison has its antidote. Blanche could with impunity moisten her lips in the wine she had poisoned—" Louis seemed hardly to hear these last words of Yvon; his limbs stiffened, his head dropped and thumped against the floor; his eyes rolled for a last time in their depths; a slight froth gathered on his now blackened lips; he uttered a slight moan, and the last crowned scion of the Carlovingian stock had passed away.

"Thus end the royal races! Thus, sooner or later, do they expiate their original crime!" thought Yvon contemplating the corpse of the last Carlovingian king lying at his feet. "My ancestor Amæl, the descendant of Joel and of Genevieve, declined to be the jailor of little Childeric, in whom the stock of Clovis was extinguished, and now I witness the crime by which is extinguished, in the person of Louis the Do-nothing, the stock of Charles the Great—the second dynasty of the conquerers of Gaul. Perchance some descendant of my own will in the ages to come witness the punishment of this third dynasty of kings, now raised by Hugh the Capet through an act of cowardly perfidy!"

Steps were heard outside. Sigefried, one of the courtiers, entered the apartment saying to the King: "Seigneur, despite the express orders of the Queen, who commanded us not to disturb your slumber, I come to announce to you the arrival of the Count of Paris."

So saying, Sigefried drew near, leaving the door open behind him. Yvon profited by the circumstance and groped his way out of the apartment under cover of the dark. Receiving no answer from Louis, Sigefried believed the King was still asleep, when, drawing still nearer he saw the King's body lying on the floor. He stooped and touched the icy hand. Struck with terror he ran to the door crying out: "Help!... Help!" and crossed the next room continuing to call for assistance. Several servitors soon appeared with torches in their hands, preceding Hugh the Capet, who now was clad in his brilliant armor and accompanied by several of his officers. "What?" cried the Count of Paris addressing Sigefried in an accent of surprise and alarm, "The King cannot be dead!"

"Oh, Sire, I found Louis on the floor where he must have dropped down from the lounge. I touched his hand. It was icy!" saying which Sigefried followed Hugh the Capet into the apartment that now was brilliantly lighted by the torches of the servants. The Count of Paris contemplated for an instant the corpse of the last Carlovingian king, and cried in a tone of pity: "Oh! Dead! And only twenty years of age!" and turning towards Sigefried with his hands to his eyes as if seeking to conceal his tears: "How can we account for so sudden a death?"

"Seigneur, the King was in perfect health this morning. He sat down at table with the Queen; after that she left giving us orders not to disturb her husband's sleep; and—" Sigefried's report was interrupted by nearing lamentations, and Blanche ran in followed by several of her women. Her hair was tumbled, her looks distracted. "Is Louis really dead?" and upon the answer that she received she cried:

"Woe is me! Woe is me! I have lost my beloved husband! For pity's sake, seigneur Hugh, do not leave me alone! Oh, promise me to join your efforts to mine to discover the author of his death, if my Louis died by crime!"

"Oh, worthy spouse, I swear to God and his saints, I shall help you discover the criminal!" answered Hugh the Capet solemnly; and seeing Blanche tremble and stagger on her feet like one about to fall he cried: "Help! Blanche is swooning!" and he received in his arms the seemingly fainting body of Blanche who whispered in his ear: "I am a widow ... you are King!"

CHAPTER VI

YVON AND MARCELINE

Upon leaving the room where lay the corpse of Louis the Do-nothing, Yvon descended the stairs to the apartment of Adelaide, the lady of the Queen's chamber, and mistress of the golden-haired Marceline, whom he expected to find alone, Adelaide having followed the Queen when the latter ran to the King's apartment feigning despair at the death of her husband. Yvon found the young female serf at the threshold of the door in a state of great agitation at the tumult that had suddenly invaded the castle. "Marceline," Yvon said to her, "I must speak with you; let us step into your mistress's room. She will not leave the Queen for a long time. We shall not be interrupted. Come!" The young woman opened wide her eyes at seeing for the first time the Calf expressing himself in a sane manner, and his face now free of its wonted look of stupidity. In her astonishment, Marceline could not at first utter a word, and Yvon explained, smiling: "Marceline, my language astonishes you. The reason is, you see, I am no longer Yvon the Calf but ... Yvon who loves you! Yvon who adores Marceline!"

"Yvon who loves me!" cried the poor serf in fear. "Oh, God, this is some sorcery!"

"If so, Marceline, you are the sorceress. But, now, listen to me. When you will have heard me, you will answer me whether you are willing or not to have me for your husband." Yvon entered the room mechanically followed by Marceline. She thought herself in a dream; her eyes did not leave the Calf and found his face more and more comely. She remembered that, often struck by the affectionateness and intelligence that beamed from Yvon's eyes, she had asked herself how such looks could come from a young man who was devoid of reason.

"Marceline," he proceeded, "in order to put an end to your surprise, I must first speak to you of my family."

"Oh, speak, Yvon, speak! I feel so happy to see you speak like a sane person, and such language!"

"Well, then, my lovely Marceline, my great-grandfather, a skipper of Paris named Eidiol, had a son and two daughters. One of these, Jeanike, kidnapped at an early age from her parents, was sold for a serf to the superintendant of this domain, and later she became the wet-nurse of the daughter of Charles the Simple, whose descendant, Louis the Do-nothing, has just died."

"Is the rumor really true? Is the King dead? So suddenly? It is strange!"

"Marceline, these kings could not die too soon. Well, then, Jeanike, the daughter of my great-grandfather had two children, Germain, a forester serf of this domain, and Yvonne, a charming girl, whom Guyrion the Plunger, son of my great-grandfather, took to wife. She went with him to Paris, where they settled down and where he plied his father's trade of skipper. Guyrion had from Yvonne a son named Leduecq ... and he was my father. My grandfather Guyrion remained in Paris as skipper. A woman named Anne the Sweet was assaulted by one of the officers of the Count of the city, and her husband, Rustic the Gay, a friend of my father, killed the officer. The soldiers ran to arms and the mariners rose at the call of Rustic and Guyrion, but both of them were killed together with Anne in the bloody fray that ensued. My grandfather being one of the leaders in the revolt, the little he owned was confiscated. Reduced to misery, his widow left Paris with her son and came to her brother Germain the forester for shelter. He shared his hut with Yvonne and her son. Such is the iniquity of the feudal law that those who dwell a year and a day upon royal or seigniorial domain become its serfs. Such was the fate of my grandfather's widow and her son Leduecq. She was put to work in the fields, Leduecq following the occupation of his uncle succeeded him as forester of the canton of the Fountain of the Hinds. Later he married a serf whose mother was a washerwoman of the castle. I was born of that marriage. My father, who was as gentle towards my mother and myself as he was rude and intractable towards all others, never ceased thinking of the death of my grandfather Guyrion, who was slaughtered by the soldiers of the Count of Paris. He never left the forest except to carry his tax of game to the castle. Of a somber and indominable character, often switched for his insubordination towards the bailiff's agents, he would have taken a cruel revenge for the ill-treatment that he was subjected to were it not for the fear of leaving my mother and myself in want. She died about a year ago. My father survived her only a few months. When I lost him, I came by orders of the bailiff to live with my maternal aunt, a washerwoman at the castle of Compiegne. You now know my family."

"The good Martha! When you first came here she always said to me: 'It is no wonder that my grandson looks like a savage; he never left the forest.' But during the last days of her life your grandmother often said to me with tears in her eyes: 'The good God has willed it that Yvon be an idiot.' I thought as she did, and therefore had great pity for you. And yet, how mistaken I was. You speak like a clerk. While you were just now speaking, I said to myself: 'Can it be?... Yvon the Calf, who talks that way? And he in love?'"

"And are you pleased to see your error dispelled? Do you reciprocate my feelings?"

"I do not know," answered the young serf blushing. "I am so taken by surprise by all that you have been telling me! I must have time to think."

"Marceline, will you marry me, yes or no? You are an orphan; you depend upon your mistress; I upon the bailiff; we are serfs of the same domain; can there be any reason why they should refuse their consent to our marriage?" And he added bitterly: "Does not the lambkin that is born increase its master's herd?"

"Alack! According to the laws our children are born and die serfs as ourselves! But would my mistress Adelaide give her consent to my marrying an idiot?"

"This is my project: Adelaide is a favorite and confidante of the Queen. Now, then this is a beautiful day for the Queen."

"What! The day when the King, her husband, died?"

"For that very reason. The Queen is to-day in high feather, and for a thousand reasons her confidante, your mistress, must feel no less happy than the widow of Louis the Do-nothing. To ask for a favor at such a moment is to have it granted."

"What favor would you ask?"

"If you consent to marry me, Marceline, you will need Adelaide's permission and we shall want her promise to have me appointed forester serf with the canton of the Fountain of the Hinds under my charge. Two words of your mistress to the Queen, two words of the Queen to the bailiff of the domain, and our wishes are fulfilled."

"But, Yvon, do you consider that everybody takes you for an idiot? And would they entrust you with a canton? It is out of the question."

"Let them give me a bow and arrows and I am ready to acquit myself as an archer. I have an accurate eye and steady hand."

"But how will you explain the sudden change that has turned you from an idiot to a sane man? People will want to know why you pretended to be an idiot. You will be severely punished for the ruse. Oh, my friend, all that makes me tremble."

"After I am married I shall tell you my reasons for my long comedy. As to my transformation from idiocy to sanity, that is to be the subject of a miracle. The thought struck me this morning while I followed your mistress and the Queen to the hermitage of St. Eusebius. Everything is explainable with the intervention of a saint."

"And why did you follow the Queen?"

"Having woke up this morning before dawn, I happened near the fosse of the castle. Hardly was the sun up when I saw at a distance your mistress and the Queen going all alone towards the forest. The mysterious promenade pricked my curiosity. I followed them at a distance across the copse. They arrived at the hermitage of St. Eusebius. Your mistress remained there, but the Queen took the path to the Fountain of the Hinds."

"What could she be up to at that early hour? My curiosity also is now pricked."

"That is another question that I shall satisfy you upon after we are married, Marceline," answered Yvon after a moment's reflection; "but to return to the miracle that is to explain my transformation from idiocy to sanity, it is quite simple: St. Eusebius, the patron of the hermitage, will be credited with having performed the prodigy, and the monk, who now derives a goodly revenue from the hermitage will not deny my explanation, seeing that the report of the new miracle will double his tithes. His whole fraternity speculate upon human stupidity."

The golden-haired Marceline smiled broadly at the young man's idea, and replied:

"Can it be Yvon the Calf that reasons thus?"

"No, my dear and sweet maid, it is Yvon the lover; Yvon on whom you took pity when he was everybody else's butt and victim; Yvon, who, in return for your good heart, offers you love and devotion. That is all a poor serf can promise, seeing that his labor and his life belong to his master. Accept my offer, Marceline, we shall be as happy as one can be in these accursed times. We shall cultivate the field that surrounds the forester's hut; I shall kill for the castle the game wanted there, and as sure as the good God has created the stags for the hunt, we never shall want for a loin of venison. You will take charge of our vegetable garden. The streamlet of the Fountain of the Hinds flows but a hundred paces from our home. We shall live alone in the thick of the woods without other companions than the birds and our children. And now, again, is it 'yes' or 'no'? I want a quick answer."

"Oh, Yvon," answered Marceline, tears of joy running from her eyes, "if a serf could dispose of herself, I would say 'yes' ... aye, a hundred times, 'yes'!"

"My beloved, our happiness depends upon you. If you have the courage to request your mistress's permission to take me for your husband, you may be certain of her consent."

"Shall I ask Dame Adelaide this evening?"

"No, but to-morrow morning, after I shall have come back with my sanity. I am going on the spot to fetch it at the hermitage of St. Eusebius, and to-morrow I shall bring it to you nice and fresh from the holy place—and with the monk's consent, too."

"And people called him the 'Calf'!" murmured the young serf more and more charmed at the retorts of Yvon, who disappeared speedily, fearing he might be surprised by the Queen's lady of the chamber, Adelaide.

CHAPTER VII

THE STOCK OF JOEL

Yvon's calculations proved right. He had told Marceline that no more opportune time could be chosen to obtain a favor from the Queen, so happy was she at the death of Louis the Do-nothing and the expectation of marrying Hugh the Capet. Thanks to the good-will of Adelaide, who consented to the marriage of her maid, the bailiff of the domain also granted his consent to Yvon after the latter, agreeable to the promise he had made Marceline, returned with his sanity from the chapel of the hermitage of St. Eusebius. The serf's story was, that entering the chapel in the evening, he saw by the light of the lamp in the sanctuary a monstrous black snake coiled around the feet of the saint; that suddenly enlightened by a ray from on high, he stoned and killed the horrible dragon, which was nothing else than a demon, seeing that no trace of the monster was left; and that, in recompense for his timely assistance, St. Eusebius miraculously returned his reason to him. In glorification of the miracle that was thus performed by St. Eusebius in favor of the Calf, Yvon was at his own request appointed forester serf over the canton of the Fountain of the Hinds, and the very morning after his marriage to the golden-haired Marceline, he settled down with her in one of the profound solitudes of the forest of Compiegne, where they lived happily for many years.

As was to be expected, Marceline's curiosity, pricked on the double score of the reasons that led Yvon to simulate idiocy for so many years, and that took the Queen to the Fountain of the Hinds at the early hours of the morning of May 2nd, instead of dying out, grew intenser. Yvon had promised after marriage to satisfy her on both subjects. She was not slow to remind him of the promise, nor he to satisfy her.

"My dear wife," said Yvon to Marceline the first morning that they awoke in their new forest home, "What were the motives of my pretended idiocy?—I was brought up by my father in the hatred of kings. My grandfather Guyrion, slaughtered in a popular uprising, had taught my father to read and write, so that he might continue the chronicle of our family. He preserved the account left by his grandfather Eidiol, the dean of the skippers of Paris, together with an iron arrow-head, the emblem attached to the account. We do not know whatever became of the branch of our family that lived in Britanny near the sacred stones of Karnak. It has the previous chronicles and relics that our ancestors recorded and gathered from generation to generation since the days of Joel, at the time of the Roman invasion of Gaul by Julius Caesar. My grandfather and my father wrote nothing on their obscure lives. But in the profound solitude where we lived, of an evening, after a day spent hunting or in the field, my father would narrate to me what my grandfather Guyrion had told him concerning the adventures of the descendants of Joel. Guyrion received these traditions from Eidiol, who received them from his grandfather, a resident of Britanny, before the separation of the grandchildren of Vortigern. I was barely eighteen years old when my father died. He made me promise him to record the experience of my life should I witness any important event. To that end he handed me the scroll of parchment written by Eidiol and the iron arrow-head taken from the wound of Paelo, the pirate. I carefully put these cherished mementos of the past in the pocket of my hose. That evening I closed my father's eyes. Early next morning I dug his grave near his hut and buried him. His bow, his arrows, a few articles of dress, his pallet, his trunk, his porridge-pot—everything was a fixture of and belonged to the royal domain. The serf can own nothing. Nevertheless I cogitated how to take possession of the bow, arrows and a bag of chestnuts that was left, determined to roam over the woods in freedom, when a singular accident upturned my projects. I had lain down upon the grass in the thick of a copse near our hut, when suddenly I heard the steps of two riders and saw that they were men of distinguished appearance. They were promenading in the forest. They alighted from their richly caparisoned horses, held them by the bridle, and walked slowly. One of them said to the other:

'King Lothaire was poisoned last year by his wife Imma and her lover, the archbishop of Laon ... but there is Louis left, Lothaire's son ... Louis the Do-nothing.'

'And if this Louis were to die, would his uncle, the Duke of Lorraine, to whom the crown would then revert by right, venture to dispute the crown of France from me ... from me, Hugh, the Count of Paris?'

'No, seigneur; he would not. But it is barely six months since Lothaire's death. It would require a singular chain of accidents for his son to follow him so closely to the tomb.'

'The ways of Providence are impenetrable.... Next spring, Louis will come with the Queen to Compiegne, and—'

"I could not hear the end of the conversation, the cavaliers were walking away from me as they spoke. The words that I caught gave me matter for reflection. I recalled some of the stories that my father told me, that of Amæl among others, one of our ancestors, who declined the office of jailor of the last scion of Clovis. I said to myself that perhaps I, a descendant of Joel, might now witness the death of the last of the kings of the house of Charles the Great. The thought so took hold of me that it caused me to give up my first plan. Instead of roaming over the woods, I went the next morning to my grandmother. I had never before stepped out of the forest where I lived in complete seclusion with my father. I was taciturn by nature, and wild. Upon arriving at the castle in quest of my grandmother, I met by accident a company of Frankish soldiers who had been exercising. For pastime they began to make sport of me. My hatred of their race, coupled with my astonishment at finding myself for the first time in my life among such a big crowd, made me dumb. The soldiers took my savage silence for stupidity, and they cried in chorus: 'He is a calf!' Thus they carried me along with them amidst wild yells and jeers, and not a few blows bestowed upon me! I cared little whether I was taken for an idiot or not, and considering that nobody minds an idiot, I began in all earnest to play the rôle, hoping that, thanks to my seeming stupidity, I might succeed in penetrating into the castle without arousing suspicion. My poor grandmother believed me devoid of reason, the retainers at the castle, the courtiers, and later the King himself amused themselves with the imbecility of Yvon the Calf. And so one day, after having been an unseen witness to the interview of Hugh the Capet with Blanche near the Fountain of the Hinds, I saw the degenerate descendant of Charles the Great expire under my very eyes; I saw extinguished in Louis the Do-nothing the second royal dynasty of France."

Marceline followed Yvon closely with her hands in his, and kissed him, thinking the recital over.

"But I have a confession to make to you," Yvon resumed. "Profiting by the facility I enjoyed in entering the castle, I committed a theft.... I one day snatched away a roll of skins that had been prepared to write upon. Never having owned one denier, it would have been impossible for me to purchase so expensive an article as parchment. As to pens and fluid, the feathers that I pluck from eagles and crows, and the black juice of the trivet-berry will serve me to record the events of my life, the past and recent part of which is monumental, and whose next and approaching part promises to be no less so."