The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (126 page)

At this proposition Louise blushed to the roots of her hair, and Hullin burst into a loud laugh.

“Thou laughest!” cried the madman, in a hollow voice. “Well! thou art wrong to laugh. This alliance may alone save thee from the impending ruin of thyself, thy house, and all thy belongings. At this moment my armies are advancing. They are countless—they cover the earth. What can you do against me? You will be vanquished, annihilated, or reduced to slavery, as you have already been for centuries: for I, Luitprandt, King of Australasia and of Polynesia—I have decided that everything shall be as it once was. Remember!”—here the madman raised his finger solemnly—“remember what has passed! You have been beaten! And we, the old northern races—we have put our yokes upon you. We have burdened you with the largest stones for building our strong castles and our subterraneous prisons; we have harnessed you to our ploughs; you have been before us as the straw before the hurricane. Remember, remember, Triboque, and tremble!”

“I remember very well,” said Hullin, still laughing; “but we had our revenge. Thou knowest?”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Yégof, frowning; “but that time has gone by. My warriors are more numerous than the leaves in the forests; and your blood flows like the water of the brooks. Thou, I know thee—I knew thee a thousand years ago!”

“Bah!” said Hullin.

“Yes, it was this hand—dost thou hear?—this hand that has vanquished thee, when, for the first time, we entered your forests. It has made thy head bow beneath the yoke—it will make it bend again! Because you are brave, you believe yourselves masters of this country and of all France forever. Well, you are wrong! We have spoiled you, and we will spoil you again. We will restore Alsace and Lorraine to Germany, Brittany and Normandy to the men from the North, with Flanders and the South to Spain. We will make France into a little kingdom around Paris—a very little kingdom—with a descendant of the ancient race at your head. And you will no longer agitate yourselves—you will be very tranquil. Ha, ha, ha!” Yégof began to laugh.

Hullin, who had no knowledge of history, was astonished that he should know so many names.

“Bah! stop that, Yégof,” said he; “and come, take a little soup to warm thy inside.”

“I do not ask thee for soup; I ask thee for this girl in marriage—the most beautiful on my estates. Give her to me willingly, and I raise thee to the steps of my throne: else my armies shall take her by force, and thou shalt not have the merit of giving her to me.”

While thus speaking, the unhappy creature regarded Louise with an air of profound admiration.

“How beautiful she is! I destine her to the greatest honors. Rejoice, young girl, rejoice! Thou shalt be queen of Australasia.”

“Listen, Yégof,” said Hullin. “I am very much flattered by thy demand: it shows that thou canst appreciate beauty. It is well. But my daughter is already affianced to Gaspard Lefèvre.”

“And I,” said the madman, greatly irritated—“I will not hear of such a thing!” Then rising up, “Hullin,” said he, in solemn tones, “it is my first demand. I will renew it yet twice again—dost thou hear—twice! And if thou wilt persist in thy obstinacy—misfortune, misfortune on thee and thy race!”

“What! thou wilt not take any soup?”

“No, no! I will accept nothing from thee so long as thou hast not consented. Nothing, nothing!” And then marching toward the door, much to the satisfaction of Louise, who was intent on the raven, fluttering its wings against the window-panes, he said, raising his sceptre, “Twice again!” and departed.

Hullin went off into a shout of laughter. “Poor devil!” he exclaimed. “In spite of himself, his nose turned toward the porringer. He has nothing in his inside—his teeth chatter with hunger. Well! his madness is stronger than either cold or hunger.”

“Oh, how he frightened me!” said Louise.

“Come, come, my child, calm thyself. He is gone. He thinks thou art pretty, fool though he is; do not let that terrify thee.”

But although the madman had left, Louise still trembled, and felt herself blushing when she thought of how he had looked at her.

Yégof had taken the road to Valtin. He could still be seen, his raven on his shoulder, walking slowly along and making curious gestures, although no one was near him. The night was drawing on, and soon the tall figure of “The King of Diamonds” disappeared in the gray shadows of the winter twilight.

CHAPTER II

THE SHOEMAKER’S VISITOR

In the evening of that same day, after their supper, Louise, having taken her spinning-wheel, was gone for a little diversion to the Mother Rochart’s where all the good women and young girls of the neighborhood used to assemble till near midnight. They spent their time in relating old legends, talking of the rain, of the weather, of marriages, baptisms, of the departure or return of the conscripts, and what not, that enabled them to pass the hours agreeably.

Hullin remained alone before his little copper lamp, nailing the shoes of the old wood-cutter. He no longer thought of the madman Yégof. His hammer rose and fell, driving the great nails into the thick wooden shoes quite mechanically, by force of habit. In the meantime thousands of ideas came into his head; he was thoughtful without knowing why. Now it was Gaspard, who gave no signs of being alive; then it was the campaign, which was being indefinitely prolonged. The lamp threw its yellowish light around the smoky little room. Outside, not a sound. The fire began to die away. Jean-Claude rose to put on a fagot, then sat down again, muttering, “Bah! this cannot last; we shall receive a letter one of these days.”

The old clock began to strike nine; and as Hullin was recommencing his work, the door opened and Catherine Lefèvre, the mistress of Bois-de-Chênes, appeared on the threshold, to the great stupefaction of the shoemaker, for it was not her custom to arrive at such a time.

Catherine Lefèvre might have been sixty years old, but she was as upright and strong as at thirty. Her clear gray eyes and beaked nose resembled those of a bird of prey; the corners of her mouth turned down, and made her look somewhat gloomy and sad; two or three locks of gray hair fell over her forehead; a brown striped hood reached from her head, over her shoulders and down to her elbows. Her physiognomy announced a steadfast, tenacious character, with something indescribably grand and mournful about it, which inspired both respect and fear.

“Can it be you, Catherine?” said Hullin, in astonishment.

“Yes, it is I,” replied the old dame, calmly. “I am come to talk with you, Jean-Claude.… Louise is away?”

“She has gone for a little amusement to Madeleine Rochart’s.”

“It is well.”

Then Catherine pushed back her hood from her head, and sat down at the end of the bench. Hullin looked fixedly at her: he perceived something extraordinary and mysterious about her which fascinated him.

“What has happened, then?” said he, putting down his hammer.

Instead of answering this question, she turned toward the door, and seemed to be listening; then hearing no sound, her serious expression came back.

“Yégof the madman spent last night at the farm,” said she.

“He came to see me this afternoon,” rejoined Hullin, without attaching any importance to this fact, which was totally indifferent to him.

“Yes,” replied the old dame, in a low voice, “he spent the night with us; and yesterday evening, about this time, in the kitchen, before us all, this madman related terrible things!”

Then she relapsed into silence, and the corners of her mouth seemed to turn down more than ever.

“Terrible things!” murmured the shoemaker, excessively astonished: for he had never seen Catherine Lefèvre in such a condition before. “But what then? say, what?”

“Dreams I have had!”

“Dreams? You certainly want to make fun of me!”

“No!”

Then, after a short pause, she slowly continued—“Yesterday evening, all our people were assembled in the kitchen around the large fireplace after supper; the table still remained covered with empty dishes, plates, and spoons. Yégof had partaken of it with us, and had amused us with the history of his treasures, castles, and provinces. It might have been toward nine o’clock: the madman was sitting at one end of the blazing fire; old Duchêne, my ploughboy, was mending Bruno’s saddle; the herdsman, Robin, was plaiting a basket; Annette arranged her pans on the shelves: and I had brought my wheel nearer the fire to finish spinning a distaff-ful before going to bed. Out of doors, the dogs were barking at the moon; the cold was very great. We were all there, talking of the coming winter. Duchêne said it would be very severe, for he had seen several flocks of wild-geese. And Yégof’s raven, on the edge of the mantel-piece, its head buried in its raffled feathers, seemed to sleep; but now and then it would elongate its neck and watch us, listen a moment and then cover itself again in its plumes.”

She remained silent a moment, as though to collect her ideas; her eyelids drooped, her great beaked nose seemed to bend down on to her lips, and a strange pallor came over her face.

“What the devil is coming next?” thought Hullin.

The old woman continued: “Yégof near the fire, with his tin crown, and his short stick on his knees, was dreaming of something. He looked at the great black chimney, the stone mantel-piece, which is carved with different figures and trees, and the smoke which went up in great clouds around the sides of bacon: when suddenly he struck with the end of his stick on to the tiles and called out, as though in a dream—‘Yes, yes, I have seen that long ago—long ago!’ And as we all looked at him speechless—‘In those times,’ he went on to say, ‘the pine-forests were forests of oak. The Nideck, the Dagsberg, Falkenstein, Géroldseck, all those old ruined castles did not exist. In those times the bison could be hunted in the depths of the woods, the salmon caught in the Sarre, and you, the fair men, were buried in snow six months of the year. You lived on milk and cheese, for you had many flocks and herds on the Hengst, the Schneeberg, the Grosmann, the Donon. In the summer you hunted: you came down to the Rhine, the Moselle, the Meuse. I can recall it all!’

“And wonderful to relate, Jean-Claude, as the madman spoke, I seemed to see also these countries of years gone by, and to remember them as I should a dream. I had let fall my distaff, and Duchêne, Robin, Jeanne—in fact, everybody—listened. ‘Yes, it was long ago,’ he continued. ‘In those days you were already building these great chimneys; and all around, at a distance of two or three hundred yards, you planted palisades fifteen feet high, and with the points hardened by the fire. And inside them you kept your big dogs with their hanging cheeks, who barked day and night.’

“We could see what he said, Jean-Claude; we could see it all. But he paid no heed to us: he regarded the figures on the chimney-piece with his mouth open; but, in an instant, having stooped his head and seeing how attentive we all were, he laughed with a wild, mad laughter, and cried out:—‘In those days you believed yourselves the lords of the country, O fair men, with your blue eyes and white skins, fed on milk and cheese, and only tasting blood in the autumn, at the great hunts: you believed yourselves the masters of the plains and mountains, when we, the red men, with the green eyes, out of the sea—we who drank always blood and only liked battles—one fine morning we arrived with our axes and spears, and ascended the Sarre under the shadows of the old oaks. Ah! it was a cruel war, which lasted weeks and months. And the old woman—there—’ said he, pointing at me, with a singular smile, ‘the Margareth of the clan of Kilberix, that old woman with her beaked nose, in her palisades, in the midst of her dogs and warriors—she fought like a wolf. But when five moons had passed, hunger arrived. The doors of the palisades opened for flight, and we, in ambush in the stream—we massacred all!—all—except the children and the beautiful young girls. The old woman, alone, defended herself to the last with her teeth and nails; and I, Luitprandt, clove her head in two; and I took her father, the aged man and blind, to chain him at the door of my castle like a dog!’

“Then, Hullin,” continued the old woman, “the madman began to chant a long song—the lamentation of the old man chained to his doorway. Wait till I can recall it, Jean-Claude. It was mournful—mournful as a
Miserere
. No, I cannot remember it; but I seem still to hear it. It made our blood curdle; and, as he laughed without ceasing, at last all our servants gave a terrible cry, rage seized them. Duchêne sprang on the madman to strangle him; but he, with more strength than one could suppose he possessed, threw him back, and raising his stick furiously, said to us:—‘On your knees, slaves—on your knees! My armies are advancing! Do you hear? The earth trembles with them. These castles, the Nideck, the Haut-Barr, the Dagsberg, the Turkestein, you shall build them up again! On your knees!’

“I never saw a more fearful face than Yégof’s at that moment; but, seeing for the second time my servants rising against him, I was obliged to defend him myself. ‘It is a madman,’ I said to them. ‘Are you not ashamed to believe in the words of a madman?’ They stopped on my account; but I could not close my eyes that night. The words of that wretched man kept recurring to me. I seemed to hear the chant of the old prisoner, the barking of our dogs, and the sounds of battle. For years I have never felt so uneasy. That is why I came to see you, Jean-Claude. What do you think of it?”

“I?” exclaimed the shoemaker, in whose ruddy face both irony and pity were visible. “If I did not know you so well, Catherine, I should say you were deranged:—you, Duchêne, Robin, and the rest of you. All that has about the same effect on me as one of Geneviève de Brabant’s tales—made up to terrify little children, and which shows us how foolish our ancestors were.”