Blanche

They fluttered by like a glittering swarm of birds of paradise. Blanche stretched her little head forward--there he was--one of the first!

He did not even look up--but rushed by like a storm-wind, his face turned to a blonde, regal lady, and looking proud and imposing indeed.

Blanche staggered back. What could there have been in that brilliant throng of further interest to her? Dame Isabella, however, lingered at the window, and grinned and bowed with might and main, while her huge head-gear rocked comically back and forth.

And now the king approached on a milk-white steed with scarlet velvet, gold-embroidered housings. He looked up, and was reminded of an amusing picture which De Lancy, on his return to court, when questioned by the ladies as to the adventure which had detained him so long away, had drawn of a worthy old scarecrow who tended his wounds in Montalme. The existence of the lovely maiden Blanche he had deemed it wisest to conceal. Stifling a laugh, Francis returned Dame Isabella"s greeting with roguish exaggeration, then turning, whispered to those nearest him, whereupon they also looked up, and being greeted by her, the entire retinue stopped a minute to inspect the self-satisfied old monstrosity. But they did not all possess the amiable courtesy which distinguished the king even in his unrestrained naughtiness. One of the ladies smiled, another laughed, and, like a spark in a ton of powder, this laugh was enough to set off the kindling stuff of repressed hilarity which at once exploded.

So pointed were the looks--so hearty the laughter of the party--that even the self-admiring Isabella could not in the slightest degree be deceived as to the cause of their merriment. Mortified, she drew back out of sight, and the hunting party pa.s.sed on. Yet at a distance the sound of the continued laughter was audible. Dame Isabella was furious.

"They laughed at me, they pointed at me with their fingers!" she repeated, over and over again, her corpulent figure, and especially her double chin, trembling in a remarkable way; and utterly forgetting her former admiration of the court, she added, "The disorderly mob! the base women!"

Blanche, who, with her elbows in her hands, was staring straight before her like one stunned, thought, "Perhaps he is laughing at me too!" and thought these words aloud; since she had been so absorbed in sorrow and longing she had often uttered whole sentences like one in a feverish dream.

"That you may be sure of!" said Dame Isabella, in a huff, and rustled out of the room to lay aside once and for all the ugly headgear which she had had a chance to observe was in appalling contradiction to the prevailing style. She distinctly recalled Henri de Lancy"s expressed admiration for this same head ornament. Now she knew that he had been making fun of her, and anger and resentment gnawed at her heart.

It chanced that on the following day two mendicant friars sought admission to the castle. Dame Isabella asked to have these bare-footed martyrs conducted to her room, welcomed them hospitably and in the most respectful manner; in the first place because she was pious, but in the second because these wandering monks served as a kind of peripatetic newspaper; for which their roving life afforded them sufficient variety of material. Thus the lady obtained the most precise information about the frivolities of the king and his rollicking companions, especially the handsome De Lancy, who, she was told, among all these lawless revellers was the worst. He was not only following the royal example to the last extent (the monks exaggerated perhaps a trifle, seeing how much it pleased their listener), but of late he had actually formed a liaison with a married woman, the Countess de Sologne, whom, as she was carefully guarded by her husband"s jealousy, he visited secretly at night. And they ended by saying, "It would not surprise us if the castle lady heard the reckless knight ride by, since it was the shortest way to Laemort, the hereditary seat of the Solognes."

We may rest a.s.sured that Dame Isabella gave the monks for this precious communication plenty of money to spend on their way. Possessed of her glorious bit of knowledge, she was dying to tell it, and seeing Blanche at the chess-board, opposite her uncle, who exerted himself all the time to try to distract her thoughts, she began immediately to relate what she had heard. They were not prudish in those days, and if here and there one cared to preserve the innocence of a young girl, that blissful ignorance was by no means maintained which to-day is held peculiarly sacred and inviolate.

Dame Isabella repeated word for word all she had heard of the shameful proceedings which hourly went on in the Castle of Amboise, and of the startling depravity of Henri de Lancy. In vain Gottfried attempted, by his displeased looks, to silence her; she went on further, and advised Blanche to rejoice that she had escaped the danger of becoming the wife of this vicious fellow. Blanche sat stiff and straight, not uttering a word, and continued to shove the little ivory figures slowly over the board--that she made the castle execute the peculiar leaps of the knight, Isabella did not notice. But when she finished by saying that they might hear Henri de Lancy ride by nightly, since the nearest way to his beloved d.u.c.h.ess led by Montalme, they suddenly heard a painful quiver like the dropping of a little bird which had been shot through the heart. Blanche had fainted and fallen.

"Cruel woman!" exclaimed Gottfried, furiously, "must you tell? I could be silent!"

He had long known of Henri"s infidelity.

Consciousness soon returned to the poor girl, and with it the recollection of her sorrow. Blanche longed to lose herself again, but the blessing was denied her. Not even the repose of sleep did Heaven grant her. She would lie awake, listening feverishly the whole night; but no sound disturbed the deathlike stillness either the first or the second night. During the day Blanche dragged herself from room to room, as if her once flying feet were weighted with lead, but most of the time she sat stiffly erect with her hands lying helplessly in her lap, staring before her with glazed eyes.

The third day was drawing to a close. Gottfried came in, and, seating himself beside her, inquired after her health. She replied there was nothing the matter with her, but at the same time crept close to him like a very sick child, and he, who had usually repulsed her innocent caresses, now put his arm around her slender body and laid her little head tenderly on his shoulder; he no longer thought of his own pain, but of hers.

She begged him to tell her a story, as a sick child begs for a cradle-song.

He had told her many a tale in bygone days, yet of all she liked best to hear of his own adventures and what he himself had seen. Therefore he asked now, "A true story, my jewel?" She shuddered, "Oh, no! no! a fiction, my uncle, pray!"

He pa.s.sed his hand thoughtfully over his brow. Nothing occurred to him but a little legend which had been told him by a half-crazy monk who was crouching on the steps of the Milan Cathedral, and with a somewhat tremulous voice he began:

"It happens occasionally that in the midst of the blessedness of heaven an angel looking down yearns for earth, which seems attractive in the enchantment of distance. Then St. Peter, at the Almighty"s command, grudgingly opens the gates of heaven a little, and the angel slips through. But however much he exerts himself and beats his wings, the little fluttering things carry him up, and he cannot escape from the spheres of sinless purity which float around Paradise. St. Peter rattles his bunch of keys and again the gates of heaven open, and now on the threshold stands Jesus Christ, well-beloved Son of the Father, and infinitely compa.s.sionate Son of Man, who knows the earth thoroughly. And when the lovely, unwise rebel turns his gold-encircled little head to question him concerning it, he beckons him to come nearer, and smiling lays a warm beating weight on his breast. Then he says, "Try it!"

"And lo! when now the angel attempts to lift his wings the little weight which Jesus Christ has laid on his breast draws him down to earth--for the weight is a human heart. Slowly, slowly he descends from the spheres until he lands on a green meadow. There he sinks into a deep, dreamless sleep, and when he awakes he has lost his wings, forgotten his heavenly origin, and has become a man--only with an intense longing in his soul for virtue and purity, which he is not himself aware is homesickness; holiness, happiness, heaven, and home being to him unconsciously one and the same thing. Yet but now howe"er much his yearning may hurry him upward again, his heart chains him fast to the earth and he cannot return to his radiant home until a great human grief has broken the heart which was laid on his breast. Then our Lord Jesus Christ glides downward to earth--takes the poor rebel in his arms and carries him back to Paradise."

Gottfried paused. Blanche was silent a moment, then she sighed, "Your story is sad, almost as sad as if it were a true one!"

To which Gottfried replied, "But it has a lovely ending!"

The sad maiden, however, was perfectly silent, and looking into her melancholy eyes he discerned a doubt in them if even the joy of heaven could compensate for that which we suffer and are deprived of on earth.

After a little while Blanche began, "Is the dear G.o.d then displeased if an angel looking down yearns for the earth?"

"No," murmured Gottfried, "but he is sad, very sad!"

X

For two nights she had had no sleep; on the third she was exhausted and slept soundly, and dreamed a sweet--wonderfully sweet dream.

It seemed to her that she met her beloved in the garden. A delicious perfume was wafted from the crown of the lindens, soft greenish shadows spread twilight over the earth, and all nature, as in measureless rapture, held its breath, no lightest touch of air stirred--she lay in his arms, love-enchanted and his lips closed her mouth.

Thus she dreamed--when suddenly she sprang up as if one had struck her heart with an iron hammer.

Was not that the sound of a horse"s hoof which broke on the stillness of night? In her long white nightdress she flew to the window.

She recognised him, notwithstanding the speed of his horse, and in spite of the curtain of darkness with which midnight sought to veil his figure. She bent far over the window-breasting and stretched out her arms; a frightful longing confused her senses, and she sang--poor child!--without knowing what the words meant:

"Si tu veux m"apaiser Redonne--moi la vie Par l"esprit d"un baiser.

"Heureux sera le jour Quand je mourrai d"amour!"

Louder and louder the voice swelled out, piercing as a cry of anguish; yet full of a powerful sweetness the song echoed through the sultry stillness of night. It struck the ear of the rider. He checked his horse, looked around him, and then spurred the animal anew until he leaped wildly on.

She bent forward--farther forward,--"Plus d"espoir!" she groaned. Her heart was so heavy, so heavy! Beneath, the dew glistened like a silver sheen over the azure fields, out of which an angel seemed calling her to "Cool rest--cool rest!"

She bent forward--forward! and then fell many, many fathoms deep into the moat below.

The heavy fall was heard in the castle, and soon the servants with torches hurried forth to see what had happened.

There, below, glimmered something white as a blossom broken off by the storm. They climbed down. The light of the torches played over a pale, lovely face which smiled in death. She was not disfigured, not a particle of dust, not a speck of mud or soil of earth, adhered to her white garment, although she had fallen among plants growing in the mud.

In spotless purity the white folds wound about her beautiful limbs. And when the people saw this, they marvelled, and said, "A miracle!" Then one pressed through the throng, deathly pale with distorted face--Henri de Lancy!

But Gottfried coldly turned him away from the dead maiden.

Right tenderly the old soldier lifted the lovely body in his arms, murmuring:

"Her heart was broken--she is released!"

XI

It was an age full of horrors, when the n.o.blest blood of ill.u.s.trious h.e.l.lenism rose up to face a background of battles, orgies, and pulpit harangues. It was not only a period in which Lorenzo de" Medici, in disguise and at the head of a baccha.n.a.lian troop tore through the streets of Florence; Benvenuto Cellini stabbed his enemies at the street corners; Pope Leo at a cardinal"s supper presented a sacrifice of doves to the G.o.ddess of Love upon a white marble altar, and offered to his favourite, Raphael, a cardinal"s hat in payment of his bills--but a time also when Savonarola preached the loftiest asceticism; Rabelais, in the midst of his obscene rhapsodies, created the wonderful idyl of l"Abbaye de Telesme; Fra Angelico on his knees painted his picture of Christ, and the triumphal procession of an emperor ended in a monastery!

A time full of enigmas! and among the many enigmas which lived in it, was one of a sad, silent monk, of whom his cloister-brethren a.s.serted that he once had led a very dissolute life, but now was the most absorbed _dvot_.

And whilst King Francis, at variance with himself and the world, tried to maintain, even to the end, the appearance of ostentatious levity, and to win fresh renown as a patron of art, and to console himself for his lost self-respect with the flatteries of the d.u.c.h.ess d"Etampes, this monk devoted every single hour which remained to him, after the barest satisfaction of his physical needs, and the fulfilment of his religious duties, to one and the same work,--a sweet girl"s head,--which he, with his slender, effeminate, courtier"s hand, formed out of wax after a death mask, and ever again re-formed, and could never finish to his own satisfaction. Discouraged, disappointed, he destroyed each day the work of the preceding until finally, in the very last year of his life he became more tranquil, and then under his never-weary hands arose an exquisite maiden"s head with a sweet, thoughtful expression of face,--the little head bent forward as if listening to a great joy, yet weighed down by the presentiment of a terrible pain!