GOOSE-SKIN--"Even if it should cost me all my ten deniers, I shall cry out aloud that you behaved like a brave fellow!"
MYLIO--"I carried Florette to the river bank. She regained consciousness. I read in her sweet looks her ingenuous grat.i.tude.
Profiting by the time that it would take the infamous Chaillotte to come to us, I said to the poor child: "You are the object of odious projects; feign sickness as long as you can as the result of your fall; I shall watch over you." And noticing that we were in a close surrounded by a hedge of yoke-elms, I added: "Day after to-morrow in the evening, when your aunt will be in bed, come if you can and meet me here; I shall then let you know more." Florette promised me all that I wanted. On the evening agreed upon she was at the appointed place. That is as far as matters stand."
GOOSE-SKIN--"Ho! Ho! So you s.n.a.t.c.hed from the rogue of an abbot the dainty that he was reserving for himself? That was a good stroke!"
MYLIO--"No, I have respected the charming child; she seduced me by her candor. I am in love with, her, desperately in love! I wish to carry her off this very night. I"ll tell you why. I met the abbot yesterday.
"Well," said I to him, "what has become of the pretty girl whom you and your monks scared so badly that she dropped into the water?" "She has been ailing as a consequence of her inopportune bath," the abbot answered me, "but her health is restored; before the end of the week,"
he added laughing, "I shall take another trip to the mill of Chaillotte and eat a fritter.""
GOOSE-SKIN--"Oh, wicked monk! It is you who should be frying in Lucifer"s big frying-pan! But if Abbot Reynier said so yesterday, to-morrow will be Friday, day after to-morrow Sat.u.r.day. We shall have to hurry if we expect to save the innocent child from the pursuit of the ruttish buck."
MYLIO--"At our last interview Florette promised me to be at our accustomed trysting place to-night at moon-rise."
GOOSE-SKIN--"Will she consent to follow you?"
MYLIO--"I am certain."
GOOSE-SKIN--"Then, what need you of me?"
MYLIO--"It might happen that this time Florette fails to elude the watchfulness of her aunt, and has not been able to come to our rendezvous."
GOOSE-SKIN--"That would be uncomfortable, for time presses. Meseems I hear the scamp of an abbot moving after his fritter--"
MYLIO--"It is absolutely necessary that I see Florette this evening. I have foreseen the possibility of some obstacle or other. Now, this is my plan. The miller Chaillot goes to bed drunk every night. If, in some way hindered, Florette should not be able to leave the house and should fail at our rendezvous, you are to walk up to the mill and noisily knock at the door. Chaillot, drunk as a brute, will not quit his bed to open, and--"
GOOSE-SKIN (scratching his ears)--"Are you quite sure that the said Chaillot will not get up?"
MYLIO--"Yes; and even if he should get up, there is nothing to fear from him."
GOOSE-SKIN--"You see, the thing is this: These millers have the habit of being always accompanied by some big dog--"
MYLIO--"Master Goose-Skin, I already have pardoned you interruptions enough to almost wipe out your silver deniers. Let me finish. If it should not be convenient for you to lend me your aid, you are free to step back after I shall have imparted my project to you. (Goose-Skin promises to listen.) Well, then, if Florette fails at the rendezvous, you will knock noisily at the house-door of the mill. One of two things: Either the miller"s wife, aware of the drunken state of her husband, will herself rise to see who is knocking, or she will send Florette. If the first happens, the dear child has agreed with me that she will profit by her aunt"s absence and will run out to meet me; if the second happens, Florette, being thus furnished with a pretext to go out of the house, will likewise come to meet me instead of ascertaining who is knocking at the door. Now, let us suppose that by some miracle Chaillot, not having gone drunk to bed, comes himself to the door.
(Goose-Skin mimics the barking of a dog.) Yes, I understand you, Sir Poltroon! Chaillot comes with his dog. It is of that dog that you stand in great fear, not so? (Goose-Skin nods affirmatively, rubbing his calves.) But do you not know, egregious coward, that out of fear for thieves, the occupants of isolated houses never open their doors at night before first calling out and asking who is there? Accordingly, you will have nothing to fear from that terrible dog. You will calmly answer Chaillot that you have a message for his wife from one of the monks of Citeaux and that you must see her immediately. The miller will hasten to call up his worthy spouse. She will hasten to come to the door. The old busybody has always some secret matter in hand for the hypocrites of the abbey. From there on I shall have to rely upon your own wit, Seigneur Juggler, to give some plausible excuse for your nocturnal call and to keep Chaillotte as long as possible at the door with the charm of your conversational powers."
GOOSE-SKIN--""Venerable matron!" I"ll say to the miller"s wife, "I have knocked at your door in order to offer you my humble services. I can break eggs by walking over them, empty a barrel by its bung-hole, make a ball roll and blow out a candle. Do you need any horns for your goats, or teeth for your dogs? Shoes for your cows? I can fashion all those valuable articles, and I am the possessor of a thousand other curious secrets--""
MYLIO--"I doubt not your eloquence. Keep it for Chaillotte--That is my project. Will you a.s.sist me? If you agree, the ten silver deniers are yours."
GOOSE-SKIN--"Give--give--dear and kind friend. I shall sing your praises for your liberality."
MYLIO (putting the money in his hand)--"Here are the ten silver deniers."
GOOSE-SKIN (jumps, capers, clinks the coin in his hands and says)--"Oh, blessed silver! Blessed be thou! With thee one buys women"s petticoats and absolutions! Gascon horses and abbeys! Handsome girls and bishops!
Oh, silver! Just show a corner of thy shining countenance, and forthwith even the lame start to run in pursuit of you--(he sings):
"Robin loves me, Robin has me!
Robin wants me, he shall have me!
Robin bought me a dainty hood.
It is scarlet, jaunty and good.
Robin loves me, Robin has me!"
Singing and jumping, Goose-Skin follows Mylio, who strikes across the woods a path that leads to the mill of Chaillot.
CHAPTER III.
FLORETTE.
After the sparkling carbuncle, the humble violet, hidden under the gra.s.s. Son of Joel, you have a.s.sisted at the libertine and salacious amus.e.m.e.nts of the n.o.ble ladies a.s.sembled in the orchard of the Marchioness of Ariol. Forget for a moment the rare trees, the carefully cultivated flowers, the marble basin of that fairies" garden. Turn your mind from the magnificent displayfulness of that place, and fix it upon the rustic spectacle now presented to you. The moon has risen and shines refulgent from the azure of the star-bespangled dome of heaven. With its mellow rays it lights a leafy willow under which a streamlet, formed by the overflow of the water that turns the mill of Chaillot, flows murmuringly by. The murmur of the running streamlet over its pebbly bottom, from time to time the melodious notes of the nightingale--these alone const.i.tute the music of this beautiful night that is, moreover, embalmed by the perfume of the wild thyme, irises and furze. A girl of fifteen years--Florette--is seated at the edge of the stream on the fallen trunk of an old tree. A ray of the moon that filters through the leafy vault above her head, partially illumines the girl"s face. Her long auburn hair parts over her virginal forehead and the two long thick strands into which it is braided reach almost down to the ground. Her only clothing is an old skirt of green serge, fastened at her waist over a shirt of coa.r.s.e grey material, that is held closed at her bosom with a copper b.u.t.ton. Her handsome arms are bare, as are her feet with which she listlessly caresses the silvery water of the stream. Tearful and absorbed in thought, Florette sat down where she was without noticing that her feet dipped in the water. You have seen, son of Joel, the handsome or charming faces of the n.o.ble friends of the Marchioness of Ariol. Yet none of those was endowed with the chaste and touching grace that imparts an inexpressible charm to the ingenuous features of Florette. Does not the budding flower, half hidden under the dewy leaf, offer to your eyes in the morning a flitting freshness that the slightest breath might wilt? Such is Florette the spinner. An industrious child, from dawn to dusk, often deep into the night, she spins by the light of her little lamp. She spins, and ever spins, both flax and hemp. She spins them with her dainty fingers that are no less nimble than the spindle itself. Always confined to an ill-lighted chamber, the pure and white skin of the poor serf has not been tanned by the heat of sun; the hard labors of the field have not deformed her delicate hands. Florette sits there so completely absorbed in her own sadness that she does not hear the slight noise that proceeds from the hedge within which the mill is enclosed. Yes, so sorrowful and absent-minded does Florette sit by the stream that she does not even notice Mylio, who, having scaled the hedge, is stepping forward with caution, looking hither and thither as if expecting to see some one.
Having noticed the young girl, whose back is turned to him from where she sits, Mylio approaches without being heard by her, and smiling places his two hands over her eyes; but instantly feeling the tears of the serf wet his fingers, he leaps over the trunk of the fallen tree, kneels down before her and says in a voice of tender solicitude:
"You weep, dear beautiful child?"
FLORETTE (drying her tears and smiling)--"You are now here, Mylio; I shall try to weep no more. The sight of you gives me strength and courage."
MYLIO--"I feared to miss you at our trysting place. But here I am near you, and I trust I can a.s.suage your grief. Tell me, dear child, what is it that makes you weep?"
FLORETTE--"This evening my aunt Chaillotte gave me a new skirt and a waist of fine fabric, and she brought me a bunch of roses for me to weave myself a chaplet."
MYLIO--"Why should these means of beautifying yourself cause your tears to flow?"
FLORETTE--"Alas! My aunt insists on my looking well because she expects seigneur the abbot at the mill to-morrow--he comes to see me, said she."
MYLIO--"The infamous Chaillotte!"
FLORETTE--"My aunt said to me: "If seigneur the abbot takes a liking to you, you must not repel him. A girl should refuse nothing to a priest.""
MYLIO--"And what did you answer?"
FLORETTE--"That I would obey the holy abbot."
MYLIO--"Would you, indeed!"
FLORETTE--"I did not wish to irritate my aunt this evening. A refusal might have angered her. She has suspected nothing, and I have been able to come here."
MYLIO--"But to-morrow, when the abbot will come would you consent--"
FLORETTE--"Mylio, to-morrow you will not be there, as you were a fortnight ago, to dash to my a.s.sistance and prevent me from being broken in the wheel of the mill--"
MYLIO--"Do you contemplate dying?"
FLORETTE--"A fortnight ago and out of fear at the sight of seigneurs the monks, I fell into the water without meaning to--to-morrow I shall voluntarily throw myself into the river. (The young girl wipes her tears with the back of her hand, and drawing from her bosom a little box-wood spindle gives it to the trouvere.) A serf and an orphan, I own nothing in the world but this little spindle. For six years, in order to gain the bread that my aunt frequently begrudged me, this spindle has whirled from morning to night between my fingers; but in the last fortnight it has more than once stood still, every time I interrupted my work to think of you, Mylio--of you who saved my life. I therefore now ask you as a favor that you keep the spindle as a souvenir of me, poor wretched serf!"
MYLIO (with tears in his eyes and pressing the spindle to his lips)--"Dear little spindle, thou, the companion of the lonely watches of the little spinner; thou, who earned for her a bitter enough daily bread; thou, that, lost in revery, she often contemplated hanging from a single thread; dear little spindle, I shall ever keep thee, thou shalt be my most precious treasure. (He takes from his fingers several gold rings ornamented with precious stones and throws them into the stream that runs at his feet.) To the devil with all these impure souvenirs!"