III
My wings, I have said, were not very strong yet. While my guide went like the wind, I panted at his side; I kept up for some time, but soon such a violent dizziness seized me that I felt as if I should faint.
“Is there far to go yet?” I asked in a weak voice.
“No,” he answered me, “we are at Bourget; we have only sixty leagues to do now.”
I tried to take fresh courage, not wishing to look like a draggled hen, and flew another quarter of an hour, but, for once, I was done up.
“Sir,” I stammered afresh, “couldn’t we stop here a moment? I have a horrible thirst, which is torturing me, and, if we perched on a tree....”
“Go to the devil! You’re a blackbird!” answered the carrier-pigeon in a rage.
And, without deigning to turn his head, he continued his journey in high dudgeon. As for me, dazed and blind, I fell into a corn-field.
I do not know how long my faint lasted. When I recovered consciousness, the first thing that I remembered was the carrier-pigeon’s last words; “You’re only a blackbird,” he had told me.—” Oh my dear parents,” I thought, “you were wrong then! I will return to you; you will recognize me as your true and lawful child, and you will restore me my place in that dear little heap of leaves which is below my mother’s bowl.”
I made an effort to rise; but the fatigue of my journey and the pain which I felt from my fall paralysed all my limbs. Scarcely had I stood up on my feet, when the faintness seized me once more and I fell again on my side.
The frightful thought of death was already presenting itself to my mind, when, across the cornflowers and poppies, I saw two charming persons coming towards me on tiptoe. One was a little magpie, very neatly marked and extremely coquettish, and the other a rose-coloured turtle-dove. The turtle halted some paces from me, with an intense air of modesty and of compassion for my misfortune; but the magpie came up to me hopping in the most graceful manner in the world.
“Eh, dear me, poor child, what are you doing there?” she asked me in a playful and silvery voice.
“Alas! my Lady Marchioness,” I answered (for she must have been that at least), “I am a poor devil of a traveller whom his postilion has dropped by the roadside, and I am in a fair way of dying of hunger.”
“Holy Virgin! Do you tell me so!” she responded.
And she at once began to flit here and there upon the bushes which surrounded us, coming and going from one side to the other, bringing me a quantity of berries and fruits, of which she made a little heap beside me, continuing her questions all the time.
“But who are you? And where do you come from? What an incredible adventure yours is! And where are you going? Fancy travelling alone, so young, for you are only coming out of your first moult! What do your parents do? Where do they come from? How did they come to let you away in that state? Why, it’s enough to make one’s feathers stand on end!”
While she was talking, I had raised myself a little on one wing, and I ate with a good appetite. The turtle remained motionless, always looking at me with an air of pity. Meanwhile she noticed that I was looking about with an exhausted air, and she understood that I was thirsty. A drop from the rain which had fallen during the night was left on a scrap of pimpernel; she timidly gathered this drop in her beak and brought it to me quite fresh. Certainly, if I had not been so ill, such a reserved person would never have ventured on such a proceeding.
I did not yet know what love was, but my heart beat violently. Divided between two varying emotions, I was possessed by an inexplicable pleasure. My table-maid was so gay, my cup-bearer so effusive and gentle, that I could have wished to go on breakfasting thus to all eternity. Unfortunately everything has an end, even a convalescent’s appetite. The repast finished and my strength restored, I satisfied the little magpie’s curiosity and related my misfortunes to her with as much sincerity as I had told them the evening before to the pigeon. The magpie listened to me with more attention than seemed natural to her, and the turtle gave me some charming tokens of her profound sensibility. But when I came to touch on the prime cause of my troubles, that is to say my ignorance as to what I was:
“Are you joking?” the pie exclaimed; “You a blackbird! You a pigeon! Fie! you are a magpie, my dear child, a magpie, if ever there was one—and a very pretty magpie,” she added, giving me a little blow with her wing, a tap with her fan, so to speak.
“But, my Lady Marchioness,” I answered, “it seems to me that, for a magpie, my colour, if you’ll excuse me saying so....”
“A Russian magpie, my dear; you are a Russian magpie! Don’t you know that they are white? Poor boy, what innocence!”
“But, madam,” I replied, “how should I be a Russian magpie, when I was born in the Marais in an old broken bowl?”
“Ah! the dear child! You are one of the invaders, my dear; do you fancy that you are the only one? Leave it to me, and do as I bid you; I’ll take you with me this very hour, and show you the finest things in the world.”
“Where is that, madam, if you please?”
“In my green palace, my darling; you’ll see what a life we lead there. You’ll not have been a magpie a quarter of an hour, before you’ll want to hear tell of no other thing. There are a hundred of us there; not those great village magpies, who beg alms on the high roads, but all noble and well-bred, slim, active, and no bigger than a fist. Not one of us but has neither more nor less than seven black bars and five white bars; that is an invariable rule, and we despise everybody else. You have not the black marks, it is true, but your quality of Russian will be enough to secure your admission. Our life is spent in two things, chattering and tittivating. From morning to midday we tittivate, and from midday to evening we chatter. Each of us perches on a tree, as lofty and old as possible. In the middle of the forest rises an immense oak, uninhabited alas! It was the dwelling of the late King Pie X., whither we used to go in pilgrimage, heaving mighty great sighs; but, apart from this little sadness, we pass the time wonderfully. Our wives are not prudes, any more than our husbands are jealous, but our pleasures are pure and honest, because our heart is as noble as our language is frank and joyous. Our pride has no bounds, and, if a jay or any other low fellow should chance to thrust himself in among us, we pluck him without mercy. But that does not prevent us from being the best neighbours in the world, and the sparrows, the tomtits, and the goldfinches, who live in our copses, find us always ready to help them, to feed them, and to defend them. Nowhere is there more chattering than among us, and nowhere less evil speaking. We are not without some old devotee magpies, who say their paternosters all day long, but the giddiest young gossip among us can pass, without fear of a peck, close to the severest dowager. In a word, we live on pleasure, on honour, on gossip, on glory, and on dress.”
“That is very fine indeed, madam,” I replied, “and I should certainly be ill-advised not to obey the orders of a person like you. But, before having the honour of following you, allow me, by your leave, to say a word to this good young lady here. Mademoiselle,” I continued, addressing myself to the turtle, “tell me frankly, I entreat you, do you think that I am really a Russian magpie?”
At this question, the turtle hung down her head, and turned pink, like Lolotte’s ribbons.
“Why, sir,” she said, “I don’t know if I can....”
“In Heaven’s name, speak, mademoiselle! I have not the slightest intention of offending you, quite the contrary. You both look so charming to me, that I here and now vow to offer my heart and my claw to whichever of you will accept it, the moment I know if I am a magpie or something else; for, when I look at you,” I added, speaking in a lower tone to the young lady, “I feel a something of the turtle-dove about me, which torments me strangely.”
“Why, to be sure,” said the turtle, blushing still more, “I do not know if it is the reflection of the sun striking on you through these poppies, but your plumage does seem to me to have a slight tint....”
She did not venture to say more.
“O perplexity!” I exclaimed, “how am I to know what to believe? How give my heart to one of you, when it is so cruelly torn asunder? O Socrates! how admirable, but how hard to follow, the principle thou hast given us, when thou saidst, ‛Know thyself!’”
Since the day when my unfortunate song had so enraged my father, I had never made use of my voice. At this juncture it came into my mind to employ it as a means of discerning the truth. “By Jove,” thought I, “since my father put me to the door after the first couplet, the least the second can do is to produce some effect on these ladies!” Having, then, commenced by bowing politely, as if to request their indulgence because of the rain which I had come through, I began first of all to whistle, then to warble, then to do roulades, then at last to sing at the pitch of my voice, like a Spanish muleteer in full blast.
The longer I sang, the farther and farther the little magpie made off from me with an air of surprise, which soon became stupefaction, then turned into a feeling of terror mingled with profound weariness. She described circles round about me, like a cat about a piece of scalding hot bacon which has just burned her, but which she wishes to taste again. Seeing the effect of my experiment, and wishing to carry it out to the end, the more impatience the poor Marchioness showed, the more I sang myself hoarse. She resisted my melodious efforts for five-and-twenty minutes; at last, unable to stand them any longer, she flew away noisily and returned to her palace of verdure. As for the turtle, she had been sound asleep almost from the first.
“Admirable effect of harmony!” I reflected. “O Marais! O maternal bowl! More than ever my thoughts return to you!”
At the moment when I was spreading my wings to depart, the turtle reopened her eyes.
“Adieu,” she said, “stranger, so polite and so tiresome! My name is Guruli; remember me!”
“Beauteous Guruli,” I answered, “you are good, gentle and charming; I would live and die for you. But you are rose-colour; such happiness is not meant for me!”