“And thus it was done; and when one day a troubadour, coming from Dauphiny, was brought into the lady’s presence, Briande, guessing the Count underneath those trappings, smiled, and said in her heart, ‘He does not win me so.’ But she said aloud, ‘What is thy name?’ And the stranger answered, ‘I am called Bérard the bird-fingered.’ ‘Why so?’ she asked—‘since birds have no fingers.’ Then he held up his hand, the fingers of which were long and white, like the wing pinions of an ibis; and he said, ‘As their feathers harp sweetly on the wind, so do these beat music from the air.’ ‘Sing to me,’ she said; and, unlooping his instrument, he both played and sang to her. And, as she listened, something that had never entered there before stole into Briande’s heart, and her cheeks flushed and then paled. But when he had finished, she strove with herself enough to ask with scorn, ‘What is the station in life of so accomplished a minstrel?’ And he answered, ‘I am the son of Carel the notary.’ And at that she laughed and dismissed him, knowing and contemning the deception.
“Now the next day, meeting him alone in the garden, ‘Here is the nightingale,’ says she, ‘but, it seems, lacking his rose. Prithee pick thyself one, Master Notary, and wear it in thy ear for a grace note.’ But he drew back only, shaking his head. ‘You will not?’ she asked astonished. ‘Why will you not?’ ‘They are the tender offspring of Nature,’ he said. ‘I would as lief kill a child. And these are pretty children, and children always from their birth till death, never changing or growing older till they close their creamy lids and drop asleep to wake in heaven. No flower is ever plucked by me.’ At that, opening wide her eyes, Briande answered him: ‘It is no libertine who speaks here.’ ‘No, by love’s grace,’ he said, ‘but as virgin speaks to virgin.’ Then, very softly she said to him, ‘I have never yet met another until thee who thinks with me in this. For every blossom pulled on earth our heaven will be one fruit the less. Take up thy song.’ Then he sang to her again (words, Felix, that were spoken—I don’t know if he improvised them on the spot); and often afterwards again, until by degrees her proud heart melted to him, and then surrendered, and they were lovers.”
Fifine paused a moment. “Surely that is not the end?” I said.
“O, no!” said she; “but it all seems so bald as I tell it.”
“I don’t think so,” I answered. “Far from it. Go on.”
“Well,” she continued, “this Briande, at last so humbled in her self-will, awaited the moment when her disguised suitor, having conquered, should reveal himself to her and acclaim his victory. But he never spoke; and so one day, in proud submissiveness, she bowed her head before him and herself confessed. ‘Sweetheart, I have known thee all the time for what thou art—the lord of Dauphiny. I have saved this bird in my bosom until now; but no longer can I stay its singing. Make what thou wilt of thy triumph and of my humiliation.’ Then Bérard looked at her like one who hears his death sentence; and suddenly he was weeping and groaning. ‘It is not so,’ he said; ‘but in very truth I am Bérard, son of Carel the notary. It was the lord of Dauphiny who laid this snare for thy pride’s undoing, sending me to represent him, and in such wise as that thou shouldst think me him disguised. “And so,” says he, “I’ll teach her at what henchman’s rate I value her regard. Take from her, Bérard; and the more thou canst take, before revealing thyself, the better thou wilt please me.” And light of heart I came to do his bidding; and here I stand.’ ‘Thou hast not done it,’ she answered, her lip curling. ‘Why dost thou falter in thy villainy?’ ‘Ah! lady,’ he said, weeping for very shame; ‘how could I think to pluck the flower of all flowers, who never wronged a blossom in my life?’ ‘I spare thee for that,’ she said. ‘But go, and never let me see thy face again.’
“But Bérard being gone left that behind him which he guessed not. And often Briande thought of him, until of her thoughts was born a very passion for the past. ‘As was his love for flowers,’ she sighed, ‘so was his love for me—not to despoil, where perchance the stem was weak.’ And, while her coldness to all others grew to a rigid frost, his memory in her heart became a tender spring, amongst whose blossoms she wandered, for ever full of wistful dreamings. And at last she could bear her pain no more. ‘I must find him,’ she thought; ‘or die. I will go alone across the marshes to Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, and beg their intercession that my love may be restored to me.’”
“We, too, will go there, Fifine,” I said, as the narrator paused; “and mark the spot of Briande’s pilgrimage. A woeful journey for that gentle lady!”
“So she found it,” said Fifine; “and often on the long desolate way she gave herself up for lost. But at length she reached the little town, and found the church she sought, in whose shrine——”
“Well?” I said, seeing she stopped again.