‘Aha!’ cries the other, tapping his chest with one finger; ‘and here is the little fellow who will sing your verses as merrily as you make them.’
‘Allow me to perorate,’ says Monsieur de Châtelard. ‘You see also, signore, a disgraced lover of the Queen, who nevertheless returns to kiss the hand that smote him.’
‘Sanguinaccio! my good friend,’ Signior David replied: ‘I hope I don’t see a fool.’
Monsieur de Châtelard considered this aspiration with that gravity it deserved. He hesitated before he made answer. ‘I hope not, Signior David,’ he said wistfully; ‘but, as a lover, I am in some doubt. For a lover, as you very well know, is not (by the nature of his case) many removes from a fool. He may be—he is—a divine fool. Fire has touched his lips, to make him mad. He speaks—but what? Noble folly! He does—but what? Glorious rashness!’
‘Undoubtedly,’ said the Italian. ‘But does he not know—when a Queen is in the case—that he has a neck to be wrung?’
‘He knows nothing of such things. This is the sum of his knowledge—I love! I love! I love!’
The Italian looked at him with calmness. ‘I speak for my nation,’ he said, ‘when I assure you that an Italian lover knows more than that. He considers means, and ends too. Hungry he may be; but how shall he be filled if you slit open his belly? He may be thirsty; but if you cut his throat? However, I am speaking into the air. Let us be reasonable. How can I serve you, dear sir?’
‘Signior David,’ says the poet, ‘I shall speak openly to you. Howsoever brave a man may be, howsoever dedicated to impossible adventure, there is one wind which, blowing through the forest, must chill him to the heart. It is the wind of Indifference. By heaven, sir, can you sing before mutes, or men maimed of their hands? And how are you and I to do admirable things, if no one admires, or cares whether we do them or not? The thought is absurd. Here, in this grey Scotland, which is Broceliande, the enchanted forest hiding my princess, I suffer acutely from my solitude. Formerly I had friends; now I have none. Sir, I offer you my friendship, and ask yours again. Be my friend. Thus you may serve me, if you will.’
The Italian took up the fringe of his beard and brushed his nose with it. ‘I must know one little thing first. What do you want with your enchanted princess in the middle of your forest? Everything?’
Monsieur de Châtelard opened wide his arms, strained them forward, clasped them over his bosom, and hugged himself with them.