Kissed the curls that were so fair...."
It is a love scene almost more charming than that of Romeo and Juliet, for it seems more genuine. Aucassin does not say such elaborate things, but there is a glow and fervour about his utterances that commends itself to us as ringing beautifully true.
They argue about which of them loves the most, until at last the town-guard comes along, "with swords drawn beneath their cloaks, for the Count Garin had charged them that if they could take Nicolette they should slay her."
But luckily the sentinel on the towers sees them coming, and decides, as we have seen, to befriend Nicolette, "for if they slay her, then were Aucassin, my damoiseau, dead, and that were great pity."
So the sentinel considerately sings a song in which he gives a broad hint of what is menacing, and Nicolette shrinks under the shadow of a pillar till the men have passed. Finally she jumps down into the fosse and, hurt and bruised as she is, climbs the castle wall and goes out into the forest, where she builds "a little hut of flowers as a token to Aucassin that she had passed that way." Later, Aucassin finds her there after many wanderings, and they are happy for a little while.
BEAUCAIRE FROM TARASCON.
By Joseph Pennell.
And so, through adventures and sorrows, the story goes till the lovers are hopelessly parted—pirates, tempests, Saracens are banded against them, and Nicolette seems lost for ever.
The final scene is once more in this old castle, after many years, when Count Garin is dead and Aucassin rules in his stead. Then comes a minstrel—a woman—to the castle, with a "vielle." Aucassin, we may suppose, was taking a walk along the ramparts. And suddenly he hears a voice singing to the vielle in the castle court below. He listens and the song makes him weep; and he asks for more songs. And the singer sings again, about strange adventures; and the story is that of Nicolette! And finally, the minstrel runs away to Aucassin's mother in the castle and throws off her disguise. The Countess is overjoyed, for she has been in despair at her son's incurable grief; and she dresses Nicolette in splendid raiment and leads her back to the bewildered Aucassin. And then there is a meeting such as happens rarely in human story. Deep sorrow has been gnawing in Aucassin's heart, and he had never married, in spite of much urging by his friends. And suddenly he knows that the day of his tribulation is over, and the deepest joy he can ever feel has come to him after weary waiting. And once more, with a rapture learnt of long sorrow and heartache, he folds Nicolette in his arms.