Barbarossa, and Other Tales

by Paul Heyse

As she entered, his eyes involuntarily fell, and he sought to disguise his emotion by lifting from the floor the parchment-book that lay between her and him, and now that he raised his eyes to her he started, horror-stricken. For her face but lately blooming with youth and health, had so changed in one short hour that she seemed to have traversed years of hopeless grief.

"I disturb you, cousin," she said in a voice from which the music had fled, "but I come to you because I think you are my friend--perhaps the only one I have. Let me sit down, I am mortally weary. No, not on the bed; my dear aunt died there. Oh, Jaufret, if I only knew that it would be my death-bed too--and that my heart would grow still the moment I lay down there--God is my witness I would throw myself upon it at once!"

She sank down on the seat that he offered her, hiding her face in her hands, and tears streaming between her white fingers. "For God's sake, cousin," he cried, "you break my heart. What has happened? What has your father said?"

Then she removed her hands from her face, pressed back her tears, and looked steadfastly at him. "I will not weep," she said, "it is childish. If all is true that I have heard, tears are too weak for such sorrow. But I want to hear it from you, cousin. Is it indeed the case that the Count of Malaspina is a beggar, and that his daughter has nothing to call her own except the clothes she wears? You are silent, Jaufret. Be it so then; what should I care for that? I have long had a foreboding that there was trouble before me, and as to poverty, I have seen that in the convent, and know it, and it does not affright me. But shame, Jaufret, shame--"

"By the blood of our Lord," he exclaimed. "Who dares to say that shame threatens you so long as I can bear a sword, and lay a lance in rest?"

She did not appear to hear him. Then after a pause in which she, as if unconsciously, drew her rosary through her hands, she shudderingly enquired, "Do you know the Count de Gaillac?" The youth started as though he had trodden upon a snake, he muttered a curse between his teeth, and convulsively clutched the silken coverlet.

"You seem to know him," the maiden continued, "and I know him too. About two years ago a hunting-party came to Mont Salvair, a great gathering of knights and fair dames. They all sat themselves down to feast in the wood that bordered the convent garden, and we from our shrubbery could see what was going on; the drinking, the banqueting; and could hear the songs that the Count's mistress--a tall, proud-looking woman--sang to her lute. Oh cousin, what dreadful human beings there are! Even then I felt a terror come over me, and was glad when the abbess came to drive us out of the garden, and set us down in the refectory to our spinning-wheels. There nothing was heard but the whispering of the nuns, every one of whom knew something of the wildness and godlessness of the Count de Gaillac. For they know everything in the convent, know all about the outer world and its ways, otherwise they would die of tedium. Then the abbess came in, told me that the Count was standing at the grating, and desired to see me, as he was the bearer of a message from my father. I do not know how I had strength enough to rise, and walk across the long hall to her; then, however, she took my hand in her mother-like clasp, and whispered, 'Remember that thou art here in a consecrated place; here the evil one himself could have no power over thee.' So saying she led me to where the godless man with his hawk's eyes in his wolf's face, was waiting behind the grating, the handsome, bold-looking woman by his side. They were laughing loud when we appeared, but suddenly grew silent. I heard the Count say something in Italian to the lady that I perfectly understood, but could not contradict. What his message to me was I never knew, but it cut me to the heart to hear him name my father, and call him his best friend. A cloud darkened my eyes,--when I came to myself again, they were gone. The abbess never alluded to this visit, and forbade the nuns ever to name Pierre de Gaillac before me. Thus I never heard of him again, till to-day, when my own father has told me that on one wretched night, after gambling away the remnant of his possessions to this man, he had staked the hand of his daughter upon the last throw of the dice, and lost that too."

A sound forced its way from the young man's breast, a hollow cry of horror and of rage, but his limbs seemed paralysed, and his tongue bound, for he did not speak a word, and there was such stillness in the small chamber, that the grinding of the sand beneath his feet was plainly heard.

"You hate my father," the girl at length continued with downcast eyes but calm voice. "Oh, Jaufret, I have known this for many years, and it has grieved me enough. But what I have now told you ought not to increase your hatred, for if there be one miserable being on earth, who in the burning torture of his soul already endures hell-fire, and expiates his sins, believe me, cousin, it is the Count of Malaspina, who would gladly change places with the dropsical cripple at his castle gate, if only he could undo what he has done. He writhed as though impaled at the stake, and buried his face in the pillows that I might not see him while he told me how it all came about; how they clouded his mind with hippocras; how at every throw they pressed the goblet into his hand, till at length the mocking laughter of the Count seemed to awake him from a dream, and he gazed with sheer horror at the abyss into which he had hurled his last possession, the happiness of his child. He did everything he could to propitiate his malicious enemy and conqueror, nay he offered to be his serf, his bondservant, if only he might pay the fearful debt thus. But the Count had merely laughed and said, 'A Jew's bargain indeed you would make with me, my friend, to offer me a plucked old cock for a plump young hen. I have more servants to feed than I care for, but a young wife I do want, for you know that I am getting old, and I am not so fond of my mistress as to wish to leave her my lands and castles after my death. Moreover, I fear she might make me a very bad return, and before my eyes were closed, drink with some younger fellow to my approaching end. But your daughter has been chastely and piously brought up, and will convert me--grey in sin as I am--to an orderly life. Therefore I would not take all the treasures on earth in exchange for her small hand, which can alone open the door of Heaven to me; and so I charge you by your honour that within three weeks you bring her to celebrate the marriage here in Gaillac. I on my part, as my gift on the morning after the nuptials, will make over to you all the woods and lands that I have won from you of late years, in order that your child need not provide for you like a beggar, but that you may live out your old age in state and comfort.' And so saying he called for his servants to light him to bed, and left my father alone."

At this moment Geoffrey made a gesture as though about to speak; but she rose quickly, advanced towards him, and laid her small, cold, trembling hand beseechingly on his clenched fist. "Cousin," said she, "do not speak yet. I know what you would say: that it would be better to go forth as a beggar from home and hearth, and to wander through the wide world, than to endure disgrace, and give up body and soul to a demon. But consider that my father has nothing on earth besides his honour, his sacred, inviolable, knightly word, and that it would ill become me, his daughter, to counsel him to break it. At the same time, I feel that if there were no other means of fulfilling the pledge given, and paying this debt than by giving my hand to this abhorred suitor, I should prefer what is honourable in the sight of God, to what men call honour. But let us hope, my friend, that this last alternative may be spared me. I propose to write a letter to the man who has us in his power, and you--if you are really my friend--you must take it this very day to Gaillac, for until I know the answer I cannot lay me down to sleep. But do you rest here awhile and take some food. I will go and write the letter; they always commended my skill in writing at the convent; God grant that it may stand me in good stead now! See, I leave you much calmer than I was when I came, although you have not spoken one word of comfort to me; but here in this place where we were so happy as children, here where it seems as if no bad spirits had power over me, here--I cannot persuade myself that the hideous dream is true, and the father's honour pledged to the child's disgrace."