Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  As he stood watching the river flowing by, the green country stretching all the way to the ocean, he became conscious that nothing on the earth or in the heavens above the earth mattered to him if Héloïse were not with him. If he lost her, he lost all. All women had turned to one, and the miracle was within himself, and not without as all things are, even God. At six and thirty, at the height of his renown, he found himself helpless, without protection, his learning unavailing.

  A girl of seventeen had wrought this miracle, and astonished and weary of meditations and remembrances he wandered forth from the town to watch the angles by the river, or perchance a pair of falcons in pursuit of a heron, who defended himself with his beak. Though there were no falcons in the air nor a heron, he saw three birds still battling, for all he saw and heard with Héloïse was for ever fixed in his memory. When she was with him all the world was wonderful, and now that she was absent the world seemed to have shrunken.

  Wherefore if any man be in love, he said, applying the Apostle’s words to his condition, he is a new creature; old things have passed away; behold, old things are become new. And then the words of the Evangelist coming to his aid, he said: but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Such is my condition, he muttered, not knowing whether he was glad or sorry.

  And as the words of John were dying out of his mind he came upon Jean Guiscard walking in front of the inn amid his disciples, talking loudly, his head in the air, courteously, however, staying his steps for a moment, to tell Abelard that he did not remember a prize having been granted to Rodebœuf. No, he did not remember having heard Rodebœuf’s poem. He appealed to his disciples, but none remembered that Rodebœuf had sung before the Court. The heaviest sum of money was granted to a poet who had never written so well before. The master sought for some verses of it in his memory, and finding none turned again for help to his disciples; and Abélard was perplexed, for the poem that they tried to remember seemed not unlike his own poem. But he held his peace, and foreseeing that composition would be impossible in a room overlooking a courtyard filled with noisy gleemen, he allowed himself to join Jean Guiscard’s company at supper in the inn yard. As none suspected that Lucien de Marolle, the gleeman, was Abelard, the renowned philosopher, he might sing and play in competition with all and sundry.

  It is pleasant to escape from oneself sometimes, but the pleasure is a brief one, and Abelard welcomed an interval of speech by laying aside the lute he was screwing up into tune to listen to Guiscard, who, thinking perhaps that Lucien de Marolle was gathering too much admiration, said: we must not forget to-morrow in the pleasure of to-night, for many questions will be debated to-morrow at Franchard of importance to ourselves and our mistresses, questions so subtle that philosophers of old time would be obliged to collect their wits before answering. To-morrow at Franchard it will be said that Aristotle would take the view that the husband’s right to beget children could not be denied. In this I agree, but what Plato’s view would be, though not doubtful, cannot be stated so succinctly.

  Upon these words Jean Guiscard put out his hand for the flagon, and the wine that he drank seemed to awaken in him concern for the prospects of to-morrow’s debate, which he was afraid would soon overflow its banks and that they would all find themselves involved in contradictions, some vociferating views the very opposite to those they had set out in the beginning to uphold; for we are not all Platos and Aristotles, he said, reaching out his hand again for the flagon. Aristotle’s view, so you have said, Guiscard, would be that the husband’s right to beget children could not be denied, but you have not said if Plato would side against him. Abelard waited for an answer to this question, which he already regretted having put, for disputation with Guiscard would profit him nothing. Plato, Jean Guiscard answered — in a tone more amiable than that which he had yet adopted towards Abélard — would begin by reminding the assembly that the Court was called into being for the purpose of considering the soul rather than in the hope of devising a wiser ordering for the material world than that which prevails at present. Is it true, Abélard asked, that Plato would overlook the bed, so essential in matrimony, and omit to speak of the model or archetypal bed laid up in heaven, and, rating the soul as he did above all things, would fail to see that children could not he begotten without concourse of lovers? If I have to answer all Lucien de Marolle’s questions, cried Jean Guiscard, I shall not be able to tell the company of the many curious points the Court will have to decide to-morrow. I will ask no more questions, said Abélard, for we would hear the cases to be decided, and when we have heard them there will be time to expatiate on the views held by Plato and Aristotle.

  In the questions we shall be called upon to decide, I shall range myself with Aristotle, Jean Guiscard said, holding that in a necessarily imperfect world a middle course is wiser than a counsel of perfection. Abélard would have liked to intervene again on behalf of Plato, but he could think only of Héloïse, and for the first time elected to remain outside a discussion; and he was glad he had done so when a hiccoughing gleeman interposed, saying that there were many who would wish to hear how a lady may protect her mouth from her husband, sudden and coarse incursions into the wife’s chamber being common in married life. A kiss snatched from a sleeping lady is not a kiss, Jean Guiscard answered, for a kiss to be a kiss involves a mutual clinging of lips, and a lady, if she wishes to save her mouth, can do so with her hand and with her arm. She can do this much — Well then, continued the heckler, another difficulty arises: if, while abandoning her body to her husband, her senses should awake, shall she be considered to be an unfaithful mistress? Our senses are beyond our control, sir, Jean Guiscard replied, and the Court will recommend that a lady who would escape a sousing husband would do well to thrust a book of prayers under her pillow before lying down, recourse being made to it immediately the door opens, for in certain moods a husband does not care to hear prayers; holy names baffle his ardour, and the lady will be left to sleep unsoiled, repeating, perchance, the songs in which her beauty was woven into verse. This is a question, Guiscard continued, that will be put to-morrow; and the view will be held, I hope and believe, that a lover’s prerogatives should be to rise above his instincts, ceding the grosser parts of the woman to the husband and finding his sufficient delight in her kiss, the gainer thereby, for desire dies in attainment, as she to whom my life is dedicated has often said, checking me when wanton passion was about to overcome wisdom, and saying well: the mouth is the joint author of our wit, for it is through the mouth that the mind speaks; without our tongues we should be as animals, knowing naught of each other’s souls. It is when lips meet that the soul rises up in the eyes, and it is at the parting of lips that a mistress, guessing her lover’s heart, says: what concern is it of our love that my husband possesses me from the knee to the navel, since my eyes, my hair, my bosom, my hands, and of all, my mouth, are for thee and for thee alone? The rest of love is naught but residue and lees.

  Again a memory of Héloïse restrained Abélard from answering the obscene drunkard. Hast no answer, Marolle, for our friend Jean Guiscard? asked a gleeman. Abélard was about to answer, but some gleemaidens, entering suddenly, diverted the attention of the company from him, and not wishing to find himself again among scenes of a great unseemliness, he retired to his sleepless couch, and on the morrow to Franchard in search of Mathieu, of whom he could get no exact tidings, only this — that he had not left the neighbourhood. He must therefore stay in the neighbourhood; and one day as he lay between sleeping and waking in the shade of a wood... fession of his folly or of his lady’s heartlessness. Another flagon and he will not be able to tell us, all were thinking, when Jean Guiscard broke the silence.

  It may be that you would hear the story of Louve’s cruelty to me, but it’s known to all the world. We would hear the story, cried many voices, and flattered by the interest in him which he read on every face, Jean Guiscard took heart. Since it would please you to hear t
hat the stories told about me and the Lady Louve are untrue, I will tell reasons for my leaving her for a while which you, minstrels of love, will apprehend and appreciate. The company bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment, and Jean Guiscard continued: for our love to be of value we must know it, and we can only know it by contrast and comparison; and it was to make plain to myself that all is false, void and counterfeit except Louve, that I went to Marseilles and sang the praises of another lady. On hearing of my songs and judging them to be equal to those that I wrote in praise of her beauty, Louve began to hate me soon. I was thrown out of her heart, before I returned, and when I returned confident that there was no love for me but my love of Louve, I was met at the gate by lackeys, who bade me begone. Others would have been glad to receive me at their courts for the sake of the renown my songs would bring them, but my love of Louve was too deep in my heart and I retired to the forest in the hope that my miserable condition in a cave would move her to forgiveness. But Louve’s heart was hard. It was in that forest that I found three wolf cubs searching for the she-wolf, killed by a huntsman maybe, or else a forgetful dam. Jean called to his wolves by name and flung them large pieces of the boar’s head, thereby encouraging them to leap around him with wide-open jaws, alarming the company, whose thoughts were that the beautiful teeth could fix themselves easily in the human throat and tear out the windpipe. Be not afraid, be not afraid, cried Jean Guiscard, see how they love me; and he told how when hunting in the forest he was led by a deer who, though unable to outstrip his wolves, kept ahead of them, leading him farther and farther into the darkling forest till at last he came upon a ruin. Into it I went, my wolves following unwilling, so frightened were they by the silence. In one of the halls we found a company of old men sitting round a table. I called to them, but they did not give me an answer, my wolves howling all the while with fear, their tails between their legs. I could not quiet them, and it was then that it became plain that we were no longer in mortal company; we were with King Arthur and his Court. On the table was a sword and a horn, and I know not how it was, but it seemed that though no words were spoken I was bidden to take the sword and blow the horn, and at the sound of it the company vanished and the castle itself. More than that I do not know; memory of all else has been taken from me. I blew a call for my wolves, who had fled from me, and rising to my feet continued blowing the call till I reached my hermitage, and therein were my wolves, who, mistaking me for a stranger, leapt upon me, but were subdued by the sound of my voice. After I had fed them we sat together, myself in meditation with a great joy in my heart, for I knew I should be rewarded for my courage in blowing the fanfare on the horn, rewarded by King Arthur, whose lot it was to sit in that ruined hall as a punishment for his sins; for even King Arthur needed absolution, as we all do, my friends, myself more than any around me need it. Like King Arthur I am waiting for forgiveness to come from my lady, and if it comes not these wolves will give me the ease that the fanfare on the horn gave to King Arthur, for I shall disguise myself in a sheepskin, and the blood of the sheep that I shall spill over the wool will guide these wolves to me and through brake and over fell they will hunt me to the door of my lady. But of what help will that be to thee or to her? Abélard asked. Wouldst, mayhap, plant the dagger of remorse in her heart? Not so, Jean Guiscard answered. If my wolves do not tear me to death before I am rescued by the lackeys, my lady will be forced to forgive and requite me for my love of her.

  Jean Guiscard called for more wine, and having emptied the tankard that was handed to him, he sat silent, and his grief was so great that none dared to break the silence of it. At last he began to speak: my lady has mooted that she will not forgive me until a hundred lovers and their mistresses come and implore it at her feet; it is said that a hundred men and women will come but — Thy songs, brother, will summon the necessary array of lovers from their castles, and the Courts of Love will compel her to clemency. Have good heart, brother. Without making any answer to them Jean Guiscard fell to drinking, and the company laid their heads together, certain and sure that France would not allow a great singer to be torn by wolves. The needed lovers and their mistresses would come and surround her castle. She could not refuse. Jean Guiscard brooded in goblets of wine, and the evening might have been plunged in the sadness of drunkenness if the gleemen and gleemaidens from the neighbouring field had not come down to the trouvères to ask if they might rope in a certain space for a game of blind-man’s buff; and, permission being given to them, they passed a rope round the apple-trees, creating thereby a space of some twenty-five to thirty yards for the girls to run in and evade hoodman-blind as best they could, till wantonness on one side and trickery on the other brought a maiden into his hands. There were courses, timorous, courageous, witty and even chaste, the captor relinquishing his right of search, and there were other courses in which the captor abused his right of search, prolonging it for his own sake rather than as a means of coming to an issue, the issue being the name of the captured. And the game reached its height when Jean Guiscard’s eyes fell upon a girl whose shapes tempted him into the lists. Abélard and Rodeboeuf sought to dissuade him, afraid that he would stumble and fall and hurt himself, but he gave a good chase, not falling too often, before he seized a leg which, he shouted, could belong to none but Mathilde. It did, and the pair were conducted to an arbour, serenades and reverdies being sung in their honour during their mutual enjoyment. Thou hast seen enough of this sport, I doubt not, Rodeboeuf, said Abélard; my heart is away in Brittany and if it weren’t I might be like another. So if thou’rt not minded to try thy luck in a course, let us to thy prize song, for if it is to be written we must write it now. I had forgotten my prize song, he answered; let us to it at once, else I hasten to Palestine. The riot continued in the garden, but so intent was Abélard on writing a poem that would save Rodebœuf from the Crusades that he was able to close his ears to the bleating of the goats; and he was awake at dawn struggling with rhymes, Rodebœuf unable to give or withhold his approval. Shall we try to finish this stanza now, or finish it after sleeping? Abélard asked, and while meditating some new versions of the recalcitrant stanza, both poets fell asleep for an hour, Abélard being the first to open his eyes, and seeing his friend still wrapped in slumber he went over to him. Awaken, Rodebœuf, to the consideration of the poem that may save thee from Palestine. Rodebœuf roused himself, and while Abélard put the finishing hand to the incomplete stanza, he bade his friend be of stout heart. This last stanza will decide the judges in thy favour, he said, though till they reach it they may have another poet in mind. And with Abélard’s poem in his pocket Rodebœuf departed, joyful, for Franchard, leaving Abélard to ponder the strange contrasts of Jean Guiscard’s inner and outer life, so disparate that it was hard to remember him after last night’s orgy as a gentle and beautiful poet, without jealousy, always ready to see the good rather than the bad in his fellow, to praise rather than to blame, who would be sure to try hard to have the prize awarded to his old friend, the Comte de Rodebœuf.

  As he rode away to Blois, feeling himself to be as several and disparate as Jean Guiscard, though the terms were different (was he not going to Blois, forgetful of philosophy, to spend a week writing in various forms of metre and rhyme?) Abélard forgot suddenly all things but his rhymes and the great terrace overlooking the Sologne; for it was there he would write the songs in praise of Héloïse that were rising up in his mind, with which his mind brimmed and overflowed. A week of rhymes, he said, and I must return to Franchard to hear if my old friend is fated to fall by the Saracen’s spear. If money runs short my poems will find me board and lodging; a sonnet for my bed, a ballade for my board; dawn song should be taken in exchange for a bottle of wine; and his face all in smiles he returned six days later through the pretty summer weather from Blois to Franchard, to learn from the folk that, so far as they knew, the Comte de Rodebœuf had not gained a prize. Abélard thanked them, and watching them depart for the fields, he fell to thinking of Mathieu stepping down t
he gangway of a ship bound for the Holy Land, and then of his poem that had been rejected for no reason that he was aware of, and he could not do else but suspect Jean Guiscard to be guilty of envy. But there was no way of discovering the truth unless he were to meet Rodeboeuf again.