“The other world?”
“Of course! So you think, then, cousin, that not one of them has taken revenge? That all of them accepted with a smile the disgrace of their amour betrayed, their honesty mocked and their hearths extinguished? That not one of them has paid his whack, and yours? If you had any knowledge of the world, and above all, if, like me, you had read the police reports...”
“Well?”
“Of the hundreds of creatures that you had, happy and alive, how many are dead at present, and how many others are going to die!”
“Had, alive and happy, and then…!”
“You can suppose all dramas; they happen! All forms of rage and despair, they exist! Husbands that will never be seen again, because they were prowling around your palace, armed; wives strangled on their return, children orphaned, virgins pregnant, families dishonored, fathers gone mad, fiancés and lovers who drink forgetfulness is poison, and lovable damsels who, for the fury of having you again after having had you, or the impatience of succeeding in it, go to seek their peace at the bottom of the river...”
“My God! My God!”
“You’re admirable! Unconsciousness or innocence, but assuredly admirable! You don’t even imagine that days have tomorrows, that causes produce effects, that sown seeds prepare crops. You sow, come what may, and you say: ‘Women are futile.’ I don’t disagree with you, my dear, and I want to give you the proof of it shortly; but our futility is the thing that is paid for most dearly in this world, even when it’s gratuitous. Give the gold or don’t give it; it scarcely counts, whatever people say, and tears, my good friend, are the unique ransom of kisses.”
The well-informed Queen fell silent, and patted the cushions around her; then, when they were provided with bumps and hollows to her liking, she added: “Now, handsome cousin, come to me, for time is passing and that’s enough of thinking about others.”
But the Irresistible was no longer even looking at her. He was striding back and forth, lamenting with exclamatory gestures, retrospective phrases and eloquent remorse; he was tearing out his curly hair and cursing the hour of his birth. Her Majesty, during that errant monologue, waited, and became impatient.
“Be careful handsome cousin; you’re importuning me.”
Finally weary, she stood up, and then, with a truly regal slowness, she replaced her thick veil and headed for the door. On the threshold, she turned round.
“I brought you happiness in glory, and you prefer a dungeon? As you please!”
Insensible to the threat, he continued striding back and forth, striking his breast.
“Assassin! Assassin!”
The Queen had not yet left the house when the chief eunuch advanced his head between two door-curtains and said: “Princess Aude, Milord! Here’s the Princess coming, like the others! I recognize her under her veil.”
The King’s daughter came in like a gust of wind, as in the theater.
“Gaude’s here! Don’t say no! I saw her come in! I’ve been watching her! For the others, pass, but my stepmother—I don’t want it, you hear! I forbid it! Oh, do me the favor, cousin, of not taking with me the air of candor that scarcely suits you and doesn’t deceive me. Don’t suppose, under the pretext that I’m an ignorant girl, that I don’t understand your game; I know what they come to do in your home, all of them, many as they are! I know exactly! And if you think I take pleasure in it, you’re heartless! Yes, heartless, heartless, heartless!”
She started weeping, vehemently, uttering shrill cries, hammering the carpet with taps of her heel, and rubbing her large eyes with her little clenched fists.
“Yes, heartless, heartless, so there! Because I love you, and you know that very well, and I won’t permit you any longer to cuddle all those ladies when you’re my husband, to cuddle them all day and all night, heartless swine who doesn’t love me!”
“I love you like the dear friend, the little sister who is soon to be married, for you’re engaged, Aude, the fiancée of another…”
“I will never marry him, that vile man, who’s too ugly, and stupid too, and who only has one eye, with one eye squashed. Can you see me, wretch, tell me, can you imagine me spending my life facing a single eye, before a face with red hair, looking at me with his squashed eye? I never loved him before, but since you’ve come, I detest him! And I’ve told Papa-King that, and Papa-King says that we’ll have war if he sends my fiancé away, but I don’t care, about the war to which I won’t go, and I don’t want that frightful fiancé, because I want another, who is much prettier, and who knows it only too well, the heartless swine!”
She was no longer sobbing, but, still tearful, she was sulking, with a genteel moue, with which she marked the punctuation of her sentences. Dieudonat, who was haunted by the Queen’s revelations, and who was scarcely listening, replied: “Yes, truly, I’ve acted like a man without a heart.”
“For sure; and the Archduke is more polite than you, for he does everything he can to please me; he pays me compliments, which are idiotic, but that isn’t his fault, since he isn’t able to invent better ones, and he sends me bouquets, and gives me rings, necklaces, earrings, and everything, and many others besides, and I don’t care, because I’d rather have them from you, and you’ve never had the idea of the smallest string of pearls, not even a flower, which would have pleased me. Do you call that polite?”
“Monstrous.”
“There! You’re a monster, and you admit it!”
“And you could love such a wicked individual?”
“Obviously, since I do love him.”
“In spite of his heartlessness.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“And why, little Aude, do you love me?”
“You know very well, conceited man, but you want me to say it again.”
She took his hands, drew him toward her, and made him sit beside her, on the cushions that the queen had hollowed out with her more ample forms a little while before, and she chirped: “Because I find you pretty, oh, pretty, so pretty! Everyone finds you pretty! There are some who love your eyes, some who love your hands, and for others, it’s your voice that they adore, and then others...”
“And little Aude?”
“For me, it’s your nose that I’m mad about, and your hair too…when I saw your dainty nostrils, which did that, like that, I understood immediately that I was going to love you; then, when I least expected it, and it was exactly the moment when you made your reverence to me, I saw there, above your left temple, there, a wisp of hair that was twisted...oh, then I understood that I would love you for life!”
“So, if someone else had my dainty nostrils, which did that...”
“You’re funny! Everyone has his own nostrils, and it’s yours that I want, this one, and this one...”
With the tips of her pink fingers, with well-polished nails, she touched one nostril after the other, and the beloved let her do it, occupied as he was with the occasional causes of amour, the origins of which are so modest and the consequences so terrible. But the young princess, impatient with that excessively long reverie, ended up by pinching his nose furiously. Dieudonat tried to free it, and the virgin became animated, her eyes shining, her teeth digging into her lip, and her entire body already twitching.
“Futile child!” said the philosopher. But his pretty voice was nasal, because the futile child had not let go of the philosopher’s nose.
At that moment, the eunuch came running for the third time, and cried: “The King, Milord! The King is coming!”
The Princess let go of the nose, because she needed both hands in order to clap them together.
“That’s good, that Papa-King finds me here. He’ll marry us immediately, and the Archduke will declare war. Well done, well done!”
Dieudonat gazed sadly at that joy.
“There’s no denying it,” he said, “that’s definitely the futility that etymology announces. But it’s necessary now, if I can still do it, to dam the torrent of misery that
has been unleashed thanks to me.”
The sound of halberds striking the stones of the perron could be heard in the distance, announcing the entrance of the potentate. The little princess, delighted, beat the measure of that menacing music with her finger, and straightened her pretty torso, with warrior breasts, ready for battle.
Dieudonat, standing beside her, waited.
Lord God, in the night of lassitude, alone facing the stars, I asked you for the supreme happiness of amour and you’ve presented it to me in three forms: the continence of castration, the passion of a mature woman, and the frivolity of a child. But I think I understand why the eunuch came first.
XXII. He surrenders, in favor of his neighbor,
a few meager advantages
Queen Gaude had run to King Gaifer.
“Gaude, my darling, I can see that you’re very angry.”
“I’ve just left Dieudonat.”
“Really? At this hour he’s in his palace playing with the ladies.”
The Queen was not in a mood for pleasantries.
“Sire, people are making fun of you.”
She was not foolish enough to claim that the torturer of amour had solicited her, and had caught her, because the King knew very well that she could have resisted. She said: “Your Majesty is being duped. I suspected as much. I wanted to know. I went. You’re not unaware, I imagine, that a scandalous libertinism reigns in the house of that adventurer, and that his morals are the shame of the realm?”
“That’s frightful,” said the King, tranquilly.
“But you’re doubtless unaware that he’s determined never to make gold again?”
“So he claimed, once, but I’ve been able to change his mind.”
“You’ve only changed his morals.”
“It comes to the same thing, my darling. You don’t understand the affairs of government; I’ve corrupted that man and I have him in my hand, for among a thousand other gifts, I’ve given him the one thing from which one never gets free: needs.”
“Go and see him, handsome Sire, and if you don’t believe me, do as I did, ask him for what you want.”
The autocrat, anxious at first, and then furious, buckled on his sword and hastened toward his adoptive son. He was disagreeably surprised to find his own daughter there, for whom he was not searching.
“What are you doing here?”
“Love, Papa.”12
“We’ll see about that detail later. For the moment, I have to settle accounts of a different kind with this fellow. Is it true…?”
But Dieudonat interrupted him without deference. “Is it true, O King, that I have caused so much woe and despair in this country?”
“It’s not a matter of that. I don’t reproach you for anything to which I consented for your pleasure; I haven’t been mean with the women of my kingdom or the men that were too close to them. Let’s leave those trivia. I’ve supplied the goods in advance, and I’m told that you’re refusing to pay in your turn.”
“The dolor of wounded souls, O King, how does one pay for that?”
“With gold, and you’re going to give it to me.”
“Never again will my wishing produce a gram of gold.”
“For a gram you can rest easy, it’s a mountain that I need!”
“I’ve sworn an oath no longer to give anything except of myself.”
“That’s good for the women, but your King requires something else.”
“The expiation of my sins? I’m ready to submit to it.”
“No speeches, metal! Look out of the window and see that mountain with granite summits: order that it be changed into gold.”
“And at that price, my crimes will be pardoned?”
“Everything you’ve done you can do again, as often as you please.”
The magician hid his face in his hands. “Just God, who sees this base world, you have taught me in my father’s land how gold disorganizes a people, and you have informed me now how it depraves souls. O Lord, supreme conscience who tolerates these things, is your name, then, Indifference?”
“Are you ready?”
Dieudonat’s hands slid down his pale face, and he replied: “I’m ready.”
“To work, then! Your life will answer to me for your obedience. Your wishes are realized; make your wish.”
“This is it: that you sit down and shut up, bad father, bad pastor, and that all your Court come here.”
At the same moment, the rumor of a plot ran through the palace. Some said: “Dieudonat has taken possession of the King and the scepter, with the Queen.” Others said: “The King has thrown Dieudonat in prison, with the Queen.” All of them ran to congratulate the power, whoever it might be.
They entered in a crowd into the onyx hall, and saw the monarch sitting silently, with Dieudonat standing to his right, and Aude smiling in a corner. Their attitude appeared enigmatic; people could not discover any indication that permitted them to know which master it was necessary to salute. In doubt, they arranged themselves against the walls, and no one dared to be the first to risk saying something that might be compromising. Eventually, Dieudonat spoke.
“Men of this land, your sovereign, here, and I, your guest, desired your presence in order to make honorable amends before you for the crimes of which we were the two accomplices; we have scorned or insulted you, by means of my lust and his tolerance; we have scandalized the people, by giving them the aristocratic example of a double ignominy. Enlightened now as to our sins—libidinous egotism on my part, egotistical cupidity on his, we are doing penance by a public declaration, and we very humbly beg your pardon.”
The King, mute, agitated in his seat, grimacing with tortured creases of wrath; the courtiers, frightened by the effects of remorse on a royal mask, only watched them covertly, avoiding his gaze for fear that he might remember having encountered theirs later.
Dieudonat went on: “I have lived among you in order to learn here at your expense that amour is a medallion struck with dolor on the other side. At our expense, you will learn that omnipotence is miserable, all the more miserable the greater is appears; for this man is a monarch by virtue of the hazard of destiny, but if, by a better hazard, he had simply been a porter in the port, he would not have sinned more than another; his bad luck and yours caused him to be born on a throne, and because he was able to do more, he did more harm. I have done even more, because I was able to do more; more powerful than a king, I am also more detestable, for I have desolated two kingdoms.”
Having articulated those statements, which everyone could, as he pleased, find profound or hollow, he lowered his gaze toward the monarch. Then Gaifer was seen to writhe on his seat, opening his mouth to cry out, shaking his head furiously as a sign of negation, and drawing his sword. still seated, he brandished that invincible blade in the air, to the great peril of flies.
“Don’t tire yourself out like that,” said the magician. “Your iron is not a proof; it can do nothing against the Truth. Since a favor of fate is permitting you to hear the truth for once in your life, hear it and blush: you shall have the advantage of knowing how little you are worth.”
The King uttered howls.
“Be quite, potentate! On your knees before your subjects! On your knees, like me, in order that they might pardon both of us. This I command, and I bequeath you, in leaving, the task of repairing, as much as is possible, the disorder that is our work.”
Kneeling side by side, the Prince and the King beat their breasts, but Gaifer, at the same time, rolled his eyes, which were bulging with fury. Several courtiers thought it wise to slip away; two ministers, in low voices, confided to one another that the thaumaturge was committing a dire fault in discrediting the power and those who represented it; an archbishop shook his head sadly.
It was then that the Archduke irrupted into the hall, at the precise moment that Dieudonat stood up in order to say: “Adieu, all of you! I leave you a King diminished and better; as for me, I am going away, more charged with pains, my brothers
, than any of you, since I am bearing in my heart all of your pains combined.”
He was already heading for the door when Galeas the One-Eyed, desirous of triumphing under the gaze of the beautiful Aude, ran forward, his sword drawn, and barred his passage.
“You shan’t go, I’ll see to that, and you’ll expiate your sins.”
“Sheath that sword, my friend. I shall indeed expiate my sins, but not as you think, for we don’t think in the same way.”
The Archduke tried to stiffen his arm, which was putting the sword back in the scabbard of its own accord, but the arm knew better that the Archduke what it had to do, and sheathed the blade. At least, His Serene Highness estimated, he could strike the hilt violently, in order to give evidence before everyone of his indomitable energy; he executed that noble gesture, then, straightening his torso and, directing the gaze of his unique eye toward the princess, he commanded, in a bellicose voce: “Close all the exits! Arrest him!”
Dieudonat replied, mildly: “No one will arrest me, my friend, and no one will search for me or pursue me, for I forbid it, and you’ll be content to see me leave yourself.”
“Content no longer to see your execrable face, yes, certainly—and I won’t be the only one.”
“A certain young woman will be chagrined, however, since she has taken a liking to the face that God has given me. I’ll give it to you in my turn, in order that it might please her. So be it!”
Immediately, Dieudonat’s features were those of Galeas, and the donor appeared in the form of the Archduke, one-eyed and red-haired, with a skin the color of liquid manure and lips the color of lilac. He retained, however, in the depths of his left eye, an expression of tenderness and intelligence. That rendered the sight of his deformities tolerable; his soul idealized his ugliness, while the other’s beauty remained aggressive and malevolent.
Dieudonat who, examined the renewal of the imperial gentleman, was not satisfied with his work; he had had higher hopes of the metamorphosis.
“My poor face appeared more honorable to me in the time when it was mine and when I encountered it in mirrors. I was blind then and I’m only one-eyed now; I’ve gained.”
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