A LODGING FOR THE NIGHTA STORY OF FRANCIS VILLON
IT was late in November 1456. The snow fell over Paris with rigorous,relentless persistence; sometimes the wind made a sally and scattered itin flying vortices; sometimes there was a lull, and flake after flakedescended out of the black night air, silent, circuitous, interminable.To poor people, looking up under moist eyebrows, it seemed a wonder whereit all came from. Master Francis Villon had propounded an alternativethat afternoon, at a tavern window: was it only Pagan Jupiter pluckinggeese upon Olympus? or were the holy angels moulting? He was only a poorMaster of Arts, he went on; and as the question somewhat touched upondivinity, he durst not venture to conclude. A silly old priest fromMontargis, who was among the company, treated the young rascal to abottle of wine in honour of the jest and the grimaces with which it wasaccompanied, and swore on his own white beard that he had been just suchanother irreverent dog when he was Villon’s age.
The air was raw and pointed, but not far below freezing; and the flakeswere large, damp, and adhesive. The whole city was sheeted up. An armymight have marched from end to end and not a footfall given the alarm.If there were any belated birds in heaven, they saw the island like alarge white patch, and the bridges like slim white spars, on the blackground of the river. High up overhead the snow settled among the traceryof the cathedral towers. Many a niche was drifted full; many a statuewore a long white bonnet on its grotesque or sainted head. The gargoyleshad been transformed into great false noses, drooping towards the point.The crockets were like upright pillows swollen on one side. In theintervals of the wind, there was a dull sound of dripping about theprecincts of the church.
The cemetery of St. John had taken its own share of the snow. All thegraves were decently covered; tall white housetops stood around in gravearray; worthy burghers were long ago in bed, benightcapped like theirdomiciles; there was no light in all the neighbourhood but a little peepfrom a lamp that hung swinging in the church choir, and tossed theshadows to and fro in time to its oscillations. The clock was hard onten when the patrol went by with halberds and a lantern, beating theirhands; and they saw nothing suspicious about the cemetery of St. John.
Yet there was a small house, backed up against the cemetery wall, whichwas still awake, and awake to evil purpose, in that snoring district.There was not much to betray it from without; only a stream of warmvapour from the chimney-top, a patch where the snow melted on the roof,and a few half-obliterated footprints at the door. But within, behindthe shuttered windows, Master Francis Villon the poet, and some of thethievish crew with whom he consorted, were keeping the night alive andpassing round the bottle.
A great pile of living embers diffused a strong and ruddy glow from thearched chimney. Before this straddled Dom Nicolas, the Picardy monk,with his skirts picked up and his fat legs bared to the comfortablewarmth. His dilated shadow cut the room in half; and the firelight onlyescaped on either side of his broad person, and in a little pool betweenhis outspread feet. His face had the beery, bruised appearance of thecontinual drinker’s; it was covered with a network of congested veins,purple in ordinary circumstances, but now pale violet, for even with hisback to the fire the cold pinched him on the other side. His cowl hadhalf fallen back, and made a strange excrescence on either side of hisbull neck. So he straddled, grumbling, and cut the room in half with theshadow of his portly frame.
On the right, Villon and Guy Tabary were huddled together over a scrap ofparchment; Villon making a ballade which he was to call the “Ballade ofRoast Fish,” and Tabary spluttering admiration at his shoulder. The poetwas a rag of a man, dark, little, and lean, with hollow cheeks and thinblack locks. He carried his four-and-twenty years with feverishanimation. Greed had made folds about his eyes, evil smiles had puckeredhis mouth. The wolf and pig struggled together in his face. It was aneloquent, sharp, ugly, earthly countenance. His hands were small andprehensile, with fingers knotted like a cord; and they were continuallyflickering in front of him in violent and expressive pantomime. As forTabary, a broad, complacent, admiring imbecility breathed from his squashnose and slobbering lips: he had become a thief, just as he might havebecome the most decent of burgesses, by the imperious chance that rulesthe lives of human geese and human donkeys.
At the monk’s other hand, Montigny and Thevenin Pensete played a game ofchance. About the first there clung some flavour of good birth andtraining, as about a fallen angel; something long, lithe, and courtly inthe person; something aquiline and darkling in the face. Thevenin, poorsoul, was in great feather: he had done a good stroke of knavery thatafternoon in the Faubourg St. Jacques, and all night he had been gainingfrom Montigny. A flat smile illuminated his face; his bald head shonerosily in a garland of red curls; his little protuberant stomach shookwith silent chucklings as he swept in his gains.
“Doubles or quits?” said Thevenin. Montigny nodded grimly.
“Some may prefer to dine in state,” wrote Villon, “On bread and cheese onsilver plate. Or—or—help me out, Guido!”
Tabary giggled.
“Or parsley on a golden dish,” scribbled the poet.
The wind was freshening without; it drove the snow before it, andsometimes raised its voice in a victorious whoop, and made sepulchralgrumblings in the chimney. The cold was growing sharper an the nightwent on. Villon, protruding his lips, imitated the gust with somethingbetween a whistle and a groan. It was an eerie, uncomfortable talent ofthe poet’s, much detested by the Picardy monk.
“Can’t you hear it rattle in the gibbet?” said Villon. “They are alldancing the devil’s jig on nothing, up there. You may dance, mygallants, you’ll be none the warmer! Whew! what a gust! Down wentsomebody just now! A medlar the fewer on the three-legged medlar-tree!—Isay, Dom Nicolas, it’ll be cold to-night on the St. Denis Road?” heasked.
Dom Nicolas winked both his big eyes, and seemed to choke upon his Adam’sapple. Montfaucon, the great grisly Paris gibbet, stood hard by the St.Denis Road, and the pleasantry touched him on the raw. As for Tabary, helaughed immoderately over the medlars; he had never heard anything morelight-hearted; and he held his sides and crowed. Villon fetched him afillip on the nose, which turned his mirth into an attack of coughing.
“Oh, stop that row,” said Villon, “and think of rhymes to ‘fish’.”
“Doubles or quits,” said Montigny doggedly.
“With all my heart,” quoth Thevenin.
“Is there any more in that bottle?” asked the monk.
“Open another,” said Villon. “How do you ever hope to fill that bighogshead, your body, with little things like bottles? And how do youexpect to get to heaven? How many angels, do you fancy, can be spared tocarry up a single monk from Picardy? Or do you think yourself anotherElias—and they’ll send the coach for you?”
“_Hominibus impossibile_,” replied the monk, as he filled his glass.
Tabary was in ecstasies.
Villon filliped his nose again.
“Laugh at my jokes, if you like,” he said.
“It was very good,” objected Tabary.
Villon made a face at him. “Think of rhymes to ‘fish’,” he said. “Whathave you to do with Latin? You’ll wish you knew none of it at the greatassizes, when the devil calls for Guido Tabary, clericus—the devil withthe hump-back and red-hot finger-nails. Talking of the devil,” he addedin a whisper, “look at Montigny!”
All three peered covertly at the gamester. He did not seem to beenjoying his luck. His mouth was a little to a side; one nostril nearlyshut, and the other much inflated. The black dog was on his back, aspeople say, in terrifying nursery metaphor; and he breathed hard underthe gruesome burden.
“He looks as if he could knife him,” whispered Tabary, with round eyes.
The monk shuddered, and turned his face and spread his open hands to thered embers. It was the cold that thus affected Dom Nicolas, and not anyexcess of moral sensibility.
“Come now,” said Villon—“
about this ballade. How does it run so far?”And beating time with his hand, he read it aloud to Tabary.
They were interrupted at the fourth rhyme by a brief and fatal movementamong the gamesters. The round was completed, and Thevenin was justopening his mouth to claim another victory, when Montigny leaped up,swift as an adder, and stabbed him to the heart. The blow took effectbefore he had time to utter a cry, before he had time to move. A tremoror two convulsed his frame; his hands opened and shut, his heels rattledon the floor; then his head rolled backward over one shoulder with theeyes wide open; and Thevenin Pensete’s spirit had returned to Him whomade it.
Everyone sprang to his feet; but the business was over in two twos. Thefour living fellows looked at each other in rather a ghastly fashion; thedead man contemplating a corner of the roof with a singular and uglyleer.
“My God!” said Tabary; and he began to pray in Latin.
Villon broke out into hysterical laughter. He came a step forward andducked a ridiculous bow at Thevenin, and laughed still louder. Then hesat down suddenly, all of a heap, upon a stool, and continued laughingbitterly as though he would shake himself to pieces.
Montigny recovered his composure first.
“Let’s see what he has about him,” he remarked; and he picked the deadman’s pockets with a practised hand, and divided the money into fourequal portions on the table. “There’s for you,” he said.
The monk received his share with a deep sigh, and a single stealthyglance at the dead Thevenin, who was beginning to sink into himself andtopple sideways of the chair.
“We’re all in for it,” cried Villon, swallowing his mirth. “It’s ahanging job for every man jack of us that’s here—not to speak of thosewho aren’t.” He made a shocking gesture in the air with his raised righthand, and put out his tongue and threw his head on one side, so as tocounterfeit the appearance of one who has been hanged. Then he pocketedhis share of the spoil, and executed a shuffle with his feet as if torestore the circulation.
Tabary was the last to help himself; he made a dash at the money, andretired to the other end of the apartment.
Montigny stuck Thevenin upright in the chair, and drew out the dagger,which was followed by a jet of blood.
“You fellows had better be moving,” he said, as he wiped the blade on hisvictim’s doublet.
“I think we had,” returned Villon with a gulp. “Damn his fat head!” hebroke out. “It sticks in my throat like phlegm. What right has a man tohave red hair when he is dead?” And he fell all of a heap again upon thestool, and fairly covered his face with his hands.
Montigny and Dom Nicolas laughed aloud, even Tabary feebly chiming in.
“Cry baby,” said the monk.
“I always said he was a woman,” added Montigny with a sneer. “Sit up,can’t you?” he went on, giving another shake to the murdered body.“Tread out that fire, Nick!”
But Nick was better employed; he was quietly taking Villon’s purse, asthe poet sat, limp and trembling, on the stool where he had been making aballade not three minutes before. Montigny and Tabary dumbly demanded ashare of the booty, which the monk silently promised as he passed thelittle bag into the bosom of his gown. In many ways an artistic natureunfits a man for practical existence.
No sooner had the theft been accomplished than Villon shook himself,jumped to his feet, and began helping to scatter and extinguish theembers. Meanwhile Montigny opened the door and cautiously peered intothe street. The coast was clear; there was no meddlesome patrol insight. Still it was judged wiser to slip out severally; and as Villonwas himself in a hurry to escape from the neighbourhood of the deadThevenin, and the rest were in a still greater hurry to get rid of himbefore he should discover the loss of his money, he was the first bygeneral consent to issue forth into the street.
The wind had triumphed and swept all the clouds from heaven. Only a fewvapours, as thin as moonlight, fleeting rapidly across the stars. It wasbitter cold; and by a common optical effect, things seemed almost moredefinite than in the broadest daylight. The sleeping city was absolutelystill: a company of white hoods, a field full of little Alps, below thetwinkling stars. Villon cursed his fortune. Would it were stillsnowing! Now, wherever he went, he left an indelible trail behind him onthe glittering streets; wherever he went he was still tethered to thehouse by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he must weave, withhis own plodding feet, the rope that bound him to the crime and wouldbind him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man came back to him witha new significance. He snapped his fingers as if to pluck up his ownspirits, and choosing a street at random, stepped boldly forward in thesnow.
Two things preoccupied him as he went: the aspect of the gallows atMontfaucon in this bright windy phase of the night’s existence, for one;and for another, the look of the dead man with his bald head and garlandof red curls. Both struck cold upon his heart, and he kept quickeninghis pace as if he could escape from unpleasant thoughts by mere fleetnessof foot. Sometimes he looked back over his shoulder with a suddennervous jerk; but he was the only moving thing in the white streets,except when the wind swooped round a corner and threw up the snow, whichwas beginning to freeze, in spouts of glittering dust.
Suddenly he saw, a long way before him, a black clump and a couple oflanterns. The clump was in motion, and the lanterns swung as thoughcarried by men walking. It was a patrol. And though it was merelycrossing his line of march, he judged it wiser to get out of eyeshot asspeedily as he could. He was not in the humour to be challenged, and hewas conscious of making a very conspicuous mark upon the snow. Just onhis left hand there stood a great hotel, with some turrets and a largeporch before the door; it was half-ruinous, he remembered, and had longstood empty; and so he made three steps of it and jumped into the shelterof the porch. It was pretty dark inside, after the glimmer of the snowystreets, and he was groping forward with outspread hands, when hestumbled over some substance which offered an indescribable mixture ofresistances, hard and soft, firm and loose. His heart gave a leap, andhe sprang two steps back and stared dreadfully at the obstacle. Then hegave a little laugh of relief. It was only a woman, and she dead. Heknelt beside her to make sure upon this latter point. She was freezingcold, and rigid like a stick. A little ragged finery fluttered in thewind about her hair, and her cheeks had been heavily rouged that sameafternoon. Her pockets were quite empty; but in her stocking, underneaththe garter, Villon found two of the small coins that went by the name ofwhites. It was little enough; but it was always something; and the poetwas moved with a deep sense of pathos that she should have died beforeshe had spent her money. That seemed to him a dark and pitiable mystery;and he looked from the coins in his hand to the dead woman, and backagain to the coins, shaking his head over the riddle of man’s life.Henry V. of England, dying at Vincennes just after he had conqueredFrance, and this poor jade cut off by a cold draught in a great man’sdoorway, before she had time to spend her couple of whites—it seemed acruel way to carry on the world. Two whites would have taken such alittle while to squander; and yet it would have been one more good tastein the mouth, one more smack of the lips, before the devil got the soul,and the body was left to birds and vermin. He would like to use all histallow before the light was blown out and the lantern broken.
While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he was feeling, halfmechanically, for his purse. Suddenly his heart stopped beating; afeeling of cold scales passed up the back of his legs, and a cold blowseemed to fall upon his scalp. He stood petrified for a moment; then hefelt again with one feverish movement; and then his loss burst upon him,and he was covered at once with perspiration. To spendthrifts money isso living and actual—it is such a thin veil between them and theirpleasures! There is only one limit to their fortune—that of time; and aspendthrift with only a few crowns is the Emperor of Rome until they arespent. For such a person to lose his money is to suffer the mostshocking reverse, and fall from heaven to hell, from all to nothing, in ab
reath. And all the more if he has put his head in the halter for it; ifhe may be hanged to-morrow for that same purse, so dearly earned, sofoolishly departed! Villon stood and cursed; he threw the two whitesinto the street; he shook his fist at heaven; he stamped, and was nothorrified to find himself trampling the poor corpse. Then he beganrapidly to retrace his steps towards the house beside the cemetery. Hehad forgotten all fear of the patrol, which was long gone by at any rate,and had no idea but that of his lost purse. It was in vain that helooked right and left upon the snow: nothing was to be seen. He had notdropped it in the streets. Had it fallen in the house? He would haveliked dearly to go in and see; but the idea of the grisly occupantunmanned him. And he saw besides, as he drew near, that their efforts toput out the fire had been unsuccessful; on the contrary, it had brokeninto a blaze, and a changeful light played in the chinks of door andwindow, and revived his terror for the authorities and Paris gibbet.
He returned to the hotel with the porch, and groped about upon the snowfor the money he had thrown away in his childish passion. But he couldonly find one white; the other had probably struck sideways and sunkdeeply in. With a single white in his pocket, all his projects for arousing night in some wild tavern vanished utterly away. And it was notonly pleasure that fled laughing from his grasp; positive discomfort,positive pain, attacked him as he stood ruefully before the porch. Hisperspiration had dried upon him; and though the wind had now fallen, abinding frost was setting in stronger with every hour, and be feltbenumbed and sick at heart. What was to be done? Late as was the hour,improbable as was success, he would try the house of his adopted father,the chaplain of St. Benoît.
He ran there all the way, and knocked timidly. There was no answer. Heknocked again and again, taking heart with every stroke; and at laststeps were heard approaching from within. A barred wicket fell open inthe iron-studded door, and emitted a gush of yellow light.
“Hold up your face to the wicket,” said the chaplain from within.
“It’s only me,” whimpered Villon.
“Oh, it’s only you, is it?” returned the chaplain; and he cursed him withfoul unpriestly oaths for disturbing him at such an hour, and bade him beoff to hell, where he came from.
“My hands are blue to the wrist,” pleaded Villon; “my feet are dead andfull of twinges; my nose aches with the sharp air; the cold lies at myheart. I may be dead before morning. Only this once, father, and beforeGod I will never ask again!”
“You should have come earlier,” said the ecclesiastic coolly. “Young menrequire a lesson now and then.” He shut the wicket and retireddeliberately into the interior of the house.
Villon was beside himself; he beat upon the door with his hands and feet,and shouted hoarsely after the chaplain.
“Wormy old fox!” he cried. “If I had my hand under your twist, I wouldsend you flying headlong into the bottomless pit.”
A door shut in the interior, faintly audible to the poet down longpassages. He passed his hand over his mouth with an oath. And then thehumour of the situation struck him, and he laughed and looked lightly upto heaven, where the stars seemed to be winking over his discomfiture.
What was to be done? It looked very like a night in the frosty streets.The idea of the dead woman popped into his imagination, and gave him ahearty fright; what had happened to her in the early night might verywell happen to him before morning. And he so young! and with suchimmense possibilities of disorderly amusement before him! He felt quitepathetic over the notion of his own fate, as if it had been some oneelse’s, and made a little imaginative vignette of the scene in themorning when they should find his body.
He passed all his chances under review, turning the white between histhumb and forefinger. Unfortunately he was on bad terms with some oldfriends who would once have taken pity on him in such a plight. He hadlampooned them in verses, he had beaten and cheated them; and yet now,when he was in so close a pinch, he thought there was at least one whomight perhaps relent. It was a chance. It was worth trying at least,and he would go and see.
On the way, two little accidents happened to him which coloured hismusings in a very different manner. For, first, he fell in with thetrack of a patrol, and walked in it for some hundred yards, although itlay out of his direction. And this spirited him up; at least he hadconfused his trail; for he was still possessed with the idea of peopletracking him all about Paris over the snow, and collaring him nextmorning before he was awake. The other matter affected him verydifferently. He passed a street corner, where, not so long before, awoman and her child had been devoured by wolves. This was just the kindof weather, he reflected, when wolves might take it into their heads toenter Paris again; and a lone man in these deserted streets would run thechance of something worse than a mere scare. He stopped and looked uponthe place with an unpleasant interest—it was a centre where several lanesintersected each other; and he looked down them all one after another,and held his breath to listen, lest he should detect some galloping blackthings on the snow or hear the sound of howling between him and theriver. He remembered his mother telling him the story and pointing outthe spot, while he was yet a child. His mother! If he only knew whereshe lived, he might make sure at least of shelter. He determined hewould inquire upon the morrow; nay, he would go and see her too, poor oldgirl! So thinking, he arrived at his destination—his last hope for thenight.
The house was quite dark, like its neighbours; and yet after a few taps,he heard a movement overhead, a door opening, and a cautious voice askingwho was there. The poet named himself in a loud whisper, and waited, notwithout come trepidation, the result. Nor had he to wait long. A windowwas suddenly opened, and a pailful of slops splashed down upon thedoorstep. Villon had not been unprepared for something of the sort, andhad put himself as much in shelter as the nature of the porch admitted;but for all that, he was deplorably drenched below the waist. His hosebegan to freeze almost at once. Death from cold and exposure stared himin the face; he remembered he was of phthisical tendency, and begancoughing tentatively. But the gravity of the danger steadied his nerves.He stopped a few hundred yards from the door where he had been so rudelyused, and reflected with his finger to his nose. He could only see oneway of getting a lodging, and that was to take it. He had noticed ahouse not far away, which looked as if it might be easily broken into,and thither he betook himself promptly, entertaining himself on the waywith the idea of a room still hot, with a table still loaded with theremains of supper, where he might pass the rest of the black hours, andwhence he should issue, on the morrow, with an armful of valuable plate.He even considered on what viands and what wines he should prefer; and ashe was calling the roll of his favourite dainties, roast fish presenteditself to his mind with an odd mixture of amusement and horror.
“I shall never finish that ballade,” he thought to himself; and then,with another shudder at the recollection, “Oh, damn his fat head!” herepeated fervently, and spat upon the snow.
The house in question looked dark at first sight; but as Villon made apreliminary inspection in search of the handiest point of attack, alittle twinkle of light caught his eye from behind a curtained window.
“The devil!” he thought. “People awake! Some student or some saint,confound the crew! Can’t they get drunk and lie in bed snoring liketheir neighbours? What’s the good of curfew, and poor devils ofbell-ringers jumping at a rope’s end in bell-towers? What’s the use ofday, if people sit up all night? The gripes to them!” He grinned as hesaw where his logic was leading him. “Every man to his business, afterall,” added he, “and if they’re awake, by the Lord, I may come by asupper honestly for this once, and cheat the devil.”
He went boldly to the door and knocked with an assured hand. On bothprevious occasions, he had knocked timidly and with some dread ofattracting notice; but now when he had just discarded the thought of aburglarious entry, knocking at a door seemed a mighty simple and innocentproceeding. The sound of his blows echoed t
hrough the house with thin,phantasmal reverberations, as though it were quite empty; but these hadscarcely died away before a measured tread drew near, a couple of boltswere withdrawn, and one wing was opened broadly, as though no guile orfear of guile were known to those within. A tall figure of a man,muscular and spare, but a little bent, confronted Villon. The head wasmassive in bulk, but finely sculptured; the nose blunt at the bottom, butrefining upward to where it joined a pair of strong and honest eyebrows;the mouth and eyes surrounded with delicate markings, and the whole facebased upon a thick white beard, boldly and squarely trimmed. Seen as itwas by the light of a flickering hand-lamp, it looked perhaps nobler thanit had a right to do; but it was a fine face, honourable rather thanintelligent, strong, simple, and righteous.
“You knock late, sir,” said the old man in resonant, courteous tones.
Villon cringed, and brought up many servile words of apology; at a crisisof this sort, the beggar was uppermost in him, and the man of genius hidhis head with confusion.
“You are cold,” repeated the old man, “and hungry? Well, step in.” Andhe ordered him into the house with a noble enough gesture.
“Some great seigneur,” thought Villon, as his host, setting down the lampon the flagged pavement of the entry, shot the bolts once more into theirplaces.
“You will pardon me if I go in front,” he said, when this was done; andhe preceded the poet upstairs into a large apartment, warmed with a panof charcoal and lit by a great lamp hanging from the roof. It was verybare of furniture: only some gold plate on a sideboard; some folios; anda stand of armour between the windows. Some smart tapestry hung upon thewalls, representing the crucifixion of our Lord in one piece, and inanother a scene of shepherds and shepherdesses by a running stream. Overthe chimney was a shield of arms.
“Will you seat yourself,” said the old man, “and forgive me if I leaveyou? I am alone in my house to-night, and if you are to eat I mustforage for you myself.”
No sooner was his host gone than Villon leaped from the chair on which hehad just seated himself, and began examining the room, with the stealthand passion of a cat. He weighed the gold flagons in his hand, openedall the folios, and investigated the arms upon the shield, and the stuffwith which the seats were lined. He raised the window curtains, and sawthat the windows were set with rich stained glass in figures, so far ashe could see, of martial import. Then he stood in the middle of theroom, drew a long breath, and retaining it with puffed cheeks, lookedround and round him, turning on his heels, as if to impress every featureof the apartment on his memory.
“Seven pieces of plate,” he said. “If there had been ten, I would haverisked it. A fine house, and a fine old master, so help me all thesaints!”
And just then, hearing the old man’s tread returning along the corridor,he stole back to his chair, and began humbly toasting his wet legs beforethe charcoal pan.
His entertainer had a plate of meat in one hand and a jug of wine in theother. He set down the plate upon the table, motioning Villon to draw inhis chair, and going to the sideboard, brought back two goblets, which hefilled.
“I drink to your better fortune,” he said, gravely touching Villon’s cupwith his own.
“To our better acquaintance,” said the poet, growing bold. A mere man ofthe people would have been awed by the courtesy of the old seigneur, butVillon was hardened in that matter; he had made mirth for great lordsbefore now, and found them as black rascals as himself. And so hedevoted himself to the viands with a ravenous gusto, while the old man,leaning backward, watched him with steady, curious eyes.
“You have blood on your shoulder, my man,” he said. Montigny must havelaid his wet right hand upon him as he left the house. He cursedMontigny in his heart.
“It was none of my shedding,” he stammered.
“I had not supposed so,” returned his host quietly.
“A brawl?”
“Well, something of that sort,” Villon admitted with a quaver.
“Perhaps a fellow murdered?”
“Oh no, not murdered,” said the poet, more and more confused. “It wasall fair play—murdered by accident. I had no hand in it, God strike medead!” he added fervently.
“One rogue the fewer, I dare say,” observed the master of the house.
“You may dare to say that,” agreed Villon, infinitely relieved. “As biga rogue as there is between here and Jerusalem. He turned up his toeslike a lamb. But it was a nasty thing to look at. I dare say you’veseen dead men in your time, my lord?” he added, glancing at the armour.
“Many,” said the old man. “I have followed the wars, as you imagine.”
Villon laid down his knife and fork, which he had just taken up again.
“Were any of them bald?” he asked.
“Oh yes, and with hair as white as mine.”
“I don’t think I should mind the white so much,” said Villon. “His wasred.” And he had a return of his shuddering and tendency to laughter,which he drowned with a great draught of wine. “I’m a little put outwhen I think of it,” he went on. “I knew him—damn him! And then thecold gives a man fancies—or the fancies give a man cold, I don’t knowwhich.”
“Have you any money?” asked the old man.
“I have one white,” returned the poet, laughing. “I got it out of a deadjade’s stocking in a porch. She was as dead as Cæsar, poor wench, and ascold as a church, with bits of ribbon sticking in her hair. This is ahard world in winter for wolves and wenches and poor rogues like me.”
“I,” said the old man, “am Enguerrand de la Feuillée, seigneur deBrisetout, bailly du Patatrac. Who and what may you be?”
Villon rose and made a suitable reverence. “I am called Francis Villon,”he said, “a poor Master of Arts of this university. I know some Latin,and a deal of vice. I can make chansons, ballades, lais, virelais, androundels, and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a garret, and Ishall not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my lord, that fromthis night forward I am your lordship’s very obsequious servant tocommand.”
“No servant of mine,” said the knight; “my guest for this evening, and nomore.”
“A very grateful guest,” said Villon politely; and he drank in dumb showto his entertainer.
“You are shrewd,” began the old man, tapping his forehead, “very shrewd;you have learning; you are a clerk; and yet you take a small piece ofmoney off a dead woman in the street. Is it not a kind of theft?”
“It is a kind of theft much practised in the wars, my lord.”
“The wars are the field of honour,” returned the old man proudly. “Therea man plays his life upon the cast; he fights in the name of his lord theking, his Lord God, and all their lordships the holy saints and angels.”
“Put it,” said Villon, “that I were really a thief, should I not play mylife also, and against heavier odds?”
“For gain, but not for honour.”
“Gain?” repeated Villon with a shrug. “Gain! The poor fellow wantssupper, and takes it. So does the soldier in a campaign. Why, what areall these requisitions we hear so much about? If they are not gain tothose who take them, they are loss enough to the others. The men-at-armsdrink by a good fire, while the burgher bites his nails to buy them wineand wood. I have seen a good many ploughmen swinging on trees about thecountry, ay, I have seen thirty on one elm, and a very poor figure theymade; and when I asked some one how all these came to be hanged, I wastold it was because they could not scrape together enough crowns tosatisfy the men-at-arms.”
“These things are a necessity of war, which the low-born must endure withconstancy. It is true that some captains drive over hard; there arespirits in every rank not easily moved by pity; and indeed many followarms who are no better than brigands.”
“You see,” said the poet, “you cannot separate the soldier from thebrigand; and what is a thief but an isolated brigand with circumspectmanners? I steal a couple of mutton chops, without
so much as disturbingpeople’s sleep; the farmer grumbles a bit, but sups none the lesswholesomely on what remains. You come up blowing gloriously on atrumpet, take away the whole sheep, and beat the farmer pitifully intothe bargain. I have no trumpet; I am only Tom, Dick, or Harry; I am arogue and a dog, and hanging’s too good for me—with all my heart; butjust you ask the farmer which of us he prefers, just find out which of ushe lies awake to curse on cold nights.”
“Look at us two,” said his lordship. “I am old, strong, and honoured.If I were turned from my house to-morrow, hundreds would be proud toshelter me. Poor people would go out and pass the night in the streetswith their children, if I merely hinted that I wished to be alone. And Ifind you up, wandering homeless, and picking farthings off dead women bythe wayside! I fear no man and nothing; I have seen you tremble and losecountenance at a word. I wait God’s summons contentedly in my own house,or, if it please the king to call me out again, upon the field of battle.You look for the gallows; a rough, swift death, without hope or honour.Is there no difference between these two?”
“As far as to the moon,” Villon acquiesced. “But if I had been born lordof Brisetout, and you had been the poor scholar Francis, would thedifference have been any the less? Should not I have been warming myknees at this charcoal pan, and would not you have been groping forfarthings in the snow? Should not I have been the soldier, and you thethief?”
“A thief!” cried the old man. “I a thief! If you understood your words,you would repent them.”
Villon turned out his hands with a gesture of inimitable impudence. “Ifyour lordship had done me the honour to follow my argument!” he said.
“I do you too much honour in submitting to your presence,” said theknight. “Learn to curb your tongue when you speak with old andhonourable men, or some one hastier than I may reprove you in a sharperfashion.” And he rose and paced the lower end of the apartment,struggling with anger and antipathy. Villon surreptitiously refilled hiscup, and settled himself more comfortably in the chair, crossing hisknees and leaning his head upon one hand and the elbow against the backof the chair. He was now replete and warm; and he was in nowisefrightened for his host, having gauged him as justly as was possiblebetween two such different characters. The night was far spent, and in avery comfortable fashion after all; and he felt morally certain of a safedeparture on the morrow.
“Tell me one thing,” said the old man, pausing in his walk. “Are youreally a thief?”
“I claim the sacred rights of hospitality,” returned the poet. “My lord,I am.”
“You are very young,” the knight continued.
“I should never have been so old,” replied Villon, showing his fingers,“if I had not helped myself with these ten talents. They have been mynursing mothers and my nursing fathers.”
“You may still repent and change.”
“I repent daily,” said the poet. “There are few people more given torepentance than poor Francis. As for change, let somebody change mycircumstances. A man must continue to eat, if it were only that he maycontinue to repent.”
“The change must begin in the heart,” returned the old man solemnly.
“My dear lord,” answered Villon, “do you really fancy that I steal forpleasure? I hate stealing, like any other piece of work or of danger.My teeth chatter when I see a gallows. But I must eat, I must drink, Imust mix in society of some sort. What the devil! Man is not a solitaryanimal—_Cui Deus fæminam tradit_. Make me king’s pantler—make me abbotof St. Denis; make me bailly of the Patatrac; and then I shall be changedindeed. But as long as you leave me the poor scholar Francis Villon,without a farthing, why, of course, I remain the same.”
“The grace of God is all-powerful.”
“I should be a heretic to question it,” said Francis. “It has made youlord of Brisetout and bailly of the Patatrac; it has given me nothing butthe quick wits under my hat and these ten toes upon my hands. May I helpmyself to wine? I thank you respectfully. By God’s grace, you have avery superior vintage.”
The lord of Brisetout walked to and fro with his hands behind his back.Perhaps he was not yet quite settled in his mind about the parallelbetween thieves and soldiers; perhaps Villon had interested him by somecross-thread of sympathy; perhaps his wits were simply muddled by so muchunfamiliar reasoning; but whatever the cause, he somehow yearned toconvert the young man to a better way of thinking, and could not make uphis mind to drive him forth again into the street.
“There is something more than I can understand in this,” he said atlength. “Your mouth is full of subtleties, and the devil has led youvery far astray; but the devil is only a very weak spirit before God’struth, and all his subtleties vanish at a word of true honour, likedarkness at morning. Listen to me once more. I learned long ago that agentleman should live chivalrously and lovingly to God, and the king, andhis lady; and though I have seen many strange things done, I have stillstriven to command my ways upon that rule. It is not only written in allnoble histories, but in every man’s heart, if he will take care to read.You speak of food and wine, and I know very well that hunger is adifficult trial to endure; but you do not speak of other wants; you saynothing of honour, of faith to God and other men, of courtesy, of lovewithout reproach. It may be that I am not very wise—and yet I think Iam—but you seem to me like one who has lost his way and made a greaterror in life. You are attending to the little wants, and you havetotally forgotten the great and only real ones, like a man who should bedoctoring a toothache on the Judgment Day. For such things as honour andlove and faith are not only nobler than food and drink, but indeed Ithink that we desire them more, and suffer more sharply for theirabsence. I speak to you as I think you will most easily understand me.Are you not, while careful to fill your belly, disregarding anotherappetite in your heart, which spoils the pleasure of your life and keepsyou continually wretched?”
Villon was sensibly nettled under all this sermonising. “You think Ihave no sense of honour!” he cried. “I’m poor enough, God knows! It’shard to see rich people with their gloves, and you blowing in your hands.An empty belly is a bitter thing, although you speak so lightly of it.If you had had as many as I, perhaps you would change your tune. Any wayI’m a thief—make the most of that—but I’m not a devil from hell, Godstrike me dead. I would have you to know I’ve an honour of my own, asgood as yours, though I don’t prate about it all day long, as if it was aGod’s miracle to have any. It seems quite natural to me; I keep it inits box till it’s wanted. Why now, look you here, how long have I beenin this room with you? Did you not tell me you were alone in the house?Look at your gold plate! You’re strong, if you like, but you’re old andunarmed, and I have my knife. What did I want but a jerk of the elbowand here would have been you with the cold steel in your bowels, andthere would have been me, linking in the streets, with an armful of goldcups! Did you suppose I hadn’t wit enough to see that? And I scornedthe action. There are your damned goblets, as safe as in a church; thereare you, with your heart ticking as good as new; and here am I, ready togo out again as poor as I came in, with my one white that you threw in myteeth! And you think I have no sense of honour—God strike me dead!”
The old man stretched out his right arm. “I will tell you what you are,”he said. “You are a rogue, my man, an impudent and a black-hearted rogueand vagabond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh! believe me, I feelmyself disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at my table. But now Iam sick at your presence; the day has come, and the night-bird should beoff to his roost. Will you go before, or after?”
“Which you please,” returned the poet, rising. “I believe you to bestrictly honourable.” He thoughtfully emptied his cup. “I wish I couldadd you were intelligent,” he went on, knocking on his head with hisknuckles. “Age, age! the brains stiff and rheumatic.”
The old man preceded him from a point of self-respect; Villon followed,whistling, with his thumbs in his girdle.
“God pity you,” said the lord of Brisetout at the door.
“Good-bye, papa,” returned Villon with a yawn. “Many thanks for the coldmutton.”
The door closed behind him. The dawn was breaking over the white roofs.A chill, uncomfortable morning ushered in the day. Villon stood andheartily stretched himself in the middle of the road.
“A very dull old gentleman,” he thought. “I wonder what his goblets maybe worth.”
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