Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  “An oath to you, vile serf! To soil my word by passing it to you!” cried out Neroweg, and he added with another outburst of sardonic laughter: “As well might I give my word as a Catholic and a knight to the ass or any other beast of burden!”

  “This is too much!” yelled Fergan exasperated, while he ran to pick up his club. “By the bones of my father, you shall die!”

  At the very moment, however, when the serf had anew seized the cudgel, Joan, clinging to his arm said with terror: “Do you hear yonder growing noise?... It approaches.... It rumbles like thunder!”

  “Father,” cried out Colombaik, no less horrified than his mother, “look yonder! The sky is red as blood!”

  The serf raised his eyes, and, struck with the strange and startling spectacle, forgot all about Neroweg. The orb of the sun, already near the horizon, seemed enormous and of purple hue. Its rays disappeared at intervals in the midst of a burning mist which it lighted with a dull fire, and whose reflection suddenly crimsoned the desert and the air. The frightful spectacle seemed to be seen through some transparent glass tinted with a coppery red. A furious gale, still distant, swept over the desert and carried with its dull and prolonged moanings a breath as scorching as the exhalations of a furnace. Flocks of vultures fled at full tilt before the approaching hurricane, scurrying over the ground or dropping down motionless, palpitating, or uttering plaintive squeaks. Suddenly the sun, ever more completely eclipsed, disappeared behind an immense cloud of reddish sand that veiled the desert and the sky, and that advanced with the swiftness of lightning, chasing before it the jackals and the lions, that roared with fear, and rushed by, terror-stricken, a few steps from Fergan and his family.

  “We are lost! This is a sand-spout!” cried out the quarryman.

  Hardly had the serf uttered these words of despair when he found himself enveloped by a sand cloud as fine as ashes, and dense as a fog. The mobile soil, hollowed, thrown up and up-turned by the irresistible force of the sand-spout, opened at the feet of Fergan, who, with wife and child, disappeared under a sand wave. The gale furrowed, beat about and tossed up the sands of the desert as a tempest furrows, beats about, and tosses up the waters of the ocean.

  CHAPTER III.

  THE EMIR’S PALACE.

  THE CITY OF Marhala, like all others in the Orient, was crossed by narrow and sinuous streets, bordered with whitewashed houses, bearing narrow windows. Here and there the dome of a mosque or the top of a palm tree, planted in the middle of an interior court-yard, broke the uniformity of the straight lines formed by the terraces, that surmounted all the houses. Since about fifteen days, and after a murderous siege, the city of Marhala had fallen into the power of the army of the Crusaders, commanded by Bohemond, Prince of Taranto. The ramparts of the city, half torn down by the engines of war, presented at several places only a heap of ruins, from which a pestilential odor escaped, due to the decomposition of the Saracen bodies that were buried under the débris of the walls. The gate of Agra was one of the points most violently attacked by a column of Crusaders under the order of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, and also most stubbornly defended by the garrison. Not far from the spot rose the palace of the Emir of Marhala, killed at the siege. According to the manner of the Crusaders, William had his standard raised over the door of the palace, of which he took possession.

  Night was falling. Maria, a large wrinkled old woman, with a beaked nose, protruding chin, and clad in a long Saracen pelisse, sat crouched upon a kind of divan, furnished with cushions, in one of the lower halls of the Emir’s palace. She had just issued the order to some invisible person: “Let the creature come in, I wish to examine her!”

  The creature that came in was Perrette the Ribald, the mistress of Corentin the Gibbet-cheater. The young woman’s complexion, now tanned by the sun, rendered still more striking the whiteness of her teeth, the coral tint of her lips and the fire of her eyes. The expression of her pretty face preserved its blithe effrontery. Her tattered costume was of both sexes. A turban of an old yellow-and-red material partially covered her thick and curly hair; a waistcoat or caftan of pale green and open embroidery, the spoils of a Saracen and twice too large for her, served her for a robe. Held at the waist by a strip of cloth, the robe exposed the naked legs of the Ribald, together with her dusty feet, shod in shoddy sandals. She carried at the end of a cane a small bundle of clothes. Upon entering the hall, Perrette said to the old woman deliberately: “I happened on the market place when an auction sale of booty was being conducted. An old woman, after eying me a long time, said to me: ‘You seem to be the right kind of a girl. Would you like to exchange your rags for pretty clothes, and lead a merry life at the palace? Come with me.’ I answered the old woman: ‘March, I follow! Feastings and palaces are quite to my taste.’”

  “You look to me to be a wide-awake customer.”

  “I’m eighteen years old. My name is Perrette the Ribald. That’s what I am.”

  “Your name is written on your brazen brow. But are you good company? Not quarrelsome and not jealous?”

  “The more I look upon you, honest matron, the surer I am of having seen you before. Did you not keep at Antioch the famous tavern of the Cross of Salvation?”

  “You do not deceive yourself, my child.”

  “Ah, you must have made many a bag of gold besans in your holy brothel.”

  “What were you doing in Antioch, my pretty child?”

  “I was in love ... with the King!”

  “You are bantering, my friend, there was no king in the Crusade.”

  “You forget the King of the Vagabonds.”

  “What! The chief of those bandits, of those skinners, of those eaters of human flesh?”

  “Before he became the king of the bandits, I loved him under the modest name of Corentin the Gibbet-cheater. Oh, what has become of him?”

  “You must have left him?”

  “One day I made a slip. I committed an infidelity towards him. I do not plume myself upon my constancy. I left the King of the Vagabonds for a duke.”

  “A duke of beggars?”

  “No, no! A real duke. The handsomest of all the Crusaders, William IX.”

  “You were the mistress of the Duke of Aquitaine?”

  “That was in Antioch, after the siege. William IX was crossing the market-place on horseback. He smiled, and reached his hand out to me. I placed my foot on the tip of his boot, with one jump I landed in front of his saddle, and he took me to his palace,” and seeming to recall some droll incident, Perrette laughed out aloud.

  “Are you laughing at some of your tricks?” asked the old shrew.

  “On that same day when the Duke of Aquitaine took me on his horse, a very beautiful woman went by in a litter. At the sight of her he turned his horse and followed the litter. I, fearing he would drop me for the other woman, said to him: ‘What a treasure of beauty is that Rebecca the Jewess, that has just gone by in a litter.’ Ha! ha! ha! old lady,” Perrette added, breaking out anew into roars of laughter. “Thanks to that lucky slander, my debauché turned about and galloped off to his own palace, fleeing from the litter no less frightened than if he had seen the devil. And so it happened that, at least for that one day, I kept my duke, and we spent the night together.”

  “I see. And what became of your king?”

  “On the same evening of that adventure, he left Antioch with his vagabonds on an expedition. I have not seen him since.”

  “Well, my little one, in default of your king, you will find your duke back. You are here in the house of William.”

  “Of the Duke of Aquitaine?”

  “After the siege of the city, William took possession of the Emir’s palace. He gives to-night a feast to several seigneurs, the flower of the Crusade. Almost all old customers of my tavern in Antioch: Robert Courte-Heuse, Duke of Normandy; Heracle, seigneur of Polignac; Bohemond, Prince of Taranto; Gerhard, Count of Roussillon; Burchard, seigneur of Montmorency; William, sire of Sabran; Radulf, seigneur of Haut-Poul, and
many more merry blades, without counting the gentlemen of the cloth, and the tonsured lovers of pretty girls, of Cyprus wine and of dice.”

  “Is it for this one feast, you old mackerel, that you are engaging me?”

  “You will remain in the palace until the departure of the army for Jerusalem, my gentle pupil and pearl of gay girls.”

  The entrance of a third woman interrupted the conversation between Maria and Perrette, who, uttering a short cry, ran to a miserably dressed young girl, just let in. “You here, Yolande?”

  Yolande preserved her beauty, but her face had lost the charm of candor, that rendered her so touching when she and her mother implored Neroweg VI not to deprive them of their patrimony. The face of Yolande, alternately bold and gloomy, according as she brazened out or blushed at her degradation, at least gave token that she was conscious of her infamy. At sight of Perrette, who ran towards her with friendly eagerness, Yolande stepped back ashamed of meeting with the queen of the wenches. Perrette, reading on the countenance of the noble girl a mixture of embarrassment and disdain, said to her reproachfully: “You were not quite so proud when, ten leagues from Antioch, I kept you from dying of thirst and hunger! Oh, you put on airs! You have become haughty!”

  “Why did I leave Gaul?” muttered Yolande with sorrowful contrition. “Though reduced to misery, at least I would not have known ignominy. I would not have become a courtezan! A curse upon you, Neroweg! By depriving me of the inheritance of my father, you caused my misfortune and shame!”

  The girl, unable to repress her tears, hid her face in her hands, while Maria, who had attentively examined her, said to Perrette in an undertone: “Oh, the pretty legs of that girl! Do you know Yolande?”

  “We left Gaul together, I on the arm of the Gibbet-cheater, Yolande at the crupper of her lover, Eucher. In Bohemia, Eucher was killed by the Bohemians who resisted us. Yolande, now a widow and alone, could not continue so long a journey without protection. From one protector to another, Yolande fell under the eyes of the handsome Duke of Aquitaine at Bairut in Syria. Later I found her riding on the road to Tripoli dying of hunger, thirst and fatigue — —”

  “And you came to my aid, Perrette,” fell in Yolande, who, having dried her tears, overheard the words of the queen of the wenches. “You gave me bread and water to appease my hunger and thirst, and you saved my life.”

  “Come, my children, let’s not have tears,” remarked the matron. “Tears make old faces. You shall be taken to the baths of the Emir, where are assembled some of the most beautiful Saracen female slaves of that infidel dog.”

  At that moment an old woman, the same who had introduced Perrette and Yolande to the hall, came in roaring with laughter, and said to the other shrew: “Oh, Maria, what a find! A diamond in your brothel!”

  “What makes you laugh that way?”

  “A minute ago, coming back from casting my hook on the market-place,” — and she broke out laughing anew. Presently she proceeded: “And I found there — I found there — a diamond!”

  “Finish your story!”

  But the second old hag, instead of answering, disappeared for an instant behind the curtain that masked the door, and immediately re-appeared conducting Joan the Hunchback, who led by the hand the little Colombaik, no less exhausted than herself from privations and fatigue. To all cruel hearts the poor woman, indeed, was a laughable sight. Her long, tangled hair, half tumbling over her face, fell upon her bare shoulders, dusty like her breast, arms and legs. Her clothing consisted of shreds, fastened around her waist with a band of plaited reeds, so that her sad deformity was exposed in all its nudity. Joan had stripped herself of the rags that constituted the bodice of her robe in order to wrap the feet of Colombaik, flayed to the quick by his long tramp across the burning sands. The quarryman’s wife, sad and broken down, quietly followed the shrew, and daring not to raise her eyes, while the latter did not cease laughing.

  “What sort of thing is that you bring me there?” cried out the coupler. “What do you want to do with that monster?”

  “A first-class joke,” replied the other, finally overcoming her hilarity. “We shall rig out this villein in some grotesque costume, leaving her hump well exposed, and we shall present this star of beauty to the noble seigneurs. They will split their sides with laughter. Imagine this darling in the midst of a bevy of pretty girls. Would you not call that a diamond?”

  “Ha, ha, ha! An excellent idea!” the matron rejoined, now laughing no less noisily than her assistant. “We shall place upon her head a turban of peacock feathers; we shall ornament her hump with all sorts of gew-gaws. Ha, ha! How those dear seigneurs will be amused. It will pay us well!”

  “That’s not all, Maria. My find is doubly good. Look at this marmot. It is a little cupid. Everyone to his taste!”

  “He is certainly sweet, despite his leanness, and the dust that his features are stained with. His little face is attractive.”

  Seized with compassion at the sight of Joan and her child, Yolande had not shared in the cruel mirth of the two shrews. But Perrette, less tender, had broken out into a loud roar, when, suddenly struck by a sudden recollection, and attentively eyeing Joan, against whom Colombaik, no less confused and uneasy than his mother, was cuddling closely, the queen of the wenches cried out: “By all the Saints of Paradise! Did you not inhabit in Gaul one of the villages of a neighboring seigniory of Anjou?”

  “Yes,” answered the poor woman in a weak voice, “we started from there on the Crusade.”

  “Do you remember a young girl and a tall scamp who wanted to carry you along to Palestine?”

  “I remember,” answered Joan, regarding Perrette with astonishment; “but I managed to escape those wicked people.”

  “Rather say those ‘good people,’ because the young woman was myself, and the tall scamp my lover, Corentin. We wanted to take you to the Holy Land, assuring you that you would be exhibited for money! Now, then, by the faith of the queen of the wenches! confess, Yolande, that I am a mighty prophetess!” added Perrette, turning to her companion. But the latter reproachfully answered her: “How have you the courage to mock a mother in the presence of her child!”

  These words seemed to make an impression upon Perrette. She checked her laughter, relapsed into a brooding silence, and seemed touched by the fate of Joan, while Yolande addressed the woman kindly: “Poor, dear woman, how did you allow yourself to be brought here with your child? You cannot know what place this is. You are in a house of prostitution.”

  “I arrived in this city with a troop of pilgrims and Crusaders, who, by a miracle, escaped, like myself and son, a sand-spout that buried, a fortnight ago, so many travelers under the sands of the desert. I had sat down with my son under the shadow of a wall, exhausted with fatigue and hunger, when yonder woman,” and Joan pointed to the shrew, “after long looking at me, said to me charitably: ‘You seem to be very much tired out, you and your child. Will you follow me? I shall take you to a holy woman of great piety.’ It was an unlooked-for piece of good luck to me,” added Joan. “I put faith in the words of this woman, and I followed her hither.”

  “Alack! You have fallen into a hateful trap. They propose to make sport of you,” Yolande replied in a low voice. “Did you not hear those two shrews?”

  “I care little. I shall submit to all humiliation, all scorn, provided food and clothing be given to my child,” rejoined Joan in accents that betokened both courage and resignation. “I will suffer anything upon condition that my poor child may rest for a while, recover himself and regain his health. Oh, he is now doubly dear to me — —”

  “Did you lose his father?”

  “He remained, undoubtedly, buried in the sand,” answered Joan, and like Colombaik, she could not restrain her tears at the memory of Fergan. “When the sand-spout broke over us, I felt myself blinded and suffocated. My first movement was to take my child in my arms. The ground opened under my feet and I lost consciousness. I remember nothing after that.”

  �
�But how did you reach this city, poor woman?” asked the queen of the wenches, interested by so much sweetness and resignation. “The road is long across the desert, and you seem too feeble to sustain the fatigues of such a journey.”

  “When I regained consciousness,” answered Joan, “I was lying in a wagon, near an old man who sold provisions to the Crusaders. He took pity upon me and my child, having found us in a dying condition, half buried under the sand. Surely my husband perished. The old man told me he saw other victims near us when he picked us up. Unfortunately the mule to which the wagon of the charitable man was hitched died of fatigue ten leagues from Marhala. Compelled to remain on the road and to abandon the troop of pilgrims, our protector was killed trying to protect his provisions against the stragglers. They pillaged everything, but they did not harm us. We followed them, fearing to lose our way. I carried my child on my back when he found himself unable to walk. It was thus that we arrived in this city. It is a sad story!”

  “But your husband may yet, like you, have escaped death. Do not despair,” observed Yolande.

  “If he escaped that danger, it was probably to fall into a greater, for the seigneur of Plouernel — —”

  “The seigneur of Plouernel!” exclaimed Yolande interrupting Joan, “do you know that scoundrel?”

  “We were serfs in his seigniory. It is from the country of Plouernel that we departed for the Holy Land. Accident made us meet with the seigneur count shortly before the sand-spout burst upon us. My husband and he fought — —”

  “And did he not kill Neroweg?”

  “No, he yielded to my prayers.”

  “What, pity for Neroweg, Worse than a Wolf!” exclaimed Yolande in an explosion of rage and hatred. “Oh, I am but a woman! But I would have stabbed him to the heart without remorse! The monster!”