“In heaven, Master; she is dead.”
“She is dead! And the debris of your soul that she has left on earth, you are going to offer to the Lord? You are going to ask the Lord to take your body, bruised by the horrible bonds of the flesh?”
“Oh yes, Master, let God take my body—I’m suffering so much!”
“What? You speak of suffering, child? What is your grief, then, if not the deliverance of your flesh, escaped from the flesh that would have tortured it, after having put it to sleep with the mirage of deceptive caresses? Oh, you have been robbed of your stupor? God, with the seal of eternity, has closed the lips that poured into your heart the devouring poison of love—and you call that suffering, child? The glory of Heaven is already shining for your young eyes. Of that which you call your suffering, child, Heaven will cure you.”
“My fiancée, Master, shall I find her there?”
“You will find the perfection of all things there. If your love truly merited quitting the earth to live in Heaven, if the beauty of your fiancée was worthy of ethereal dwellings, you will be united on high for eternity with the one who aspired your desires in this world.”
“Thank you, Master, thank you!”
While speaking, the priest has examined the jewels thrown pell-mell into the filigree basket; his fingers have palpated the precious stones amorously, one by one, and their contact seems to have cast a disturbance into his mind that he is having difficulty overcoming. From time to time he wipes a diamond tarnished by the young man’s tears on his robe, looks again at the translucent stone, and contemplates its dazzling facets lovingly. After a final glance full of tenderness, as if regretfully, he places the little filigree basket on the ground and stands up, after having attached the symbol of redemption to the adolescent’s breast.
He continues to file before the ranks of the prostrated faithful, sometimes pausing, retained by some casket more sumptuous than its neighbors. At each of these brief stops, he distributes emblems that he takes from his black velvet pouch. He finally arrives before a woman enveloped in the veils of mourning; she is holding to her lips, outside layers of black muslin, a large gold crown with silver leaves. The priest tears it away violently, and the woman follows the brutal hand that might break the frail golden circle with a dolorous gaze.
“Ah! Your nuptial crown, woman?”
“No, Master.”
The priest considers the precious object and, prey to a violent indignation, says: “What is this crown, woman?”
The woman utters a cry, and in a scarcely intelligible voice, sobbing, babbles: “My daughter…my daughter...”
The priest examines the creature kneeling before him for a long time, and suddenly remembers.
“Oh yes! Féliah the sinner! Where is she, then? Still down there, enmired in her stupor, is she not? Ah, when she swore the oath to follow us, I saw the mortal flame that devoured her glinting in her eye; I sensed that it was impossible for her to abandon her jewels and riches! Let her wallow, then, in the warm mire of sensual pleasures, in which her body softens to become easier prey to the dolors that await her! Let her go to sleep, then, in her abhorrent luxury before the avenging hour of the awakening sounds! And you, woman, to obtain pardon for the heavy sin of your maternity, is this all that you have brought: your daughter’s festival crown? The ornament with which she embellished herself to fortify the attractions of her execrable beauty?
“Listen to me: you will retake the road to Panbiole. It is your duty as a mother, you understand, to return to your daughter. It’s necessary that she marches on the road to salvation, thus adorned—and remember, if the sun discovers the narrowest part of her body unprotected by a shield of gems and gold, your daughter, woman, will be on the field devoted, for eternal time, to the most frightful tortures! So, you will dress her in her jewels, you will charge her...”
The woman has tried to speak several times, but only a dry croak has emerged from her taut throat. With an almost inhuman cry, she interrupts the priest. “She has gone, Master!”
And, in jerky phrases, she says that her servants saw her leave at nightfall, after remaining for several days hidden in the depths of her palace, dressed in white, on the arm of a man.
The priest has listened with an almost indifferent expression, but when he learns that Féliah has distributed to the poor of Panbiole the totality of her wealth, he throws the crown down on to the ground. It breaks, and in a voice trembling with wrath, he says: “She’s gone? With her lover? Dressed in white?” And he repeats, furiously: “With her lover... with her lover…dressed in white!”
His eyes come to rest on the grassy bank, which is still compressed by the imprint of two bodies.
“Ah! It was them who fled as we approached! There, they have embraced before the face of Heaven, hollowing out their indecent abyss even further. We’ll find their bloody bodies lying at the bottom of a ditch, where the road has opened up beneath their feet to annihilate them!”
The woman utters groans while the priest, who has been rejoined by his two companions, continues howling until one of them stops him by tugging on the large sleeves of his robe. All three begin a very animated discussion, in the course of which one of them points a finger at the grassy bank, making energetic signs of negation, which seemingly end up winning the approval of them all.
They count the squares of red cloth remaining in their pouches, thus finding the number they have distributed; they converse together for a little while longer, then they embrace one another three times, and the oldest of the priests, moving a few paces away, orders the faithful who have received the sign of forgiveness to gather around him.
“Follow me, you who have merited salvation! As for you, children of golden bubbles for whom, one day, grace will shine with all the brilliance of holy faith…old men, whose stride no longer triumphs over the fatigue of the route and whom, down here, if you are worthy of it, God will come himself to seek you out, go back to Panbiole with the two sacred servants that I leave you…listen, repeat their words, which are those of the God of light and joy!”
Slowly, the faithful who bear the silver circle radiant with gold on their breasts separate themselves from those who are to return; the two groups are now standing some distance apart. The old priest has already given the signal to depart when Féliah’s mother, until then prostrate in her grief, races to join the cortege that has already taken a few strides along the ascendant route. One of the priests grabs her, and, in spite of her cries, he drags her back by force in the direction of Panbiole, followed by the crowd of children and old men that the other priest is driving ahead of him.
The cries of Féliah’s mother are still audible when Aiglor, in spite of all the efforts made by his companion to hold him back, emerges from his hiding place. He seems utterly distraught at what he has just seen and heard. He covers his face with his hands and stands immobile until Féliah, approaching softly, takes his hands, which she passes around her neck, and their breasts come together, her eyes interrogating her lover’s eyes.
Under that gaze, Aiglor, shivering, murmurs in a very low whisper, as if afraid of hearing the sound of his own voice: “Your mother, Féliah! Your mother, whom you’re abandoning…your despairing mother...”
Féliah has thrown her arms recklessly around her lover’s neck and, lip to lip, her head slightly tilted back to render the contact of their bodies more complete, she says: Leave, my love…leave…you alone, my Aiglor, you alone occupy my thoughts...”
“Your hear, Féliah…your heart...”
“My heart is full of you, Aiglor. Only that which concerns you causes it disquiet...”
A shadow passes over Aiglor’s eyes, and after a long silence, he goes on: “Think, Féliah: our hands are empty; no adornment brightens us…and did not the priest say, a little while ago, that gold and gems…?”
“Shut up, my friend! Am I not rich in affection? Are we not dazzling in our common happiness? Does our love not shine as brightly as gold and gems? Is not ou
r love, my Aiglor, as radiant as the sun?”
Aiglor is weeping softly and his tears dampen their two faces. Finally, he attempts a supreme argument.
“Did you not hear, Féliah? In the stairway to the temple, there is only room for one body and one soul at a time! It will be necessary for us to separate, Féliah…to separate…do you understand?”
Violently, the woman has thrown her head back; she launches a long glance at the flamboyant sun, full of hatred and defiance, and, with her fingers interlaced around the nape of the man’s neck, she says: “Separate, us? One by one, you say, one climbs to the summit of the temple? Well, are we not one being? Is my body not your body? Is your soul not my soul? My Aiglor, we shall be so narrowly bound together that a single ray of sunlight will fuse us together in the same ascent!”
Aiglor and Féliah are no longer speaking; they look around. At the same time their eyes pause on the grassy bank where the blades of grass are straightening one by one, gradually erasing the trace of the two bodies that lay down there. Standing on tiptoe, Féliah crushes her lips upon those of her lover; enlaced, they are gradually drawing nearer to the bank, which seems to be calling them with an invincible attraction, when the sound of breaking branches suddenly becomes audible. A man, who had hidden in order to allow the troop going back down to Panbiole to pass by, emerges from the trees bordering the road, and Féliah only just has time to drag Aiglor behind the clump of rose-bushes.
The man advances slowly; a black cloak envelops him from head to toe, and his face is entirely hidden beneath a large hat the same color as the cloak. He is walking with his shoulders drooping and his head bowed; unintelligible sounds emerge from his mouth.
Féliah presses herself against her lover’s bosom, as if gripped by a sudden terror at the sight of the strange individual, who, having arrived on the level ground, stops and darts an empty, indifferent glance around him. His cloak opens, and with his right hand he removes his hat, uncovering long blond hair, which hangs down to his shoulders in thick curls brightened by the sun. He has turned toward Panbiole and his lips are incessantly repeating the same syllables, mechanically, with indifferent inflections, sometimes murmuring them like a prayer and sometimes roaring them like an anathema.
Without worrying about the man—who is, in any case, too absorbed to pay attention to what is happening around him—Aiglor has straightened up suddenly. Trembling, he stammers: “Féliah, it’s your name that he’s pronouncing!”
But the woman, smiling in spite of the increasing pallor of her face, forces the man to sit down again beside her, and, in a voice only marked by a slight emotion, says: “Of my name, my lover, your lips alone can pronounce the syllables. It is your love that makes them audible in all the noises arriving at your ear…about what is your heart anxious? One day, do you remember, did you not tell me in the garden of my palace that you recognized the name that is dear you in the songs of birds and the quivering flight of butterflies? It’s your tenderness, my Aiglor, that is sighing your lover’s name in your heart…thank you, my Aiglor!”
And while Féliah, by means of her caresses, tries to deflect her lover’s attention, Aiglor listens breathlessly to the pilgrim, who is exhaling the plaint of his betrayed love in a lamentable fashion.
“Oh, your beauty blossomed in my heart as the breeze, floating over the sea, swells bosoms avoid for its odorous breath. But alas, the breeze rose into a murderous tempest, unchaining icy gusts and bruising hailstones in my heart. Oh, the infernal power that has poured the devouring poison into the tenderness of our love! Alas, I was still very young when a seeress discovered over my heart a tiger-claw ready to rip it…that claw, Féliah, was your white hand with pink fingernails…the seeress told me that a day would come when the tiger would vanquish the lion.
“A sinister prediction! Yes, the lion has fallen, his heart ripped by the cruel claw! Yes, Féliah, you have vanquished me—me, Prince Lowenol! My heart, broken by its torture, is no more than a palpitating rag in my dolorous breast…and yet, the blood of the masters of Panbiole ran in my veins. I was born to rule over all Humania, but alas, if I had been king, would I have been able to become your slave? So I quit that court, fearful of the divine clarity of your eyes, and my father, refusing to believe that someone of his race could be foolish enough prefer the beauty of a woman to the glory of sitting on a throne, and no longer recognizing his own blood within me, disowned me.
“My mother died of shame and chagrin, and on her deathbed, while swearing to her fidelity, she covered me with her malediction. Oh, poor mother! Is it your anathema that has made a sinister, moaning ruin of the life of your child? My life, Féliah, was breathing the air that you breathed. My life was seeing your eyes smile. Oh, Féliah! I had made you the queen of a palace of light in which you gave me the eldest of our loving kisses. The hectic hymn of our tenderness rose in the splendor of our joy; but into the bright palace, the treacherous shadow slid, veiling my gaze even to your dear presence. In the thickness of that darkness, I pursued in vain your fleeing phantom. My hands, open before me, have wandered, groping, along lugubrious walls into which my head bumped...”
In a voice as heavy as a groan, Aiglor exhaled: “Oh, Féliah! Your name! Your palace! It’s you...”
Still smiling, Féliah interrupts him softly.
“Let it go, my love. That poor fellow isn’t talking about me. In Panbiole, there are other palaces than mine, and am I the only woman in the world named Féliah?”
Aiglor remains nonplussed for a moment, his eyes looking into his the eyes of his mistress; then he exclaims, in a tone of dolorous adoration: “There is but one Féliah on earth, as there is but one God in Heaven! Oh, our love, Féliah…!”
Féliah, putting her hand over his mouth, stops him speaking, because Lowenol has been staring at the rose-bush for a few moments. Again, however, he turns toward Panbiole; his stooped body gradually straightens and his pale face brightens with a sudden radiance.
“Ah, your palace! That is what is as resplendent down there as a sacred altar to which the absent priestess will bring back life, Féliah! Would the darkened palace shine if your beauty had not rendered it brilliant? Is it not the sun that comes to illuminate the black tomb of the sky? Féliah, impotent death has fled without touching our love! My pious breath will reanimated the momentarily wearied flame. Lightened, it will launch our ecstatic hearts into the sublimities of harmonious joy!”
Suddenly, his arm, extended forwards, fall back alongside his body. A cloud extinguishes the radiance of his face.
“And if the shadow returns to menace your palace, I shall pursue it with a burning torch! Your palace will catch fire one last time and our united beings with soar in the ardor of a similar death!”
He stops, frightened; his knees buckle and his voice, now beseeching, seems to want to cover his last words with forgetfulness.
“No, Féliah…life watches jealously over our love. Féliah, the night, in brushing with its wing my excessively suspicious heart, has broken it forever!”
He places both hands on the left side of his breast, as if to appease a stabbing pain; then, with infinite precaution, he takes from his bosom a withered rose, whose thorns, remaining on the long stem, tear his flesh and catch on his garments. He looks at the faded flower for a long time, plunged in his sadness.
“This flower I took one morning from those scattered in your room, from which you had fled…since then, its frightful bite has remained upon my heart…but it is dead now, the flower of treason, leaving in its place the rose of hope!”
He stands up abruptly, and, swinging the withered flower by the extremity of its stem, he hurls it far away from him with a great gesture of deliverance.
“Go to oblivion, infamous souvenir!”
And, approaching the clump of rose-bushes, he climbs on to the grassy bank. From the summit of the flowery massif, he picks a barely-open rose, whose petals, timidly tinted with red, are sheathed by four mossy points of green velvet. He lifts it to his lips a
nd magnified, it seems, by his passion, he utters a long cry of triumph.
“Love, down there is resplendent! Down there our love is summoning me!”
At a hectic run he launches himself down the steep slope that goes down to rejoin the houses of Panbiole, and his cloak, only fastened at the neck, floats behind him.
The flower thrown by Lowenol has flown over the clump of bushes to fall at Féliah’s feet, after having brushed Aiglor’s head. The latter, his features contracted, has seized Féliah’s arm, which he is shaking violently.
“You have betrayed me! You have betrayed me!”
Insensible to the brutal grip, the woman seems to be searching for the words that will calm her lover’s anger.
“Betray you, my Aiglor? Oh, death would be the thousand times preferable to the perjury of our love!”
As Féliah speaks, the man’s grip relaxes, and ends up opening completely. The woman picks up the rose fallen at her feet, and mechanically plucks away the stiffened petals, one by one.
She has fallen silent, but Aiglor, on his knees, begs: “Speak, Féliah…speak...”
Suddenly, the woman, joyful at having finally found the explanation from which absolute confidence will be born, exclaims: “Oh, how foolish I am! Do you not remember that man who has stirred up your jealousy?”
As Aiglor remains motionless, without replying, she continues: “Remember, Aiglor…do you not recall having seen, at the theater, an individual who said the same words, in the same voice? It was one of the best-loved actors in Panbiole. Frenetic acclamations greeted his appearance, and before his harmonious voice had concluded the final words of the play, an avalanche of bouquets, falling from all the galleries, thanked the actor for the emotion that his genius had caused to pass through the souls of the spectators...”
The Petitpaon Era Page 4