by Frank Norris
Is foulest wrong to Yvernelle!”
Then she grew passionate and wild;
Nor closer mother to her child
E’er clung, when strong, blood-thirsty grasp
Threatened to tear it from her clasp,
Than she, with lovely, upturned face,
Clung to his neck in fond embrace.
In vain, with words and stern commands,
He strove to loose her tender hands;
And as with angel fair and bright
Once Jacob wrestled through the night,
So, risen on his bended knee,
With her he wrestled to be free,
And still he shouted, “Let me go!”
And still she clung and cried, “No, no!”
And then once more, with low, soft speech,
She strove his fixéd heart to reach.
“Oh, my beloved, dost think to quell
The love that in my heart doth dwell
By words or e’en by deeds of hate?
My love thy scorn cannot abate.
Behold, the very lips that frame
The cruel words of taunt and shame
I kiss in love and tenderness;
For curse returning a caress.”
Scarcely her lips on his did close
When, with a bound, the Knight arose;
For, swifter than the quivering spark
Of lightning ‘thwart the midnight dark,
A thought had flashed across his brain,
Filling his life with light again.
So fierce and hurriedly he spoke
His words for very haste did choke:
“Now let thy curse fall back on thee;
The kiss that blights thee sets me free!
The very lips that curse hath passed
Are those which lift it now at last!
‘Gainst innocence you railed your worst,
Now by your own spell are you cursed.
The worst that I could wish for you
Is that your own words may come true:
‘Cursed were the lips that next should press
Mine own in lovers’ fond caress;
On her who next should press them first
Numberless ills and woes should burst.
From that same moment foulest shame
Should like a blight beset her name, —
That kiss should e’en become a blot
Upon her life, and, fest’ring, rot,
And like a canker ever grow,
Until it had consuméd slow
Her friends, her peace, her love, her life,
Turned fellowship to mortal strife,
Made her abhorred of her own mind,
Her name a byword to mankind,
And like that born of Judas’ breath,
’Twould be the herald of her death.’
Such were thy words. Farewell to thee;
The kiss that blights thee sets me free!”
Fled was her strength, relaxed her clasp,
And from her feeble, loosening grasp
He freed himself with gesture rude.
In weary grief and lassitude
Down to the couch where he had lain
She flung herself, in mute, numb pain,
And buried deep her lovely head
Within the cushions he had fled;
Broken she lay upon the floor.
He looked not back, — he gained the door,
He passed once more to daylight clear,
Leaped on the steed that first was near;
Right through the thronging camp he pressed;
And ere the wondering meinie guessed
The cause of his wild disarray
Forth from the spot he’d sped away,
And his steed’s hoof-beats as he rode
Were less’ning on the distant road.
But from their speculations vain
The followers of that lordly train
Were summoned soon to graver care;
For, with a sad and solemn air,
The seneschal, Sir D’Entraguy,
Forth issuing from where did lie,
Mangled and broken from the fray,
The recent foe of Caverlaye,
Passed through their midst and sadly said:
“My Lord Tentiniac soon is dead;
Where is his sister, that she may
Once see him e’er he pass away?”
Whereat some silent turned aside,
And others strove a smile to hide,
And some a shoulder slightly raised,
Or meaningly upon him gazed,
Until one, marked of knightly grade,
In cruel bluntness roughly said:
“But now she tarried with the Knight
Who rode her brother down in fight.”
More sad than angry, D’Entraguy
Turned to the hermit’s hut near by,
And met his lady as she came,
Supported by attendant dame.
“Thy brother,” thus he gently said, —
“Thy brother, lady, soon is dead.”
“My brother dies! Oh, woe on woe!
The curse’s poison is not slow!”
No more she spake, but flew before,
And stooping at the tent’s low door,
Before the pallet rude and drear
(Soon to become her brother’s bier)
She sank, and, calling him by name,
Aroused life’s faint and flick’ring flame.
But not in love his eyes grew wide;
Or e’er he knew at his bedside
His sister’s form, how stern he gazed!
Feebly the trembling arm was raised.
His words’ disjointed, guttural sound
(For the sharp lance’s hideous wound
Had crushed his jaw and cleft his tongue)
Still rung with hatred deep and strong.
But though strange sounds begat his throat
That seemed not of the human note,
She read his features but too well;
His look was unmistakable,
And thus it spoke with meaning clear:
“Stretched mangled on my death-bed here
For sake of thee I part with life;
By thee was I urged to this strife,
And eagerly I pledged my faith
To fight thy quarrel to the death.
For then I thought ’twas for a cause
That merited high honor’s laws;
And thy betrayer had I slain,
And in his blood purged out the stain,
With heart that knew itself aright;
Or if the chances of the fight,
As now, had snapped life’s tightening thread,
And I been counted with the dead,
Fearless at death had been my glance,
In knightly wise with couchant lance.
But was it thus? No, by God’s Host,
Mine honor with my life is lost.
When that we met and it was mine
To be unhorsed with shattered spine,
And when you came upon us twain,
You cared not were I hurt or slain,
You thought not, no, nor cast one glance, —
Your only fear was lest my lance
The traitor’s heart had cleft or no.
Ah! would to God it had been so!
From me, who took my life in hand
To satisfy your proud command,
In wild forgetfulness you turned
To him whom most you should have spurned,
Your traitor in your arms did bear,
Your brother left to menial care!
And while I lay in cold neglect,
Tended by slaves with grudged respect,
Your care, your thought, your ev’ry power
Were lavished on your paramour,
And I had died without a thought
If hither you had not been brought
By vassal faithful s
till and true,
Who felt the shame forgot by you.
I knew not ’twas for you he went, —
Believe me, I would ne’er have sent
To tear you from your lover’s side, —
Sooner abandoned had I died
Than to have reft one moment dear
From those passed in his tender care.
I marvel that thou cam’st at all;
Go, seek him, lest in vain he call;
Go, thy seducer vile to nurse,
But going, take my dying curse!”
Next day upon the streamlet’s verge
Sounded the mournful funeral dirge;
With trailing arms and spears reversed
The men-at-arms his body hearsed:
Between the bridge where last he fought
And the deserted hermit’s eot.
The grave is closed, the tapers gleam;
With blessed water from the stream
The chaplain wets the new-made mound;
Bare-headed stands the crowd around,
And Guhaldrada, veiled in weed,
Leans like a weak and broken reed
Upon the women of her train
While sounds the Miserere’s strain.
But, when the last prayer had been said
In benediction for the dead,
And when the last and mournful rite
Was ended for the perished knight,
With sullen port and silence strained
The knights and men-at-arms remained,
Till even Guhaldrada’s eyes
Glanced round the throng in pained surprise,
And saw how in determined mood
Each mailéd warrior gloomy stood, —
Saw with a quick presentiment
That from her heart its warm blood sent,
Till D’Entraguy before the rest
Stood forward and such speech addressed:
“Lady, thy brother was our lord;
Dishonor was of him abhorred.
We were, we are his vassals leal;
Who did him wrong wronged us as well,
And (since strong deed strong word demands)
Foul wrong was done him at thy hands.
We honor and we love him still,
And one who did him deadly ill
We’re bound no longer to obey.
On this his mournful burial day
We each and severally resolve
Our ties of homage to dissolve;
Did he still live, we all do know
He would approve of what we do.
And more, though this were set aside,
Longer with thee we would not bide;
Beneath a flag we would not stir
That bore the dark bar sinister.
Our banner must have no defect;
We cannot serve without respect.
Such yoke upon our neck would gall;
So we decide — I speak for all —
Thus, once for all, and all at once,
My leal allegiance I renounce.”
Forth from his sheath his sword he drew,
Snapped its broad, glittering blade in two,
Then, without rage or passion’s heat,
Dropped the two pieces at her feet.
On Guhaldrada’s forehead dark
Her pride’s last faint surviving spark
Flamed like an adder’s swelling crest,
Then died forever in her breast.
Of all the movements that ensued
She nothing heard, she nothing viewed,
But gazed without one sign or word
On the bright fragments of the sword,
Until she heard the trumpet’s blast,
And saw her parting knights file past,
Pass o’er the bridge in silent mood
And on the far side gain the road.
Still with her stayed three maidens true,
And of her men-at-arms but two;
And as she saw herself thus left
Of friends, of honor, love bereft,
“My curse has fall’n on me!” she said;
“Storms are redoubling on my head;
My lips are cursed since they did press
His own in love and tenderness;
All their life’s deep and ruby hue
Fled from that pledge of lovers true.
That moment’s brief and transient bliss,
That followed that one parting kiss
Which set my cheek in scarlet glow,
Was e’en the last I e’er shall know.
From that same moment foulest shame
Clings like a fungus to my name.
Black evil crouches at my back;
Misfortune presses on my track.
Sealed by that kiss my fate is doomed;
Its curse, swift-spreading, hath consumed
Friends, brother, peace, and happiness,
Filled all my life with sore distress,
Made me abhorred of my own mind,
My name a byword to mankind;
And, like that born of Judas’ breath,
’Tis the forerunner of my death.
O’erwhelmed by brother’s dying scorn,
Blast with his curse of hatred born,
The object of retainers’ sneers,
Of every serf’s that hates and fears;
Dazed, stunned, bereft of every hope,
Eagerly downward do I grope, —
Down to that tomb, my only rest,
Down to that self-dug grave unblest,
Buried in ruin self-devised,
Disowned, dishonored, and despised.”
CANTO III. HOW SIR CAVERLAYE CAME TO BRITTOMARTE, TO KAERENRAIS, AND WHAT BEFELL HIM ON THE WAY.
TURN we from such sad scenes away
To follow after Caverlaye.
But fast, indeed, must be our flight
An we o’ertake the fleeing knight;
Riding as pinioned on the wind,
St. Cuthbert’s bridge is far behind.
The underbrush and forest-trees
Grow scant and scanter as he flees;
Soon he is out of the dark wood,
E’en as he leaves his once dark mood.
With every nerve at tensest strain
His foaming steed sweeps o’er the plain.
He leaps the stream, swift as a dart,
That bounds the fief of Brittomarte,
And the loud hoofs, with thund’rous sound,
Are speeding o’er familiar ground.
Sir Caverlaye’s impatient mood
Turned him from out the beaten road;
And ‘neath the sunset’s purple shades
He struck across the copse-wood glades.
At once hoarse croaking from their fare,
A cloud of ravens rise in air,
And on beholding their flock’s cause
Sir Caverlaye cannot but pause.
The deer’s white skeleton there lay
Upon the turf where, on that day
That seemed to him so long ago,
Old Baguenel had laid him low.
Here, then, he last had seen her face,
Here, then, that dreadful scene took place.
’Twas there she stood with pallid hue
And spoke to him her last adieu.
Time vanished, — long months passed away;
St. George! it seemed but yesterday!
In accents low and sweet tones clear
Her parting words rang in his ear, —
“Farewell till joined beyond death’s flood;
I wait in calm and trustful mood.”
There on that spot she turned away,
Casting on him her eyes’ last ray.
And he— ‘fore God, no more, no more;
Ride on, the day is almost o’er,
On till he cleared the waving copse,
And sees the pinnacled proud tops
Of Brittomarte flashing the ray
O
f sunset back towards dying day.
With scrambling leap and clattering bound
He gains the causeway that winds ‘round
The crag-girt hill-side, high and steep,
Whereon is built the mighty keep,
And on the draw before the grate
Now lowered, for the hour is late,
He reins his steed and loudly calls,
To bring the warder to the walls.
Yet, while he waited for reply,
He saw with apprehensive eye
That where once joy o’erflowed each tower,
An air of sadness seemed to lower.
Rising above the donjon vast,
The castle’s banner at half-mast;
Above the deep and grated door
The hatchment was with black hung o’er.
Within the wide and open court,
Where once were scenes of noisy sport,
Where jessed falcons flapped and screamed,
Where horses pawed and lances gleamed,
Was now deserted, cold, and gray;
And over all a sadness lay,
Which did like sadness straight impart
To Caverlaye’s fast-failing heart.
In answer to repeated call
There came at last the seneschal.
Though spent with years and hoary gray,
At once he knew Sir Caverlaye.
For in his former lusty prime
Sir Caverlaye full many a time,
A gleeful, roistering, laughing child,
His shoulders bare in frolic wild,
Or with him found the dun deer’s haunts,
Or at the quintaine aimed his lance.
Soon as he saw his well-known knight
Standing without in grievous plight,
He shouted quick to raise the grate;
And ere its chains ceased to vibrate
He stood at his steed’s saddle-bow
With welcome words and friendly show.
Scant courtesy the knight vouchsafed:
With fierce impatience he was chafed.
“How now, Sir Hugh, is all not well?
How fares my Lady Yvernelle?
Why flies the flag half-masted low?
Speak out. What mean these signs of woe?”
“Foul fell the day,” Sir Hugh replied,
“That you departed from her side.
To her thou shouldst have e’er been true.
My lord, strange tales are told of you. —
I choose to think that the Black Art.
Hath changed in thee thy once firm heart, —
As some have said, — than to suppose
That wittingly thou’dst bring such woes
Upon the head of Yvernelle.
No, no, Sir Knight, all is not well.
“Sir Raguenel, when thou wast gone,
Mourned as it were an only son.
At times his rage against thee burned,
At times to tears his ire was turned,
Or sat for hours in gloomy mood,