The Angel Asrael
Page 2
Given that “Éloa” is such a tentative work, featuring a heroine who is so innocent that she does not even realize that the angel with whom she has fallen in love is Lucifer until he drags her down to Hell with him, and that Cazotte’s account of a female demon smitten with a handsome human eventually takes refuge in surreal confusion rather than attempting any kind of moral denouement, there is some justification for regarding Asrael et Nephta as the first literary work really to grasp the moral nettle in trying to address the questions it raises, in a remarkable alloy of allegorical and naturalistic terms. Whether the reader will find the eventual resolution genuinely satisfying will necessarily depend on the reader’s own ethical standpoint, but the story certainly does not shirk the issue; there is nothing vague or evasive about it…except, perhaps, for the question, neglected and left dangling, of what will happen to poor Jeanne, left devoid of support for eternity soon after the beginning of the story by Asrael’s initial defection from Hell.
Berthoud did contrive to reprint Asrael et Nephta during the phase of his belated popularity, by slipping it surreptitiously into an 1862 volume of Légendes et traditions surnaturelles des Flandres (sic), which reprinted almost all of the contents of the 1831 volume (but not “Le Séminariste”), a set of linked tales from the second volume of the 1834 collection, and a dozen or so similar items written after 1834. The novella remained, however, one of his more obscure works, too far from the orthodox to win much praise from critics of readers. Like Contes misanthropiques, however, it is an important early contribution to a subgenre that was to become increasingly important as the nineteenth century went on, and, as such, was one of many significant signposts Berthoud planted that anticipated not merely the direction that Romantic prose would take, but also the evolution of the Decadent and Symbolist movements that followed it.
Although the translation of Asrael et Nephta is undoubtedly the most important story in the present collection, it is not the only one that can be seen with the aid of hindsight to have been far ahead if its time. Another of the stories from the 1831 collection dropped from the 1862 collection, “La Délation” (tr. as “Delation”), can now be appreciated as a remarkable early study of personality dissociation and experimental exploration of “stream-of-consciousness” narration. In combination with the other narratives from the 1831 collection, Contes misanthropiques and Asrael et Nephta, it helps to demonstrate what a truly ground-breaking author Berthoud was in that era, and how amply deserving he is of a modern reappraisal of his achievements.
The translation of “Asrael et Nephta” was made from the text in the version of the 1862 version of Légendes et traditions surnaturelles des Flandres reproduced on Google Books. The translations of the stories from the 1831 collection were made from the version of the 1834 reprint reproduced on the Bibliothèque Nationale’s gallica website.
Brian Stableford
BEAUDUIN BRAS-DE-FER
871
There still exist, in Flemish dialect,
songs full of originality, which must
date back to the remotest epochs.
Such, among others, is that of
Beauduin Bras-de-Fer.
(Le Carpentier, Histoire de Cambrai.)2
I
“Flanders to the rescue! Beware the iron hand!” Such was the war-cry of Comte Beauduin Bas-de-Fer.
II
When that cry was heard in the fiercest part of the battle, you could be sure that it would immediately open a wide passage, for death was inevitable for anyone who did not flee before the great sword of Beauduin Bras-de-Fer.
III
If the warriors, by night, around a large fire, recounted the prowess of a knight, striking their coats of arms and saying “Our Lady protect him, for no one has a better right to the name of knight,” you can be certain that they were talking about Beauduin Bras-de-Fer.
IV
One day, he stood at the entrance of his tent, had the clarion sounded, and started crying himself, and having his heralds repeat it: “Come all, come hear your lord and master, Comte Beauduin Bras-de-Fer.”
V
“Men of war and faithful companions,” he said, “Flanders is the most beautiful of comtés.”
All the soldiers immediately replied: “And the bravest of comtes is Comte Beauduin Bras-de-Fer.”
VI
“My companions,” he continued, “who seems to you to be worthy of becoming Comtesse de Flandre and to be put in the bed of your lord and master, Comte Beauduin Bras-de-Fer?”
VII
There was a long murmur among all the men-at-arms, each enquiring of his neighbor and saying: “By the salvation of my soul, there’s only one woman worthy of being put in the bed of Beauduin Bras-de-Fer.”
VIII
“There is indeed only one!” cried Beauduin. “She is young, she is beautiful, she is fecund; she is so nobly born that one could not ask for better; she wears the bonnet of a queen. Isn’t that the one that Comte Beauduin Bras-de-Fer must have?
IX
“The daughter of King Charles of France, the widow of King Edward of England, Madame Judith, whom everyone calls the beautiful widow, is coming back from overseas to go to her father. Four thousand lances escort her; she has eighteen carts full of gold. She will pass by Mons in a little while. Would you like her for your Comtesse, for the wife of Beauduin Bras-de-Fer?”
X
“Yes! Yes! We want that!” That was what the army howled, in a voice like an angry sea. “Yes, yes! We want the beautiful widow, for Comtesse de Flandre, for the wife of Comte Beauduin Bras-de-Fer.”
XI
“Then tighten the buckles of your armor, bestride your chargers, and come to conquer a Comtesse for Flanders with the points of your lances, a wife for Beauduin Bras-de-Fer.”
XII
“To arms! To arms!”
An hour later, there remained not one man-at-arms of the four thousand English lances.
A knight covered in blood opened the litter of Madame Judith, the beautiful widow, and said to her, courteously: “Noble lady, here comes a husband for you, the Comte de Flandre, Comte Beauduin Bras-de-Fer.”
THE DEAD
1136
The Priest. Requiescat in Pace.
The Deacon. Amen.
“It is sad to see that the clergy, in that still
disordered century, like a great nation, had
its populace as it has its nobility, its
ignorant and its criminals as well as its
scholars and virtuous prelates. Since that
time, what remained to it of barbarism
has been polished by the reign of Louis
XIV, and what it had of corruption was
washed away in the blood of the martyrs it
offered to the Revolution. Thus, by a very
particular Destiny, perfected by the
monarchy and the Republic, softened by one
and chastised by the other, it has arrived that
today, it is austere and rarely vicious.
(Alfred de Vigny, Cinq-Mars, chapter II.)3
Gilles-Amalric Delavigne, squire of Sire Gérard de Saint-Aubert,4 was returning in all haste. “Blessed be Monseigneur Liétard!” he thought.” Even more blessed be the worthy provost of the church, Messire Nicolas de Chièvres, by whose intercession the bishop of Cambrai has deigned to accord me a dispensation to set forth today, the great festival of All Saints! Without that dispensation, I would not have been able to see my lovely wife Gertrude until tomorrow. By Saint Gilles my patron, since the Monseigneur betrothed me to Gertrude personally, and endowed her so richly, a vespers has appeared to me to be as long as a Christmas Eve when one is awaiting the midnight mass.
“She will be very surprised, she will be very joyful, soon, when she sees me return. When I left Saint-Aubert to go to Cambrai, she said to me in an agreeable and sad fashion: ‘Oh, how endless the time will seem to poor Gertrude during those two long days of absence!’
“
She does not expect me until tomorrow, and here I am on the road to Saint-Aubert. In half an hour I will be embracing her.”
Those thoughts caused the man-at-arms to give his mount a thrust of the spur, immediately changing its gait to a fast trot. Besides which, in addition to the desire to see his wife, anyone else in Amalric’s place would have preferred a manor to the muddy and difficult road that led to Saint-Aubert. The north wind was blowing violently; the rain was falling in torrents, and it was the hour when the souls of the dead, covered in long white shrouds, come to tap with a desiccated finger on the doors of their relatives and friends, in order to recommend themselves to their prayers.
Then again, everyone knows that anyone who passes from life to death by murder on All Saints’ Day never reposes tranquilly in his bier before having punished the one who has caused his death. Frightful and marvelous things are related on that subject.
Now, the worthy squire Gilles-Amalric had made war more than once on that day of ill-renown, notably the previous year, when Monseigneur Gérard was so terribly punished for having profaned the sanctity of a great feast. For he had been beaten and taken prisoner, with his men, by the Franks, at the moment when he was emerging from the fortress of Hugues d’Oisy, his father-in-law, in order to go an surprise the manor of Cambrai while vespers was being said for the dead.
God and the Holy Virgin alone know how much it had cost Monseigneur Gérard to redeem himself. This was the fifth time that he, Gilles-Amalric, had taken to Bishop Liétard a heavy bag of a hundred silver marks, not to mention all the domains gained lance in hand, which it had been necessary to return. After that, the worst of all: a damned garrison of a hundred men-at-arms more insolent than sires of high lineage, and who, for six long months, came to lodge and gorge themselves at the Château de Saint-Aubert. Thanks to Our Lady, they had been gone since the feast of Saint Anne, ninety-eight days before.
While these thoughts were causing a blush to rise to the face of the worthy man-at-arms, and, mechanically, he gripped the shaft of his lance more tightly, he perceived in the distance, through the trees, a light whose aspect suddenly changed the course of his ideas.
“God be praised!” he said, breathing more easily. “It’s the Château de Saint-Aubert! That light is shining in the tower that flanks the manor’s left wing. It’s a true pharos of amour, for it announces to me that my Gertrude is awake in the tower only inhabited by the two of us. As a good Christian and a faithful spouse, she is surely saying some prayer to Saint Julien for the poor voyager Amalric.”
As he concluded that mental monologue, the feet of his good Norman horse slid over the large sandstone blocks on which the drawbridge came to pose, presently raised in accordance with the custom over every evening. Taking his horse back a few strides he sounded the horn.
The drawbridge lowered and a sentinel came to recognize the newcomer. “Enter, Master Squire,” he said.
A few paces away stood a man with a venerable face, clad in a robe of black camlet, with a silver carcan suspended around his neck. That was Master Wirembault Delavigne, the steward of Gérard de Saint-Aubert’s house and Amalric’s brother.
“Jesus my savior!” he said, making the sign of the cross. “Is that really you, my brother? Holy Virgin! You have dared, scorning the commandments of the Church, to set forth on a feast day like this! If no misfortune has happened to you for such a great sin, you’re assuredly luckier than you are wise!”
“Reassure yourself, my devout brother; a truce on your remonstrations. I obtained a dispensation from Monseigneur the Bishop of Cambrai to travel today. Thanks to that blessed parchment, I have encountered nothing nasty, neither goblins not ghosts. It’s true to say, however, that I, who would never recoil before a ballista loaded with stones, believed that I saw incessantly appearing the skeletal visage of some man-at-arms slain by me a year ago to the day...
“Hola! Hey, varlet!” he shouted, interrupting a passing groom. “Take my horse to the stable and give him good provender, for he has come from the manor of Cambrai, where chargers have litter up to their knees and the steward is not stingy, like some of my acquaintance, for a bale of straw and a handful of oats.”
While speaking, Amalric had dismounted from the horse and had thrown the reins to the varlet. Then traversing the long corridor, he went into an immense and solitary hall.
The walls were decked with brilliant armor, while reflected the light of a lamp suspended from the ceiling. Further on, heaps of various instruments of war, ballistas, etc., were visible.
Amalric deposited his lance and buckler some distance from his master’s arms. Then he took off large boots of a sort in flexible iron mesh, lined inside with thick leather. After that he took off a camisole similarly woven of little steel rings, the end of whose sleeves enclosed the hand in a glove devoid of fingers. The glove was split under the palm in order to allow a sword to be gripped and reins to be manipulated. At the height of the shoulders, the iron tunic terminated in a hood of the same fabric as the rest, which was pulled down over the face in combat. Three holes larger than the rest allowed the eyes to see and the mouth to breathe. That bag of sorts, its round form maintained by a leather lining, was the only kind of helmet then in use.
Disencumbered to such a heavy accoutrement of war, Amalric remained in a deer-hide doublet, a narrow garment that outlined his thin and wiry figure. Then he started climbing, briskly, the spiral stairway leading to the bedroom that he and his wife occupied in the château. On the way, he had the idea of giving Gertrude a joyous fright by coming to her at a stealthy pace, for which his soft and flexible deerskin shoes would serve marvelously.
So here he goes, climbing each step with precaution, having trouble not bursting out laughing; he opens the door by a crack...
O rage!
Gertrude is in Gérard’s arms!
He seeks his dagger; he is unarmed...
They have not seen him, no...oh, his vengeance will only be deferred...
And in the most frightful despair that ever struck an unfortunate with vertigo, he tries to descend to the armory...
He mistakes the corridor; it is on the platform of the tower that he is marching...
He takes one more step. Suddenly, the water of the deep moat resounds with a dull sound. Amalric has just fallen into it.
A few moments later, the hour for evening prayers was heard to chime. The men-at-arms, the varlets, the ladies of the bedchamber, went into the chapel and knelt down there. Dame Gertrude, her complexion animated by a slight blush, took her place among the latter, bedside the prie-dieu of the beautiful and unhappy Ermangarde d’Oisy, Gérard’s wife.
Neglected, continually a victim of the castellan’s ill-humor, Ermangarde opposed to the harshest treatment an angelic resignation. Spending all day in prayer, she had only one pastime, that of going to console the suffering, and there was no lack of them at Saint-Aubert. She administered balm to some, and gave rich alms to others. All were comforted by the benevolent words of her mild voice. Those worthy people, when they emerged from their cottages, said to one another, shaking their heads sadly: “Our poor lady is very pale and very ill. Weary! What will become of us if she ever dies?—may the Holy Virgin preserve us from it! Who will intercede with the Monseigneur for our mercy? Who will cure us when we fall ill? Who will console us when we are afflicted?”
After the almoner had recited all his paternosters and everyone had responded amen, men-at-arms, varlets, ladies of the bedchamber and the rest went away, some to stand guard and the others to sleep tranquilly. Master Delavigne, one of the last to emerge, came gravely to accost his beautiful sister-in-law, who was talking to Gérard.
“You ought to admonish your spouse, Dame Gertrude, in order that he does not abstain thus from the common prayer on the Holy Day of All Saints.”
“Master Delavigne,” she replied, in a playful tone, “I assume that Amalric has acquitted his Christian duties devotedly. As if one would fail in the precepts of devotion in the house of a bish
op!”
“That pretence is not appropriate,” the steward put in, ill-humoredly. “The first person to see my brother a little while ago was me.”
Gertrude went pale, and Gérard appeared to experience some embarrassment. Delavigne, convinced by Gertrude’s solemn tone, and even more by her sharp emotion, put his hands together in astonishment.
“What has become of him, then?” he asked, in an inexpressible anxiety. “He cannot have left the château; the drawbridge is raised and the portcullis lowered. May this mystery not hide some great misfortune!”
And while Gertrude, shedding tears, went to her mistress in order to carry out her duties as a lady of the bedchamber, Master Delavigne, escorted by two varlets, ran all over the château, calling to his brother in a loud voice.
Day was beginning to break, and he had not yet found anything.
Wirembault had explored the ramparts ten times over. Nevertheless, the sentinel charged with watching the drawbridge perceived the unfortunate steward going along them again, although he knew in advance the futility of that further search.