The Angel Asrael

by S. Henry Berthoud

  “I can’t, I don’t want to be a priest,” he repeated, more firmly.

  At each of Séverin’s words an inexpressible joy refreshed Magalouffe’s blood. Oh, he thought, Sainte Marthe has taken pity on the troubles of her unworthy servant, and she had deigned to put into my son’s soul the thrice-blessed desire to be a cook, like his father! He’s already a little old, but no matter; I shall put all my cares into it, and within four years, he’ll be the second cook in Cambrésis.

  “I’m in love with a young woman,” Séverin continued, “and we’ve promised one another fidelity in love in this world and the next.”

  “You’re getting married, you’re getting married! Oh, my son, my Séverin, what would I not do, in the contentment that you have given me, on seeing you renounce your foolish sciences, to see you become a cook!”

  “You’re mistaken, Father; there’s no need for me to be a cook to earn an honest living. Apart from the benefits of Messire Watremetz, my work as a rubricator will give me a means to live comfortably when I have the woman I love for a wife, Lydorie...”

  As Séverin spoke, Magalouffe saw all the illusions he had created vanish. At the name of Lydorie he uttered a cry of despair and anger.

  “Lydorie! Lydorie! A bastard! A gypsy! The daughter of a prostitute, reproved by God and the saints…!

  “Listen! If you mention this infamous design to me again; if you mention once more the name of…the name that is killing me…I will give you my malediction!”

  Neither the tears, nor the supplications not the despair of the poor young man, nor anything he could say, could succeed in bending the pitiless old man. Exasperated by the resistance that his son opposed to him, he even ended up chasing him away without mercy, forbidding him ever to reappear before his eyes.”

  His heart gripped by a mortal sadness, Séverin returned to Messire Watremetz’s house.

  On seeing him, the young woman understood the sad news that he was going to announce, and fell unconscious.

  Then, when Séverin’s cares, although he was almost in the same state as her, had recalled her to life, she dissolved in tears.

  There was in that frightful moment of despair an ineffable sweetness for Séverin, for Lydorie, for the first time, called him by the most affectionate names and lavished the most tender caresses upon him.

  Her feeble head rested on Séverin’s shoulder, and her hand gripped her friend’s hand gently; and the rest of the day went by like that.

  It was finally necessary to separate.

  On returning to his room, Séverin allowed himself to fall into the greatest depression. It was necessary for him to leave the house of Messire the Canon; it was necessary for him not to see Lydorie again—and to live without seeing her seemed harsher than dying.

  Dying! At that idea, a culpable desire, a burning and frightful vertigo, took hold of the unfortunate fellow; he seized a dagger, plunged it into his breast, and fell, uttering a loud cry.

  When he came round, Madame Berthe, Messire Watremetz and Lydorie were surrounding his bed and weeping, for they believed him to be dead, having found him unconscious and bathed in his own blood.

  Messire Watremetz, who had some knowledge of the curative arts, examined his wound attentively. He announced that it did not seem dangerous, and that within a week nothing would remain to the invalid but a great weakness caused by the loss of blood.

  Lydorie was so good that she remained on vigil that night beside Séverin.

  In the morning, before quitting him, she put a silver ring on his finger and said to him: “As long as that ring remains, dear beloved, Lydorie will be yours and will love you truly and endlessly.”

  The patient tried to answer those sweet words with a few of his own, but she fled.

  The canon’s prognostications with regard to Séverin’s wound did not take long to be verified, and it healed promptly.

  Séverin had attributed his wound to an accident, improvised as best he could, and as the canon and his sister, good people, simple and without deviation, had no suspicion of the tenderness of the two lovers, Lydorie spent the greater part of the day in the bedroom of her brother—which was what she called Séverin.

  Once, however, evening arrived without him having seen her; he was drawing the saddest and most disquieting conjectures from that, when Messire Watremetz appeared and sat down beside the convalescent.

  “Now then,” he said, with kindness, “I know everything, Séverin. Your father has told me about your amour, and I understand now what hand and what determination caused your wound. But if the mercy of God has permitted that you did not bring such a crime to a conclusion, it is not for me, a sinner like you, to show myself more severe than Him.

  “Listen, my child; I have made vain attempts to soften your father; I have not been able to have any effect on him. On the other hand, Monseigneur the Bishop is irritated by your refusal to receive orders. In addition, I cannot favor an amour that is illicit, since your father reproves it. It is necessary for you, my dear child, to arm yourself with courage; accept in a spirit of penitence the chagrins that are overwhelming you, and put your consolations and your hope in the infinite mercy of the Lord.

  “Here are thirty gold coins; hold on to them carefully. Tomorrow you will depart with my brother the chief curate when he goes, by order of Monseigneur the Bishop to the city of Rheims, to the archbishopric. My brother will find you protectors in that city, and you will lead a comfortable existence there thanks to your great talent as a rubricator, until we can succeed in bending your father, which I dare not hope for soon.

  “Go, then, my child, and keep a good remembrance of those who have brought you up, who love you, and who will doubtless never see you again, for they are very advanced in age and God will not be long delayed in calling them to him. May His Holy Will be done!

  “Go, dear Séverin, and for lack of your father’s blessing, that of an old man will accompany you.”

  With those words, tears ran down the venerable canon’s cheeks, and he hugged Séverin to his breast for a long time, who had thrown himself into his arms.

  The next day, at daybreak, as Séverin was departing sadly from the canon’s house, and while passing under Lydorie’s windows, he raised his eyes to see, once more, at least, the place where she was, a little scroll of parchment thrown through the bared window fell at the young man’s feet.

  He picked it up, with some emotion, as you will understand, and read the words said to Séverin in his bedroom on the day that he had tried to kill himself: As long as that ring remains, dear beloved, Lydorie will be yours and will love you truly and endlessly.

  The pupil of Messire Watremetz arrived without encumbrance in Rheims, where he soon became the favorite of the archbishop, a great lover of beautiful manuscripts and missal-paintings.

  “Séverin, my friend,” said the prelate, every time he saw him, “Séverin, do you not want to enter the clergy? Come the end of the year and you will be my chaplain, with rich benefits, the best that depend on my pleasure.”

  Séverin, smiling sadly, thanked the archbishop and replied that he could not offer the Lord a heart full of a mortal object.

  Two years after Séverin’s departure, Lydorie, sitting in the embrasure of a large window, remembered the events of her life and wept.

  The orphan of a gypsy, picked up out of charity, perhaps obliged to live poorly on the labor of her hands when her benefactors were no more; and then, without hope, not merely of belonging to the man she loved so much, about, alas, even of seeing him again, one more time!

  What young woman in the world has more to mourn than her? If Master Magalouffe could only allow himself to be softened at last! If he could only take pity on the exile of his son and Lydorie’s dolor!

  But no; nothing can overcome his pride or his disdain; for he is rich, and if he does not come from a noble lineage, at least, alas, he has nothing at which to blush in his mother.

  Why had God not granted her great treasures and noble birth? Oh
, no, she would not sacrifice to vanity placid good fortune devoid of desire! She would live the rest of her days with Séverin, with her beloved friend. Amour is worth more than grandeur—and then, it is so sweet to be able to enrich the person one loves!

  While she was delivering herself to such thoughts, someone came to tell her that Madame Berthe was summoning her urgently. She obeyed that order, quickly wiping her eyes, reddened by tears, and went down into the big room, where she found with the worthy dame and Messire Watremetz a stranger clad in the scalloped mantle and hood of a pilgrim. The pale face, hollow eyes, unkempt gray beard and long, fleshless hand of the unknown man inspired a vague fear in Lydorie, which caused her to draw nearer to the canon.

  The physiognomies of Madame Berthe and her brother expressed a great emotion. The stranger was shedding tears, sobbing and striking himself on the breast, repeating: “Lord have pity on me!”

  After a time, he raised piercing eyes upon Lydorie, at whom he stared fixedly. “It’s her! There’s no doubt about it; it’s her. Yes, even if that silver medal around her neck did not attest the fact, it would only be necessary to see her; she’s the portrait of her mother.”

  At those words of the pilgrim, an icy shiver ran through all Lydorie’s limbs, and it was necessary to support her, for her knees were giving way.

  Woe! Woe! she thought. This pilgrim is my father; it’s the gypsy’s husband!

  And the mild leisure and wellbeing of the canon’s house seemed already to have quit her, to give way to the miserable life of a beggar.

  The pilgrim asked: “Show me the black mark that she ought to bear on her right hand.”

  After having seen it, he knelt down, and, striking the floor with his forehead, he said: “Noble Comtesse de Coucy, I pledge allegiance between your hands, and I promise, by the merits of the Holy Cross, to do everything for you, for life, until death, a faithful vassal, as my duty requires.

  “I am very culpable in your regard, but grant me mercy, not because of me—I only merit opprobrium—but for the honor of our family. In the name of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross of Calvary pardoning his murderers; in the name of the merits of Our Lady, have mercy on me!”

  What she was seeing and hearing appeared to Lydorie to be a dream, assuredly very pleasant, but to which the slightest sound might put an end.

  And while she remained in such doubt, the canon told her by what divine ways all that had come about. The kneeling pilgrim was the Sire de Montroche, Lydorie’s uncle. On the death of his brother he had had his baby niece abducted, and a gypsy woman had been charged, in exchange for a considerable sum, to take her so far away that no mention of her would ever be heard. A piece of wood was put in a coffin in her stead, to create the belief that she had died suddenly. That crime put the great wealth of the Comte de Coucy in the possession of her brother, the Sire de Montroche.

  But he did not enjoy them for long without remorse. Having lost sleep, and sensing himself close to his end by a malady of languor, he confessed his crime to a hermit. The holy man enjoined him to set forth in search of his niece, to restore her domains to her and to implore her mercy—after which, he ought to retire to a solitary place to spend the rest of his life in harsh penitence.

  He had not had to carry out long research to find his niece, for he had heard mention of the orphan of Cambrai, and had then conceived the suspicion that she was his niece.

  Lydorie lifted her uncle to his feet and granted him pardon, after which the penitent withdrew, his soul delivered from a great weight, promising to return to find Lydorie in two days’ time to take her to her domains and have her recognized by her vassals as their lady and legitimate Comtesse.

  Left alone Lydorie surrendered to intoxicating thought.

  A Comtesse! A Comtesse! Rich! Vast domains! Men-at-arms who watched over the walls of her château! Ladies of the bedchamber! Sparkling adornments of precious stones! The place of honor at tourneys!

  Oh, why was Séverin, instead of being a clerk in sciences, not a knight expert in delivering great blows of a lance? How happy she would have been to give him the prize or a tourney with her own hands!

  Those ideas kept her awake all night.

  When it was known in the town of Cambrai that Lydorie had become a noble lady and one of the richest heiresses of the Vermandois, everyone hastened to come to congratulate her and strive to please her.

  Magalouffe followed the example of everyone else, rejoicing privately in having for a daughter-in-law a comtesse of high lineage. However, it is necessary to say that he held his own profession of Episcopal cook in such high esteem that such a marriage appeared to him very fortunate, but not unexpected and unmerited, and not entirely a misalliance.

  Decked out in his finest robe, therefore, he came to inform Lydorie that he gave his consent to her marriage to Séverin.

  It would be better, he thought, incontrovertibly, it would be better, to wait for the request to be addressed by her. But I treated her so badly once that she might never dare to mention it to me now. Perhaps also, a misplaced pride and the resentment of my former disdain might prevent them from doing so. Let us therefore do something for the poor children, toward whom, after all, I have shown a great deal of severity.

  When Magalouffe came in, Lydorie was talking to Monseigneur the Bishop, and the prelate’s nephew, Sire Eustache de Lens, a handsome fellow of commanding appearance.

  The rather small patrimony of that knight was adjacent to the Comté of Coucy; now, to combine the two domains into one and surmount his escutcheon with a comtal crown would suit him so well that he had taken no repose before his uncle had introduced him to Lydorie.

  Dame Berthe’s pupil had never heard the flowery and perfumed words of sires of high lineage, so the poor girl allowed herself to be gripped immediately by the honeyed words of Sire Eustache and did not take long to make, without meaning to, a comparison between him and Séverin—who, alas, was far from speaking with such fluency and grace.

  None of the progress that he was making in the favorable opinion of Lydorie escaped Sire Eustache, and the sweet talker ended up entangling the child in vanity and foolishness, her head being too feeble to support such a strong and unusual odor of incense without spinning. To believe him, it was not today that he had begun to suspect Lydorie’s noble origin; the first time he had seen her—and he had only arrived at the manor the day before yesterday—he had enquired the name of the chatelaine that he had been amazed to see at Messire Watremetz’s window.

  With a smile on her lips and red cheeks, therefore, Lydorie was taking pleasure in such base flattery, taking it for good and sound currency of the bishopric, when Magalouffe came to salute her.

  At the sight of the noble seigneurs who were surrounding his future daughter-in-law, the inventor of gilded soup felt slightly embarrassed, but he tried to disguise his disturbance under a casual manner.

  “Séverin will be delighted, Madame Lydorie,” he said, taking off his cap, “for at the present moment there is no longer any obstacle to his betrothal. For what day should I instruct him to be ready? In the haste that I have to tell him such joyful news, I shall send a faithful messenger immediately. It will cost me two gold coins, but come All Saints, and we’re only at Saint Remy, the man I send will see the bell-towers of Rheims. Then again, I don’t fear any inconvenience for him; it’s Polycarpe, one of my scullions, and more cunning than any page of his sort.

  “You would do well, Master Magalouffe,” replied Lydorie. A sigh followed those words, for she thought: Why is Séverin’s father this unpleasant fellow?

  “Who is the coarse bumpkin talking about?” asked Sire Eustache, with a mocking smile.

  “My childhood friend,” replied Lydorie. She had not dared to say “my lover.”

  Magalouffe, attributing his future daughter-in-law’s cold welcome to the rancor she retained from the past, drew closer and asked in a low voice:

  “Is it necessary to instruct Séverin to make haste, so that by Christmas, or b
efore, if he wishes, the marriage can take place?”

  “Marriage! Marriage!” Sire Eustache interrupted, whose keen hearing was on the alert. “By the three ermines of my escutcheon, I divine it! You’re going to marry the son of this cook to one of your chambermaids!”

  Lydorie formed a smile that seemed to let the knight believe that his suspicion was correct. Alas, she was blushing at Séverin’s amour!

  In order that Magalouffe should not see her lie in that fashion, she had turned her back on him. The episcopal cook, indignant at that discourteous reception, departed shaking his head, taking Sainte Marthe as his witness that the Comtesse de Coucy would not marry Séverin and more than he had married the gypsy’s daughter.

  Already swollen with anger at that humiliation, he flew into an extraordinary fury when he went into the Episcopal kitchens. In his absence, the scullions had been fighting, and three roasts were so black and hard that a manual laborer would not have had the heart to serve them on his table if he had only invited the goose-drover.

  At that sight, Magalouffe made a terrible sign, tried to speak, and, unable to do it, fell down, stiff and inert. By the time anyone came to his aid, he had rendered his soul.

  Meanwhile, the thoughts of Séverin were returning night and day to the pleasant land of Cambrai.

  Having become rich and the favorite of the Archbishop of Rheims, he thought that the intervention of his protector might succeed in vanquishing his father’s perverse refusal. But if he could not succeeded by that means, he would go so far as to brave his wrath, and would take advantage of an archepiscopal dispensation that granted his the right to be united in marriage in spite of the paternal hindrance.

  Oh, how much it would cost him to cause his father such dolor—but he was resolved to do it for love of Lydorie, whom he cherished even more than his father.

  Monseigneur the Archbishop of Rheims had so much desire to preserve his favorite Séverin from misfortune that he gave him two men-at-arms to defend him during the journey, against highwaymen and other perils.