by Ouida
So, by tedious endeavor, she won her passage wearily towards Paris.
She had been nine days on the road, losing her way at times, and having often wearily to retrace her steps.
On the tenth day she came to a little town lying in a green hollow amidst woods.
It had an ancient church; the old sweet bells were ringing their last mid-day mass, Salutaris hostia; a crumbling fortress of the Angevine kings gave it majesty and shadow; it was full of flowers and of trees, and had quaint, quiet, gray streets, hilly and shady, that made her think of the streets round about the cathedral of her mother’s birthplace, away northwestward in the white sea-mists.
When she entered it, noon had just sounded from all its many clocks and chimes. The weather was hot, and she was very tired. She had not eaten any food, save some berries and green leaves, for more than forty hours. She had been refused anything to do in all places; and she had no money — except that gold of his.
There was a little tavern, vine-shaded and bright with a Quatre Saisons rose that hid its casements. She asked there, timidly, if there were any task she might do, — to fetch water, to sweep, to break wood, to drive or to stable a mule or a horse.
They took her to be a gypsy; they ordered her roughly to be gone.
Through the square window she could see food — a big juicy melon cut in halves, sweet yellow cakes, warm and crisp from the oven, a white chicken, cold and dressed with cresses, a jug of milk, an abundance of bread. And her hunger was very great.
Nine days of sharper privation than even that to which she had been inured in the penury of Yprès had made her cheeks hollow and her limbs fleshless; and a continual consuming heat and pain gnawed at her chest.
She sat on a bench that was free to all wayfarers, and looked at the food in the tavern kitchen. It tempted her with the terrible animal ravenousness begotten by long fast. She wanted to fly at it as a starved dog flies. A rosy-faced woman cut up the chicken on a china dish, singing.
Folle-Farine, outside, looked at her, and took courage from her smiling face.
“Will you give me a little work?” she murmured. “Anything — anything — so that I may get bread.”
“You are a gypsy,” answered the woman, ceasing to smile. “Go to your own folk.”
And she would not offer her even a plate of broken victuals.
Folle-Farine rose and walked wearily away. She could not bear the sight of the food; she felt that if she looked at it longer she would spring on it like a wolf. But to use his gold never occurred to her. She would have bitten her tongue through in famine ere she would have taken one coin of it.
As she went, being weak from long hunger and the stroke of the sunrays, she stumbled and fell. She recovered herself quickly; but in the fall the money had shaken itself from her sash, and been scattered with a ringing sound upon the stones.
The woman in the tavern window raised a loud cry!
“Oh-hè! the wicked liar! — to beg bread while her waistband is stuffed with gold like a turkey with chestnuts! What a rogue to try and dupe poor honest people like us! Take her to prison.”
The woman cried loud; there were half a dozen stout serving-wenches and stable-lads about in the little street, with several boys and children. Indignant at the thought of an attempted fraud upon their charity, and amazed at the flash and the fall of the money, they rushed on her with shrieks of rage and scorn, with missiles of turf and stone, with their brooms raised aloft, or their dogs set to rage at her.
She had not time to gather up the coins and notes; she could only stand over and defend them. Two beggar-boys made a snatch at the tempting heap; she drew her knife to daunt them with the sight of it. The people shrieked at sight of the bare blade; a woman selling honeycomb and pots of honey at a bench under a lime-tree raised a cry that she had been robbed. It was not true; but a street crowd always loves a lie, and never risks spoiling, by sifting, it.
The beggar-lads and the two serving-wenches and an old virago from a cottage door near set upon her, and scrambled together to drive her away from the gold and share it. Resolute to defend it at any peril, she set her heel down on it, and, with her back against the tree, stood firm; not striking, but with the point of the knife outward.
One of the boys, maddened to get the gold, darted forward, twisted his limbs round her, and struggled with her for its possession. In the struggle he wounded himself upon the steel. His arm bled largely; he filled the air with his shrieks; the people, furious, accused her of his murder.
Before five minutes had gone by she was seized, overpowered by numbers, cuffed, kicked, upbraided with every name of infamy, and dragged as a criminal up the little steep stony street in the blaze of the noonday sun, whilst on each side the townsfolk looked out from their doorways and their balconies and cried out:
“What is it? Oh-hè! A brawling gypsy, who has stolen something, and has stabbed poor little Fréki, the blind man’s son, because he found her out. What is it? Au violon! — au violon!”
To which the groups called back again:
“A thief of a gypsy, begging alms while she had stolen gold on her. She has stabbed poor little Fréki, the blind cobbler’s son, too. We think he is dead.” And the people above, in horror, lifted their hands and eyes, and shouted afresh, “Au violon! — au violon!”
Meanwhile the honey-seller ran beside them, crying aloud that she had been robbed of five broad golden pieces.
It was a little sunny country-place, very green with trees and grass, filled usually with few louder sounds than the cackling of geese and the dripping of the well-water.
But its stones were sharp and rough; its voices were shrill and fierce; its gossips were cruel and false of tongue; its justice was very small, and its credulity was measureless. A girl, barefoot and bareheaded, with eyes of the East, and a knife in her girdle, teeth that met in their youngsters’ wrist, and gold pieces that scattered like dust from her bosom, — such a one could have no possible innocence in their eyes, such a one was condemned so soon as she was looked at when she was dragged among them up their hilly central way.
She had had money on her, and she had asked for food on the plea of being starved; that was fraud plain enough, even for those who were free to admit that the seller of the honey-pots had never been overtrue of speech, and had never owned so much as five gold pieces ever since her first bees had sucked their first spray of heath-bells.
No one had any mercy on a creature who had money, and yet asked for work; as to her guilt, there could be no question.
She was hurried before the village tribune, and cast with horror into the cell where all accused waited their judgment.
It was a dusky, loathsome place, dripping with damp, half underground, strongly grilled with iron, and smelling foully from the brandy and strong smoke of two drunkards who had been its occupants the previous night.
There they left her, taking away her knife and her money.
She did not resist. It was not her nature to rebel futilely; and they had fallen on her six to one, and had bound her safely with cords ere they had dragged her away to punishment.
The little den was visible to the highway through a square low grating. Through this they came and stared, and mouthed, and mocked, and taunted, and danced before her. To bait a gypsy was fair pastime.
Everywhere, from door to door, the blind cobbler, with his little son, and the woman who sold honey told their tale, — how she had stabbed the little lad and stolen the gold that the brave bees had brought their mistress, and begged for food when she had had money enough on her to buy a rich man’s feast. It was a tale to enlist against her all the hardest animosities of the poor. The village rose against her in all its little homes as though she had borne fire and sword into its midst.
If the arm of the law had not guarded the entrance of her prison-cell, the women would have stoned her to death, or dragged her out to drown in the pond: — she was worse than a murderess in their sight; and one weak man, thinking to shelter her
a little from their rage, quoted against her her darkest crime when he pleaded for mercy for her because she was young and was so handsome.
The long hot day of torment passed slowly by.
Outside there were cool woods, flower-filled paths, broad fields of grass, children tossing blow-balls down the wind, lovers counting the leaves of yellow-eyed autumn daisies; but within there were only foul smells, intense nausea, cruel heats, the stings of a thousand insects, the buzz of a hundred carrion-flies, muddy water, and black mouldy bread.
She held her silence. She would not let her enemies see that they hurt her.
When the day had gone down, and the people had tired of their sport and left her a little while, an old feeble man stole timidly to her, glancing round lest any should see his charity and quote it as a crime, and tendered her through the bars with a gentle hand a little ripe autumnal fruit upon a cool green leaf.
The kindness made the tears start to eyes too proud to weep for pain.
She took the peaches and thanked him lovingly and gratefully; cooled her aching, burning, dust-drenched throat with their fragrant moisture.
“Hush! it is nothing,” he whispered, frightenedly, glancing over his shoulder lest any one should see. “But tell me — tell me — why did you say you starved when you had all that gold?”
“I did starve,” she answered him.
“But why — with all that gold?”
“It was another’s.”
The old man stared at her, trembling and amazed.
“What — what! die of hunger and keep your hands off money in your girdle?”
A dreary smile came on her face.
“What! is that inhuman too?”
“Inhuman?” he murmured. “Oh, child — oh, child, tell any tale you will, save such a tale as that!”
And he stole away sorrowful, because sure that for his fruit of charity she had given him back a lie.
He shambled away, afraid that his neighbors should see the little thing which he had done.
She was left alone.
It began to grow dark. She felt scorched with fever, and her head throbbed. Long hunger, intense fatigue, and all the agony of thought in which she had struggled on her way, had their reaction on her. She shivered where she sat on the damp straw which they had cast upon the stones; and strange noises sang in her ears, and strange lights glimmered and flashed before her eyes. She did not know what ailed her.
The dogs came and smelt at her, and one little early robin sang a twilight song in an elder-bush near. These were the only things that had any pity on her.
By-and-by, when it was quite night, they opened the grated door and thrust in another captive, a vagrant they had found drunk or delirious on the highroad, whom they locked up for the night, that on the morrow they might determine what to do with him.
He threw himself heavily forward as he was pushed in by the old soldier whose place it was to guard the miserable den.
She shrank away into the farthest corner of the den, and crouched there, breathing heavily, and staring with dull, dilated eyes.
She thought, — surely they could not mean to leave them there alone, all the night through, in the horrible darkness.
The slamming of the iron door answered her; and the old soldier, as he turned the rusty key in the lock, grumbled that the world was surely at a pretty pass, when two tramps became too coy to roost together. And he stumbled up the ladder-like stairs of the guard-house to his own little chamber; and there, smoking and drinking, and playing dominoes with a comrade, dismissed his prisoners from his recollection.
Meanwhile, the man whom he had thrust into the cell was stretched where he had fallen, drunk or insensible, and moaning heavily.
She, crouching against the wall, as though praying the stones to yield and hold her, gazed at him with horror and pity that together strove in the confusion of her dizzy brain, and made her dully wonder whether she were wicked thus to shrink in loathing from a creature in distress so like her own.
The bright moon rose on the other side of the trees beyond the grating; its light fell across the figure of the vagrant whom they had locked in with her, as in the wild-beast shows of old they locked a lion with an antelope in the same cage — out of sport.
She saw the looming massive shadow of an immense form, couched like a crouching beast; she saw the fire of burning, wide-open, sullen eyes; she saw the restless, feeble gesture of two lean hands, that clutched at the barren stones with the futile action of a chained vulture clutching at his rock; she saw that the man suffered horribly, and she tried to pity him — tried not to shrink from him — tried to tell herself that he might be as guiltless as was herself. But she could not prevail: nature, instinct, youth, sex, sickness, exhaustion, all conquered her, and broke her strength. She recoiled from the unbearable agony of that horrible probation; she sprang to the grated aperture, and seized the iron in her hands, and shook it with all her might, and tore at it, and bruised her chest and arms against it, and clung to it convulsively, shriek after shriek pealing from her lips.
No one heard, or no one answered to her prayer.
A stray dog came and howled in unison; the moon sailed on behind the trees; the old soldier above slept over his toss of brandy; at the only dwelling near they were dancing at a bridal, and had no ear to hear.
The passionate outcries wailed themselves to silence on her trembling mouth; her strained hands gave way from their hold on the irons; she grew silent from sheer exhaustion, and dropped in a heap at the foot of the iron door, clinging to it, and crushed against it, and turning her face to the night without, feeling some little sense of solace in the calm clear moon; — some little sense of comfort in the mere presence of the dog.
Meanwhile the dusky prostrate form of the man had not stirred.
He had not spoken, save to curse heaven and earth and every living thing. He had not ceased to glare at her with eyes that had the red light of a tiger’s in their pain. He was a man of superb stature and frame; he was worn by disease and delirium, but he had in him a wild, leonine tawny beauty still. His clothes were of rags, and his whole look was of wretchedness; yet there was about him a certain reckless majesty and splendor still, as the scattered beams of the white moonlight broke themselves upon him.
Of a sudden he spoke aloud, with a glitter of terrible laughter on his white teeth and his flashing eyes. He was delirious, and had no consciousness of where he was.
“The fourth bull I had killed that Easter-day. Look! do you see? It was a red Andalusian. He had wounded three picadors, and ripped the bellies of eight horses, — a brave bull, but I was one too many for him. She was there. All the winter she had flouted over and taunted me; all the winter she had cast her scorn at me — the beautiful brown thing, with her cruel eyes. But she was there when I slew the great red bull — straight above there, looking over her fan. Do you see? And when my sword went up to the hilt in his throat, and the brave blood spouted, she laughed such a little sweet laugh, and cast her yellow jasmine flower at me, down in the blood and the sand there. And that night, after the red bull died, the rope was thrown from the balcony! So — so! Only a year ago; only a year ago!”
Then he laughed loud again; and, laughing, sang —
“Avez-vous vu en Barcelonne Une belle dame, au sein bruni, Pâle comme un beau soir d’automne? C’est ma maîtresse, ma lionne, La Marchesa d’Amaguï.”
The rich, loud challenge of the love-song snapped short in two. With a groan and a curse he flung himself on the mud floor, and clutched at it with his empty hands.
“Wine! — wine!” he moaned, lying athirst there as the red bull had lain on the sands of the circus; longing for the purple draughts of his old feast-nights, as the red bull had longed for the mountain streams, so cold and strong, of its own Andalusian birthplace.
Then he laughed again, and sang old songs of Spain, broken and marred by discord — their majestic melodies wedded strangely to many a stave of lewd riot and of amorous verse.
> Then for awhile he was quiet, moaning dully, staring upward at the white face of the moon.
After awhile he mocked it — the cold, chaste thing that was the meek trickster of so many mole-eyed lords.
Through the terror and the confusion of her mind, with the sonorous melody of the tongue, with the flaming darkness of the eyes, with the wild barbaric dissolute grandeur of this shattered manhood, vague memories floated, distorted and intangible, before her. Of deep forests whose shade was cool even in midsummer and at mid-day; of glancing torrents rushing through their beds of stone; of mountain snows flashing in sunset to all the hues of the roses that grew in millions by the river-water; of wondrous nights, sultry and serene, in which women with flashing glances and bare breasts danced with their spangled anklets glittering in the rays of the moon; of roofless palaces where the crescent still glistened on the colors of the walls; of marble pomps, empty and desolate, where only the oleander held pomp and the wild fig-vine held possession; of a dead nation which at midnight thronged through the desecrated halls of its kings and passed in shadowy hosts through the fated land which had rejected the faith and the empire of Islam; sowing as they went upon the blood-soaked soil the vengeance of the dead in pestilence, in feud, in anarchy, in barren passions, in endless riot and revolt, so that no sovereign should sit in peace on the ruined throne of the Moslem, and no light shine ever again upon the people whose boast it once had been that on them the sun in heaven never set: — all these memories floated before her and only served to make her fear more ghastly, her horror more unearthly.
There he lay delirious — a madman chained at her feet, so close in the little den that, shrink as she would against the wall, she could barely keep from the touch of his hands as they were flung forth in the air, from the scorch of his breath as he raved and cursed.
And there was no light except the fire in his fierce, hot eyes; except the flicker of the moonbeam through the leaves.
She spent her strength in piteous shrieks. They were the first cries that had ever broken from her lips for human aid; and they were vain.