The Cream of the Jest - James Branch Cabell (life changing books to read TXT) 📗

“And am I not, then, a human being, poor Horvendile?”

There was a tinge of mischief in the query; but beauty very often makes for lightheadedness, both in her that has and in him that views it; nor between Ind and Thule was there any lovelier maid than Ettarre. Smiling she awaited his answer; the sunlight glorified each delicate clarity of color in her fair face, and upon her breast gleamed the broken sigil of Scoteia, that famed talisman which never left her person. “And am I not, then, a human being?” says she.

Gravely Horvendile answered: “Not in my eyes, madame. For you embody all that I was ever able to conceive of beauty and fearlessness and strange purity. Therefore it is evident I do not see in you merely Count Emmerick’s third sister, but, instead, that ageless lovable and loving woman long worshiped and sought everywhere in vain by all poets.”

Horvendile meditated for a while. “Assuredly, it was you of whom blind Homer dreamed, comforting endless night with visions of your beauty, as you sat in a bright fragrant vaulted chamber weaving at a mighty loom, and embroidering on tapestry the battles men were waging about Troy because of your beauty; and very certainly it was to you that Hermes came over fields of violets and parsley, where you sang magic rhymes, sheltered by an island cavern, in which cedar and citron-wood were burning⁠—and, calling you Calypso, bade you release Odysseus from the spell of your beauty. Sophocles, too, saw you bearing an ewer of bronze, and treading gingerly among gashed lamentable corpses, lest your loved dead be dishonored; and Sophocles called you Antigonê, praising your valor and your beauty. And when men named you Bombyca, Theocritus also sang of your grave drowsy voice and your feet carven of ivory, and of your tender heart and all your honey-pale sweet beauty.”

“I do not remember any of these troubadours you speak of, my poor Horvendile; but I am very certain that if they were poets they, also, must in their time have talked a great deal of nonsense.”

“And as Mark’s Queen,” says Horvendile, intent on his conceit, “you strayed with Tristran in the sunlit glades of Morois, that high forest, where many birds sang full-throated in the new light of spring; as Medeia you fled from Colchis; and as Esclairmonde you delivered Huon from the sardonic close wiles of heathenry, which to you seemed childish. All poets have had these fitful glimpses of you, Ettarre, and of that perfect beauty which is full of troubling reticences, and so, is somehow touched with something sinister. Now all these things I likewise see in you, Ettarre; and therefore, for my own sanity’s sake, I dare not concede that you are a human being.”

The clerk was very much in earnest. Ettarre granted that, insane as his talk seemed to her; and the patient yearning in his eyes was not displeasing to Ettarre. Her hand touched his cheek, quickly and lightly, like the brush of a bird’s wing.

“My poor Horvendile, you are in love with fantasies. There was never any lady such as you dream of.” Then she left him.

But Horvendile remained at the parapet, peering out over broad rolling uplands.

Horvendile peered out over broad rolling uplands.⁠ ⁠… He viewed a noble country, good to live in, rich with grain and metal, embowered with tall forests, and watered by pleasant streams. Walled cities it had, and castles crowned its eminencies. Very far beneath Horvendile the leaded roofs of these fortresses glittered in sunlight, for Storisende guards the loftiest part of the province.

And the people of this land⁠—from its lords of the high, the low, and the middle justice, to the sturdy whining beggars at its cathedral doors⁠—were not all unworthy of this fair realm. Undoubtedly, it was a land, as Horvendile whimsically reflected, wherein human nature kept its first dignity and strength; and wherein human passions were never in a poor way to find expression with adequate speech and action.

Now, from the field below, a lark rose singing joyously. Straight into the air it rose, and was lost in the sun’s growing brilliance; but you could hear its singing; and then, as suddenly, the bird dropped to earth. No poet could resist embroidery on such a text.

Began Horvendile straightway: “Quan vey la laudeta mover”⁠—or in other wording:

“When I behold the skylark move in perfect joy toward its love the sun, and, growing drunk with joy, forget the use of wings, so that it topples from the height of heaven, I envy the bird’s fate. I, too, would taste that ruinous mad moment of communion, there in heaven, and my heart dissolves in longing.

“Ailas! how little do I know of love!⁠—I, who was once deluded by the conceit that I was all-wise in love. For I am unable to put aside desire for a woman whom I must always love in vain. She has bereft me of hope. She has robbed me of my heart, of herself, and of all joy in the world, and she has left me nothing save dreams and regrets.

“Never have I been able to recover my full senses since that moment when she first permitted me to see myself mirrored in her bright eyes. Hey, fatal mirrors! which flattered me too much! for I have sighed ever since I beheld my image in you. I have lost myself in you, like Narcissus in his fountain.”

Thus he lamented, standing alone among the turrets of Storisende. Now a troop of jongleurs was approaching the castle⁠—gay dolls, jerked by invisible wires, the vagabonds seemed to be, from this height.

“More merrymakers for the marriage-feast. We must spare no appropriate ceremony. And yonder Count Emmerick is ordering the majordomo to prepare peacocks stuffed with beccaficoes, and a pastry builded like a palace. Hah, my beautiful fantastic little people, that I love and play with, and dispose of just as I please,