Farewell, My Queen by Black Moishe (children's ebooks online txt) 📗

may be seen pouring forth from their cabins, uttering terrible cries and howls, and shooting a prodigious number of arrows up into the air to defend the star of night from the dogs that, as they believe, have leapt upon their mother to tear her apart. Concerning lunar eclipses, several Asian peoples, though civilized, have ideas very like those of the savages in America.”

It was too late: the downpour of maggots had had its effect. Madame Campan, her face a study in irony, was counting the chemises. She gave instructions to some ironers. Then she turned to the Queen, who had taken off her gloves and was biting a fingernail. The Queen seemed not to have heard anything. She was sitting under a large portrait of her mother, embroidered in cross-stitch, observing with a wrathful eye the comings and goings that surrounded her. At last she spoke a few words to Madame Campan, who in turn hastened to my side: “It would be much appreciated if you could call a halt to your nonsense.” She then went back to counting chemises.

I tried Monsieur Marmontel, a man of better breeding, who was neither a Protestant nor a Jesuit. I picked up a volume of his Moral Tales, which could be counted on not to contain anything shocking: “If you remember the Marquess de Lisban, he had one of those coldly perfect faces that say to the beholder Here I am, and one of those clumsy vanities of temperament that forever miss the mark. He prided himelf on his ability in every sphere and was in fact not very able in any. He would take the floor, call for silence, get the company’s attention, and utter a platitude . . . ” At the very first words of Marmontel, the Queen had sunk down in her armchair. An attendant had come and moved the footrest closer to her. Losing patience, she had signaled to me to stop.

“I thank you. Your Marquess de Lisban has no appeal for me. I know him all too well. Him and his ilk . . .You will resume your reading later, at which time you will essay some other tale. Do not go away.”

She had said the same thing to me, directly or through an attendant, any number of times in the past. Her later, although spoken to the empty air, not to any one person, always bore the stamp of great courtesy. I stood up, took my folding chair, and went off into a corner, book in hand. I was in a recess decorated with a raised motif of ivy and bindweed painted in green lacquer. It was an exquisite nook, but at the time it somehow frightened me. Later got later and later. They had forgotten my existence. It felt as though the leather edge of Marmontel’s Moral Tales, pressed against the palm of my hand, was going to be permanently imbedded there.

When another reading was requested, however, the book’s edge separated from my flesh in one smooth motion. Later did have a way of getting later and later, but most often it came, eventually. What should I read? Another tale? I did not have any others with me, and this was not the time to go hunting along the bookshelves. A serious work? Well, why not? I considered Antoine Court de Gébelin, an eccentric man of learning whose writings, for reasons I have never fathomed, the Queen enjoyed. But there was no Antoine Court de Gébelin in my bag. Instead, I brought out a Dictionary of Famous Dogs, something that, given her love of dogs, might very well have interested the Queen. I hesitated to open Father Pluche’s History of Heaven: it was so immense in scope that I feared lest it add to her anxiety. Finally, I fell back on the book that I myself was currently reading—one that even today is never far from my bedside. It was a collection of stories by Madame de La Fayette. The volume fell open almost of its own accord at a page in The Princess of Montpensier:

“One day, as he was returning to Loches by a road with which his retinue were little acquainted, the Duke de Guise, who boasted of knowing the road perfectly, placed himself at the head of his little troupe to act as guide; but when he had walked for a time, he lost his way and came to the bank of a small river that even he did not recognize. The whole troupe upbraided the Duke de Guise for serving them so ill as leader. Having made a halt in that place, they soon perceived a small boat at rest in the middle of the river, and as the stream was not of great breadth, they easily descried in the boat three or four women, and among them one who appeared to be of great beauty, magnificently attired, attentively watching two men who were fishing close by. The two princes, being as readily disposed to enjoyment as young princes customarily are, this further adventure brought further joy to them and indeed to all those in their retinue: it seemed to them of such wise as might be found in a novel.”

I read on. Everything around me had fallen silent. The Queen was listening. I was sure of that and did not need to see the expression on her countenance. The space where chaos had held sway before I came was becoming limpid and orderly; I refer to the very inner essence of her mind. I read on. There was softness and secret pride in my voice, for that voice had successfully wrought a small miracle: it had freed the Queen from the viselike hold of rage and regrets. The Queen was abandoning herself to the flow of words, as one does to the notes of music. She was being reborn and I was the instrument of her rebirth. Oh, let this moment go on and on! I thought,