 | CHAPTER I. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
— Come apace, good Audrey; I will fetch
Up your goats, Andrey: and how, Audrey? am
I the man yet? Doth my simple features content
You.
As You Like It.
While the mummeries related were exhibiting
in the great square, Maso, Pippo, Conrad, and the
others concerned in the little disturbance connected
with the affair of the dog, were eating their discontent
within the walls of the guard-house. Vevey
has several squares, and the various ceremonies
of the gods and demigods were now to be repeated
in the smaller areas. On one of the latter
stands the town-house and prison. The offenders
in question had been summarily transferred to the
gaol, in obedience to the command of the officer
charged with preserving the peace. By an act of
grace, however, that properly belonged to the day,
as well as to the character of the offence, the prisoners
were permitted to occupy a part of the edifice
that commanded a view of the square, and
consequently were not precluded from all participation
in the joyousness of the festivities. This
indulgence had been accorded on the condition
that the parties should cease their wrangling, and
otherwise conduct themselves in a way not to
bring scandal on the exhibition in which the pride
of every Vévaisan was so deeply enlisted. All
the captives, the innocent as well as the guilty, gladly
in a temporary duresse which did not admit
of any fair argument of the merits of the case,
and there is no leveller so effectual as a common
misfortune.
The anger of Maso, though sudden and violent,
the effect of a hot temperament, had quickly subsided
in a calm which more probably belonged to
his education and opinions, in all of which he was
much superior to his profligate antagonist. Contempt,
therefore, soon took the place of resentment;
and though too much accustomed to rude contact
with men of the pilgrim's class to be ashamed of
what had occurred, the mariner strove to forget
the occurrence. It was one of those moral disturbances
to which he was scarcely less used than
he was accustomed to encounter physical contests
of the elements like that in which he had lately
rendered so essential service on the Leman.
“Give me thy hand, Conrad;” he said, with the
frank forgiveness which is apt to distinguish the
reconciliation of men who pass their lives amid
the violent, but sometimes ennobling, scenes of adventure
and lawlessness. “Thou hast thy humors
and habits, and I have mine. If thou findest this
traffic in penances and prayers to thy fancy, follow
the trade, of Heaven's sake, and leave me and
my dog to live by other means!”
“Thou ought'st to have bethought thee how
much reason we pilgrims have to prize the mastiffs
of the mountain,” answered Conrad, “and how
likely it was to stir my blood to see another cur
devouring that which was intended for old Uberto.
Thou hast never toiled up the sides of St. Bernard,
friend Maso, loaded with the sins of a whole
parish, to say nothing of thine own, and therefore
canst not know the value of these brutes, who so
snow.”
Il Maledetto smiled grimly, and muttered a sentence
between his teeth; for, in perfect consonance
with the frank lawlessness of his own life, there
was a reckless honesty in his nature, which caused
him to despise hypocrisy as unworthy of the bold
attributes of manhood.
“Have it as thou wilt, pious Conrad,” he said
sneeringly, “so there be peace between us. I am,
as thou knowest, an Italian, and though we of the
south seek revenge occasionally of those who
wrong us, it is not often that we do violence after
giving a willing palm—I trust ye of Germany are
no less honest?”
“May the Virgin be deaf to every ave I have
sworn to repeat, and the good fathers of Loretto
refuse absolution, if I think more of it! 'Twas
but the gripe of a throat, and I am not so tender
in that part of the body as to fear it is to be the
forerunner of a closer squeeze. Didst ever hear
of a churchman that suffered in this way?”
“Men often escape with less than their deserts;”
Maso drily answered. “Well, fortune, or the
saints, or Calvin, or whatever power most suits
your tastes, good friends, has at length put a roof
over our heads,—an honor that rarely arrives to
most of us, if I may judge by appearances and
some little knowledge of the different trades we
follow. Thou wilt have a fair occasion to suffer
Policinello to rest from his uneasy antics, Pippo,
while his master breathes the air through a window
for the first time in many a day, as I will
answer.”
The Neapolitan had no difficulty in laughing at
this sally; for his was a nature that took all things
pleasantly, though it took nothing under the corrective
others.
“Were this Napoli, with her gentle sky and hot
volcano,” he said, smiling at the allusion, “no one
would have less relish for a roof than myself.”
“Thou wast born beneath the arch of some
Duca's gateway,” returned Maso, with a sort of
reckless sarcasm, that as often cut his friends as
his enemies; “thou wilt probably die in the hospital
of the poor, and wilt surely be shot from the
death-cart into one of the daily holes of thy Campo
Santo, among a goodly company of Christians, in
which legs and arms will be thrown at random
like jack-straws, and in which the wisest among
ye all will be puzzled to tell his own limbs from
those of his neighbors, at the sound of the last
trumpet.”
“Am I a dog, to meet this end!” demanded
Pippo, fiercely—“or that I should not know my
own bones from those of some infidel rascal, who
may happen to be my neighbor?”
“We have had one disturbance about brutes,
let us not have another;” sarcastically rejoined
Il Maledetto. “Princes and nobles,” he added,
with affected gravity, “we are here bound by the
heels, during the good pleasure of those who rule
in Vévey; the wisest course will be to pass the
time in good-humor with each other, and as pleasantly
as our condition will allow. The reverend
Conrad shall have all the honors of a cardinal,
Pippo shall have the led horse at his funeral, and,
as for these worthy Vaudois, who, no doubt, are
men of substance in their way, they shall be bailiffs
sent by Berne to rule between the four walls of
our palace! Life is but a graver sort of mummery,
gentlemen, and the second of its rarest secrets
is to make others fancy us what we wish to
appear—the first being, without question, the faculty
only to imagine that he is the high personage I
have just named, and the most difficult part of the
work is achieved to his hands.”
“Thou hast forgotten to name thine own quality,”
cried Pippo, who was too much used to buffoonery
not to relish the whim of Maso, and who, with
Neapolitan fickleness, forgot his anger the instant
he had given it vent.
“I will represent the sapient public, and, being
well disposed to be duped, the whole job is complete.
Practise away, worthies, and ye shall see
with what open eyes and wide gullet I am ready
to admire and swallow all your philosophy.”
This sally produced a hearty laugh, which rarely
fails to establish momentary good fellowship. The
Vaudois, who had the thirsty propensities of mountaineers,
ordered wine, and, as their guardians
looked upon their confinement more as a measure
of temporary policy than of serious moment, the
command was obeyed. In a short time, this little
group of worldlings were making the best of circumstances,
by calling in the aid of physical
stimulants to cheer their solitude. As they washed
their throats with the liquor, which was both
good and cheap and by consequence doubly agreeable,
the true characters of the different individuals
began to show themselves in stronger colors.
The peasants of Vaud, of whom there were
three and all of the lowest class, became confused
and dull in their faculties though louder and more
vehement in speech, each man appearing to balance
the increasing infirmities of his reason by stronger
physical demonstrations of folly.
Conrad, the pilgrim, threw aside the mask entirely,
if, indeed, so thin a veil as that he ordinarily
wore when not in the presence of his employers
deserved such a name, and appeared the miscreant
superstition, (for few meddle with superstition
without getting more or less entangled in its
meshes,) of low cunning, and of the most abject
and gross sensuality and vice. The invention and
wit of Pippo, at all times ready and ingenious,
gained increased powers, but the torrent of animal
spirits that were let loose by his potations swept
before it all reserve, and he scarce opened his
mouth but to betray the thoughts of a man long
practised in frauds and all other evil designs on
the rights of his fellow-creatures. On Maso the
wine produced an effect that might almost be
termed characteristic, and which it is in some sort
germane to the moral of the tale to describe.
Il Maledetto had indulged freely and with apparent
recklessness in the frequent draughts. He
was long familiarized to the habits of this wild and
uncouth fellowship, and a singular sentiment, that
men of his class choose to call honor, and which
perhaps deserves the name as much as half of the
principles that are described by the same appellation,
prevented him from refusing to incur an
equal risk in the common assault on their faculties,
inducing him to swallow his full share of the intoxicating
fluid as the cup passed from one reeking
mouth to another. He liked the wine, too,
and tasted its perfume, and cherished its glowing
influence, with the perfect good-will of a man who
knew how to profit by the accident which placed
such generous liquor at his command. He had
also his designs in wishing to unmask his companions,
and he thought the moment favorable to
such an intention. In addition to these motives,
Maso had his especial reasons for being uneasy at
finding himself in the hands of the authorities, and
he was not sorry to bring about a state of things
others in a group of vulgar devotees of Bacchus.
But Maso yielded to the common disposition in
a manner peculiar to himself. His eyes became
even more lustrous than usual, his face reddened,
and his voice even grew thick, while his senses
retained their powers. His reason, instead of giving
way, like those of the men around him, rather
brightened under the excitement, as if it foresaw
the danger it incurred, and the greater necessity
there existed for vigilance. Though born in a
southern clime, he was saturnine and cold when
unexcited, and such temperaments rather gain
their tone than lose their powers by stimulants
under which men of feebler organizations sink.
He had passed his life amid wild adventure and
in scenes of peril which suited such a disposition,
and it most probably required either some strong
motive of danger, like that of the tempest on the
Leman, or a stimulant of another quality, to draw
out the latent properties of his mind, which so well
fitted him to lead when others were the most disposed
to follow. He was, therefore, without fear
for himself while he aroused his companions; and
he was free of his purse, which did not, however,
appear to be sufficiently stored to answer very
heavy demands, by ordering cup after cup to supply
the place of those which were so quickly
drained to the dregs. In this manner an hour
or two passed swiftly, they who were charged
with the care of the jolly party in the town-house
being much more occupied in noting the festivities
without, than those within, the prison.
“Thou hast a merry life of it, honest Pippo,”
cried Conrad with swimming eyes, answering a
remark of the buffoon. “Thou art but a laugh at
the best, and wilt go through the world grinning
and making others grin. Thy Policinello is a rare
legs and sore feet are not forgotten in his fooleries!”
“Corpo di Bacco!—I wish this were so; but thou
hast much the best of the matter, even in the way
of amusement, reverend pilgrim, though to the
looker-on it would seem otherwise. The difference
between us, pious Conrad, is just this—that thou
laughest in thy sleeve without seeming to be merry,
whereas I yawn ready to split my jaws while I
seem to be dying with fun. Your often-told joke
is a bad companion, and gets at last to be as
gloomy as a dirge. Wine can be swallowed but
once, and laughter will not come for ever for the
same folly. Cospetto! I would give the earnings
of a year for a set of new jokes, such as might
come fresh from the wit of one who never saw a
mountebank, and are not worn threadbare with
being rubbed against the brains of all the jokers in
Europe.”
“There was a wise man of old, of whom it is
not probable that any of you have ever heard,”
observed Maso, “who has said there was nothing
new under the sun.”
“He who said that never tasted of this liquor,
which is as raw as if it were still running from the
press,” rejoined the pilgrim. “Knave, dost think
that we are unknowing in these matters, that thou
darest bring a pot of such lees to men of our quality?
Go to, and see that thou doest us better justice
in the next!”
“The wine is the same as that which first pleased
you, but it is the nature of drunkenness to change
the palate; and therein Solomon was right as in
all other points,” coolly remarked Il Maledetto.
“Nay, friend, thou wilt scarce bring thy liquors
again to those who do not know how to do them
proper honor.”
Maso thrust the lad who served them from the
room, and he slipped a small coin in his hand,
ordering him not to return. Inebriety had made
sufficient ravages for his ends, and he was now
desirous of stopping farther excesses.
“Here come the mummers—gods and goddesses,
shepherds and their lasses and all the other
pleasantries, to keep us in humor! To do these
Vévaisans justice, they treat us rarely; for ye see
they send their players to amuse our retirement!”
“Wine! liquor! raw or ripe, bring us liquor!”
roared Conrad, Pippo, and their pot-companions,
who were much too drunk to detect the agency of
Maso in defeating their wishes, though they were
just drunk enough to fancy that what he said of
the attention of the authorities was not only true
but merited.
“How now, Pippo! art ashamed to be outdone
in thine own craft, that thou bellowest for wine at
the moment when the actors have come into the
square to exhibit their skill?” cried the mariner.
“Truly, we shall have a mean opinion of thy
merit, if thou art afraid to meet a few Vaudois
peasants in thy trade,—and thou a buffoon of Napoli!”
Pippo swore with pot-oaths that he defied the
cleverest of Switzerland; for that he had not only
acted on every mall and mole of Italy, but that he
had exhibited in private before princes and cardinals,
and that he had no superior on either side of
the Alps. Maso profited by his advantage, and,
by applying fresh goads to his vanity, soon succeeded
in causing him to forget the wine, and in
drawing him, with all the others, to the windows.
The processions, in making the circuit of the
city, had now reached the square of the town-house,
where the acting and exhibition were repeated,
as has been already related in general
abbaye, the vine-dressers, the shepherds and the
shepherdesses, Flora, Ceres, Pales, and Bacchus,
with all the others, attended by their several trains,
and borne in state as became their high attributes.
Silenus rolled from his ass, to the great joy of a
thousand shouting blackguards, and to the infinite
scandal of the prisoners at the windows, the latter
affirming to a man that there was no acting in the
case, but that the demigod was shamefully under
the influence of too many potations that had been
swallowed in his own honor.
We shall not go over the details of these scenes,
which all who have ever witnessed a public celebration
will readily imagine, nor is it necessary to
record the different sallies of wit that, under the
inspiration of the warm wines of Vévey and the
excitement of the revels, issued from the group
that clustered around the windows of the prison.
All who have ever listened to low humor, that is
rather deadened than quickened by liquor, will
understand their character, and they who have
not will scarcely be losers by the omission.
At length the different allegories drawn from the
heathen mythology ended, and the procession of
the nuptials came into the square. The meek and
gentle Christine had appeared nowhere that day
without awakening strong sympathy in her youth,
beauty, and apparent innocence. Murmurs of
approbation accompanied her steps, and the maiden,
more accustomed to her situation, began to
feel, probably for the first time since she had known
the secret of her origin, something like that security
which is an indispensable accompaniment of
happiness. Long used to think of herself as one
proscribed of opinion, and educated in the retirement
suited to the views of her parents, the praises
that reached her ear could not but be grateful,
in spite of the sense of apprehension and uneasiness
that had so long harbored there. Throughout the
whole of the day, until now, she had scarce dared
to turn her eyes to her future husband,—him who,
in her simple and single-minded judgment, had
braved prejudice to do justice to her worth; but,
as the applause, which had been hitherto suppressed,
broke out in loud acclamations in the square of
the town-house, the color mantled brightly on her
cheek, and she looked with modest pride at her
companion, as if she would say in the silent appeal,
that his generous choice would not go entirely
without its reward. The crowd responded to
the sentiment, and never did votaries of Hymen
approach the altar seemingly under happier auspices.
The influence of innocence and beauty is universal.
Even the unprincipled and half-intoxicated
prisoners were loud in praise of the gentle Christine.
One praised her modesty, another extolled
her personal appearance, and all united with the
multitude in shouting to her honor. The blood of
the bridegroom began to quicken, and, by the time
the train had halted in the open space near the
building, immediately beneath the windows occupied
by Maso and his fellows, he was looking about
him in the exultation of a vulgar mind, which finds
its delight in, as it is apt to form its judgments
from, the suffrages of others.
“Here is a grand and beautiful festa!” said the
hiccoughing Pippo, “and a most willing bride!
San Gennaro bless thee, bella sposina, and the
worthy man who is the stem of so fair a rose!
Send us wine, generous groom and happy bride,
that we may drink to the health of thee and
thine!”
Christine changed color, and looked furtively
world's displeasure, though innocent, are sensitively
jealous of allusions to the sore points in their
histories. The feeling communicated itself to her
companion, who threw distrustful glances at the
crowd, in order to ascertain if the secret of his
bride's birth were not discovered.
“A braver festa never honored an Italian corso,”
continued the Neapolitan, whose head was
running on his own fancies, without troubling itself
about the apprehensions and wishes of others. “A
gallant array and a fair bride! Send us wine, felicissimi
sposi, that we may drink to your eternal
fame and happiness! Happy the father that calls
thee daughter, bella sposa, and most honored the
mother that bare so excellent a child! Scellerati,
ye of the crowd, why do ye not bear the worthy
parents in your arms, that all may see and do
homage to the honorable roots of so rich a branch!
Send us wine, buona gente, send us cups of merry
wine!”
The cries and figurative language of Pippo attracted
the attention of the multitude, who were
additionally amused by the mixture of dialects in
which he uttered his appeals. The least important
trifles, by giving a new direction to popular
sympathies, frequently become the parents of grave
events. The crowd, which followed the train of
Hymen, had begun to weary with the repetition of
the same ceremonies, and it now gladly lent itself
to the episode of the felicitations and entreaties of
the half-intoxicated Neapolitan.
“Come forth, and act the father of the happy
bride, thyself, reverend and grave stranger;” cried
one in derision, from the throng. “So excellent
an example will descend to thy children's children,
in blessings on thy line!”
A shout of laughter rewarded this retort. It
produce a prompt and suitable reply.
“My blessing on the blushing rose!” he answered
in an instant. “There are worse parents than
Pippo, for he who lives by making others laugh
deserves well of men, whereas there is your medico,
who eats the bread of colics, and rheumatisms,
and other foul diseases, of which he pretends to
be the enemy, though, San Gennaro to aid!—who
is there so silly, as not to see that the knavish
doctor and the knavish distemper play into each
others hands, as readily as Policinello and the
monkey.”
“Hast thou another worse than thyself that can
be named,” cried he of the crowd.
“A score, and thou shalt be of the number.
My blessing on the fair bride! thrice happy is she
that hath a right to receive the benediction from
one of so honest life as the merry Pippo. Speak
not I the truth, figligiola?”
Christine perceived that the hand of her companion
was coldly releasing her own, and she felt
the creeping sensation of the blood which is the
common attendant of extreme and humiliating
shame. Still she bore up against the weakness,
with that deep reliance on the justice of others
which is usually the most strongly seated in those
who are the most innocent; and she followed the
procession, in its circuit, with a step whose trembling
was mistaken for no more than the embarrassment
natural to her situation.
At this moment, as the mummers were wheeling
past the town-house, and the air was filled with
music, while a general movement stirred the multitude,
a cry of alarm arose in the building. It
was immediately succeeded by such a rush of bodies
towards the spot, as indicates, in a throng, a
event.
The crowd was beaten back and dispersed,
the procession had disappeared, and there was an
unusual appearance of activity and mystery among
the officials of the place, before the cause of this
disturbance began to be whispered among the few
who remained in the square. The rumor ran that
one of the prisoners, an athletic Italian mariner,
had profited by the attention of all the other guardians
of the place being occupied by the ceremonies,
to knock down the solitary sentinel, and to
effect his escape, followed by all the drunkards
who were able to run.
The evasion of a few lawless blackguards from
their prison was not an event likely long to divert
the attention of the curious from the amusements
of the day, especially as it was understood that
their confinement would have terminated of itself
with the setting sun. But when the fact was communicated
to Peter Hofmeister, the sturdy bailiff
swore fifty harsh oaths at the impudence of the
knaves, at the carelessness of their keepers, and in
honor of the good cause of justice in general.
After which he incontinently commanded that the
runaways should be apprehended. This material
part of the process achieved, he moreover ordered
that they should be brought forthwith into his
presence, even should he be engaged in the most
serious of the ceremonies of the day, The voice
of Peter speaking in anger was not likely to be
unheard, and the stern mandate had scarcely issued
from his lips, when a dozen of the common
thief-takers of Vaud set about the affair in good
earnest, and with the best possible intentions to
effect their object. In the mean time the sports
continued, and, as the day drew on, and the hour
for the banquet approached, the good people began
the closing scenes, and to be present at the nuptial
benediction, which was to be pronounced over
Jacques Colis and Christine by a real servitor of
the altar, as the last and most important of the
ceremonies of that eventful day.
| CHAPTER I. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons | |