Angelique - Part 5. The Court of Miracles Chapter 7 - Read online

THIS FANTASTIC APPARITION HAD CHEERED ANGELIQUE UP and pushed into the background the bitter memory of her encounter with Dcsgrez the night before.
It was better not to think of it any more. Later, when she had struggled out of this dreadful mire, she would think of Desgrez again and wonder: ‘Did he recognise me that night? Surely not. He would not have given me back my knife. . . . He would not have gone on talking to me in the same horribly vulgar way. . . . No, he didn’t recognise me—I should have died of shame if he had !*
She shook her head and passed her hand through her hair to remove the wisps of dry grass. She would think of all this later. But for the present she must not break the charm of this new hour. She sighed with a tinge of regret. Had she really been on the point of deceiving Nicholas? The Marquise of the Angels shrugged and gave a short laugh. One does not deceive a lover of that kind. Nothing tied her to Nicholas, except slavery and squalor.
The young man s retreat a moment ago made her realise once again the powerful protection with which the bandit surrounded her in the murderous jungle of the underworld. Without him and his exclusive love, she would have sunk even lower.
In exchange, she had surrendered to him her body, the noble legacy of her high lineage, which he had dreamed about his whole life long.
They were quits.
Angelique waited for a moment before she slid down from the hay. As she touched the water, she found it was cold, but not icy and, gazing around her, she was dazzled by the light and realised that it was spring. Had not the student talked of fruit and flowers on the Pont-Neuf ? As if by the stroke of a magic wand, Angelique discovered the blossoming of the gentle season.
The hazy sky was dappled with pink and the Seine wore its silver armour. Over its smooth, calm surface boats were passing. She could hear the water dripping from the oars. Lower down, the washerwomen’s paddles answered the tick-tack of the mill-boats.
Hiding from the bargemen’s sight, Angelique bathed herself in the cold water, which lashed her blood pleasantly; then, after putting her clothes on again, she walked along the banks till she reached the Pont- Neuf.
For the first time she saw the Pont-Neuf in all its splendour, with its beautiful white arches and its spontaneous, gay and indefatigable life. A ceaseless clamour rose from it, in which the shouts of the hawking artisans and the exhortations of the quacks and tooth-pullers mingled with the refrains of songs, the outbursts of ditties, the chimes of the Samaritaine, and the beggars’ pleas.
A throng of strolling passers-by, coming and going, stopping, stream¬ing on again, renewing itself endlessly, ever-busy and ever-curious—that was the Pont-Neuf.
Angelique began to walk through the loitering crowd, between two rows of shops and booths. She was barefoot, her dress was tom: she had lost her bonnet and her long hair hung over her shoulders all a-gleam in the sunshine. But that did not matter. On the Pont-Neuf bare feet jostled the stout shoes of craftsmen and the red heels of noblemen.
She stopped before the water-tower of the Samaritaine to look at its busy clock which marked not only the hours, but the days and the months, and set a carillon in motion, which the clock-maker, good Fleming that he was, had taken care not to omit. Angelique stopped before each shop: the toy-maker’s, the poultry-seller’s, the bird-seller’s, the fancy-goods merchant’s, the ink- and paint-seller’s, the puppet-player’s, the dog- shearer’s, the juggler’s. She spotted Black-Bread with his shells, Rat- Poison with his rapier and its pitiful prey impaled on it, and also Mother Hurlurette and Father Hurlurot at the corner of the Samaritaine.
In the middle of a circle of spectators the blind old man was scraping his fiddle while the old hag bawled a sentimental ballad about a hanged man, and a corpse whose eyes the ravens ate, and all sorts of grim horrors, to which people listened with cocked ears and streaming eyes. Hangings and processions were the principal sports of the lower classes of Paris, they were spectacles that cost nothing and made people deeply aware that they had both bodies and souls.
Mother Hurlurette bellowed her complaint with great conviction:
“Ecoutez tous та harangue Quand je men irai A VAbbaye de Monte-d-Regret Pour vousje prierai En tirant la langue”1
You could see right into the back of her toothless mouth. A tear flowed from her eye and trickled into her wrinkles. She was frightful, admir¬able. . . .
When she had finished her song on a supreme tremolo, she moistened her big thumb and began to distribute leaflets which she was carrying in a bunch under her arm, crying:
“Who hasn’t had his hanged man?”
As she passed near Angelique, she gave a shout of joy:
“Hey, Hurlurot, here’s the kid! Lord, what a song and dance your man has made ever since this morning! He says the accursed dog has throttled you. He’s talking of attacking the Chatelet with all the beggars and bandits of Paris. And the Marquise, the while, is taking a stroll on the Pont-Neuf . . . !”
“And why not?” Angelique protested haughtily. “You’re taking a stroll here, aren’t you?”
“I am working,” said the old woman, bustling. “Now this song, you can’t imagine what a seller it is. I’m always telling the Gutter- Poet: Give me hanged men. There’s nothing sells better than hanged men. Here, you want one? No charge, because you are our Marquise.”
1 Listen, all, to my harangue, When from here I go away, To the Abbey “Go-up-with- reluctance*’ (the gallows), For you I shall pray, As I stick out my tongue. . . .
“There’ll be chitterlings for you tonight at the Tower of Nesle,” Angclique promised her.
She walked away among the crowd, reading her sheet of paper:
“ Ecoutez tom та harangue Quandje men irai A I’Abbaye de Monte-a-Regret,
Pour vousjeprierai Entirantlalangue . . .”
In a comer at the bottom of the page there was the now familiar signature: the Gutter-Poet. A bitter memory of hatred rose in Angelique’s heart. She cast a glance at the bronze horse on the bridge. There, they said, between the legs of the horse the Poet of the Pont-Neuf would sometimes go to sleep. The rogues respected his slumber. There was nothing to be stolen from him, anyway. He was poorer than the poorest beggar, always roaming, always hungry, always pursued, and always spurting some fresh scandal, like a jet of poison, through Paris.
‘How is it that nobody has killed him yet?* Angclique wondered. ‘I’d kill him gladly if I met him. But I’d first like to tell him why. . . .’
She crumpled the paper and threw it into the gutter. A carriage passed, preceded by its runners, who were skipping like squirrels. They looked magnificent with their satin liveries, their plumed hats. The crowd tried to guess who was inside the carriage. Angelique was gazing at the runners and thinking of Lightfoot.
The good bronze King Henri IV was gleaming in the sunshine and smiling above a flower-bed of red and pink parasols. The area before the monument was occupied by orange- and flower-sellers. A great single, unbroken shout announced the golden fruit:
“Portugal! Portugal !”
Handling their baskets of tuberoses, jasmine and roses with skilful hands, deftly pinning a carnation on the lapel of a jacket, the young flower-girls walked amid the crowd, while the older women watched over their stands set up under red parasols.
One of these florists engaged Angelique to help her make bouquets, and as the young woman did this very tastefully, the stall-holder gave her twenty sols.
“You seem to me rather too old to be an apprentice,” she said to Angelique after giving her and her wretched outfit a close look, “but a younger lass would take two years to learn to make bouquets like? you do. If you’d like to work with me we could come to an understanding.”
Angelique shook her head, clasped the twenty sols in her hand and left. She looked repeatedly at the few coins the flower-seller had given her. It was the first money she had ever earned.
She went to buy two fritters from a pastrycook and devoured them, while mingling with the strollers who laughed and gaped before the cart of Big Matthieu.
Resplendent Big Matthieu! He had set up shop opposite King Henri IV, undaunted by his smile or his majesty. Standing on his cart—a plat¬form on four wheels surrounded by a balustrade, he addressed the crowd with a thunderous voice that could be heard from one end of the Pont- Neufto the other.
His personal orchestra was composed of three musicians: a trumpeter, a drummer and a cymbal-player, who punctuated his speeches and covered, with an ear-splitting din, the wailing of the customers as he drew their teeth. Enthusiastic and tenacious, of prodigious strength and skill, Big Matthieu would always get the better of the most obstinate teeth, even if it meant making the patient kneel and lifting him from the ground at the end of his tongs. Whereupon he would dispatch his tottering victim to rinse out his mouth at the brandy-seller’s.
In between customers, Big Matthieu would stride up and down his platform, the plume on his hat streaming in the wind, his double neck¬lace of teeth displayed on his satin suit, his big sabre knocking against his heels, boasting of his great science and the excellence of his drugs, powders, electuaries and ointments of all kinds, concocted with lashings of butter, wax oil and a few harmless herbs.
“You see before you, ladies and gentlemen, the world’s greatest personage, a virtuoso, a phoenix in his profession, the paragon of medicine, the successor of Hippocrates in direct descent, the investigator of nature, the scourge of all the faculties; you see with your own eyes a methodical, Galenic, Hippocratic, pathological, chemical, spagirical, empirical physician.
“I heal soldiers out of courtesy, the poor for love of God, and the rich merchants for their money.
“I am neither a doctor nor philosopher, but my ointment does as much as all the doctors and philosophers put together. Experience is worth more than knowledge. I have a pomade here to whiten the skin: it is snow- white, and as odoriferous as balsam and musk. . . .
“Now, here I have an ointment of inestimable value, for, listen well, gallant gentlemen and ladies, this ointment preserves him or her that uses it from the treacherous thorns of the roses of love.”
And raising his arm lyrically:
“Come, gentlefolk, and buy from me The nostrum for every malady,
This admirable powder can Make a fool a witty man;
The wicked rogue can mend his ways,
And old dame and dotard end their days With lively company in bed.
My ointment clears the dullest head. . .
This final sally, which he reeled off while rolling his enormous eyes, made Angelique burst out aloud with laughter. He noticed her and addressed a friendly wink to her.
‘I laughed. Why did I laugh?’ Angelique wondered. 4 What he’s saying is completely idiotic.*
But she felt like laughing.
Angelique closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she saw a few steps away, in the throng on the Pont-Neuf, Jactancc, Big- Bag, Peony, Gobcrt, and the others, who were looking at her.
“Sister,” said Peony, seizing her arm, “I’ll bum a taper before the Eternal Father at Saint-Pierre-aux-boeufs. We thought we’d never sec you again!”
“The jail of the Chatelet, or the General Hospital, was where we thought you were.”
“Unless you’d been mauled to death by that cursed dog.”
“They pinched Pick-Lock and Prudent. They were hanged this morn¬ing on the Place de Greve.”
“We’re going to have fun, my pretty one. D’you know why we’re taking a daylight stroll on the Pont-Neuf? It’s because young Flipot is going to pass his examination as a cut-purse.”
Flipot had, for the occasion, swapped his rags for a violet serge suit and stout shoes in which he walked uneasily. He had even put a linen ruff round his neck and, with the plush-bag in which he was supposed to carry his books and pens, he impersonated rather convincingly a craftsman’s son playing truant on the Pont-Neuf before the puppet-theatre.
Jactance was giving him a few last words of advice:
“Now listen, lad. Today it’s not just a matter of cutting a purse, as you’ve done before . . . but we’ll see if you’re clever enough to slip away in a scuffle and take the stuff with you. Understood?”
“Gy,” Flipot answered.
Which is the proper way of saying ‘yes’ in thieves’ cant. He Snuffled nervously and passed his sleeve repeatedly under Ills nose.
His companions scrutinised the passers-by with care.
“Look, here comes a fine gentleman, with eyes only for his pretty lady, and they are on foot—that’s a bit of luck! You’ve spotted the toff, Flipot? Here they are, stopping before Big Matthieu’s. Now’s the time! Here are your nippers, lad, now off to the pickings.”
With a solemn gesture, Jactance handed the boy a pair of finely-honed scissors and pushed him into the crowd. His accomplices had already slipped among the audience around Big Matthieu.
Jactance’s practised eye followed his apprentice’s movements attentively. He suddenly started to shout:’
“Look out! Monsieur, hey, Monsieur! They’re cutting your purse! . . .
Passers-by looked in the direction to which he was pointing and began to run. Peony yelled:
“Your Highness, take care! There’s a brat having a go at you!”
The gentleman put his hand to his purse and found Flipot’s hand there.
“Help! Cut-purse!” he screamed.
His lady companion gave a strident cry. There was prompt and total pandemonium. People were shouting, striking, gripping one another by the throat, bashing one another’s heads, while Calcmbrcdaine’s henchmen added to the scuffle with their cries and shouts.
“I’ve got him!”
“It’s him!”
“Catch him! He’s running away!”
“Over there!”
“Over here!”
Trampled children cried, women fainted. Booths were knocked over. Red parasols flew away into the Seine. The fruit-sellers, to defend them¬selves, began to pelt people with apples and oranges. Dogs jumped into the melee and rushed between people’s legs in tight furry balls, yelping and slavering.
Pretty Boy passed from one woman to another, seizing staid citizens’ wives by their waists, kissing them and petting them with extreme bold¬ness, under the outraged eyes of their husbands, who vainly tried to beat him. Their blows fell on others, who avenged themselves by pulling off the wigs of the indignant husbands.
In the midst of this uproar Jactance and his accomplices were cutting purses, emptying fobs, snatching coats, while Big Matthieu from the top of his cart, amid the din of his ear-splitting orchestra, brandished his sabre and bellowed:
“Go to it, lads! Limber up! It’s good for your health!”
Angelique had taken refuge on the steps of the terrace round the monument. Clutching the fence, she cried with laughter. It was a perfect climax for this day, exacdy what she needed to sate the urge to cry and laugh which had been racking her ever since she had awakened in the hay- boat under the stranger’s caresses.
She could see Father Hurlurot and Mother Hurlurette clutching each other as they floated above the tide of the battle, like an enormous blob of dirty rags. Her laughter redoubled. She was choking with it. No, really, she was dying of laughter! . . .
“Is it so funny, wench?” a slow voice growled beside her.
And a hand seized her wrist. You don’t recognise a grimaut, you smell him, Peony had said. Since that night, Angelique had learnt to sniff whence danger would come. She went on laughing more sofdy, and put on an innocent look.
“Yes, it’s funny, those people are fighting without knowing why.”
“And maybe you know, eh?”
Angelique bent down to the policeman’s face with a smile. Suddenly she seized his nose with a firm grip, twisted the nasal cartilage, and as he flung his head back under the impact of pain she smartly struck his protruding Adam’s apple with the edge of her hand.
It was a hold Polack had taught her. Not rough enough to lay a police¬man out but enough to make him let go.
Released, Angelique fled, bounding like a gazelle.
At the Tower of Nesle, everybody was coming back.
“We can count our bruises,” Jactance said, “but what pickings, my friends, what pickings!”
And on the table they piled up coats, swords, jewels, clinking purses.
Flipot, black and blue as a truffled Christmas goose, had brought back the purse of the gentleman who had been assigned to him. He was made much of and ate at Calembredaine’s table, with the veterans.
“Angelique,” Nicholas murmured, “Angelique, if I hadn’t found you again . . .”
“What would have happened?”
“I don’t know. . . .”
He pulled her towards him and pressed her against his mighty chest as if to break her.
“Oh, please!” she sighed, freeing herself.
She went and leaned her head against the bars of the narrow window. The deep blue starry sky was reflected in the quiet waters of the Seine.
The air was redolent with the scent of blossoming almond-trees in the gardens and parks of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
Nicholas came close to her and went on devouring her with his eyes. She was touched by the intensity of this unfailing passion.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t come back?”
“That depends. If it was because you had been pinched by the con¬stables, I’d have got the whole gang going. We’d have watched the jails, the hospitals, the chains of wenches. . . . We’d have made good your escape. If it was because the dog had strangled you, I’d have searched for
the dog and his master everywhere to kill them. . . . If it was ”
His voice became hoarse.
“If it was because you’d gone off with another—I’d have found you anywhere, and I’d have had the other man’s blood.”
She smiled, for a pale, mocking face flashed through her memory. But Nicholas was shrewder than she thought, and his love for her sharpened his instincts.
“Don’t imagine you can get away from me easily,” he went on in a threatening tone of voice. “. . . We don’t betray one another in the underworld, the way they do in high society, but if it happens, you die. There’d be no refuge for you anywhere. . . . There are too many of us, we are too powerful. We’d find you anywhere—in the churches, in the convents, even in the King’s palace. We are well organised, you know. What I like best, in fact, is organising battles.”
He opened his tom tunic and showed her a small bluish mark near his heart.
“Look, you see this? My mother always told me: ‘That’s your father’s mark!’ Because my father wasn’t that fat, clodhopping old Merlot. No, my mother had me by a soldier, an officer, somebody high up. She never told me his name, but sometimes, when Pere Merlot wanted to thrash me, she’d cry to him: ‘Don’t touch the boy, he’s got noble blood.’ You didn’t know that, did you?”
“A trooper’s bastard! Something to be proud of,” she said scornfully. He crushed her shoulders between his Herculean hands.
“There are times I’d like to crack you like a nut. But now you’re
warned. If you ever deceive me ”
“Have no fear. Your embraces are more than enough for me.”
“Why do you say that with such a nasty face?”
“Because one would have to be endowed with an exceptional tempera¬ment to ask for more. If you could only be a little gentler!”
“I? I am not gentle?” he roared, “I who adore you! Just say again that I am not gentle.”
He raised a powerful fist. She shouted at him shrilly:
“Don’t touch me, peasant! Brute! Remember Polack!”
He dropped his arm. Then, after scowling at her glumly, he heaved a deep sigh.
“Forgive me. You always get the better of me, Angelique.”
He smiled and held his arm out awkwardly:
“Come, anyway. I’ll try and be gentle.”
She let herself be thrown on the litter and offered herself listlessly, in-differently, to the now familiar embrace. When he was satisfied, he remained nestled against her for a long spell. She felt against her cheek the rough bristle of his hair, which was cut quite short on account of his wig. He said at last in a muffled voice:
“I know now . . . you’ll never be mine. For it isn’t only this I want, I want your heart.”
“You can’t have everything, my poor Nicholas,” said Angelique, philosophically. “Once you had part of my heart, now you have my whole body. Once you used to be my friend Nicholas, now you are my master Calembredaine. You’ve killed even the memory of the affection I had for you when we were children. But fin attached to you, all the same, in a different way, because you are strong.”
The man grew taut with pain. He growled and sighed again:
“I wonder whether I shan’t be forced to kill you some day.”
She yawned, trying to sleep.
“Don’t talk rubbish.”