Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1, Mark Twain [best novels of all time .txt] 📗

begged so hard that the governor was touched by my brave devotion to my country’s cause—those are the words he used—and so he yielded, and allowed me to come.”

I thought to myself, this is a lie, he is one of those six the governor recruited by force at the last moment; I know it, for Joan’s prophecy said he would join at the eleventh hour, but not by his own desire. Then I said aloud:

“I am glad you came; it is a noble cause, and one should not sit at home in times like these.”

“Sit at home! I could no more do it than the thunderstone could stay hid in the clouds when the storm calls it.”

“That is the right talk. It sounds like you.”

That pleased him.

“I’m glad you know me. Some don’t. But they will, presently. They will know me well enough before I get done with this war.”

“That is what I think. I believe that wherever danger confronts you you will make yourself conspicuous.”

He was charmed with this speech, and it swelled him up like a bladder. He said:

“If I know myself—and I think I do—my performances in this campaign will give you occasion more than once to remember those words.”

“I were a fool to doubt it. That I know.”

“I shall not be at my best, being but a common soldier; still, the country will hear of me. If I were where I belong; if I were in the place of La Hire, or Saintrailles, or the Bastard of Orleans—well, I say nothing. I am not of the talking kind, like Noel Rainguesson and his sort, I thank God. But it will be something, I take it—a novelty in this world, I should say—to raise the fame of a private soldier above theirs, and extinguish the glory of their names with its shadow.”

“Why, look here, my friend,” I said, “do you know that you have hit out a most remarkable idea there? Do you realize the gigantic proportions of it? For look you; to be a general of vast renown, what is that? Nothing—history is clogged and confused with them; one cannot keep their names in his memory, there are so many. But a common soldier of supreme renown—why, he would stand alone! He would the be one moon in a firmament of mustard-seed stars; his name would outlast the human race! My friend, who gave you that idea?”

He was ready to burst with happiness, but he suppressed betrayal of it as well as he could. He simply waved the compliment aside with his hand and said, with complacency:

“It is nothing. I have them often—ideas like that—and even greater ones. I do not consider this one much.”

“You astonish me; you do, indeed. So it is really your own?”

“Quite. And there is plenty more where it came from”—tapping his head with his finger, and taking occasion at the same time to cant his morion over his right ear, which gave him a very self-satisfied air—“I do not need to borrow my ideas, like Noel Rainguesson.”

“Speaking of Noel, when did you see him last?”

“Half an hour ago. He is sleeping yonder like a corpse. Rode with us last night.”

I felt a great upleap in my heart, and said to myself, now I am at rest and glad; I will never doubt her prophecies again. Then I said aloud:

“It gives me joy. It makes me proud of our village. There is not keeping our lion-hearts at home in these great times, I see that.”

“Lion-heart! Who—that baby? Why, he begged like a dog to be let off. Cried, and said he wanted to go to his mother. Him a lion-heart!—that tumble-bug!”

“Dear me, why I supposed he volunteered, of course. Didn’t he?”

“Oh, yes, he volunteered the way people do to the headsman. Why, when he found I was coming up from Domremy to volunteer, he asked me to let him come along in my protection, and see the crowds and the excitement. Well, we arrived and saw the torches filing out at the Castle, and ran there, and the governor had him seized, along with four more, and he begged to be let off, and I begged for his place, and at last the governor allowed me to join, but wouldn’t let Noel off, because he was disgusted with him, he was such a cry-baby. Yes, and much good he’ll do the King’s service; he’ll eat for six and run for sixteen. I hate a pygmy with half a heart and nine stomachs!”

“Why, this is very surprising news to me, and I am sorry and disappointed to hear it. I thought he was a very manly fellow.”

The Paladin gave me an outraged look, and said:

“I don’t see how you can talk like that, I’m sure I don’t. I don’t see how you could have got such a notion. I don’t dislike him, and I’m not saying these things out of prejudice, for I don’t allow myself to have prejudices against people. I like him, and have always comraded with him from the cradle, but he must allow me to speak my mind about his faults, and I am willing he shall speak his about mine, if I have any. And, true enough, maybe I have; but I reckon they’ll bear inspection—I have that idea, anyway. A manly fellow! You should have heard him whine and wail and swear, last night, because the saddle hurt him. Why didn’t the saddle hurt me? Pooh—I was as much at home in it as if I had been born there. And yet it was the first time I was ever on a horse. All those old soldiers admired my riding; they said they had never seen anything like it. But him—why, they had to hold him on, all the time.”

An odor as of breakfast came stealing through the wood; the Paladin unconsciously inflated his nostrils in lustful response, and got up and limped painfully away, saying he must go and look to his horse.

At bottom he was all right and a good-hearted giant, without any harm in him, for it is no harm to bark, if one stops there and does not bite, and it is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick. If this vast structure of brawn and muscle and vanity and foolishness seemed to have a libelous tongue, what of it? There was no malice behind it; and besides, the defect was not of his own creation; it was the work of Noel Rainguesson, who had nurtured it, fostered it, built it up and perfected it, for the entertainment he got out of it. His careless light heart had to have somebody to nag and chaff and make fun of, the Paladin had only needed development in order to meet its requirements, consequently the development was taken in hand and diligently attended to and looked after, gnat-and-bull fashion, for years, to the neglect and damage of far more important concerns. The result was an unqualified success. Noel prized the society of the Paladin above everybody else’s; the Paladin preferred anybody’s to Noel’s. The big fellow was often seen with the little fellow, but it was for the same reason that the bull is often seen with the gnat.