The Cream of the Jest, James Branch Cabell [smart ebook reader .TXT] 📗

own ends to forget that I seemed not unlovely. It is not the sigil and the power the sigil gives which they love and serve⁠—”

“And that small square mirror, such as Cromwell also carried⁠—?” Kennaston began. “Or is this forbidden talk?”

“Yes, that mirror aids them. In that mirror they can see only themselves. So the mirror aids toward the ends they chose, with open eyes.⁠ ⁠… But you cannot ever penetrate these mysteries now, Horvendile. The secret of the mirror was offered you once, and you would not bargain. The secret of the mirror is offered to no man twice.”

And he laughed merrily. “What does it matter? I am perfectly content. That is more than can be said for yonder sanctimonious fat old rascal, who has just told me he is going into Ireland ‘for the propagating of the gospel of Christ, the establishing of truth and peace, and the restoring of that bleeding nation to its former happiness and tranquillity.’ Why is it that people of executive ability seem always to be more or less mentally deficient? Now, you and I know that, in point of fact, he is going into Ireland to burn villages, massacre women, hang bishops, and generally qualify his name for all time as a Hibernian synonym for infamy. Oh, no, the purchase-price of grandeur is too great; and men that crown themselves in this world inevitably perform the action with soiled hands. Still, I wish I had known I was going visiting tonight in seventeenth-century England,” said Kennaston, reflectively; “then I could have read up a bit. I don’t even know whether Virginia ever submitted to him. It simply shows what idleness may lead to! If I had studied history more faithfully I would have been able tonight to prophesy to Oliver Cromwell about the results of his Irish campaigns and so on, and could have impressed him vastly with my abilities. As it is, I have missed an opportunity which will probably never occur again to any man of my generation.⁠ ⁠…”

XXXII Horvendile to Ettarre: At Vaux-le-Vicomte

“What fun!” says Kennaston; “we are at Vaux-le-Vicomte, where Fouquet is entertaining young Louis Quatorze. Yonder is La Vallière⁠—the thin towheaded girl, with the big mouth. People are just beginning to whisper scandal about her. And that tall jade is Athenaïs de Tonnay-Charente⁠—the woman who is going to be Madame de Montespan and control everything in the kingdom later on, you remember. The King is not yet aware of her existence, nor has Monsieur de Montespan been introduced.⁠ ⁠…

“The Troupe of Monsieur is about to present an open-air comedy. It is called Les Facheux⁠—The Bores. It is rumored to take off very cleverly the trivial tedious fashion in which perfectly well-meaning people chatter their way through life. But that more fittingly would be the theme of a tragedy, Ettarre. Men are condemned eternally to bore one another. Two hundred years and more from today⁠—perhaps forever⁠—man will lack means, or courage, to voice his actual thoughts adequately. He must still talk of weather probabilities and of having seen So-and-so and of such trifles, that mean absolutely nothing to him⁠—and must babble of these things even to the persons who are most dear and familiar to him. Yes, every reputable man must desperately make small-talk, and echo and reecho senseless phrases, until the crack of doom. He will always be afraid to bare his actual thoughts and interests to his fellows’ possible disapproval: or perhaps it is just a pitiable mania with the race. At all events, one should not laugh at this ageless aspersion and burlesque of man’s intelligence as performed by man himself.⁠ ⁠…

“The comedy is quite new. A marquis, with wonderful canions and a scented wig like an edifice, told me it is by an upholsterer named Coquelin, a barnstormer who ran away from home and has been knocking about the provinces unsuccessfully for nearly twenty years: and my little marquis wondered what in the world we are coming to, when Monsieur le Surintendent takes up with that class of people. Is not my little marquis droll?⁠—for he meant Poquelin, soon to be Poquelin de Molière, of course. Molière, also, is a name which is not famous as yet. But in a month or so it will be famous for all time; and Monsieur le Surintendent will be in jail and forgotten.⁠ ⁠…

“You smile, Ettarre? Ah, yes, I understand. Molière too adores you. All poets have had fitful glimpses of you, Ettarre, and of that perfect beauty which is full of troubling reticences, and so, is touched with something sinister. I have written as to the price they pay, these hapless poets, in a little book I am inditing through that fat pudgy body I wear in the flesh.⁠ ⁠… Do not frown: I know it is forbidden to talk with you concerning my life in the flesh.⁠ ⁠…

“Ah, the King comes⁠—evidently in no very amiable frame of mind⁠—and all rise, like a flurry of great butterflies. It is the beginning of the play. See, a woman is coming out of the big shell in the fountain.⁠ ⁠…

“I wish my old friend Jonas d’Artagnan were here. It is a real pity he is only a character in fiction⁠—just as I once thought you were, Ettarre. Eh, what a fool I was to imagine I had created you! and that I controlled your speech and doings! I know much better now.⁠ ⁠…

“Ettarre, your unattainable beauty tears my heart. Is that black-browed Molière your lover too? What favors have you granted him? You perceive I am jealous. How can I be otherwise, when there is nothing, nothing in me that does not cry out for love of you? And I am forbidden ever to win quite to you, ever to touch you, ever to see you even save in my dreams!”

XXXIII Horvendile to Ettarre: In the Conciergerie

They waited in a big dark room of the Conciergerie, with many other condemned émigrants, until the