Droll Stories, Volume 2

H >> Honore de Balzac >> Droll Stories, Volume 2


"Then the Chapter had full licence to proceed to the penance of the
girl, to which act and ecclesiastical ceremony the people came from
twelve leagues around. So that on the day when, after divine
satisfaction, the Succubus was to be delivered up to secular justice,
in order to be publicly burnt at a stake, not for a gold pound would a
lord or even an abbott have been found lodging in the town of Tours.
The night before many camped outside the town in tents, or slept upon
straw. Provisions were lacking, and many who came with their bellies
full, returned with their bellies empty, having seen nothing but the
reflection of the fire in the distance. And the bad characters did
good strokes of business by the way.

"The poor courtesan was half dead; her hair had whitened. She was, to
tell the truth, nothing but a skeleton, scarcely covered with flesh,
and her chains weighed more than she did. If she had had joy in her
life, she paid dearly for it at this moment. Those who saw her pass
say that she wept and shrieked in a way that should have earned the
pity of her hardest pursuers; and in the church there were compelled
to put a piece of wood in her mouth, which she bit as a lizard bites a
stick. Then the executioner tied her to a stake to sustain her, since
she let herself roll at times and fell for want of strength. Then she
suddenly recovered a vigorous handful, because, this notwithstanding,
she was able, it is said to break her cords and escape into the
church, where in remembrance of her old vocation, she climbed quickly
into galleries above, flying like a bird along the little columns and
small friezes. She was about to escape on to the roof when a soldier
perceived her, and thrust his spear in the sole of her foot. In spite
of her foot half cut through, the poor girl still ran along the church
without noticing it, going along with her bones broken and her blood
gushing out, so great fear had she of the flames of the stake. At last
she was taken and bound, thrown into a tumbrel and led to the stake,
without being afterwards heard to utter a cry. The account of her
flight in the church assisted in making the common people believe that
she was the devil, and some of them said that she had flown in the
air. As soon as the executioner of the town threw her into the flames,
she made two or three horrible leaps and fell down into the bottom of
the pile, which burned day and night. On the following evening I went
to see if anything remained of this gentle girl, so sweet, so loving,
but I found nothing but a fragment of the 'os stomachal,' in which, is
spite of this, there still remained some moisture, and which some say
still trembled like a woman does in the same place. It is impossible
to tell, my dear son, the sadnesses, without number and without equal,
which for about ten years weighed upon me; always was I thinking of
this angel burnt by wicked men, and always I beheld her with her eyes
full of love. In short the supernatural gifts of this artless child
were shining day and night before me, and I prayed for her in the
church, where she had been martyred. At length I had neither the
strength nor the courage to look without trembling upon the grand
penitentiary Jehan de la Haye, who died eaten up by lice. Leprosy was
his punishment. Fire burned his house and his wife; and all those who
had a hand in the burning had their own hands singed.

"This, my well-beloved son, was the cause of a thousand ideas, which I
have here put into writing to be forever the rule of conduct in our
family.

"I quitted the service of the church, and espoused your mother, from
whom I received infinite blessings, and with whom I shared my life, my
goods, my soul, and all. And she agreed with me in following precepts
--Firstly, that to live happily, it is necessary to keep far away from
church people, to honour them much without giving them leave to enter
your house, any more than to those who by right, just or unjust, are
supposed to be superior to us. Secondly, to take a modest condition,
and to keep oneself in it without wishing to appear in any way rich.
To have a care to excite no envy, nor strike any onesoever in any
manner, because it is needful to be as strong as an oak, which kills
the plants at its feet, to crush envious heads, and even then would
one succumb, since human oaks are especially rare and that no
Tournebouche should flatter himself that he is one, granting that he
be a Tournebouche. Thirdly, never to spend more than one quarter of
one's income, conceal one's wealth, hide one's goods and chattels, to
undertake no office, to go to church like other people, and always
keep one's thoughts to oneself, seeing that they belong to you and not
to others, who twist them about, turn them after their own fashion,
and make calumnies therefrom. Fourthly, always to remain in the
condition of the Tournebouches, who are now and forever drapers. To
marry your daughters to good drapers, send your sons to be drapers in
other towns of France furnished with these wise precepts, and to bring
them up to the honour of drapery, and without leaving any dream of
ambition in their minds. A draper like a Tournebouche should be their
glory, their arms, their name, their motto, their life. Thus by being
always drapers, they will be always Tournebouches, and rub on like the
good little insects, who, once lodged in the beam, made their dens,
and go on with security to the end of their ball of thread. Fifthly
never to speak any other language than that of drapery, and never to
dispute concerning religion or government. And even though the
government of the state, the province, religion, and God turn about,
or have a fancy to go to the right or to the left, always in your
quality of Tournebouche, stick to your cloth. Thus unnoticed by the
others of the town, the Tournebouches will live in peace with their
little Tournebouches--paying the tithes and taxes, and all that they
are required by force to give, be it to God, or to the king, to the
town of to the parish, with all of whom it is unwise to struggle. Also
it is necessary to keep the patrimonial treasure, to have peace and to
buy peace, never to owe anything, to have corn in the house, and enjoy
yourselves with the doors and windows shut.

"By this means none will take from the Tournebouches, neither the
state, nor the Church, nor the Lords, to whom should the case be that
force is employed, you will lend a few crowns without cherishing the
idea of ever seeing him again--I mean the crowns.

"Thus, in all seasons people will love the Tournebouches, will mock
the Tournebouches as poor people--as the slow Tournebouches, as
Tournebouches of no understanding. Let the know-nothings say on. The
Tournebouches will neither be burned nor hanged, to the advantage of
King or Church, or other people; and the wise Tournebouches will have
secretly money in their pockets, and joy in their houses, hidden from
all.

"Now, my dear son, follow this the counsel of a modest and
middle-class life. Maintain this in thy family as a county charter;
and when you die, let your successor maintain it as the sacred gospel
of the Tournebouches, until God wills it that there be no longer
Tournebouches in this world."

This letter has been found at the time of the inventory made in the
house of Francois Tournebouche, lord of Veretz, chancellor to
Monseigneur the Dauphin, and condemned at the time of the rebellion of
the said lord against the King to lose his head, and have all his
goods confiscated by order of the Parliament of Paris. The said letter
has been handed to the Governor of Touraine as an historical
curiosity, and joined to the pieces of the process in the
archbishopric of Tours, by me, Pierre Gaultier, Sheriff, President of
the Trades Council.

The author having finished the transcription and deciphering of these
parchments, translating them from their strange language into French,
the donor of them declared that the Rue Chaude at Tours was so called,
according to certain people, because the sun remained there longer
than in all other parts. But in spite of this version, people of lofty
understanding will find, in the warm way of the said Succubus, the
real origin of the said name. In which acquiesces the author. This
teaches us not to abuse our body, but use it wisely in view of our
salvation.



DESPAIR IN LOVE

At the time when King Charles the Eighth took it into his head to
decorate the castle of Amboise, they came with him certain workmen,
master sculptors, good painters, and masons, or architects, who
ornamented the galleries with splendid works, which, through neglect,
have since been much spoiled.

At that time the court was staying in this beautiful locality, and, as
everyone knows, the king took great pleasure in watching his people
work out their ideas. Among these foreign gentlemen was an Italian,
named Angelo Cappara, a most worthy young man, and, in spite of his
age, a better sculptor and engraver than any of them; and it
astonished many to see one in the April of his life so clever. Indeed,
there had scarcely sprouted upon his visage the hair which imprints
upon a man virile majesty. To this Angelo the ladies took a great
fancy because he was charming as a dream, and as melancholy as a dove
left solitary in its nest by the death of its mate. And this was the
reason thereof: this sculptor knew the curse of poverty, which mars
and troubles all the actions of life; he lived miserably, eating
little, ashamed of his pennilessness, and made use of his talents only
through great despair, wishing by any means to win that idle life
which is the best all for those whose minds are occupied. The
Florentine, out of bravado, came to the court gallantly attired, and
from the timidity of youth and misfortune dared not ask his money from
the king, who, seeing him thus dressed, believed him well with
everything. The courtiers and the ladies used all to admire his
beautiful works, and also their author; but of money he got none. All,
and the ladies above all, finding him rich by nature, esteemed him
well off with his youth, his long black hair, and bright eyes, and did
not give a thought to lucre, while thinking of these things and the
rest. Indeed they were quite right, since these advantages gave to
many a rascal of the court, lands, money and all. In spite of his
youthful appearance, Master Angelo was twenty years of age, and no
fool, had a large heart, a head full of poetry; and more than that,
was a man of lofty imaginings. But although he had little confidence
in himself, like all poor and unfortunate people, he was astonished at
the success of the ignorant. He fancied that he was ill-fashioned,
either in body or mind, and kept his thoughts to himself. I am wrong,
for he told them in the clear starlight nights to the shadows, to God,
to the devil, and everything about him. At such times he would lament
his fate in having a heart so warm, that doubtless the ladies avoided
him as they would a red-hot iron; then he would say to himself how he
would worship a beautiful mistress, how all his life long he would
honour her, and with what fidelity he would attach himself to her,
with what affection serve her, how studiously obey her commands, with
what sports he would dispel the light clouds of her melancholy sadness
on the days when the skies should be overcast. Fashioning himself one
out of his imagination, he would throw himself at her feet, kiss,
fondle, caress, bite, and clasp her with as much reality as a prisoner
scampers over the grass when he sees the green fields through the bars
of his cell. Thus he would appeal to her mercy; overcome with his
feelings, would stop her breath with his embraces, would become daring
in spite of his respect, and passionately bite the clothes of his bed,
seeking this celestial lady, full of courage when by himself, but
abashed on the morrow if he passed one by. Nevertheless, inflamed by
these amorous advances, he would hammer way anew at his marble
figures, would carve beautiful breasts, to bring the water into one's
mouth at the sight of those sweet fruits of love, without counting the
other things that he raised, carved, and caressed with the chisels,
smoothed down with his file, and fashioned in a manner that would make
their use intelligible to the mind of a greenhorn, and stain his
verdure in a single day. The ladies would criticise these beauties,
and all of them were smitten with the youthful Cappara. And the
youthful Cappara would eye them up and down, swearing that the day one
of them gave him her little finger to kiss, he would have his desire.

Among these high-born ladies there came one day one by herself to the
young Florentine, asking him why he was so shy, and if none of the
court ladies could make him sociable. Then she graciously invited him
to come to her house that evening.

Master Angelo perfumes himself, purchases a velvet mantle with a
double fringe of satin, borrows from a friend a cloak with wide
sleeves, a slashed doublet, and silken hose, arrives at the house, and
ascends the stairs with hasty feet, hope beaming from his eyes,
knowing not what to do with his heart, which leaped and bounded like a
goat; and, to sum up, so much over head and ears in love, that the
perspiration trickled down his back.

You may be sure the lady was a beautiful, and Master Cappara was the
more aware of it, since in his profession he had studied the mouldings
of the arms, the lines of the body, the secret surroundings of the
sex, and other mysteries. Now this lady satisfied the especial rules
of art; and besides being fair and slender, she had a voice to disturb
life in its source, to stir fire of a heart, brain, and everything; in
short, she put into one's imagination delicious images of love without
thinking of it, which is the characteristic of these cursed women.

The sculptor found her seated by the fire in a high chair, and the
lady immediately commenced to converse at her ease, although Angelo
could find no other replies than "Yes" and "No," could get no other
words from his throat nor idea in his brain, and would have beaten his
head against the fireplace but for the happiness of gazing at and
listening to his lovely mistress, who was playing there like a young
fly in the sunshine. Because, which this mute admiration, both
remained until the middle of the night, wandering slowly down the
flowery path of love, the good sculptor went away radiant with
happiness. On the road, he concluded in his own mind, that if a noble
lady kept him rather close to her skirts during four hours of the
night, it would not matter a straw if she kept him there the
remainder. Drawing from these premises certain corollaries, he
resolved to ask her favours as a simple woman. Then he determined to
kill everybody--the husband, the wife, or himself--rather than lose
the distaff whereon to spin one hour of joy. Indeed, he was so mad
with love, that he believed life to be but a small stake in the game
of love, since one single day of it was worth a thousand lives.

The Florentine chiselled away at his statues, thinking of his evening,
and thus spoiled many a nose thinking of something else. Noticing
this, he left his work, perfumed himself, and went to listen to the
sweet words of his lady, with the hope of turning them into deeds; but
when he was in the presence of his sovereign, her feminine majesty
made itself felt, and poor Cappara, such a lion in street, looked
sheepish when gazing at his victim. This notwithstanding, towards the
hour when desire becomes heated, he was almost in the lady's lap and
held her tightly clasped. He had obtained a kiss, had taken it, much
to his delight; for, when they give it, the ladies retain the right of
refusal, but when they left it to be taken, the lover may take a
thousand. This is the reason why all of them are accustomed to let it
be taken. The Florentine has stolen a great number, and things were
going on admirably, when the lady, who had been thrifty with her
favours, cried, "My husband!"

And, in fact, my lord had just returned from playing tennis, and the
sculptor had to leave the place, but not without receiving a warm
glance from the lady interrupted in her pleasure. This was all his
substance, pittance and enjoyment during a whole month, since on the
brink of his joy always came the said husband, and he always arrived
wisely between a point-blank refusal and those little sweet caresses
with which women always season their refusals--little things which
reanimate love and render it all the stronger. And when the sculptor,
out of patience, commenced, immediately upon his arrival, the skirmish
of the skirt, in order that victory might arrive before the husband,
to whom, no doubt, these disturbances were not without profit, his
fine lady, seeing desire written in the eyes of her sculptor,
commenced endless quarrels and altercations; at first she pretended to
be jealous in order to rail against love; then appeased the anger of
the little one with the moisture of a kiss, then kept the conversation
to herself, and kept on saying that her lover should be good, obedient
to her will, otherwise she would not yield to him her life and soul;
that a desire was a small thing to offer a mistress; that she was more
courageous, because loving more she sacrificed more, and to his
propositions she would exclaim, "Silence, sir!" with the air of a
queen, and at times she would put on an angry look, to reply to the
reproachs of Cappara: "If you are not as I wish you to be, I will no
longer love you."

The poor Italian saw, when it was too late, that this was not a noble
love, one of those which does not mete out joy as a miser his crowns;
and that this lady took delight in letting him jump about outside the
hedge and be master of everything, provided he touched not the garden
of love. At this business Cappara became a savage enough to kill
anyone, and took with him trusty companions, his friends, to whom he
gave the task of attacking the husband while walking home to bed after
his game of tennis with the king. He came to his lady at the
accustomed hour when the sweet sports of love were in full swing,
which sports were long, lasting kisses, hair twisted and untwisted,
hand bitten with passion, ears as well; indeed, the whole business,
with the exception of that especial thing which good authors rightly
find abominable. The Florentine exclaims between two hearty kisses--

"Sweet one, do you love me more than anything?"

"Yes," said she, because words never cost anything.

"Well then," replied the lover, "be mine in deed as in word."

"But," said she, "my husband will be here directly."

"Is that the only reason?" said he.

"Yes."

"I have friends who will cross him, and will not let him go unless I
show a torch at this window. If he complain to the king, my friends
will say, they thought they were playing a joke on one of their own
set."

"Ah, my dear," said she, "let me see if everyone in the house is gone
to bed."

She rose, and held the light to the window. Seeing which Cappara blew
out the candle, seized his sword, and placing himself in front of the
woman, whose scorn and evil mind he recognised.

"I will not kill you, madame," said he, "but I will mark your face in
such a manner you will never again coquette with young lovers whose
lives you waste. You have deceived me shamefully, and are not a
respectable woman. You must know that a kiss will never sustain life
in a true lover, and that a kissed mouth needs the rest. Your have
made my life forever dull and wretched; now I will make you remember
forever my death, which you have caused. You shall never again behold
yourself in a glass without seeing there my face also." Then he raised
his arm, and held the sword ready to cut off a good slice of the fresh
fair cheek, where still all the traces of his kiss remained. And the
lady exclaimed, "You wretch!"

"Hold your tongue," said he; "you told me that you loved me better
than anything. Now you say otherwise; each evening have you raised me
a little nearer to heaven; with one blow you cast me into hell, and
you think that your petticoat can save you from a lover's wrath--No!"

"Ah, my Angelo! I am thine," said she, marvelling at this man glaring
with rage.

But he, stepping three paces back, replied, "Ah, woman of the court
and wicked heart, thou lovest, then, thy face better than thy lover."

She turned pale, and humbly held up her face, for she understood that
at this moment her past perfidy wronged her present love. With a
single blow Angelo slashed her face, then left her house, and quitted
the country. The husband not having been stopped by reason of that
light which was seen by the Florentines, found his wife minus her left
cheek. But she spoke not a word in spite of her agony; she loved her
Cappara more than life itself. Nevertheless, the husband wished to
know whence preceded this wound. No one having been there except the
Florentine, he complained to the king, who had his workman hastily
pursued, and ordered him to be hanged at Blois. On the day of
execution a noble lady was seized with a desire to save this
courageous man, whom she believed to be a lover of the right sort. She
begged the king to give him to her, which he did willingly. But
Cappara declaring that he belonged entirely to his lady, the memory of
whom he could not banish entirely, entered the Church, became a
cardinal and a great savant, and used to say in his old age that he
had existed upon the remembrance of the joys tasted in those poor
hours of anguish; in which he was, at the same time, both very well
and very badly treated by his lady. There are authors saying
afterwards he succeeded better with his old sweetheart, whose cheek
healed; but I cannot believe this, because he was a man of heart, who
had a high opinion of the holy joys of love.

This teaches us nothing worth knowing, unless it be that there are
unlucky meetings in life, since this tale is in every way true. If in
other places the author has overshot the truth, this one will gain for
him the indulgence of the conclave or lovers.



EPILOGUE

This second series comes in the merry month of June, when all is green
and gay, because the poor muse, whose slave the author is, has been
more capricious then the love of a queen, and has mysteriously wished
to bring forth her fruit in the time of flowers. No one can boast
himself master of this fay. At times, when grave thoughts occupy the
mind and grieve the brain, comes the jade whispering her merry tales
in the author's ear, tickling her lips with her feathers, dancing
sarabands, and making the house echo with her laughter. If by chance
the writer, abandoning science for pleasure, says to her, "Wait a
moment, little one, till I come," and runs in great haste to play with
the madcap, she has disappeared. She has gone into her hole, hides
herself there, rolls herself up, and retires. Take the poker, take a
staff, a cudgel, a cane, raise them, strike the wench, and rave at
her, she moans; strap her, she moans; caress her, fondle her, she
moans; kiss her, say to her, "Here, little one," she moans. Now she's
cold, now she is going to die; adieu to love, adieu to laughter, adieu
to merriment, adieu to good stories. Wear mourning for her, weep and
fancy her dead, groan. Then she raises her head, her merry laugh rings
out again; she spreads her white wings, flies one knows not wither,
turns in the air, capers, shows her impish tail, her woman's breasts,
her strong loins, and her angelic face, shakes her perfumed tresses,
gambols in the rays of the sun, shines forth in all her beauty,
changes her colours like the breast of a dove, laughs until she cries,
cast the tears of her eyes into the sea, where the fishermen find them
transmuted into pretty pearls, which are gathered to adorn the
foreheads of queens. She twists about like a colt broken loose,
exposing her virgin charms, and a thousand things so fair that a pope
would peril his salvation for her at the mere sight of them. During
these wild pranks of the ungovernable beast you meet fools and
friends, who say to the poor poet, "Where are your tales? Where are
your new volumes? You are a pagan prognosticator. Oh yes, you are
known. You go to fetes and feasts, and do nothing between your meals.
Where's your work?"

Although I am by nature partial to kindness, I should like to see one
of these people impaled in the Turkish fashion, and thus equipped,
sent on the Love Chase. Here endeth the second series; make the devil
give it a lift with his horns, and it will be well received by a
smiling Christendom.