The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century. Эжен Сю
Читать онлайн книгу.
remained for an instant speechless with astonishment; and turning to Monsieur John, he said:
"I must admit that great is my astonishment. Lefevre, whose name I mentioned to you before, is an austere man, wholly absorbed in scientific pursuits and in study. What can he have in common with the Spanish libertine? I am unable to explain the mystery."
"If you are surprised, brother, no less so am I," replied the Franc-Taupin. "Captain Loyola, whom fourteen or fifteen years ago I knew as the handsomest, gayest and most dissolute of cavaliers, dressed in velvets, silks and lace, looks to-day as tattered as any tramp or starving beggar. The transformation is so radical, that I never would have thought of looking for my frisky Spanish captain under the black smock-frock of a halepopin, had it not been for Lefevre, who, stopping me near the booths of the market place, which I was then crossing, inquired after you. It was then that I looked more attentively at his seedy companion and recognized – Don Ignatius!"
"The man's relations astonish me so much, Josephin, that I am no less impatient than our guest to hear you."
"Well, it was in the year 1521, during the siege of Pampeluna," the adventurer began, "and shortly after my enrollment with the Franc-Taupins. I was digging a trench with them before the place; we were throwing up the earth like veritable moles. The Spaniards made a sortie in order to destroy our works. At the first shot of the Spanish arquebuses, all my companions threw themselves flat down, with their noses in the hole. Their cowardice angered me. I took up my pick and rushed into the melee, plying my improvised weapon upon the Spaniards. A blow with a mace over my head knocked me down half dead. When I recovered consciousness I found myself lying upon the battle field among several of our men, all prisoners like myself. A company of Spanish arquebusiers surrounded us. Their captain, with the visor of his casque raised and mounted upon a Moorish horse as black as ebony, the housings of which were of red velvet embroidered with silver, was wiping his long, blood-stained sword upon the animal's mane. The captain was Don Ignatius Loyola. Moustache turned up in Castilian style, goatee, an olive complexion, intrepid mien, haughty and martial bearing – such was his portrait. He had noticed me pounding his soldiers with my pick, and took a fancy both to my pick and my youth. When he saw that I had regained consciousness, he started to laugh and addressed me in French: 'Will you be my page? Your wideawake face denotes an intelligent scapegrace; I shall furnish you a silver-embroidered red livery and a ducat a month, and you can eat your fill at my residence.' Oh, brother, an offer to eat my fill, to me whose stomach had long been as hollow as the barrel of St. Benoit and as open as an advocate's purse! The prospect of putting on a beautiful silver-embroidered livery, when my hose had for some time been reporting to me from which corner the wind blew! The thought of pocketing every month a ducat, when all my earnings during the whole campaign had so far been a wooden bowl that I plundered somewhere, and that I used for a hat! In token of glad acceptance I seized my pick that lay near me, threw it as far away as I could, and I told Don Ignatius that I accepted, and would follow him to the very devil's residence. The long and short of the affair was that I entered Pampeluna with my new master."
"I feel more and more mystified," interjected Christian; "what service could a page, ignorant of the country's language, render to Don Ignatius?"
"The devil take it! That was the very reason why I was employed by the cunning slyboots of a Don Ignatius. No sooner did I arrive at his residence, than an old majordomo, the only one of his men who spoke French, rigged me up in new clothes, from my feet to my head, – puffed hose of red velvet, white satin jacket, short cloak with silver trimmings, ruffs and bonnet after the Spanish style. Thus behold me, brother, attired as a genuine court page. In those days I had both my eyes – two luminaries of deviltry, besides the cunning nose of a fox cub. Thus dressed up in spick and span dashing new clothes, the majordomo led me to Captain Loyola, 'Do you know,' he asked me, 'why I take you, a Frenchman, for my page? It is because, as you do not know Spanish, you can not choose but be discreet towards the people in my house and those outside.'"
"That is not badly planned," remarked Christian; "Don Ignatius had, I suppose, many amorous secrets to conceal?"
"By the bowels of St. Quenet! I knew him to have as many as three sweethearts at a time: a charming merchant's wife, a haughty marchioness, and a bedeviled gipsy girl, the most beautiful daughter of Bohemia that ever trilled a tambourine. But Captain Loyola, a veritable Franc-Taupin in matters of love, courted behind concealed trenches. He reveled in mystery. 'What is not known does not exist' was, with him, a favorite maxim that the old majordomo, his master's echo, often repeated to me."
"'What is not known does not exist,'" repeated Monsieur John pensively. "Yes, judging by the motto, the man must be just what he has been described to me to be."
"Just listen," Josephin proceeded; "I shall describe to you the experiences that I made the first evening that I served Don Ignatius as page. You will then be able to judge of the scamp's calibre. A fifteen-days' truce was agreed upon between the French and the Spaniards, as a result of the sortie at which I was taken prisoner. As a longheaded man, Captain Loyola proposed to profit by the truce in his amorous intrigues. Towards midnight he summoned me to his side. The devil! If the fellow looked martial in battle outfit, he looked frisky in his court costume! A jacket slashed with gold-embroidered velvet, puffed hose of white satin, shoes turned like a crawfish, plumed bonnet, a gold bejeweled chain on his neck! What shall I say? He shone and glittered, and besides, smelled of balsam! A veritable muskrat! He hands for me to carry a silken ladder and a guitar; takes his dagger and sword; and wraps himself up to the eyes in a taffeta mantle of light yellow. The old majordomo opens a secret door to us; we issue out of the house; after crossing a few narrow streets, we arrive at a deserted little square. My master glides under a balcony that is shut with lattices, takes the guitar from my hands, and there you have him warbling his roundelay. In response to the carol of the moustachioed nightingale, one of the shutters of the balcony opens slightly, and a bouquet of pomegranate blossoms drops at our feet. Don Ignatius picks it up, extracts from amidst the flowers a little note concealed among them, and gives me the guitar together with the bouquet to hold for him. I imagined our evening performance concluded. By the bowels of St. Quenet, it had only commenced! Don Ignatius fanned the sparks of his libidinousness with his guitarade, on the same principle that one fans the sparks of his thirst by chewing on a pork-rind dipped in mustard. But by the way of thirst, brother, let us imbibe that pot; appetite comes with eating, but thirst goes with drinking. He who drinks without being thirsty drinks for the thirst that is to come. Thirst is an animal's quality, but to crave for drink is a quality of man. By St Pansard and St. Goguelu, let's moisten, let's moisten our whistles! Our tongues will dry up soon enough! Unhappy Shrove-Tuesday, the patron of pots and sausages – and the devil take the Pope and all his friarhood!"
"Josephin," said Christian, smiling and filling the Franc-Taupin's cup, as he broke into the midst of the latter's flow of bacchic invocations, "I know you to be an expert in the matter of quaffing, but our guest and myself are more curious about the end of your story."
"God's head! As truly as the mere shadow of a Carmelite convent is enough to cure any woman of sterility, I shall not allow the end of the adventure of Don Ignatius to drown at the bottom of this cup! There, it is now empty!"
Saying this, the Franc-Taupin passed the back of his hand over his moustache, moist with wine, wiped it dry, and proceeded:
"Well, as I was saying, after his guitarade, Don Ignatius proceeded with his nocturnal adventure on the streets of Pampeluna. We moved away, and pulled up next before a pretentious dwelling. My master plants himself under a balcony at some distance from the main entrance; passes his long sword over to me to keep with the guitar, and retains no weapon other than his dagger; he then disengages himself of his mantle also, which he throws over my arm and says to me: 'You will hold the lower end of the ladder while I climb up to the balcony; you will then keep a sharp lookout near the door of this house; if you see anyone go in, you will run quickly under this window and clap your hands twice; I shall hear your signal.' This being agreed upon, Don Ignatius himself claps his hands three times. Immediately thereupon I see through the darkness of the night, a white form lean over the balustrade and drop us a cord. My master ties his ladder to it; the white form draws it up; the upper end of the ladder is fastened to the balcony; I steady it by holding the lower rung in my hands; and there you have Captain Loyola clambering up nimbly and light of