Eugène Sue

“ Sigefried!" At the third name that he pronounced, Louis' voice, at first loud, became almost unintelligible, it sunk to a husky whisper. He sat up. "What is the matter with me? My voice is so feeble that I can hardly hear myself. My throat seems to close ... then this icy feeling ... this cold that freezes my feet and is rising to my legs!" The King of the Franks had barely uttered these words when a shudder of fear ran through him. He saw before him Yvon the Calf who had suddenly risen and now stood erect behind the head of the lounge. ”

“ But judging the tavern-keeper by himself, and noticing, moreover, that the former was well armed, he reflected that in days like those bread and meat were more precious than gold and silver; to request Gregory the Hollow-bellied to yield a part of his supper was folly; he would surely refuse, and if force was attempted he would kill the intruder. These thoughts rapidly succeeded one another in Yvon's troubled brain. To add to his dilemma, his presence was scented by the mastiff who, at first, growled angrily without, however, dropping his bone, and then began to bark. ”

“ Yvon the Calf, who talks that way? And he in love?'"
"And are you pleased to see your error dispelled? Do you reciprocate my feelings?"
"I do not know," answered the young serf blushing. "I am so taken by surprise by all that you have been telling me! I must have time to think."
"Marceline, will you marry me, yes or no? You are an orphan; you depend upon your mistress; I upon the bailiff; we are serfs of the same domain; can there be any reason why they should refuse their consent to our marriage?" And he added bitterly: "Does not the lambkin that is born increase its master's herd?" ”

“ Stopping with a gesture a fresh explosion of rage on the part of the Queen, the Count of Paris added solemnly raising his hand heavenward: "I swear to God by the salvation of my soul, were you a widow, I would obtain a divorce from the Pope, and I would marry you with holy joy. But likewise do I swear to God by the salvation of my soul, I wish no longer to brave eternal punishment by continuing a criminal intercourse with a woman bound, as I am myself, by the sacrament of marriage. ”

“ Hugh is a cunning and unscrupulous man. Last year he caused the poisoning of your father by Queen Imma and her accomplice the bishop of Laon; to-day he caused you to be poisoned by Blanche, your wife, and to-morrow the Count of Paris will be King!" Louis understood what Yvon was saying, although his mind was beclouded by the approach of death. A smile of hatred contracted his lips. "You believed yourself safe from danger," Yvon proceeded, "by compelling your wife to eat of the dishes that she served you. All poison has its antidote. ”

“ The golden-haired Marceline smiled broadly at the young man's idea, and replied:
"Can it be Yvon the Calf that reasons thus?"
"No, my dear and sweet maid, it is Yvon the lover; Yvon on whom you took pity when he was everybody else's butt and victim; Yvon, who, in return for your good heart, offers you love and devotion. That is all a poor serf can promise, seeing that his labor and his life belong to his master. Accept my offer, Marceline, we shall be as happy as one can be in these accursed times. We shall cultivate the field that surrounds the forester's hut ”

“ Marceline said to the idiot, pointing up the turret. Yvon rose and swiftly followed the advice of the serf maid, who, placing herself at the door, lay down her bucket of water, and addressing Yvon's tormentors, who were drawing near, said to them: "Have pity for the poor idiot, he harms no one."
"I have just seen him leap like a wolf out of the copse of the forest from the side of the Fountain of the Hinds," cried a forester serf. "His hair and the rags he has on are wet with dew. He must have been in some thicket spreading nets for game which he eats raw." ”

“ Oh, we shall not yet die! Den-Brao.... Children!... Meat!... Meat!" At these words Den-Brao sat up precipitately; Nominoe, too feeble to rise, turned on his pallet and stretched out his eager hands to his mother; little Jeannette eagerly looked up from her cradle; while Julyan, whom his mother was not now holding, neither heard nor saw aught but was biting into his arms in the delirium of starvation, unnoticed by either Yvon or any other member of the family. All eyes were fixed upon Gervaise, who running to a table and taking a knife sliced off the meat crying: "Meat!... Meat!" ”

“ A very short period within which to gain the eternal paradise!"
"By the hell that burns in my heart, the man is delivering a sermon to me!" cried the Queen with an outburst of caustic laughter. "What are you driving at? Are you spreading a snare for me? Malediction! this man is a compound of ruse, artifice and darkness, and yet I love him! I am insane!... Oh, there must be some magic charm in this!" and biting into her handkerchief with suppressed rage, she said to him: "I shall not interrupt again, even if I should choke with anger. Proceed, Hugh the Capet! Explain yourself!" ”

“ Cattle had become so dear that only the seigneurs and the ecclesiastics could afford to purchase any; beef cost a hundred gold sous, sheep a hundred silver sous! A sense of hate rose in Yvon's breast against Gregory whom he had until then looked upon very much as a friend. The forester could not take his eyes from the meat, thinking of the joy of his family if he were to return home loaded with such a booty. For a moment Yvon was tempted to knock at the door of the serf and demand a share, at least the chunks thrown at the dog. ”

“ Nourished by human flesh, the monster had been feeding on the travelers who stopped at his place. The roast that had just been hungrily swallowed by Yvon proceeded from a recent murder. The forester's hair stood on end; he dare not look towards the table where still lay the remains of his cannibal supper. He wondered how his mouth did not reject the food. But that first and cultivated sense of horror being over, the forester could not but admit to himself that the meat he had just gulped down differed little from beef. ”

“ I was taciturn by nature, and wild. Upon arriving at the castle in quest of my grandmother, I met by accident a company of Frankish soldiers who had been exercising. For pastime they began to make sport of me. My hatred of their race, coupled with my astonishment at finding myself for the first time in my life among such a big crowd, made me dumb. The soldiers took my savage silence for stupidity, and they cried in chorus: 'He is a calf!' Thus they carried me along with them amidst wild yells and jeers, and not a few blows bestowed upon me! ”

“ She will not leave the Queen for a long time. We shall not be interrupted. Come!" The young woman opened wide her eyes at seeing for the first time the Calf expressing himself in a sane manner, and his face now free of its wonted look of stupidity. In her astonishment, Marceline could not at first utter a word, and Yvon explained, smiling: "Marceline, my language astonishes you. The reason is, you see, I am no longer Yvon the Calf but ... Yvon who loves you! Yvon who adores Marceline!"
"Yvon who loves me!" cried the poor serf in fear. ”

“ The road ran before a tavern where travelers usually put up for the night. It was kept by a serf of the abbey of St. Maximim named Gregory, and surnamed the Hollow-bellied, because, according to him, nothing could satisfy his insatiable appetite. An otherwise kind-hearted and cheerful man, the serf often, before these distressful times, and when Yvon carried his tithe of game to the castle, had accommodatedly offered him a pot of hydromel. A prey now to the lashings of hunger and exasperated by the odor of fried meat which escaped from the tavern, Yvon carefully approached the closed door. ”

“ Yvon estimated its weight by the cracks in the ice on the stream that it had just crossed, the ice being otherwise thick enough to support Yvon himself. This was the first time in many months that the forester had run across a buck's track. Could the animal, perhaps, have escaped the general mortality of its kind? Did it come from some distant forest? Yvon knew not, but he followed the fresh track with avidity. Yvon had with him his bow and arrows. To reach the animal, kill it and smoke its flesh meant the saving of the lives of his family, now on the verge of starvation. ”

“ Many other people as penniless as ourselves were thus subjected to indignity and brutality. Desirous of sparing my father and my wife the disgrace, I said to the bailiff of the seigniory who happened to be there: "The castle I see yonder looks to me weak in many ways. I am a skillful mason; I have built a large number of fortified donjons; employ me and I shall work to the satisfaction of your seigneur. All I ask of you is not to allow my father, wife and children to be maltreated, and to furnish us with shelter and bread while the work lasts." ”

“ Have you suddenly turned mute, you who can bark, mew and crow so well?"
"My beloved Louis is quite merry this morning," observed Blanche caressingly and approaching her husband's lounge. "Whence proceeds the mirth of my dear husband?"
"That idiot could make a dead man laugh with his capers. Ho, there, Calf! Come this way, you scamp, or I'll have your bones broken!"
"Seigneur King," said one of the attendants after glancing around the room for Yvon, "the Calf must have escaped at the moment when the door was opened to admit the Queen. He is not here, nor in the adjoining room." ”

“ Following my father's wishes and also with the purpose of drawing near Britanny, we marched towards Anjou, where we arrived on the territory of the seigneur Guiscard, Count of the region and castle of Mont-Ferrier. All travelers who passed over his territory had to pay tribute to his toll-gatherers. Poor people, unable to pay, were, according to the whim of the seigneur's men, put through some disagreeable, or humiliating, or ridiculous performance: they were either whipped, or made to walk on their hands, or to turn somersaults, or kiss the bolts of the toll-gatherer's gate. ”

“ My curiosity also is now pricked."
"That is another question that I shall satisfy you upon after we are married, Marceline," answered Yvon after a moment's reflection; "but to return to the miracle that is to explain my transformation from idiocy to sanity, it is quite simple: St. Eusebius, the patron of the hermitage, will be credited with having performed the prodigy, and the monk, who now derives a goodly revenue from the hermitage will not deny my explanation, seeing that the report of the new miracle will double his tithes. His whole fraternity speculate upon human stupidity." ”

“ I shall kill for the castle the game wanted there, and as sure as the good God has created the stags for the hunt, we never shall want for a loin of venison. You will take charge of our vegetable garden. The streamlet of the Fountain of the Hinds flows but a hundred paces from our home. We shall live alone in the thick of the woods without other companions than the birds and our children. And now, again, is it 'yes' or 'no'? I want a quick answer."
"Oh, Yvon," answered Marceline, tears of joy running from her eyes, "if a serf could dispose of herself, I would say 'yes' ... ”

“ The trumpet of the day of judgment is about to sound; the dead are about to arise from their tombs; in the midst of thunder and lightning, and surrounded by archangels carrying flaming swords, the Eternal is about to pass judgment upon us all! ”

“ Den-Brao raised his head and asked: "Where are you going, father?"
"I am going to dig the grave of my little grandson.... I wish to save you the sad task."
"Dig ours also, father," Den-Brao replied with a dejected mien. "We shall all die to-night. For a moment allayed, our hunger will rise more violent than last night ... dig a wide grave for us all."
"Despair not, my children. It has stopped snowing. I may be able to find again the traces of the buck."
Yvon picked up a spade with which to dig Julyan's grave near where the boy's great-grandfather, Leduecq, lay buried. ”

“ Upon leaving the room where lay the corpse of Louis the Do-nothing, Yvon descended the stairs to the apartment of Adelaide, the lady of the Queen's chamber, and mistress of the golden-haired Marceline, whom he expected to find alone, Adelaide having followed the Queen when the latter ran to the King's apartment feigning despair at the death of her husband. Yvon found the young female serf at the threshold of the door in a state of great agitation at the tumult that had suddenly invaded the castle. ”

“ Since the death of his father, a forester serf, he lived with his grandmother, the washerwoman for the castle, who had received permission from the bailiff to keep her grandson near her. Yvon was at first employed in the stables; but having long lived in the woods, he looked so wild and stupid that he was presently taken for an idiot, went by the name of Yvon the Calf, and became the butt of all. The King himself, Louis the Do-nothing, amused himself occasionally with the foolish pranks of the young serf. He was taught to mimic dogs by barking and walking on all fours ”

“ The bailiff shrugged his shoulders and replied: "The law says—every man who is not a Frank, and who lives a year and a day upon the land of a seigneur, becomes a serf and the property of the said seigneur, and as such is subject to taille at will and mercy. You have lived here since the tenth day of June of the year 1034; we are now at the eleventh day of June of the year 1035; you have lived a year and a day on the land of the seigneur of Mont-Ferrier; you are now his serf; you belong to him, and he has the right to exchange you for a serf of the seigneur of Plouernel. ”

“ Lie down and keep quiet!" But so far from lying down and keeping quiet, the mastiff dropped his bone, stood up, and approaching the window where Yvon stood, barked louder still. "Oh, oh!" remarked the tavern-keeper depositing the meat in a large wooden platter on the table. "Fillot drops a bone to bark ... there must be someone outside." Yvon stepped quickly back, and from the dark that concealed him he saw Gregory seize his pike, throw the window wide open and leaning out call with a threatening voice: "Who is there? If any one is in search of death, he can find it here." ”