The Infant's Skull; Or, The End of the World. A Tale of the Millennium. Эжен Сю
step of the turret stairs that she was about to ascend, contemplated the idiot with pity, he ran towards the young girl, and throwing himself at her feet said joining his hands: "Pardon me, Marceline, but protect poor Yvon against these wicked people!"
"Climb the stairs quick!" 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, he is a worthy son of Leduecq, the forester, who lived like a savage in his den, never coming out of the woods!" observed another serf. "We must have some fun with the Calf."
"Yes, yes, let us dip him up to his ears in the neighboring pool in punishment for spreading nets to catch game with," said the forester; and taking a step toward Marceline who remained at the door: "Get out of the way, you servant of the devil, or we shall give you a ducking along with the Calf!"
"My mistress, Dame Adelaide, a lady of the Queen's chamber, will know how to punish you if you ill-treat me. Begone, you heartless people!"
"The devil take Adelaide! To the pool with the Calf!"
"Yes, to the pool with him! And Marceline also! A good mud-bath for both!"
At the height of the tumult, one of the casements of the castle was thrown open, and a young man of twenty years at most leaned out and cried angrily: "I shall have your backs flayed with a sound strapping, you accursed barking dogs!"
"The King!" exclaimed the tormentors of Yvon, and a minute later all had fled by the gate of the yard.
"Halloa, you girl!" called out Louis the Do-nothing to Marceline who was taking up her bucket of water. "What was the cause of the infernal racket made by that noisy pack?"
"Seigneur," answered Marceline trembling, "they wanted to ill-treat poor Yvon."
"Is the Calf about?"
"Seigneur, I know not where he is gone to hide," explained the maid who feared lest Yvon, barely escaped from one set of tormentors, should fall into the hands of the whimsical King. As the latter thereupon withdrew from the window, Marceline hastened to ascend the stair of the turret. She had scarcely mounted a dozen steps when she saw Yvon crouching with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. At the sight of the maid he shook his head and with a voice full of emotion said: "Good you; oh, you good! Marceline good!" and he fixed his eyes so full of gratitude upon her that she observed aloud with a sigh: "Who would believe that this wretch, with eyes at times so captivating, still is deprived of reason?" and again laying down her bucket she said to the idiot: "Yvon, why did you go this morning into the forest? Your hair and rags are really moist with dew. Is it true that you spread nets to take game?" The idiot answered with a stupid smile, swaying his head backward and forward. "Yvon," said Marceline, "do you understand me?" The idiot remained mute, but presently observing the bucket of water that the maid had laid down at his feet, he lifted it up, placed it on his own head, and motioned to Marceline to go up ahead of him. "The poor creature is expressing his gratitude as well as he can," Marceline was thinking to herself when she heard steps above coming down the stairs, and a voice cried out:
"Oh, Calf, is it you?"
"That is the voice of one of the King's servants," said Marceline. "He is coming for you, Yvon. Oh, you are going to fall into another tormentor's hands!"
Indeed, one of the men of the royal chamber appeared at the turning of the winding stairs and said to the idiot: "Come, get up quick and follow me! Our lord the King wishes to amuse himself with you, you double Calf!"
"The King! Oh! Oh! The King!" cried Yvon with a triumphant air, clapping his hands gayly. The bucket being left unsupported on his head, fell and broke open at the feet of the King's servitor whose legs were thereby drenched up to his knees.
"A plague upon the idiot!" cried Marceline despite all her good-heartedness. "There is the bucket broken! My mistress will beat me!"
Furious at the accident that drenched his clothes, the royal servitor hurled imprecations and insults upon Yvon the Calf, who, however, seeming not to notice either the imprecations or the insults, continued to repeat triumphantly: "The King! Oh! Oh! The King!"
CHAPTER III.
LOUIS THE DO-NOTHING
Like his wife Louis the Do-nothing was barely twenty years of age. Justly nicknamed the "Do-nothing," he looked as nonchalant as he seemed bored. After having scolded through the window at the serfs, whose noise annoyed him, he stretched himself out again upon his lounge. Several of his familiar attendants stood around him. Yawning fit to dislocate his jaws, he said to them: "What a notion that was of the Queen's to go at sunrise with only one lady of the chamber to pray at the hermitage of St. Eusebius! Once awakened, I could not fall asleep again. So I rose! Oh, this day will be endless!"
"Seigneur King, would you like to hunt?" suggested one of the attendants. "The day is fine. We would certainly kill some game."
"The hunt fatigues me. It is a rude sport."
"Seigneur King, would you prefer fishing?"
"Fishing tires me; it is a stupid pastime."
"Seigneur King, if you call your flute and lute-players, you might enjoy a dance."
"Music racks my head, and I cannot bear dancing. Let's try something else."
"Seigneur King, shall your chaplain read to you out of some fine work?"
"I hate reading. I think I could amuse myself with the idiot. Where is he?"
"Seigneur King, one of your attendants has gone out to find him… I hear steps… It is surely he coming."
The door opened and a servitor bent the knee and let in Yvon. From the moment of his entrance Yvon started to walk on all fours, barking like a dog; after a little while he grew livelier, jumped and cavorted about clapping his hands and shouting with such grotesque contortions that the King and the attendants began to laugh merrily. Encouraged by these signs of approbation and ever cavorting about, Yvon mimicked alternately the crowing of a rooster, the mewing of a cat, the grunting of a hog and the braying of an ass, interspersing his sounds with clownish gestures and ridiculous leaps, that redoubled the hilarity of the King and his courtiers. The merriment was at its height when the door was again thrown open, and one of the chamberlains announced in a loud voice from the threshold where he remained: "Seigneur King, the Queen approaches!" At these words the attendants of Louis, some of whom had dropped upon stools convulsing with laughter, rose hastily and crowded to the door to salute the Queen at her entrance. Louis, however, who lay stretched on his lounge, continued laughing and cried out to the idiot: "Keep on dancing, Calf! Dance on! You are worth your weight in gold! I never amused myself better!"
"Seigneur King, here is the Queen!" said one of the courtiers, seeing Blanche cross the contiguous chamber and approach the door. The wing of this door, when thrown open almost reached the corner of a large table that was covered with a splendid Oriental piece of tapestry, the folds of which reached to the floor. Yvon the Calf continued his gambols, slowly approaching the table, and concealed from the eyes of the King by the head-piece of the lounge on which the latter remained stretched. Ranged at the entrance of the door in order to salute the Queen, the prince's attendants had their backs turned to the table under which Yvon quickly blotted himself out at the moment when the seigneurs were bowing low before Blanche. The Queen answered their salute, and preceding them by a few steps moved towards Louis, who had not yet ceased laughing and crying out: "Ho, Calf, where are you? Come over this way that I may see your capers… 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,