The Certain Hour | Page 9

auctorial virtues of distinction and?clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and?truth and urbanity, may a man in reason attempt to?insure his books against oblivion's voracity.
Yet the desire to write perfectly of beautiful?happenings is, as the saying runs, old as the hills--?and as immortal. Questionless, there was many a?serviceable brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky?persons must needs be deleting here and there a phrase?in favor of its cuneatic synonym; and it is not?improbable that when the outworn sun expires in?clinkers its final ray will gild such zealots tinkering?with their "style." This, then, is the conclusion of?the whole matter. Some few there must be in every age?and every land of whom life claims nothing very?insistently save that they write perfectly of beautiful?happenings. And even we average-novel-readers know it?is such folk who are to-day making in America that?portion of our literature which may hope for?permanency.
Dumbarton Grange?1914-1916
BELHS CAVALIERS
"For this RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS lived at a time?when prolonged habits of extra-mundane contemplation,?combined with the decay of real knowledge, were apt to?volatilize the thoughts and aspirations of the best and?wisest into dreamy unrealities, and to lend a false air?of mysticism to love. . . . It is as if the?intellect and the will had become used to moving?paralytically among visions, dreams, and mystic?terrors, weighed down with torpor."
Fair friend, since that hour I took leave of thee?I have not slept nor stirred from off my knee,?But prayed alway to God, S. Mary's Son,?To give me back my true companion;
And soon it will be Dawn.
Fair friend, at parting, thy behest to me?Was that all sloth I should eschew and flee,?And keep good Watch until the Night was done:?Now must my Song and Service pass for none?
For soon it will be Dawn.
RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS. Aubade,?from F. York Powells version.
BELHS CAVALIERS
You may read elsewhere of the long feud that was?between Guillaume de Baux, afterward Prince of Orange,?and his kinsman Raimbaut de Vaquieras. They were not?reconciled until their youth was dead. Then, when?Messire Raimbaut returned from battling against the?Turks and the Bulgarians, in the 1,210th year from?man's salvation, the Archbishop of Rheims made peace?between the two cousins; and, attended by Makrisi, a?converted Saracen who had followed the knight's?fortunes for well nigh a quarter of a century, the Sire?de Vaquieras rode homeward.
Many slain men were scattered along the highway?when he came again into Venaissin, in April, after an?absence of thirty years. The crows whom his passing?disturbed were too sluggish for long flights and many?of them did not heed him at all. Guillaume de Baux was?now undisputed master of these parts, although, as this?host of mute, hacked and partially devoured witnesses?attested, the contest had been dubious for a while: but?now Lovain of the Great-Tooth, Prince Guillaume's?last competitor, was captured; the forces of Lovain?were scattered; and of Lovain's lieutenants only Mahi?de Vernoil was unsubdued.
Prince Guillaume laughed a little when he told his?kinsman of the posture of affairs, as more loudly did?Guillaume's gross son, Sire Philibert. But Madona?Biatritz did not laugh. She was the widow of?Guillaume's dead brother--Prince Conrat, whom Guillaume?succeeded--and it was in her honor that Raimbaut had?made those songs which won him eminence as a?practitioner of the Gay Science.
Biatritz said, "It is a long while since we two?met."
He that had been her lover all his life said,?"Yes."
She was no longer the most beautiful of women, no?longer his be-hymned Belhs Cavaliers--you may read?elsewhere how he came to call her that in all his?canzons--but only a fine and gracious stranger. It was?uniformly gray, that soft and plentiful hair, where?once such gold had flamed as dizzied him to think of?even now; there was no crimson in these thinner lips;?and candor would have found her eyes less wonderful?than those Raimbaut had dreamed of very often among an?alien and hostile people. But he lamented nothing, and?to him she was as ever Heaven's most splendid miracle.
"Yes," said this old Raimbaut,--"and even to-day we?have not reclaimed the Sepulcher as yet. Oh, I doubt?if we shall ever win it, now that your brother and my?most dear lord is dead." Both thought a while of?Boniface de Montferrat, their playmate once, who?yesterday was King of Thessalonica and now was so much?Macedonian dust.
She said: "This week the Prince sent envoys to my?nephew. . . . And so you have come home again----"?Color had surged into her time-worn face, and as she?thought of things done long ago this woman's eyes were?like the eyes of his young Biatritz. She said: "You?never married?"
He answered: "No, I have left love alone. For?Love prefers to take rather than to give; against a?single happy hour he balances a hundred miseries, and?he appraises one pleasure to be worth a thousand pangs.?Pardieu, let this immortal usurer contrive as may seem?well to him, for I desire no more of his bounty or of?his penalties."
"No, we wish earnestly for nothing, either good or?bad," said Dona Biatritz--"we who have done with?loving."
They sat in silence,