I
And I too am following Merlin’s fortunes at a slow pace. With him, I depart, without knowing where my journey will take me. Soon, I shall have lost sight of the most beloved things of my homeland. Here are the trees, the houses, the woods, the fields and the familiar mountains, still displayed to my gaze—but where are those who accompanied me at the outset? Some, I believe, are waving to me. Perhaps it’s only an illusion. Their voices reach my ears, though...
Yes, it’s them that I can hear, sad and grave, as at the moment when those that are loved leave forever. To their cry of adieu, repeated from shore to shore, I reply with a sigh, or rather by an exclamation of hope, an adieu of good omen.
Here commence Merlin’s pilgrimages. He did not go, as other pilgrims do, to visit a relic or to accomplish a vow. Dolor drove him. He marched ahead, hoping to change his thoughts by changing horizons. Perhaps, too, he was not sorry to discover the exact extent to which he had conserved the gift of enchanting the earth.
It was, I think, on a cool and flowery Easter Monday morning that he started out on his voyages. He walked ahead, with Jacques Bonhomme behind him, unless the Enchanter called him in order to talk as they went along. They were both followed by their black dog.
That company had nothing imposing about it, but the greatest kings on earth bowed their heads when they encountered the powerful Merlin in their path. Nations passed before him; if he found them desolate, he groaned with them; or of they were asleep, he touched them with his hand to awaken them from their leaden slumber. Then he gave them laws: Jura dabat populis, says the chronicle that I am translating, without adding any reflection or idea to it, as any historian worthy of the name ought to do.64
Merlin was about to leave France by the Breton Sea. He only had one more step to take to cross the frontier. At that moment he stopped under the postern of Calais and darted a long glance around him.
“Adieu, honored France!” he said, with a sigh. “How many times will you crack, like the shiny ice, under the feet of the man who entrusts himself to your gleam? Shall my eyes ever see you again? Will this worm-eaten door ever reopen to me? At that thought my soul is troubled, as if I were descending to the bottom of the sea of anguish. And yet, it’s better not to see you again then to witness your troubles without being able to cure them. How many times have I worn out the strength of my heart for you, almost always in vain? It hurts so much! The thought of it is killing me. I’m going to search far and wide for a simple to heal your wounds. Dig me a tomb in advance under a talking stone, and put it in a place reserved for saviors to come.”65
He asked the sailors what the weather was like and whether the wind was blowing from the north. The sea was placid; not a ripple disturbed it, although a leaden sky weighed upon it everywhere. Vessels were skimming the tranquil water, but the tempest was in the clouds. At the sight of that singular contrast, he said as he embarked:
“You too, when iniquity amasses over your head, remain calm and serene. What winged thoughts surge unexpectedly from your mind, as white as the sails that emerge at this moment from the bitter well of the Ocean.”
That said, he set out, his heart a little less heavy.
The first country visited by Merlin was Great Britain. It was then called Albion. When he disembarked he was met at Dover, near the shore, by the three witches of the three islands, their eyes ablaze, their hair flowing over their shoulders. They showed him around the castle, which, at that time, had been reduced to a fragment of a crumbling tower. They visited the ruins.
“Woe, woe!” cried the prophet. “I breathe homicide here. Macbeth will be king; the three islands will acclaim him!”
“We know,” said the seeresses, who were utterly ignorant of the fact, and they fell silent. But when they left that place, they went to post themselves on the heath and made the cry resound throughout the three islands: “Macbeth, you shall be king!”—which still resonates. They would thus have all the honor of the prophecy; they have retained it.
Merlin smiled at that fraud. He had known for a long time that prophets steal their prophecies from one another.
Without seeking that company any longer, he penetrated inland. The only individual with whom he had much communication, linking up on a whim, was the famous Robin Hood, a great poacher of that era, a great lover of crossroads, always hunting, always singing, something of a thief, something of a pirate, whom he taught to discover springs, to shear Scottish sheep, to fatten livestock, to dig mines, to burn coal and to work metals, and who paid his back with a few ballads, some of which are still in favor today, including the most charming of all: “Do you know the poacher?”66
What Merlin admired unreservedly was the wide eyes of the women of the country. He compared them to primroses blooming under the snow. As for the men, he thought for a long time that they were the best in the world, beneath their flowery mannerisms. Unfortunately, he ended up convincing himself that most of them had a piratical soul.
Prodigal with enchantments, he spread them around in those days without keeping count. Age, reflection, and, I think, human ingratitude, was later to render him more circumspect.
Albion took advantage of his inexperience. At the sole request of a few lords, who emerged from their rotten boroughs and came to meet him what did he not do in a matter of days? Domesticating the dragons of Kylburn, planting the red rose in the gardens of York, the white rose in the groves of Lancaster, forging the crown of the Ocean with his own hands, sowing green Erin with emeralds, putting a sculpted bit in the mouths of the horses of the sea, building the tower of the City with exceedingly somber corridors, hidden redoubts, vaults, and padlocked doors to serve as hostelries for deposed kings and even their phantoms, preparing a place at table for Banquo’s ghost…what else? A thousand other things—and all of it nobly and simply, without anyone begging him to do it.
When the inhabitants of Cambria saw themselves so easily replete, they conceived an ardent pride, mingled above all with a harshness and injustice for the rest of the world, because they attributed everything to themselves. Far from feeling the slightest gratitude to Merlin, they scarcely looked at him, with an arrogant expression in which conceit was all too easily visible.
True, if they saw him in a public place, at Hyde Park or in a square, they would shake his hand, but they did not invite him to their homes, to their houses or their cottages, much less their castles. They even disparaged his works. Forging the green crown of the Ocean? A good trick, in truth. Could he do the same, then, for the lords’ lands. And then again, was he a gentleman?
These words, and other too, murmured in a hiss, were unfailingly reported to Merlin by Robin Hood, who was surprised at first, but also felt pity. That pity changed into indignation, however, when he was walking on the beach and discovered this:
On the highest cliff, in a very obvious place, the inhabitants set up a vast market, which was open day and night. They had a crier whose voice could be heard throughout the three islands, and beside that braggart there was a Bible, open by a crack. As soon as the watchman signaled the presence of some new people far away at sea, who were arriving full of hope, all sails hoisted and inflated, with the wind behind them, they sold those people to the highest bidder, and shared out the price.
“What do I see, Robin Hood?” cried Merlin, the first time he was introduced to that market. The human species is being sold here! Oh my friend, what traffic!” Did you know about this? Speak!”
Not knowing how to reply, Robin Hood started humming a tune, as was his custom.
That discovery added an almost infinite sadness to what Merlin felt. He sat down on the bank of the Thames on a large stone that I’ve seen with my own eyes at Westminster, and, thinking about that first misstep, made vain efforts to escape disenchantment and ennui, to the extent that spleen gripped him. The more hope he had invested in the people of Albion, for the liberty of others, the more desolate he was at having been do unworthily deceived.
Certainly, he could have taken back at a single stroke all the gifts he had made o those people, who were making such bad use of them. That thought occurred to him at once; he was about to put it into action when he reflected that it was perhaps unworthy of an enchanter to take back what he had once given.
Then he felt truly alone, and was horrified by his isolation. The faculties that remained to him only served to fathom his profound misery. He felt as powerful as a god and as impotent as an earthworm. He would have liked to die. All day long he wept, and the next day too. Nothing could console him for that first glimpse of iniquity.
Mysterious tears have been emerging for some time from the black vapors that besieged the hearts of the people of that land. Often, they become weary of living, and when they put an end to their days, it’s doubtless because they’re committing the suicide of which Merlin dreamed. Let them descend into the depths of their hearts; they will find the dolorous heritage of the prophet, at that point in his life. But where, alas, is his ingenuity, his simplicity, his innocence, his mildness and his candor? All of that has been worn away by time. What was in him the heart-rending cry of unslaked love, the thirst for justice, has too often become in them ennui and repletion.
With his head in his hands, Merlin sobbed. It was the first explosion of his dolor. Young, in a foreign society, nothing obliged him to contain it. His eyes, blinded by tears, could scarcely make out the objects around him.
That is why one hears so many sobs today in the rocks battered by the Breton Sea, and why a crown of black cares is eternally posed on the head of the three islands, veiling their sunlight.
II
To cap Merlin’s desolation, the red-haired Saxons arrived in their black ships with curved prows; immediately the Britons, the sad sons of storms, were dispossessed of their fields, their mossy huts and their orchards of golden apples, planted by the Enchanter. The land of Arthus trembled beneath iron waves. The Angles joined the predators, so effectively that all souls were obliged to fall silent. Only wandering bards could any longer be seen, their hands empty, devoid of hope, requesting shelter of the tombs; all wisdom would have perished at a stroke if Merlin had not built a crystal vessel, more transparent than the sky, on which he embarked the best with him.
“Adieu,” he said to Robin Hood. “I can’t live here one day longer. Quit the poacher’s life, my friend, I beg you. Above all, don’t have any further traffic with the human species, if you desire to see me again someday.”
No one accompanied him to the shore, no one waved to him, when he set off from Southampton. Having drunk his fill of bitterness, scornful of the proud, obliged to repent his benefits as a mistake, he turned round as he was about to climb aboard his little vessel, and that is when he pronounced what is still known today as the Bard’s Curse.
“Although John Englishman is a vile traitor, worse than the rain and the winds, he will not tame my heart, so long as the Rock of Mael stands.67
“When evil days come, I shall return to this isle, the color of a swan’s wing. I have cried: pity, truth, humanity, there is the white dwelling of justice, let us go sit down on those beaches.
“I came to their isle as to the rock of righteousness; I found it a den of iniquity.
“Oh, may they pay me dearly for the joy of sobbing in the face of the Breton Sea!
“How cold and arrogant their gazes are when they pass me by! How they have insulted my mourning, the mourning of justice! The young men with the hissing tongues have been harsher than the old, and the women with primrose eyes harsher than the men, and the people harsher than the barons.
“Those of whom I was most hopeful were the first to strike me; it was by them that the first wound was inflicted. Yes, it was from their yew-wood bows that the poisoned arrow departed.
“They have given me a taste for immortal death, those from whom I requested life.
“O you whom the Ocean insults with its mocking laughter, do not land here. Return to the storm. Better to die by the anger of the Ocean that purchase life by the pitiful homicide of John Englishman. Better to drink the mead of Hell drop by drop than the disdain and insults of the red-haired Saxon.
“How alone I was in the midst of the innumerable crowd! No one addressed a word to me. Oh, among them I almost forgot the sweet sound of the human voice.
“See them pass by, teeth clenched, among other peoples. Who has received a salute or an adieu from them? Who had ever seen their vitreous gaze blossom over the weak? Who had felt the clasp of their hand?
“Where are they going, strangers among men? What are they going to do to the gentle hearths of those who shelter them? Rain, frost and cold winds are less pitiless to the plaint of those who succumb under the most forceful law.
“Virgin of the bare wood, recognize your torturers. They will bind you on the pyre and the pyre will burn for five centuries. When it is extinguished, it will be them, the red-haired Saxons, who will relight it with their accursed breath.”
While Merlin spoke thus in the storm and his boat skirted the coast, the inhabitants followed him with their eyes from the top of the cliff. Some said: “Who speaks of justice? It’s for us alone that it’s made?”
They tried to stone him, but the sea itself laughed at their impotence.
Meanwhile, they went to lick the feet of Hengist the Pagan, who was streaming with the carnage of the bards; they crawled beneath his chariot, eyes pious and hands clasped, and adored the murderer.
And they grew fat on the flesh of bulls; their cheeks reddened like those of sated men digesting the bloody wine of homicide.
Then, having climbed up to the highest rock, they cried out, in such a way as to be heard all over the world: “There is no justice; there is only gold.”
And the Irish priest, cursing the bards, repeated after them: “There is no justice.”
At these voices, coming from the midst of the people who seemed most sage, all other peoples paled simultaneously. They looked at one another as if the sea were about to swallow up the human conscience. Everyone felt momentarily stripped of his immortal soul.
At that moment, Merlin, looking at the three islands, recommenced the curse, and his voice covered those of the peoples and the tempests:
“I only knew love; why have they taught me to hate?
“I have seen bards, outlaws, outcasts, just men, whose cold indifference has taken away their reason. They laugh at the edge of the waves, and plunge into them simultaneously.
“No, I cannot pardon the insanity of the just man, provoked by the harshness of men of prey.
“Let it fall back on them, to their damnation, in tears, in anguish, terror and despair! In the midst of their dismasted vessels, let them wander upon the shore, bare-headed, shaking, lost, singing infantile ballads like their King Lear, deprived of his kingdom.
“Those are my vows for them; that is my mercy for their pity, for their humanity!
“I say this to you, red-haired Saxons: why have you provoked the roaring lion of justice? If the just are not powerful today, they will be tomorrow. Their reign will last forever.
“Why do you rip the hearts out of human beings to make them booty? The heart is immortal; it will cry out against you.
“Do you believe that the sheer coast will defend you eternally? The rock of Cambria wears away like the ox’s horn; the vulture will peck away the summit of the rock.
“The patience of good people is long; its waits, it adjourns. In the end, it crumbles. On that day, do you believe that an angry god will not cross the Ocean with dry feet? Where will you flee then?
“Where is the unknown isle that will not nourish an avenger against you. Where is the reef, where is the strand that will not rise up against you?
“Name a people that you have not defrauded. If there is one, name it. Your mask has fallen; it had fallen into the abyss.
“Everyone can see you, everyone knows you, and everyone curses you.
“Where is the race, where is the people, where is the Christ whose scarlet-haired Judas Iscariot you have not been?
“Your own son will condemn you; his name will be Harold.
“Sons of tempests, you shelter behind the tempests and you say: ‘No one can reach me; I laugh at Heaven and earth; I laugh above all at the good faith of men. The waves protect me,’ Beware! The waves are beginning to weary.
“The sail-less and oar-less ships will come, and they will whinny like the horses of the sea. The breath of their nostrils will be so powerful that it will cover the green-tinted sea with vapors, and only the wind of justice will drive them away.
“The superb islands will tremble when they see that the girdle of the Ocean has disappeared, that the abyss separating Cornwall from Neustria has been filled in.
“And on that day, the eternal talion will weigh upon the homicidal island of the Lords.”
The vessel that was carrying the prophet was already a long way from the coast; his last words resounded over the strand with the angry waves. Some of those who had tried to stone him at first began to repent their harshness toward the rest of humankind. Fear had gripped them. Some of those people went very pale; they still are today.
III
The boat has scarcely emerged from the port when a wagtail—which is a magical bird—arriving from overseas, fell on to the deck. Merlin picked it up and warmed it with his breath as it trebled. Struck by such a simple incident, the idea came to him to take advantage of it to send a letter that he had been planning to write for a long time, which he carried out in the following manner:
Merlin the Enchanter to Viviane
The sea is sad, the sky immense, the world empty; I am searching for you; can you hear me? If you are gazing at the shore of the profound sea, or if you are sitting in the corner of the forest, or collecting the golden herb, or reading in the magic book on the top of a mountain, or listening to the cricket on the hearth, remember Merlin. I’m calling out; answer me!
After having written those words, he folded them up and attached them to the wagtail’s neck. The bird flew away in a straight line and disappeared.
What, you say? Could Merlin hope that a letter thus entrusted to hazard would ever reach Viviane? Is that evidence of wisdom?
And you, Reader, have you never thrown words to the winds? Have you never addressed a message to the evening star? Have you never confided an adieu, a regret, a greeting, or at least a sigh, to the distant sail of a ship whitening at the extremity of the horizon, hesitating on its way?
For myself, I’ve done it, not once but a hundred times.
Besides, what point is there in arguing? Anyway, to cut the matter short, the bird reappeared carrying the reply, and without getting weary, always flapping its wings, hardly allowing time to write, it went, came back and left again six times over, so long as there was a message to carry.
Viviane to Merlin
What is the cricket to me? I have no hearth. What is the magic book to me? Tears prevent me from reading. What is the profound sea to me? I scorn pearls. Come back, come back, Merlin. I have sighed. Heed me.
Merlin to Viviane
Come back, you say? I’ve reflected, Viviane, since my last message. Are you serious? How can I rely on your word? Have you not broken off everything between us? I can’t forget that. Is it a further insult you’re preparing?
Viviane to Merlin
You’re right, Merlin, you’re better off where you are. No, no, don’t come back. I was wrong to ask you to come back. I only did it to soothe your pain, which seemed too great. Our characters are too different, and my godmother, to whom I confided your last letter, will never consent to our marriage. It’s better for your glory to travel the world and sow benefits. It’s a rigorous duty, in fact.
Merlin to Viviane
No, no, I need to see you again, to hold you in my arms, to expire on your lips. Do you understand, Viviane? Efface the words I wrote to you; I’m effacing them with my tears. Dolor has rendered me insane. In the combat with pride, you have emerged victorious.
Viviane to Merlin
Let’s not play games like this, Merlin. Life is serious. Don’t come back; I forbid it. If you’re mad enough to reappear, you won’t find me. You’re the king of sages, and I’ve recognized your last resolution not to see me again. You’ve said it: it’s irremediable. We’re not made for one another. Let everything be finished between us, including this correspondence, well worthy, in fact, of being confided to all the caprices of the winds.
Merlin to Viviane
What, Viviane, you’ve sent back all that you have of me, even the magic ring given at the last moment and my sole heritage! What have I done, except love you too much? That’s right, Viviane; no love, no amity, no humanity, no pity. Well, I forgive you. I was mistaken; your heart isn’t wicked, it’s just impotent. Here I am now, alone in the world, without knowing why, and no one can tell me what has become of you. The least earthworm is less miserable, less abandoned, than me. I suffer from the water I rink, the air that I breathe. Let the tempest come, then! It will be less implacable than you.68
IV
After that letter, to which there was no reply, Merlin wandered sadly over the North Sea. Battered by the tempest that he had imprudently raised, his crystal vessel ran aground in Flanders, without breaking up. It returned to the open sea for a whole night, and then landed at high tide on the bare, eternally resounding beach that forms dunes between Ostend and Antwerp.
“Save me,” Jacques shouted, “or I’ll perish.” Merlin had already gripped him by his woolen coat and put him in a safe place.
Venturing into the Low Countries, he was welcomed by Geneviève of Brabant,69 who entertained him at first in her grotto, and served as his guide through the plain punctuated by marshes.
At the entrance to every village, the finches greeted him with an untiring song. He thought it was a concert organized to celebrate his arrival. How indignant he was, however, when he discovered that the singers were blind and that the inhabitants had treacherously put out their eyes in order to enjoy their chirping more.
“Poor Homers!” Merlin exclaimed, considered their little white eyelids lowered ne upon the other. “Isn’t it enough that Thamyris, Orpheus, Amphion and the poet of the Iliad received the same price for their songs?70 Who was made for the light if not you, since you’re its messengers? Eyes closed by the wicked, salute the eternal dawn, since the dawn down here has been taken away from you!”
Turning then toward the people ruled by Geneviève of Brabant, he said: “O people, have you no shame, to take the light away from the children of light? To whom will you leave it, if you steal it from the dawn chorus?”
Then he added: “Men! This, then, is how you crush the true bards of cares and humiliations everywhere? You plunge them into the night of anguish, solely to draw more beautiful songs from them. If you put out the eyes of bards, what need have you of poets? Dread that they might no longer be born among you!”
This speech caused the people to reflect, who promised to reform at least on that point; but they did not keep their word.
Two days later, the Enchanter and his companion were going through a little Brabantine valley covered in wheat-fields and sheltered from the north wind by the forest of Soignes. Wearied by traveling they lay down in a furrow and went to sleep.
When they woke up Merlin said to Jacques: “Did you hear anything while we were asleep? It seems to me, my friend, that horrible chariots of war have passed this way and the ground is red with blood.
“I didn’t hear or see anything,” said Jacques.
“The ardor of the sun must have affected my head, then, and I had a terrible dream,” Merlin said. “No, never did the ram of Cornwall colliding with the Gaulish wild boar, or the powerful Arthus at odds with the odious Saxons make such a racket. Can you imagine that I saw two mighty armies clash, and break up in the furrows of the very place where we were sleeping, and over there, on that hillock of red sand, where you can distinctly see a field of clover, a motionless phantom on a horse, whom I mistook at this distance for the discrowned king of tempests, was noisily slain.”
“Who won the battle?” asked Jacques.
“The English.”
“It’s obvious that it was a dream.”
“I think so too, but see how the wheat has been trampled down.”
“Doubtless that’s some kobold that has passed this way.”
“It must be,” said Merlin—and he got up from the depths of the furrow, which has remained hollowed out to this very day, to the point of taking on the form of an immense tomb, as can still be seen.
“Ask that shepherd for a little water, because I’m thirsty—and ask him the name of that village.”
Jacques came back a few moments later.
“There’s neither water nor wine, but the village is called Waterloo.”
“That’s good. Don’t forget it, my son.”
From these, wandering from Brabant to the Ardennes and the banks of the Escaut, they heard people boasting that they were according him hospitality. That made him turn red, because he always paid generously for his accommodation, either in money with Arthus’ effigy or the inventions of his art, such as defensive walls for communes, keeps for beggars he held in particular honor and town houses, no vestige of which the people had possessed before him. He took the opportunity to give them a lesson in modesty.
“Don’t make use so lightly of the holy word hospitality,” he said to them. “The heart alone can set a price on it. Is it being hospitable not to cast back into the sea the victims of shipwrecks who land on your coast? Is it being hospitable only to let them breathe the air of the strand and contemplate the stormy sea, without hurling them into the abyss? Vultures do as much. Hospitalers by the same title, they too only butcher the dead.”
Thus he spoke to the townsfolk and the people. Immediately fearing that he might be unjust, however, he turned to Jacques and said: “I foresee, by the sadness that grips me in this place, that it will become for you, my friend, not a place of pilgrimage but of exile. I don’t know whether you’ll leave your bones here, but I know for sure that you’ll spend long days here, not by virtue of your own will but that of others. You’ll remain chained in this place, because it will seem sweet at least to hear an echo of your native tongue. For what cause you’ll be brought here I can’t tell. At any rate, I’ll make a sacred wall around your thoughts, and no one will be able to besiege you here.”
“Will you be with me, Seigneur Merlin?”
“Yes, my son, I’ll still be in the world.”
“Then all will be well for me.”
“Don’t say that, my son. Nothing can replace the sweet air of the land where one is born, the shade of trees one has planted, the gossip of women who knew your mother; nothing, my son, can replace that—not even the powerful Merlin, who can move rocks. Only try not to be unjust to those in the midst of whom you’ll live. They don’t know you family or your birthplace. To them, you’re a stranger who might leave the next day. Why should you expect them to give their heart to the bird that has not chosen its shelter, which the tempest has cast away on their shores, and who would like nothing more than to see the natal nest again? Content yourself with justice; don’t ask for love. It’s a great deal if they lend you a paving-stone on which to lay your head, and even that merits a recompense.”
As evidence of this last remark, Merlin taught the people of the region, the Flemings, Batavians, Friesians and men of Bruges and Antwerp, to break the wrath of the ocean on their shores.
“Assemble little wicker sticks,” he told them, and after having interwoven them, make a screen of them on which the impetuous waves will come to break.”
The people of the region began to laugh. “What?” they said. “O king of sages, can we tame the sea by whipping it with willow-twigs?”
Merlin replied: “Great passions overwhelm great obstacles, but they are worn away by smaller ones, when they are repeated and leave no respite day or night. It will be the same with the fury of the ocean, if you do as I say.”
Convinced by this speech, the Batavians followed Merlin’s advice; thus they made, among the algae and the mollusk-shells, an invincible fatherland on the as-yet-stormy bed of the North Sea.
V
As they neared the grassy plains of Teutony, beyond Aix-la-Chapelle, Merlin gave ample instructions to Jacques, which he concluded thus:
“We’re going to enter among people new to you, my son, of whom you have no conception. Until now we’ve been living nations of our own family. Henceforth you’ll see other faces and other mores. Now is the time to use wisdom and circumspection. The people we’re about to visit are very honest; they even have great generosity of heart when one approaches them in the right way, but it’s necessary to know their language. I know it from having visited them in other times. I suppose them to be umbrageous, as befits people who have lived for a long time in the obscurity of sacred woods. I also think them bad-tempered, and not much inclined to laughter. Beware of sniggering among them; they’ll imagine that you intend to insult them, and their natural forbearance will turn to venom.”71
While speaking thus, they came to the banks of the green-tinted Rhine, the father of waters. Having hailed a boat that was going upriver, they got into it. Through the mist, Merlin pointed out to Jacques the prodigious number of castles built on the two banks; he showed him the hamlets sleeping at the foot of those high walls.
“Look at these people! They’re happy; they’re not making any noise. One might think that they were germinating in silence, like the meadow-grass.
“Don’t they pay many taxes, then?” said Jacques Bonhomme.
“On the contrary, they pay a great many, but they’re happy in spite of that, because enchanters have more credit hereabouts than anywhere else in the world, and if I’m not greatly mistaken, you’ll soon see the proof of it.”
Scarcely had he finished than many people appeared on the balconies and terraces of the old castles and on the esplanades of crenellated towers: an entire population of kings, hermits, minstrels, pilgrims, dwarfs and rhingraves, who, bowing low, showed the greatest respect for our hero. Sometimes a centenarian king with a white beard dropped his golden cup from a high balcony into the Rhine as he passed by. Sometimes an old harpist sitting on the top of a tower sang a ballad that the echo repeated three times. When he finished his song, he broke his harp.
A few peevish dwarfs, it’s true, stood on tiptoe and, looking through a gap in the fortifications wondered: “Is that man really Teutonic? Are you certain?”
“No,” other dwarfs replied, “he’s French.”
With that, a host of deformed dwarfs went back into their hovels, crying out in horror: “We’re not celebrating! It’s betraying blonde Germany to make a fuss of Merlin the Gaul.”
All those whose height was not too far below average, however, laughed at the dwarfs’ anger and took part in Merlin’s triumph. Everywhere he stopped, young women as white as snow with long blonde hair tumbling over their shoulders brought him crowns of ivy. They took care to add a few slices of gilded bread, a few myrtle berries and a smoky wine in colored Bohemian crystal. Drawn by a sovereign force, the host of kings, hermits and pilgrims inhabiting the old manors came down from their retreats and went along both banks following Merlin’s boat, which they had decked with hop-flowers. That crowd, which grew at every step, covered the land for some distance; it would have formed a cortege for him to the ends of the earth if he had not opposed it. A few deer from the woods even came into the river and swam after him. At Mayenne, Doctor Faust, emerging from the Thurmhaus, arrived in a small boat. He came to salute Merlin as his elder and his master—which would cause him a great deal of trouble, as we shall soon see.
Since time immemorial, the two banks had been inhabited by people who were very jealous of one another. They had always been ready to come to blows. While Merlin was passing by they called a truce on their age-old hatreds, subjugated by his mildness and his common sense. It was to be feared, however, that at the slightest opportunity, their opposed temperaments would cause them to fall out again and start fighting before the Enchanter’s very eyes—which, alas, did not take long to happen. An imprudent word from Faust was the cause of it.
Scarcely had he finished speaking than some people started murmuring, saying: “Why is he being so humble? Why is he admitting Merlin’s superiority? Why is he confessing that Mephistopheles, who is Teutonic, is a mere vassal and not the prince of Hell? There he goes, abandoning that honor to Beelzebub, who is French. Can that be tolerated?”
The dwarfs, hearing those comments, slipped out of their manors. They came to mingle their bile with the bitterness and envy that was already filling the hearts of the crowd. According to them, it was to humiliate the Teutons that Merlin had prepared this triumph. Was it not the ultimate insult to say that the king of Hell did not belong to the Teuton race? Only blood could wash away that shame. “There’s nothing better than crushed Franco-Gallic bones to make the wheat grow,” they added—so effectively that hatred replaced love almost everywhere.
Already, two armies were assembled on the two banks, opposed by race, tongue and genius. On the right bank, marching at the head, were Malvasius, king of Iceland, Grunvasius, king of the Orkneys, Lot, king of Norway, and Holdinus, king of Ruthenia.72 They had with them Thor, with his heavy hammer, Hildebrand, with his bow of steel, and Siegfried, who was carrying the recently-rediscovered Nibelung treasure in a chest. A rude, wild population was pressing on their heels, to the sound of buffalo horns.
At daybreak, on the summits of misty mountains on the left bank, knights with lowered visors filed past, hastening by Merlin’s appeal. They were riding gray mares with saddles, leading their innumerable dogs of war on leashes, which they were about to unmuzzle. They were Arthus’ people, proud of thought, lances held high, ready to strike. Their chief wore amber in the form of a twisted circle around his temples.
Several challenges had been shouted from both sides of the river. One more word, and the festival would end in carnage. Evil fate dictated that the spark be struck. Immediately, the two peoples precipitated themselves from both banks against one another. Within an instant, the great river, utterly impartial and philosophical as it was, took on the color of blood.
In the first moment of confusion, Faust took Merlin to a rock from which they could easily look down on the battle. With a mixture of excitement and coldness, he said: “What a sublime spectacle, Merlin! What an epic—not fantastic but real! Where can one see human power at grips with the supernatural better than here, pray? It’s at such time as this that the energy of the soul appears in its epic grandeur. Thought shines here like a blade outside the scabbard; that’s what’s pleasing in this affair, because this is a matter of a clash of ideas, and as you know, nothing is rarer than to encounter similar ones. Men, I admit, have ended up hurling themselves into the battle, but take note that it was spirits who started the fight. Yes, it’s a truly Homeric battle, such as one doesn’t see any more, even in poems. Look over there, on that hillock, at Thor landing mighty blows of his hammer on Arthus’ coat of mail. Hildebrand’s steel bow is vibrating there, with a savage melody, in the midst of your paladins. Over that way on the left flank, the enchanted lances of your weepers are working marvels against Siegfried’s buffalo-hide. In the distance, on both banks of the river, the plebeian iron men, nameless and devoid of glory, are shedding their skin like snakes in autumn.”
Merlin interrupted Faust emotionally. “Faust, this spectacle had lasted too long. It’s for us that they’re fighting; the moment has come for us to intercede.”
“Be very careful, Merlin,” Faust replied. “To hide nothing from you, it’s impossible for me to say which of these two peoples interests me. Which is the one that carried the most ideas with it? That’s the question. That’s all that it’s necessary to know. Let’s not disturb the course of events, then. Let’s leave things to develop with the masculine impartiality of destiny. Some advantageous truth always comes out of it, which we can turn to the advantage of our art.”
At that very moment the valley was resounding with savage cries. No one was fleeing, everyone was striking out where he stood. The wounded dragged themselves on their bellies to the river. While they slaked their thirst their throats were cut by the dwarfs, who were almost equal in number in the two camps. Death was hastening everywhere on his pale palfrey.
Merlin could not stand such a horrific spectacle any longer.
“When blood flows in torrents,” he cried, “I see nothing but blood.”
He had not finished speaking when the beautiful Brunhild passed by, on her chariot harnessed to a team of swans. Her hair scattered, she was singing a death-song to the tempest, and pouring yellow mead for those who were thirsty.
Immediately, Merlin said: “You who are so beautiful, don’t intoxicate them with your war-song.
But she drew away without having heard anything. The swans, their necks extended, hissed like snakes, and the vultures replied to them: “Ride, kings—your people are ours!”
The time had come, however, when even the most furious were weary of killing. Merlin seized the moment with an admirable presence of mind. At the risk of being pierced by a thousand thrusts, he came to place himself between the two peoples, and signaled to them that he wanted to speak.
The attitude and gesture of the lone man, who was unarmed—he had thrown his sword into the Rhine—struck everyone with astonishment. He spoke, he begged, he adjured; their weapons fell from their hands.
Not content with calming the people, Merlin dressed their wounds. He spread over the most envenomed the balm that he had obtained from Morgan le Breton.73 He washed wounds with river water with his own hands. Above all, he promised to celebrate their reconciliation with a great feast that he would give for all of them, as soon as he had returned to French territory. He asked them to live in peace until then, as they were doing now, lying beside one another on the fresh grass, still stained with blood. Arthus’ great sword, beautiful, sharp-edged and sharp-pointed, was sleeping in their midst. Already the stars were caressing their faces with golden says. Where the roar of the battle had been heard, only the murmur of the river interrupted the dreams of the drowsy nations. Merlin made sure that the dream was good, and only then did he consent to quit them.
Thus were reconciled the Teutons and the French. If only their descendants had followed their example!
VI
When night fell, Faust took Merlin to his dwelling, with a pointed roof, which was nearby. As soon as they were alone he said:
“What astonishes me most of all, Merlin, in what I’ve just seen, is that you were able to tame human pride. By that sign, I recognize your superiority. Another thing confuses me. In our land, enchanters only have power over the people of our race and our tongue. Outside of that circle, they have no credit. Your enchanters, it seems, have the same empire over foreigners as their compatriots. I’ve seen the humor of our Teutons tamed by your sweet talk. Explain that aspect of your art to me and give me your secret.”
“I’d like that,” said Merlin, glancing around him at the Teutonic enchanter’s laboratory. But before anything else, Faust, I fear that you read too much.”
“Too much?” queried Faust.
“Yes,” Merlin replied. “Parchments, alembics, crucibles, retorts, dead men’s skulls, the skins of owls—what a sad place this is! Why do you bury yourself alive in this dust? I couldn’t live in it for a single day. For myself, I live in arbors, among spring flowers and bees.”
“What! So scholarly, and you don’t spend all day in your laboratory like us, the conscientious enchanters of the North?”
“Not at all. I read my best secrets on the wings of birds, iridescent butterflies and, it has to be admitted, in the dark or cheerful, caressant or indifferent gazes of young women—for that’s a whole science.”
“That’s why, in spite of your power, people accuse you of being so frivolous?”
“They’re wrong!” Merlin exclaimed. “Frivolous! A wish to God I were!”
And he told his story, which he concluded with the words: “Dear Faust, you’re only looking at Merlin’s shadow; I’m no longer more than half of myself.”
Faust concluded that, in order to equal Merlin, he only needed to be in love.
“I shall be,” he said. “I want to be.”
Merlin replied that he would give everything that remained of his enchanter’s empire for one of Viviane’s smiles. On which the two friends, having exchanged rings, went to yield themselves to a sleep that was doubly necessary after such a busy day.
The next day, at the moment of parting, Faust gave his most recent book of magic to his guest. He accompanied him down the spiral stairway of the central tower to the arched doorway. There he suddenly stopped on the bottom step. His face illuminated with a livid light, as can happen to those who cannot help allowing a long-held secret to escape.
“Admit to me Merlin,” he said to him, embracing him in order to bid him farewell, “That you don’t exist. Admit that you don’t have any reality, that you’re nothing but an abstract idea.”
Amazed, Merlin contained himself at first, and replied: “Is that your idea of an adieu, Faust? On what do you base your suspicion that I don’t exist?”
“This is it, king of sages. Firstly, your works surpass my intelligence. Now, my intelligence is the measure of the possible. Secondly, you act, you think, you feel and you love as much as an entire people. Thus, you’re not an individual, but the essential idea of that people. Make that confession—I’ll keep your secret.”
Merlin, who had had difficulty containing himself thus far, stepped out of character and replied with a vehemence for which he reproached himself later: “O most ingrate of men, you’re accusing me of not existing—me, who has just informed you of the mystery of my art! You’re accusing me of not existing! What, then, would you say about Viviane?”
At that point his voice broke; he burst into tears, because a frightful doubt crossed his mind; it was only a flash, but a lightning-flash in infernal darkness. He seemed to be searching within himself, interrogating himself silently; his entire person gave the impression of the most cruel laceration. Finally, unable to argue, he took Faust’s cold hand and placed it over his heart.
“Can you feel it beating, Doctor? That’s my response.”
The German philosopher softened, in spite of his triple bronze. “You’re weeping, Merlin,” he said to him. “So you must exist—the consequence is reliable.”
Emerging from a feverish aguish worse than death, Merlin gradually recovered his equilibrium. He overwhelmed with his angelic bounty the man who had thrust a dart into his bosom. But one word, which finally escaped him, proved that he was still suffering but that he had been able to master himself.
“After all,” he said to the German enchanter, shaking his hand, “I know that I exist, myself, because I forgive you.”
Merlin, judging that he had accomplished the task that had led him to that place, got ready to leave. Several matters were calling him to Italy, but as he already felt homesick, instead of taking the shortest route through the Grisons he made a detour and went through France.
He did not exercise such great diligence, however, that he did not pause for a few weeks in the Black Forest, on the banks of the Necker.
As he was gathering bilberries, a student came to ask him, in accordance with the local custom, to write something in his album. With a very good grace but in very poor handwriting, Merlin scribbled one of his tirades there. It began thus:
Behind every obscure word there is a slavery.
The student, unable to decipher it, went to interrogate his master, Albert the Great, who consulted someone wiser than he was. And to this very day, if you visit that enchanted place, through the thickness of the chestnut trees, among the meadows, the ruins of fallen towers, in the crannies of the ivy, you can see groups of old men, deep in thought, nobly trying to make good sense out of the page written by Merlin. They are the wisest and the happiest men on earth, for they are in perpetual commerce with him. Their eyes pause on his magic writing; they cover it with annotations; they fathom its depths; they divine its mystery, ignoring the rest of the world. It is a veritable paradise, although sometimes, for the sake of a comma or a missing full stop, they enter into holy wrath, which the generations transmit to one another; the peaceful city, full of the scent of new-mown hay, resounds with the warfare of pens, which will never have any truce.
And who can blame them? One letter more or less on a page of Merlin’s writing would immediately change the earth and the heavens.
But let us leave those ancient rancors there. Let us forget them forever and adopt another tone. In any case, another voice is resonating out there, fresh and emotional, in the depths of the wood. What is it? Child, girl, woman or demon? Fortunately or unfortunately, I fear that it is going to crown the present book.
VII
Bring me flowers, but flowers of mourning. Bring me immortelles; I want to sow them on a tomb.
Merlin is advancing through the Black Forest, which has no exit. A young woman, abandoned by the world. is under the branches.
Her blonde, wavy hair, flowing over her shoulders—that’s her cloak. Her strong, robust voice seems made of pure steel.
Her stature is petite, her determination great; its shines in her intrepid eyes. It’s a soul of bronze in the body of a child.
“Are you lost?”
“A nation is marching after me, Seigneur.”
“What is your country?”
“Carpathia.”
“Your father?”
“The Danube.”
“Your mother?”
“The Moldova.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Eyes fixed on the land where the sun sets, I’ve been seeking the Enchanter everywhere.”
Merlin has changed his route several times; she has followed him obstinately. He always found her in the morning, standing on his threshold when he was about to depart. The only thing she has ever asked of Merlin is to carry his book.
“Oh, Merlin, Merlin, I’m scared! The fays are jealous; the beauties of the woods will kill me, you’ll see.”
“Have no fear of the fays; have no fear of the beauties of the wood. They’re my subjects; I can command them with a smile.”
Pray to God that he might be telling the truth! Yesterday, in a dream, she has seen a beauty of the wood whose gaze pierced her like a dart.
By the description she has given, Merlin has recognized Viviane.
Since that moment, the young woman has been trembling in every limb; the accursed fever never quits her any longer; her teeth chatter as she speaks.
This morning, on emerging from his threshold, Merlin tripped over a dead body: the body of Florica.
He buried her himself; with his own hands, he has laid that child, who lived for one of his gazes, and whom Viviane’s gaze has slain, in the ground.
Merlin, Merlin, will it be thus or everyone who loves you on earth?
Will young women die, and their eyes close, as soon as they raise them toward you?
Will the hawthorn be seen to pass, and the new grass to wither?
Bring me flowers, but flowers of mourning. Bring me immortelles; I want to sow them on a tomb.74