I
Merlin to Viviane
Hummingbird, hummingbird, carry his message! And may your wings be more rapid than the wings of the calumny that is flying after you!
On the day of Saint Isabella, the patron saint of Grenada, a student of the region, Lisardo, came to beg me to go to Cordova to a see young woman, Dolores, on whom evil spirits had cast a spell. Could I refuse the help of my art? No, of course not. Immediately, I set forth on the journey. The sierras of Grenada and Cordova delayed me by three days. I arrived under the colonnettes of a courtyard on the bank of the Guadalquivir. A veiled young woman was waiting for me there. As I approached she let a little dagger fall weakly from her hand. As there is frequent mention in those parts of veiled women and houris who drag you into stairways, and from stairways into tortuous streets, and turn out in the end to be frightful skeletons, I resolved o be very careful.
“What’s the matter, Dolores? What do you want with me?”
“Lord Enchanter, ensure that I am loved, or I shall die.”
“Gladly; but I can’t do it if you don’t lift your veil.”
“I obey, Lord.”
On that response, I expected to see the hideous face of a cadaver.
O splendor! Scarcely seventeen; a face almost as white as yours, if that’s not a blasphemy; hair like yours, except blacker and not as silky; eyes that emit flashes; lips reminiscent of yours, except that they were trembling.
“Loved, Dolores? Loved, you? You shall be loved or my name’s not Merlin. But by whom do you want to be loved?”
“By you, Lord Enchanter.”
“At those words, I sensed that I had bound myself by excessive haste. What could I do, Viviane? The sacred word had been pronounced. That is how I was vanquished—but only by half. I explained forcefully that what she asked of me was almost impossible; my engagements, my promises, my diamond chains—there was nothing more solid in all the world. No, never…rather Heaven should...
Finally, I named you, Viviane. She did not take any notice, and did not hear me. Her burning eyes were fixed upon me; I was forced to lower mine, to look at her feet.
What she loves in me, she says, is not some quality or other, neither of my body nor my soul, but magic. That’s why the evil is so profound. Her hands trembled, her knees buckled; twice she fell in front of me on to the marble pavement; twice I took her in my arms and lifted her up, but I murmured immediately: “It’s too late!”
“I must die, then!” she cried.
It’s certain that since that moment she has tried six times in an hour to throw herself out of the window into the Guadalquivir—which, unfortunately, passes under her balcony. That has obliged me to put sculpted bars on all Andalusian windows. But my God, what’s that?
Already her face in as pale as an alabaster vase through which a sacred lamp is shining. As soon as I go away, her screams can be heard from the depths of the patio, for she has a clear, silvery, slightly African voice. I’m teaching her to play the castanets. Then her dolor passes like one of the local storms—they’re terrible, but they immediately give way to a radiant serenity.
Circuses, corridas, toro embolados: I accompany her everywhere. When I see her houri-like gaze feast on the majestic agony of bloodied bulls, while she agitates her fan over her bosom, I shudder.
I have also made the decision to accompany her to services—to benediction, to vespers, to the Angelus—in the immense mosque. What will happen if I quit her for a moment? I can’t think about it.
P.S. It’s too late to make a portrait of her today, although you’ve recommended me not to miss opportunities of that sort. Here, at least is a sketch. Her figure is supple, slender and tall—rare among Spanish women. She has the stride of a goddess skimming over roses. Her neck is snow-white, her throat always excited, like that of a frightened bird caught in a net. Small hands and feet—once all I could see except for her face. Her head, a trifle dainty for her height, makes her appear more gracious than beautiful. With that, a limpid, crystalline voice, which is indescribable, except by analogy with a honeycomb in which a bee has left its sting. Her only fault comes from the fact that she has always been surrounded by men submissive to the least of her glances. She cannot bear anyone adopting in her regard any other attitude than that of a courtier, or at least a supplicant. Her resentment then shows in a slight alteration of her voice.
II
Cordova
How poorly I knew her, and what an abyss there is in the human heart. I saw her again yesterday. It was in the orange grove and we were alone. Night was falling above our heads, and the golden spangles of the Guadalquivir were flowing at our feet. Never so many honeyed, caressant words, so many supplicant gazes. Citrus scents were also intoxicating me giddily. She noticed that and put her hand together in order to make me a plea. I took them in mine.
“Dear Merlin,” she said, finally, in a low voice, “divine me without my speaking, you who can read hearts. What do you see out there in that star?” Her eyes were illuminated by the brightest ray of Cassiopeia.
“It’s too much!” I said to her, momentarily vanquished by the magic that was falling from the sky on to the houri’s forehead at that nocturnal hour and slipping with the dew into the ringlets of her hair. “In that star I read imminent felicity!”
And I took from her lips a myrtle twig that he was holding in her pearly teeth.
Immediately, however, she got up and changed her tone.
“Badly divined, handsome Enchanter. You’re mistaken. Listen, then, since it’s necessary to speak, and see in what I say the frankness of a Spanish soul. I no longer love you, since two days ago.”
“Why is that, bounty of heaven?” I exclaimed, getting to my feet in my turn, with a start.
“Because the man I love is Don Juan de Tenorio. I met him at the bullfight yesterday. I’m counting, Merlin, on the grandeur of your soul. Procure me a silken ladder, a cloak of invisibility and two black horses, as rapid as the wind. Don Juan is going to abduct me tonight.”
“Don Juan! Do you think so, Dolores. Do you know him?”
And I revealed to her all that I knew about that caballero: that he toys with all oaths; that he is the scandal of enchanters; that the Alhambra was full of his misdeeds; that he would cause her to die of shame.
“Die, Merlin! Precisely—I should like to die.”
I reproached her for her conduct toward me. Was it a game, then, a caprice? Was it an artifice to make someone else jealous? My God, what ingratitude! For, after all, all of Spain had seen me complaisant and submissive. If she had at least made another choice, such as Lisardo! But Don Juan! And a thousand other things of the same sort, some quivering with indignation, others with a tender pity.
Her only response was to start playing the castanets. Angrily, I broke her fan. She danced a fandango. I wept. She burst out laughing. With that, I withdrew, speaking angry words that, I now fear, will rebound upon the face of Span, in such scourges as sterility, wars, famine and rains of blood—for the anger of an enchanter sterilizes all the places where it bursts forth.
Oh Viviane, how reduced an enchanter is, who has enchanted himself, by a word or a gesture, to a strange impotence! His wisdom promptly turns to madness and he becomes the plaything of young women! I sent the silken ladder, the cloak of invisibility and the two black horses faster than the wind to Dolores’ door.
Viviane, Viviane, where are you? Eternal ideal, purity, stainless beauty devoid of caprice, from what a height you dominate all the beauties I encounter in this land and thought I have traveled thus far. You are their queen; they are not worthy to loosen your belt.
Heavens! Have I been able to say that Dolores bore the slightest resemblance to you? Have I said that, in fact? Were my eyes blind, then? Don’t believe, at least, that there was the slightest spark of love in all that I have just recounted. Let’s not profane that word, Viviane; your lips alone are worthy to pronounce it.
III
Seville.
I pursued the ravisher. It’s in Seville that I’ve caught up with him, as he was going into the Alcazar. There I saw with my own eyes that illustrious enchanter Don Juan de Tenorio, who uses his art to seduce the most beautiful women and toy with amour. At first, only one name was able to emerge from my lips.
“Dolores! Dolores! Where is she? What have you done with her, curse you?
“Dolores? Ah, yes! I remember. I could scarcely tolerate her conversation half way to Alcala la Real.”
“Don Juan, you surpass Cain! He merely killed; you soil, in order to kill more fully.”
And in that tone I spoke, sometimes in the language of the ultimate judge, sometimes that of an indignant father, not forgetting the fact that his conduct was dishonoring our art.
“You alone, Merlin, can understand me,” he replied, without anger. “You know what it is to love!”
“Yes, I know. I could teach you, Don Juan.”
“What drives me, Seigneur”—as he pronounced these words he raised his eyes to the heavens with the expression of a devotee—“is not the vain pleasure of breaking hearts, even less a savage ardor of the senses. It’s an infinite thirst for the ideal, which resembles divine love. I can’t remain faithful to any woman, because none of them has the peak of divine perfection that I seek in everything. Only the mother of gods, I think, could satisfy me. If I were a pagan I would have wanted, like Ixion, to possess Jupiter’s spouse.”
“Enough, Don Juan! Enough blasphemy! Don’t continue any longer with this hideous confusion of amour and theology, which is so fashionable today—a sure means of deceiving oneself and others.”
“Seigneur Merlin, come to supper with me this evening. You’ll learn more. It’s a matter of magic; it will interest you.”
“I’ll be there, Don Juan, but as if remorse were sitting facing you.”
“So be it, my dear Merlin.” As he rose to his feet, he accompanied that remark with a smile that was, I must admit, irresistible.
I have just emerged from that memorable supper, of which all the centuries will converse. We had only just sat down and we were talking about you, Viviane. At your name, he dared to smile, with a conceit that put Hell into my bosom. But how quickly that smile changed into eternal tears! Someone knocked three times on the door. I opened it. A man of stone came in at a measured tread. I recognized in him the inexorable power of the abyss. He extended his marble hand to Don Juan. Don Juan gave him his. The man of stone dragged him away.
I remained alone, half-blinded by the paternal flames—and the black kobold that was stimulating them with his fang said to me: “Are you content, Merlin? See, cousin, what we do for you, and whether we’re good relatives?”
That’s what it costs, Viviane, to speak ill of you! What a lesson for inconstancy, with whatever name it adorns itself! One covers oneself with magic words—religion, martyrdom and heroism; the infinite and the ideal; generosity and devotion—and one wakes up plunged into Erebus. Our love, Viviane, does not resemble that. Thanks to you, I can finally see into myself clearly. I’m beginning to understand that you have always spoken to me the white wisdom of lilies.
IV
Cordova.
As I was passing over the bridge of Cordova on my return, I encountered a procession of revenants—something now infrequent in this region—and a long burning feminine sigh emerged from their midst.
“Who are you, errant souls?” I asked them.
“We’re souls wounded by the love of Don Juan, and we’re going in pilgrimage to the places where we first saw him. If you want to know more, speak to the one who is following us, whose heart is still lukewarm with the hot radiance of life.”
I turned and recognized Dolores.
“You, here, in this sad chorus of the dead!” I said. “Perhaps I could bring you back to life, but that’s the extreme of my art, and you’d have to aid me with an infinite desire.”
“No, Merlin,” the consumed soul replied, “I have no desire to live again; I shall march eternally in the tracks of Don Juan.”
“You know, though, that he’s in Hell?”
“I know.”
“And you love him still, under the ashes?”
“More than under the sun of the living.”
“But what of his cruel frivolity?”
“It only makes things worse.”
“And his silken ladders?”
“He suspends them over the eternal gulf.”
“What! He still sends you messages?”
“Yes—messages written with a red bitumen that burns Hell itself.”
“And Hell hasn’t been able to cure you?”
“My love has only increased with his crimes—that’s my greatest torture.” She added: “Come, Merlin, you who have loved me: I have a secret to tell you.”
She walked ahead of me; I followed her.
Dark streets, resounding with the distant sound of dangers clashing in the shadows; mute hidalgos enveloped in their cloaks; mosques, chapels, large empty squares, funereal crosses nailed to walls, all accompanied by the dying sound of bells; and finally, a vast church that covers the ground for some distance. Dolores climbs the steps of the perron; she goes in, and closes the iron grille again, which grates lamentably on its hinges.
“Open it for me, Dolores!”
She stops; I glimpse a hideous skeleton.
“Further! Further on!” she says. “I promised you a secret; listen: this vast church, to which you have accompanied me by day, is about to collapse. Its walls are cracked. Flee! You only have a moment.”
The immense edifice crumbles, with a din that frightens the dead. As they fall, the bells sound the knell of a world. I can no longer distinguish anything in the moonlight but a few fragments of the vault, which persist in order to show more clearly from what a height the edifice has crumbled.
I call out to Dolores once more.
Everything had disappeared.
What, then, Viviane, are the thoughts, the oaths and even the religions of human beings? They are built on sand, and how fragile everything is when we do not lay our hands on it!
How can Dolores’ frivolity and lightness toward me be in accord with her inflexible constancy for an accursed enchanter like Don Juan? How many contradictions souls enclose, and how much darkness! Once again, you alone are light, beauty and incorruptible love.
Our two souls are eternally united. Although they seem to form two beings, in truth they only make one; and it is our destiny on earth to confound ourselves more intimately with one another, in order to live in Heaven, forming one radiance with our two lives. Tell me whether that isn’t your belief?
Except that we have to make the education of one another before entering into that mysterious life of eternity in which we shall embrace inseparably forever. Do you not have, Viviane, complete confidence in that noble religion in which I live in retirement with you?
V
Diana of Sicily to the Enchanter Merlin
Know, Merlin, that I alone am still defending you. But for me my goddaughter would have sent back your letters.
Is it credible that you do not blush to have already given hr four or five rivals, all drawn from the lees of humankind—an Isaline, a Florica, a Nella, a Marina, a Dolores, even a savage, if I’m not mistaken—the best of whom would not by worthy to untie her shoelaces?
Everyone at my court is indignant; the men are polishing their weapons, he women are weeping. No more songs, no more hunts, even. Oberon’s horn is scarcely heard at the crossroads once a month.
You dare to say, my son, that you have nothing for which to reproach yourself! You take Heaven as your witness. Well, personally, I believe you, because I know your candor combined with your science. But who else would believe you? And people’s opinions are not negligible. Think, Merlin, that you’re exposing me to the mockery of worlds.
In good faith, is that the life of an enchanter? Are you responding to the hopes that earth and Heaven have placed in you? Alas, Merlin, I still see many miseries and, if you’ll permit the expression, many deserts around out. Why not fertilize them instead of counting Dolores’ eyelashes? During the time you wasted with Marina alone you could easily have made Africa into a garden.
As for honored France, it would have cost you very little to dry up her tears, at least for three centuries. Tell me, have you done it? You keep quiet, Merlin; it would have been better to weep.
I’ll leave the scandal there. It’s great, my son, believe me.
And Viviane’s chagrin and shame—don’t they count for anything? I’ve seen her eyes hollow out; I’ve seen her cheeks pale, without her saying a word. To distract her, I’ve tried to take her hunting. Everything bores her, everything tires her. She lets the pack run off and remains in the depths of the forest all day, her head in her hands.
You talk to her about Omeania, and she blackens her hair like a Indian, with the juice of mulberries; about Dolores, and she makes a fan of flowers and shakes it over her burning face; of Marina, and she makes a crown of wild celery and laurels. I tell you this in confidence, my son. You know how proud she is. If she knew what I’d just told you, she would die of shame.
Truly, handsome pilgrim of love, it would be more appropriate for you to ask where she was when you were doing this, that and I don’t know what, I don’t know where. What, then, has saved you from so many ambushes into which you were about to fall at every step, head first? Is it your seven high sciences? No, Merlin, it’s Viviane.
What, pray, assembled the kings around the round table and seated the honest folk? Is it your wisdom? Disillusion yourself, my friend; Viviane made the feast; you have reaped its glory.
What, tell me, prevented you from being crucified twenty times over in Rome? Is it your gracious face? Don’t think so, Merlin. Without wanting to be seen, Viviane was there, charming your executioners.
Who then evoked the population of spirits to make a circle around you?
Who saved your harp, when a hundred felonious bards wanted to smash it?
Who snatched your divine cup from the lips of intoxicated nations and kept it safe, albeit cracked?
Who brought the good Turpin back to you, and rendered to you, along with him, treasures to which you are more devoted than to all of us?
Was that you, by your art? Oh, no, Merlin. Viviane has done everything, but Viviane wanted to hide everything from you.
For several days she has been more solitary than ever. She is pursuing a project, and attaching herself to it as she does to everything—which is to say, blindly. What can it be? I tremble to see her so taciturn.
The gazelles she nourishes from her hand perceive her melancholy, as I do, and follow her, weeping. The birds whisper in her ear: “Why are you so sad?” but she does not seem to hear them. Even I dare not interrupt her in that long monologue, which is not nearing its end. I know her; she will wake up from that depression—but by virtue of what thunderclap! May we not all perish therefrom!
Oh, Merlin, what have you done to this house, so serene until you came into it? The hours passed so quietly that one could not count them. You came, and the trouble and anguish began. Alas, it’s me that I ought to blame. Should I not have opened Viviane’s eyes to the flaws in your character, which you are, it appears, incapable of suppressing, or even correcting? On the contrary, however—it was me who supported your endeavors.
For once, my son, match your actions to your fine talk. It’s less difficult to enchant worlds, which, you know as well as I do, are very easily duped. In any case, there are so many enchanters nowadays that it’s hardly worth the trouble of being one. For myself, I’d never grant you my daughter if you had no other merit than that.
Listen to me Merlin; I have some experience. At my court, I’ve seen magicians, princes, powerful kings, and a few gods. I’ve lived in their intimacy, overheard their secrets, received their confidences. From all of that, I’ve drawn what I’m about to say to you: one day of legitimate happiness given to someone who loves us is worth more than all the glory in the world.
By dint of indiscretion you’ve compromised mu goddaughter in the eyes of almost all the world. An honest marriage might yet repair everything. Do you really want that? Give us a pledge, then. Prove to me that this need to wander, which is nothing other than that of fleeing your frivolity and your instability, will not grip you again when we have sealed the diamond knot. What regret, in fact, on both sides!
I tell you that my goddaughter could make a better alliance than yours—at least in terms of birth—today. Yours is not without inconvenience on the paternal side. Make that stain—for which I don’t reproach you—invisible, by virtue of complaisance and good humor. It’s no longer a matter of flitting from flower to flower, nor of stealing away to one abyss after another. Swear to me that you will tolerate, while smiling, the daily weight of domestic cares. What is sublime on a night of magic or a Sabbat on the summit of the Hartz or Etna, is, believe me, very small by the fireside in one’s household. Nothing is more frequent than those spirits of which the entire world is amorous, but which are the surliest of beings in the evening, alone with their wives. I’ve known several of them; Heaven protect us from them!
How many quarrels and sulks have already spoiled the best of your days! She wanted to hide them from me; I divined them. Swear that they won’t recommence. So many differences separate you, alas! She is so gentle, when everyone obeys her, you so angry! She is a dove; you are a lion. Both of you want to command. The thought of seeing you married would make anyone who loves you tremble.
Then children will come, Merlin. Have you thought about that? Your education is not what I would have desired for you. Is that what you will give them? I demand that they be brought up in my religion, which you know very well. If not, no consent. Finally, make your profession a solid means of earning your bread. Set aside, I beg you, a métier in which everything is pleasure, caprice, futility and smoke. Be useful, Merlin, to yourself and others.
No more of those enchanted swords, which dazzle the world and enslave it by blinding it. No more of those phantoms of chivalry with which you fill hearts. No more of those magic books that have cost you so many years yourself. In the name of Heaven, no more of those fiery messages, which make a young woman spend an entire day—and most of the next—dreaming on the wings of words in the depths of the woods.
Between the two of us, how much do you earn from that labor, in a good year and a bad one? Tears, I’m told, and often blasphemies. A well-regulated life, a little agriculture, commerce, prudent savings, a few bills of exchange—also a grimoire of sorts—no treasure, but an honest wage: that, Merlin, is what I expect from you.
I foresee a time when the profession of enchanter will no longer nourish anyone. What will you do then? It’s necessary, however, that Viviane will not go out to beg for her bread. Do you know that an enchanter, emerged from Olympus, deprived of ambrosia, can very easily die of hunger, alone with his family? Alas, Merlin, I’m talking sense; you have to believe me.
I, Diana of Sicily, also believed in poetry once—and it was, not to displease you, on the faith of Phoebus Apollo. I believed in azure skies replete with incense, inexhaustible flows of nectar, eternally game-rich hunts over the golden clouds—and I had a thousand good reasons for believing it. What has become of that beautiful dream of youth? Ask that first, Merlin, of that other enchanter, Homer—your colleague, I believe. What would I do today, pray, if I hadn’t kept in my possession a few golden nails from my temple in Sicily, and as many from the one in Ionia? That’s the foundation on which I live. I tell you that, my son—profit from it.
Let’s get to the contract. I’ve drawn it up myself. Your wealth is very little, my dear friend, and between us, your father is eating up your heritage by the day. You have scarcely anything, Merlin, but your intellect—or, as it’s said, your genius. Viviane’s fortune is as clear and limpid as the sun.
You’ll have for your portion, if you wish: pearls, diamonds, rubies and necklaces of dew; silk scarves of colors stripped from the rainbow; castles in Spain, cities and magical walls of opal and emerald constructed in the clouds; plus, all the streams, rivers and watercourses that shine in the desert; plus, after their deaths, the palaces of our relatives, Alcina, Titania and Oberon, with their furniture of crystal and amber; plus, the forests of silver planted on widows by frost in winter; plus, the sparkling gold massif of the sun on the face of the Alps, crowned with glaciers; plus, the entire domain of dreams, with its tenants, outbuildings, courtyards, ivory towers, bottomless wells, days of suffering, dried-up pools, clearings, orchards and hemp-fields; plus a herd of hippogriffs with bridles around their necks; the rest belonging, as it always has, to my said goddaughter and ward, Viviane of Sicily and of France, without your being able to acquire, retain or seize any of it by legal process, diversion, gift or any entitlement whatsoever.
Those are the conditions, Merlin; think about it at your ease. I wouldn’t want you to make your decision lightly, for anything in the world. Know, however, that suitors are laying siege to me, and it’s necessary to bring things to a conclusion.
If everything that I’ve indicated to you today had your approval, depart and come back. The marriage can take place without too much noise here in my castle. The celebrations won’t last long. Everyone will keep quiet. I have very few courtiers and there is not a single musician in the woods for a hundred leagues around.
VI
Merlin to Diana of Sicily
Alhambra, Vermilion Towers.
Oh, be still my heart! Freeze! Don’t allow your joy or your pain to overflow.
A letter from you, Diana! I’ll leave immediately. Peoples and kings will try in vain to stop me. I’m leaving in spite of them. What does the world matter to me?
I shall see her again; I shall squeeze her hand! Can it be, Diana? No, I’ll die a hundred times before arriving.
Bounty and wisdom, that’s your letter. Indulgent, because you’re perfect, you foresee everything; I can only, alas, kiss your sacred feet.
Conditions, Diana? Conditions? A contract? Are those words made for us? With what magnificence you choose, in order to make me a gift of it, everything in the universe that is most agreeable to me! How were you able to recall so well everything that I love, everything that is in my tastes, my habits, and without which I would scarcely be able to live. Could my own mother have done any better?
But to possess something that isn’t Viviane’s, I can’t lend myself. For example, the domain of dreams, the most beautiful of your possessions, can only have me for a master I having her for a mistress. Take back your decision, I beg you. Let it be common between us, in fact. That’s enough for me to raise no opposition to the other articles, with which you heap my immeasurably.
Be reassured, Diana, with regard to the extravagances of my character. The change is complete, and, I can say, entirely to my advantage. A thousand witnesses, if necessary, can testify on my behalf. Interrogate—I invite you to do so—the nightingales that you encounter, the butterflies with a thousand eyes, the pearls on the sea-shore and the stars in the necklace of the night. They have all seen me; they have all been able to judge me, when I could not see myself. There is not a pearl in the sea or a star in the clouds that does not measure Merlin. Press them; force their confidence, when you are alone with them. Even interrogate dreams; let them speak freely, and judge me on their words.
You, Diana, would no longer recognize the Merlin you knew. No more fantasies; no more vacancy; still, perhaps, a little impatience. A sign from your hand, something negligible, raising your little finger, will correct me. Believe that voyages, time, absence, assiduous occupations, and pain most of all, have matured my heart. I’m bringing back to you, Diana, a mind quieted and tamed—at least partly—by so many ordeals.
Sometimes, ennui, solitude and despair have obliged me—as I’ve already confessed—to solicit here and there a smile, even from the stars of the firmament. A smile, Diana, do you hear me? Not more. Interrogate, I tell you, all your messengers—except for the lying cicadas. I have no fear of the testimony of worlds.
As for your happiness, I guarantee it. Don’t worry about that any longer. I shall honor your old age appropriately. If you like hunting, you shall do it for pleasure, never out of need.
Think the same about almost everything else. We shall live under the same roof. In the evening, by the fireside, when you begin a sentence, I’ll complete it.
I don’t like courtiers, but in advance, I like yours.
Don’t fear that I’ll diminish the number of your guards, men-at-arms and halberdiers. They all please me; they’re yours, and will be sacred to me.
I promise that no enchantment will ever be carried out without your advice; and to begin with, my first concern will be to find the stone that changes everything into gold. The smoke will be for me and the treasure for you.
The simplest possible wedding would also please me the most. A garland, a black cap that will sing overhead I the branches. No feasts, if you please, or noisy capers. I hate them for others, could I tolerate them for myself? A grave ceremony, however, which testifies for all.
I’ll arrive with roses. Felicity! Felicity! That’s all I can add today.
Your son and servant,
The Enchanter Merlin
P.S. I have proposed, by turns, to Viviane that we take up residence in the Gulf of Golconda, the Alhambra and Peru. I also have a domain in El Dorado, although it is still lying fallow. Decide as you wish; your choice will be mine.
If necessary, if all else fails, I could teach magic in Germany. With the knowledge I have of that country, we could live there entirely at our ease.
VII
Merlin to Viviane
One last word, Viviane; not a letter but a hymn; not a hymn but a triad, our epithalamium!
Who says that bards cannot sing of happy days? On the contrary; misfortune impoverishes the human heart. Nothing is more monotonous than the eternal plaint of the reeds on the strand.
Personally, I shall sing my felicity on your lips and build you a hymn that time will be unable to topple. The fortunate will repeat it from one age to the next, in the season of s[ring, until the earth itself bounds in the birth of a new day.
Go, publish this news, variegated flock of forest birds, who possess a treasure of sylvan songs in your throats, intoxicated by the morning dew! Say, publish far and wide: “Merlin is marrying Viviane today!”
Let all those who love rejoice in the depths of their hearts, and the consoled worlds forget the tears they have shed.
P.S. Come to meet me, Viviane, via the little path in the woods; it’s there that I want to see you again.130
VIII
Scarcely had Alifantina been told about Merlin’s plan to depart than he set everything to work to retain him. For the king appreciated our Enchanter more every day, and it would not have taken much for his to put the direction of the empire entirely in his hands. He had also recognized that Spain had never been so prosperous.
Sometimes, Merlin taught a Toledo cutler the art of tempering good curved blades in the Tagus, as he had done in Damascus. Sometimes, he taught a gardener of the Vega to hollow out a furrow, and it is obvious that his plan was to change Spain into a vast flower-bed, because he had drawn pathways and squares bordered with grass, tulip-trees and Judean trees, from Valencia to Cintra, passing through Murcia and Navarre. Most often, he taught new boleros and fandangos, and a quantity of dance tunes—for example, the Spanish Follies—not to mention several sword-thrusts still in use in bullfights.
In addition, he issued a host of decrees, laws and sovereign ordinances, which he thought it wise to write, not on parchment, but in the hearts of the people. For example, he wanted and ordered that all donkey-drivers and muleteers should be armed horsemen, so that no vagabond would encounter another without calling one another caballero. In addition, he enjoined and decreed that the castanets should be wedded to the guitar under the shady vaults of ever-open hostelries; that every window should have a sculpted balcony in order that beauties could come out on them to talk about love in the long summer nights, through jealousies, or listen to the dagger-thrusts resounding in the dark streets.
He also wanted the gazes of women to have a gleam resembling, as such as possible, the flash of precious stones, which he never failed to list in detail, such as rubies, sapphire, topazes, emeralds, amethysts and carbuncles.
As for the men, after perhaps a thousand trials to see what suited them best, he imposed on the Basques hair braided over the shoulders, the Valencians blankets in the guise of burnooses, The Catalans broad multicolored belts, the Andalusians alpargatas embroidered with steel shoulder-knots, and to all of them the broad navaja, the guardian of their honor. Such were Merlin’s laws, still obeyed today.
Don’t be at all surprised, therefore, that Alifantina tried, by all the means at his disposal as an absolute ruler, to keep Merlin in his kingdom. He appointed him as his astrologer, and made him a Grandee of Spain—to which he added the plea, always so powerful in the mouth of a master:
“What will become of me, Merlin, when you’ve left me? I have been converted to your good genius. Every day I distance myself further from the spirit of the ruins. If you leave me, Merlin, given my admitted weakness, I fear being gripped again by habit and abandoning myself to the torrent. You have taught me to prefer cultivated fields to arid heathland. Gradually, I have acquired a taste for public prosperity. I have made it my own happiness. But my ideas are so new, so extraordinary, that I shall be unable even to admit to them when you’re no longer here. My intimate counselors, I sense, will take me back to the desert.”
The queen joined her pleas to those of the king.
“Who will explain the Alhambra to me, Merlin, when you’re no longer here? What will translate the embalmed conversations of the roses and the jasmines beneath my tocador? Without you, Merlin, the palace will be like a dream without an interpreter. It seems to me, alas, that these alabaster walls are no more than an edifice of dreams, and that everything will undoubtedly crumble once you have crossed the threshold. You have made me enter into life—me, the daughter of the spirits of the ruins. I dread, if you leave me, that I might evaporate in the sunlight, like the vapor of those jets of water that the breeze stepped in the tears of the reseda carries away. Already I can see the sad heather taking root in the Vega in your stead.”
All these speeches full of seduction and sagacity, these regal offers, regrets and tears, were futile. Merlin was obstinate in leaving.
When the day of his departure was decided, all the women of Spain dressed sadly in long black mantillas. “Why are you wearing mourning?” Merlin asked them.
“Because Merlin is leaving,” they replied.
“Your beauty will lose nothing by that,” he said. “You marble foreheads and your blazing eyes sparkle even more under those long black mantles.”
“Without you, Merlin, we shall be unable to smile.”
And it is a fact that, since Merlin’s departure, the Spaniards have remained sad, to the point that it is difficult to recognize them. Everywhere there is heather, solitude and silence.
At Burgos he received the hospitality of the great Cid of Bivar and Chimène. They were both waiting for him on the threshold, near a small triumphal arch, on restive horses caparisoned in silk and gold. Fêted in their castle, which overlooked the platform, he repaid their hospitality by composing a few ballads eulogizing them, and put the stone diadem on the bald front of the tower of ancient Burgos.
When Merlin had reached the frontier of honored France he increased his pace further. The donkey-drivers and the muleteers, who made a cortege for him in large numbers, could not make up their minds to leave him.
“What will become of us?” they said. “Already ennui is afflicting us, for we’re beginning to perceive that we’re very miserable, and we had forgotten that on seeing you.”
“I’ll come back, señors.”
“Is that a promise.”
“Have no doubt of it.”
“If you can’t stay here, at least leave us your servant.” And they pointed at Jacques Bonhomme.
Jacques refused to be separated even temporarily, from his master. All that he could do was offer to leave his black dog with the good people.
“He too knows a lot of magic,” he said.
Seeing Jacques go away, the dog uttered such lamentable howls that the Pyrenees resounded with them, and he went to rejoin his master.
As for the donkey-drivers and muleteers, as soon as they saw that they were alone, they went back to Spain, bleak and silent, as if they had lost their father.
There Merlin’s pilgrimages finished.
I alone possess the documents, maps, archives, letters and monuments that have permitted me to write this book. Whoever might attempt to add or remove a chapter from it, I declare that they can only be motivated by a deplorable cupidity or an envy more criminal still, and they will only succeed mutilating history, for a day at the most. In the end, the truth alone, without martyrs or champions, without defense or support, will shine sufficiently by its own light, as is always the case.