BOOK TWENTY-ONE: LOVE IN DEATH

 

 

I

 

Fortunate is the man who guides the plow in the field where battle has resounded! Fortunate too is the man who makes his dwelling there. Beneath my window snakes the river where battalions have passed in the rain of iron and lead. There is the wood of firs and maples through which the heroes frayed a path. There, where tumult and fury were, peace and silence now reign. Laden with clusters of grapes, the vine awaits the last radiance of summer. The crows remain, and they remember the feast. In the evening I go to sleep to their cries; in the morning, they circle overhead, demanding their bloody fodder; but before them, the nightingale has awakened in the night. It is here, it is here, that it is necessary to talk about felicity under that flowering linden tree, from which unleashed war was unable to expel the nightingales.153

Until this moment, the reader will render me the justice that all the events of this history—or almost all of them, at least—could be explained by purely natural causes. Search and scrutinize the events; you will easily find the causes in the accomplished facts that preceded them. I hold it to be assured that logic has been scrupulously respected, and that progress has been realized without interruption, even for an instant.

In what I am going to recount, that logic is less evident; but one is very strong when one has on one’s side history herself, the instructress of peoples and kings. Is it for me, anyway, to change the course of events? God forbid! To observe them, to record them, nothing more and nothing less: that is my mission. No obstacle shall prevent me from carrying it through to the end.

The last page of Turpin’s chronicles was complete. He had just got up from his seat, carrying the book closed by its golden clasp. The birds of every species that had dictated his story, hidden in the braches and loosening their tongues, chirping with all their might, seemed to be saying: “I too figure in the chronicles!”

Merlin, remaining alone in the depths of the forest, nourished himself on the blackest misanthropy; it was even more profound that day than all the others.

It is important to specify the moment; unfortunately, I cannot fix the date rigorously. It was in the month when the hawthorn comes into bud, as indicated by a hawthorn that shaded the Enchanter’s head. It was, therefore, no longer winter; however, it was not yet spring, for ribbons of snow still silvered the edges of the beds of the torrents. It was not night, but nor was it the dazzling light of midday. It was one of those hours that resemble dawn as much as dusk. Ah! There’s a warbler diving into the dense hawthorn bush; after a final twitter, it hides its head under its wing, stands on one foot, tucks up the other and goes to sleep. It was, therefore, evening, not morning.

Yes, it was evening, but the sun was still darting a few of its last dying rays over the purple-tinted crowns of the trees. The forest, like that of Soignes, immense and solitary, seemed a temple with innumerable columns, where belated colored shadows were passing and disappearing into the obscure distance of clumps of beeches.

Among the centenarian trees there was a wrinkled, fissured oak bearded with white moss, thunderstruck at the top, the domain of eagles and ants; it was the old man and father of the forest. Cavernous voices emerged from its trunk, mingled with the humming of bees.154

“I am Merlin’s oak,” said that implacable voice. “It is on my stem that the first bird reposed, on the first day of the world.

“It was me who covered Cain’s crime and drank Abel’s blood.

“It was me who stiffened my arm to denounce the first murderer.

“From my bark the first buckler as made, and from my branch the first lance.

“It was from my branches that Absalom remained suspended by his bloody black hair.

“From my branch was woven the first mural crown.

“I taught wisdom to the first of the Druids, and nourished him with my sap.

“It was from my wood that the savior’s cross was made.

“It was in my crown that Jupiter’s bird nested for the last time.

“I have plunged my roots into the profound earth to discover what the abyss hides. I have raised my crown into the clouds to discover what is glorified in the sky.

“The ant has found its abode in me, but I do not refuse my shelter to the vultures and vagabond wolves.

“Armies have clashed in my shade; they have fattened me with their funerals, and I alone know their name for I have taken everything, including their glory.

“Caesar has sheltered his bald head at my feet, and the last of the Brutuses confided his blade to me.

“I have covered the good and the wicked by turns with my shadow, the just and the unjust, the sage and the insensate. That is why I have made the rude bark that you see. Even iron could not cut into it.

“I know what appeared at the emergence from chaos. I possess all the secrets of those who have sat down in my shadow.”

“Do you know where Viviane is?” Merlin interjected.

“I know. She comes every day to stand where you are, and converse with me. I see her playing with the young roe deer whose mother has been killed by hunters. At other times she fills the cup of an acorn with dew and takes it for the thirsty cicadas to drink under the thatch.

At these words Merlin tilted his head and cocked his ear. Soon he fell into a reverie so profound that he seemed to be asleep. Lying on the ground, his head leaning on his elbow, although his eyes were open, he stared without seeing; he listened without hearing the last sacred whispers of the old oak with a hundred branches.

Now, will you believe it or not? Viviane, walking over the moss, suddenly arrives near the flowering bush. Can you see her? Personally, I can see her distinctly, leaning slightly forward, holding her breath, her hair moist with dew. But where has she come from? Why is she so belated? Why this moment rather than another? Is it credible that she could fray her path without any voice, not even a cricket, greeting her or betraying her approach? I repeat once again that that reasoning intelligence is the contrary of history. If it were necessary to answer every question, no story would any longer be possible. Let us not mix up, please, history and philosophy.

I’ll go on.

As soon as Viviane was close to Merlin, she pushed aside the hawthorn and suddenly appeared before him.

He turned round and saw her.

“Where am I? Is that you? Is it you?”

In the first moment, he felt nothing but pain.

“Are you a shadow?” he went on. “A vision, like so many I’ve encountered in this fragile life?”

Then he threw himself at her feet, and kissed them, as well as her knees and the moss on which she trod. He thanked Heaven and earth for having returned her to him.

Sobs, interrupted questions, reproaches, bitter kisses, blinding tears, stifled cries that no words ought to try to describe, filled the first hour. When he finally collected himself, he saw that a profound sadness had paled Viviane’s cheeks and prevented her replying to him. The more effort she made to overcome her dolor, the more she allowed it to show.

“Why are you sad, dear soul?” he said to her.

“Me, sad! I’m not,” Vivian replied, with a smile in which all the bitterness on earth was assembled.

“That smile pierces my heart, my dear life. Better to cry. Tell me what is hurting you.”

“Is it necessary to say it?”

“Yes, speak.”

“No, I won’t speak; it’s nothing.”

“Oh! Speak, or I’ll die.”

“Well, Merlin, I’m sad because I’m afraid of losing you again. So long as you know things that I don’t, I feel separated from you by magical worlds. That’s what’s hurting me.”

“Only that?”

“Nothing else. I weep because I don’t have your science.”

“And which is it of all my sciences, that you envy?”

“I’d like, dear friend, to know what it’s necessary to do to imprison a man, without bonds or chains or walls, in such a way that he can’t escape. Teach me that art, Merlin, the only one of your seven sciences I lack, and I’ll be happy, as you want me to be.”

On hearing these words, Merlin groaned profoundly.

“Why are you sad in your turn?” asked Viviane. “What’s making you sigh?”

“I’m groaning because I can see what you want to do, and because it’s impossible for me to refuse you anything.”

With these words, Viviane flung her arms around his neck. She kissed him, and spoke to him softly, leaning on his shoulder. “Of what are you afraid, my beloved? Can you not confide yourself entirely to me, then, as I am entirely yours? Have I not quit my father and mother for you? My desires, my thoughts, and my entire soul are in you. There is no joy, nor wealth, nor hope where you are not. When I love thus, are my wishes not yours? In doing what I ask, are you not doing that which pleases you?”

“You’re right; I’m ready to obey. What is it, then, that you desire?”

“I desire that we build an indestructible enchanted retreat, where we can live together, communing with one another, without ever being troubled by the rest of the world.”

“Is that what you want? Be happy, then! I’ll build you that dwelling.”

“No, dear soul; I want to build it myself, to my own whim, in order that it shall be entirely in my power.”

“So be it,” said Merlin. And he taught her the magic required to operate an enchantment of that sort. As he spoke, he regretted every word that emerged from his lips, but love was stronger than he was; he did not stop until he had revealed his secret in its entirety.

As soon as he had finished and Viviane had understood, she showed so much joy that he was consoled for having spoken. He even felt glad that he had no secret that was not shared with her, certain that she would not make use of it without consulting him at least once more.

 

II

 

Both of them were locked in an embrace on the thick fresh grass near the flowering bush. They had exchanged a thousand caresses amid a thousand twittering speeches. More than one tear of happiness had trickled from their eyes. Merlin rested his head on his beloved’s bosom. She cradled it and played with the curls of his hair, so soothingly that he seemed to be asleep and dreaming.

Being assured that he is dreaming of love, she stands up quietly, takes her long veil and envelops the branch under which the Enchanter is lying. Nine times she walks around the circle she has traced; nine times she repeats the magic words that he has taught her; then she comes back into the circle, sits down again on the flowers, and replaces her beloved’s head on her palpitating bosom.

Finally, he wakes up, opens his eyes—and at first it seems to him that he is walled up in a high tower, crenellated at the top, without doors through which to exit or steps up which to climb; and he sees himself lying in the depths of a marble alcove, on a bed of silk and gold.

“What have you done, insensate? Is this the promised marriage? Why have you only waited until absence and dolor had killed me?”

Viviane looks at Merlin, smiling. Who would believe it? At that smile, my hero’s resentment fades away. He scarcely contrives one more reproach.

Stuck to her lips, he only said, between each kiss: “At least don’t leave me again, Viviane.”

And Viviane replied: “Never.”

“But why, cruel woman, have you abandoned me once?”

“To test you.”

“What!”

“I was jealous.”

“Of whom?”

“Of stones, flowers, stars, Isaline, Psyche, all the Beauties; for all of them loved you amorously, and you also loved them. Now, Merlin, no more pilgrimages, no more absences. You belong to me alone. I shall see you all the time; you shall only see me.”

“Yes,” Merlin exclaimed, “there is only you, in all the world, who can release me from this tower.”

“Not even me, my sweet friend; you’re here for all your lives.”

And she told him that she had turned his strongest enchantments against him, that the door of the tower was walled up, and that she had thrown the key into the gulf of gulfs.

“But my dear soul, you’ve buried me, then?”

“I’ve buried myself with you.”

“Am I dead or alive?” Merlin asked.

“What does it matter?”

“That’s true. I’ve found you again. I can see you again. What does all the rest matter?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll often be in your arms.”

 

III

 

In the meantime, two townsmen who were passing through the vicinity had seen what had just happened; they were talking about it.

“I’ve always predicted, colleague, that it would end like this.”

“Me too,” the other replied.

“When I saw Merlin pass by in the market-place, I said to him: ‘My son, you’re going to come a cropper.’”

“I told him so a hundred times, for my part, when he was little. But there you go! No judgment at all in that gilded head!”

“It’s true that he always erred with regard to judiciousness. Glamour, glitter, false gold, that’s all.”

“Letting himself by buried alive!”

“Taking a tomb for a marriage bed!”

“What a pity!”

“What stupidity! That’s how all these imaginative men end up.”

“It’s not us, colleague, who’d be taken in like that!”

“Thank God! We’re positive, shrewd individuals, from father to son, and we know how to keep a firm hold on the strength and weakness of things.”

“When such things happen, though, you know it’s a sign of the black death?”

“Indeed?”

“And the rain of blood and war.”

“Really? I’ve heard it said.”

“And pillage.”

“Uh oh! I agree with you. Pillage, you say? Let’s go bury our Spanish ducats.”

“And count our spices.”

“In truth, there’s not a moment to lose.”

“Hurry up! We’re nearly at the postern. Do you hear that bell? Ssh! Yes, it’s ringing an alarm. We’ll never get there in time to save our possessions. Get a move on, colleague!”

 

IV

 

Love in death, that’s something no one has described since humans invented the art of saying everything. Who can I invoke to assist me in that narrative? No one can serve as my guide. I’m the first to march along that path, where even the witnesses who have accompanied me thus far are abandoning me.

Merlin’s tomb—it’s necessary to admit that it was a tomb—did not resemble those in which you bury your dead every day. On the outside, it was an immense tumulus surmounted by an ivory tower, like a snowy peak on a verdant mountain in the Alps. The door, it’s true, was frightful, bare and inexorable. A hand of justice had been engraved above the vault and showed passers-by the inevitable road where all paths end. But beyond that threshold, what a palace, sustained by crystal pillars, what marble courtyards paved with mosaics, what alcoves eternally refreshed by jets of water! The walls were embroidered with arabesques, with no inscription. It was like a blank page abandoned to the imagination of our Enchanter; you will see in due course that he was able to take advantage of that circumstance.

Add, if you please, balconies without number, suspended over rivers whose murmur is scarcely audible, over cataracts from which rise to fall back the iridescent vapors of the abyss; at the summit of the steep shore, latticed pavilions of citrus-wood, where Viviane went to comb her long hair; no cypresses nor funerary trees, and yet vast forests; under their shade, in the background, a few residual puddles of stagnant water, where, it’s true, frogs escaped from the marshes of the Styx are croaking. But with the slightest effort, those puddles would find their outflow and form little waterfalls—that would certainly be child’s play for Merlin.

Here and there, an ambrosian odor exhaled by every flower sculpted on the walls—there are certainly a few nettles and pale asphodels in the corners of the courtyard, but they’ll be extirpated; alongside the palace, a rustic habitation even more appropriate to meditation; everywhere, terraces, trilobate arcades, sixty ogival windows where the Enchanter could place himself at will over the tenebrous gulf, to contemplate the living from afar and converse with them through the sepulcher.

As for its extent, in its surface area, Merlin’s tomb initially protruded into the kingdom of Arthus, France and Spain, a romantic realm, like a beautiful subterranean kingdom, well-furnished with defenses and bastions, well enclosed by moats, well garnished with keeps and ventilation towers; from there, still invisible, hollowed out in the entrails of the earth, it snaked into Italy as far as Calabria, and under Mount Gibel and Etna, from which it went via long submarine corridors to join Greece, Poland, Hungary and Rumania, not to mention Germany, high and low, through which it circled tenebrously; which comprised a space apparently very habitable for the mind most intolerant of any kind of frontier. Furthermore, one enjoyed the most various climates there; but peace, the companion of eternal silence, was everywhere the same.

In that immense sepulcher, three things were found that only hazard could have brought together: I mean Merlin’s harp, attached to the vault by a golden chain; the marvelous lamp that Prester John had given to him; and finally, if it’s necessary to name everything, a chessboard and pieces. The lamp illuminated that invisible world. The harp resonated to the slightest breath of Merlin and Viviane. As for the chessboard; it was placed on a marble table, the pieces, made of pure diamond, already aligned, doubtless to deflect the first moment of lassitude, ennui or caprice that might grip the two lovers in their eternal intimacy.

As you can imagine, my hero had never thought about taking his chessboard into his tomb; too many other thoughts filled his mind—but when he perceived the castles and knights on the checkerboard, and the population of pawns grouped around the gem king, who bore a bizarre resemblance to Arthus, he could not resist the desire to play a game, doubtless to mock the sepulcher. Viviane gladly lent herself to it. Sitting facing one another, in the silence of things, forehead supported by hands, hands on the stone table, they moved their diamond people forward or back.

As they were never pressed by any of the occupations of the world, they meditated at leisure, without either of them experiencing impatience, and above the castles and the emerald knights their quivering lips sometimes met. Eventually, Merlin, feeling that he was close to winning, stood up, mixed up the pieces and said: “There is no checkmate but death.”

Then, casting a first glance over his new abode and not yet knowing whether they were alone, he said: “What have you done, Viviane, with the indiscreet troupe of my servants? Have the follets that escorted me most of the time whether I liked it or not followed me into this place?”

“No,” said Viviane. “I didn’t want anyone here but you. You’re the master and the servant.”

“Thank God!” cried the joyful Merlin. “I’m rid of them at last. More often than not, they only served to compromise me.”

Here Merlin’s fortunate days recommenced, for the lost serenity reentered his heart almost immediately. Thanks to the glare of the lamp, the difference between days and nights was scarcely perceptible, and yet, that continuous splendor did not offend the eye. It was a perpetually radiant aurora that never wearied, any more than Viviane’s gaze, springing forth between her ebony lashes.

When Merlin was not holding her enlaced in his arms, they visited their vast domains together. “Until now,” the happiest of the inhabitants of the sepulcher never tired of repeating, “I’ve known nothing but anguish. What, then, were our best days under the desiccating sun of the loving?” Then he detached his harp from the wall to sing his felicity, and the entire earth resonated to that harmony of the tomb.

After that he took the lamp in his hand and set off with Viviane to search the most obscure corners of the tenebrous realm. With her, he went all the way to the places where the mysterious seeds of things are in preparation. Everything appeared to him in its native splendor.

“But where, then, have I lived thus far?” he cried. “What was my darkness?”

At that moment, Viviane’s eyes lit up with a sacred flame.

The only instants in which he remembered the former suffering were those when she left him, principally in spring, when she went to visit the flowers and the new-born birds whose patron and queen she was. The first time that happened, as soon as Merlin felt that he was alone, he uttered a groan that resounded in all the invisible worlds, for he thought he had been abandoned again, forever. And what would he do in eternal solitude? Viviane, who had heard his plaint, did not take long to reappear.

“You don’t want me to leave the roses to die, and the birds in their nests?” she said.

In spite of those words, Merlin begged her, with his hands joined not to leave him again; she agreed to his willingly, and that year, all the flowers and almost all the broods of chicks died, for both had the greatest need to feel, at least once, Viviane’s amorous breath.

At that news, Merlin promised that he would not hold her back again. Knowing that she was only absenting herself out of necessity and to watch over the immaculate realm of the flowers, he summoned reason and universal justice to his aid. Was it necessary to sacrifice the roses to his own felicity? Thanks to that reflection, sustained by much wisdom, he rediscovered and was able to retain his former peace, even when he was alone.

From that moment on, it can be said that no suffering approached Merlin’s heart.

Was he alive or dead? That is for you to decide. It’s certain that he was attached to Viviane’s lips for long hours, or rather, that those hours could not be counted. He had conversations with her, punctuated by murmurs, and sometimes mingled with bursts of laughter. Are they, yes or no, signs of life?

He also liked the long silences, full of indescribable reveries; at the same time, he never experienced a single fit of impatience, ill-humor or melancholy. As for disquiet and anger, they were far from him. He knew neither jealousy nor rivalry. Are those signs of death?

When thirsty, he drank in his cup from the source of the great Oceanic river. When hungry, he nourished himself on sacred apples from his orchard. If, by chance, he felt cold, he lit a fire of brushwood from the tree of knowledge. If he felt drowsy, he went to sleep on Viviane’s quivering shoulder. If the silence inspired him, he played the harp; if ennui threatened, he played chess. Are they or are they not signs of life?

Like Ulysses, he had hollowed out his own nuptial bed in the trunk of an ebony tree.

A starry veil hid the inexhaustible delights that ran in his veins, so well that tears fell from his eyes in the midst of sacred voluptuousness, as if too much happiness were oppressing is soul. Is that a sign of life or not?

Sometimes, when he went for a stroll, a ray from the lamp suddenly escaped through one of the fissures of the tomb and immediately illuminated the earth. But Viviane said to him: “Hide your lamp, Merlin; your light is blinding them.”

Merlin obeyed without protest; he covered the brightness of the lamp with the palm of his hand. The earth immediately darkened from pole to pole; but Viviane’s face had been lit up in its entirety; she appeared more beautiful. When you see the hearts of men darken, and night falls in broad daylight over the peoples, say with certainty: “Merlin is hiding his lamp with his hand.”

There were a few herds of unicorns and aurochs that occupied them briefly every day. Those herds, handsome and sturdy, where guarded by a centaur who obtained milk and fleece from them. The well-stocked poultry-yard was overflowing with ibises and phoenixes, which were fed on grain,

In the beginning, a huge clock at the summit of the tower marked the hours exactly. Its pendulum was often the only sound that could be heard, along with the lowing of the funereal herds as they emerged from the stable or returned to it twice a day, udders trailing. Merlin forget to wind the clock once, after that, they no longer differentiated the hours. At any rate, they never asked one another “What time is it?” and never even thought about it. They ended up forgetting that time passed, on seeing the black hand always in the same place on the marble dial.

Twice or three times, Merlin asked: “Why are you so pale, Viviane?” but immediately took it back. “Nothing suits you as much as pallor. How often I cursed the sun that tanned your cheeks!”

And Viviane replied: “It’s by the light of that lamp that I discovered Merlin’s beauty. I scarcely perceived it in the white light of days that scarcely lasted a moment.”

One day—perhaps it was night for us—Merlin heard drops of water falling into the depths of the abyss. He imagined that they were Viviane’s tears, and, taking her in his arms, said: “You’ve been weeping, Viviane! Don’t hide it from me. I can still see a tear bathing your long lashes.”

“It’s true, Merlin, I weep when I think that I’ve imprisoned you in this invisible, subterranean, inexorable world, deprived of the dazzling eye of day. In vain I’d like to help you recross the barriers that I’ve closed. I could never reopen it. Meanwhile, you regret the amorous earth and the stars of night. That thought poisons all joy for me in our tenebrous abode.”

To those words the good Merlin relied with a burst of ingenuous, expansive laughter, which made the vaults resonate in the distance, and then he closed Viviane’s lips with a kiss. “There! That’s my response.”

Almost immediately, however, he felt that it was necessary to talk seriously, and, detaching his harp from the four delicate golden chains that held it suspended, he added: “Listen.”

Sitting under the arcade, Viviane raised her eyes toward her beloved. He drew a first chord from his harp; the long, somber corridors resounded; the echo was prolonged from kingdom to kingdom, over the entire surface of the earth. And the first people to wake with a start said: “Did you hear Merlin’s harp?”

“Yes,” said the others. “We recognized it. We’ve been searching everywhere without being able to find it. Let’s go to the place where the harp is resounding.”

Open-mouthed, they turned in the direction of Merlin’s tomb. And this is what the peoples heard:

 

V

 

The First Song of Merlin in the Sepulcher

 

“Worlds, rejoice! Merlin has recovered his joy and his smile. Console yourselves, disenchanted peoples. Merlin has recovered his enchantments on Viviane’s lips.

“It is from the tomb that the good news comes today. I am contemplating serene forms here in the eyes of my beloved. With her I roam the profound forests full of the scent of oaks. I read the veins of metal the paradisal book of eternal wisdom. I live in the marvelous tower of the King of Enchanters.

“Let his be heard by God and man! Let this be clearly understood by young and old. I have chosen silence, the world has chosen tumult; I have chosen justice, the world iniquity. I have preferred liberty, the world has preferred slavery. I have loved the light, and the world darkness. I have loved the truth, the world the lie. It is just, it is good and it is wise that we love on two opposite shores; the world in what it calls celebration, me in what it calls mourning; the world in what it calls life, me in what it calls death.

“In this tower, I fear no ambush by nocturnal humans drunk on mead. I see from afar their army assembling and dispersing, like the deceptive mist on my threshold. Neither azured lances, nor blue-tinted swords, nor poisoned arrows, can pierce me here. My high tower is built on the rock of justice. Who could shake it?

“Like vain vapors that prowl over ruins, the generations range around me. Oh, how quickly the gaze of morning has dissipated them!

“Dust of a day, you say: ‘The Enchanter lied; his words are merely illusions; his enchantments have perished with him.’

“And I say to you: ‘The Enchanter is upstanding, and trampling you underfoot; poor reeds, who made you so fragile?’

“Young women, what has become of your pride? How many times you have refused me even a smile, thinking: He’s no longer young; he’s an old enchanter.

“And you adopted the gait of serpents, while I went, heavy-hearted, to sit down by myself, on the edge of pools, far from the fête. What have you done with your pride? I’ve found mine again.

“Roses of the woods, flowers of spring, you sniggered when I passed by and you said: ‘His crown has fallen, his perfume is withered.’ Tell me: what have you done with your spring? Mine is recommencing.

“Cups that circulate in the banquet at the festival of the sword, you said to yourselves: ‘We’re still full to the brim, and his days are dried up.’ Fragile cups, what has become of your intoxication? The wine of the Eternal still inebriates my cup.

“Harps that resound under the fingers of bards, what have you done with your chords? Where are your echoes in the deserted hall? My harp resonates here; it is you who have fallen silent.

“I know a song to make the skies split with envy and the great sea shiver.”

With these words of the prophet, the sea began to laugh and all its waves were green with anger. “What is this song?” they said, as they beat the threshold and covered it with foam.

“I can see here,” Merlin replied, “an ocean next to which you are but a drop of water in the sand of Syria.”

“Can you see anything more beautiful than us?” cried the stars.

“I can see a sky next to which you are but sparks under the ashes of a shepherd’s fire.”

At that moment, the world having fallen silent again, the Enchanter resumed with greater force:

“Let this be heard by God and man! Let it be heard by young and old alike!

“I defy the tomb; it shall not chill my heart. That which I hated, I hate twice as much. That which I despised, I despise a hundred times as much. That which I loved, I love a thousand times as much.

“I defy the night; it shall not cast darkness around me.

“I defy the voracious eagles and vultures that feed on the flesh and blood of the dead. The eagles and vultures have come to me, wings spread, to ask me for their rightful nourishment, as of all the others who have died; I have refused them, and they have fled with shrill cries into the solitude, to the bare summit of the rock.

“I defy the earthworm; it shall not feed on me.

“I defy the evening wind, charged with rain in autumn; it shall not enter sadness into my heart.

“I defy the memory of things past; it shall not put a wrinkle on my brow.

“I defy the poisoned word of my enemies; it shall fall at my feet without wounding me.

“I defy the serpent and the immense tortuous viper, in the woods and within the bounds of cities; their fangs shall be pulled.

“I defy laughter; it shall not transpierce my bones.

“I defy tears; they shall not consume my eyes.

“I defy exile; it shall not take way my hearth.

“I defy forgetfulness; it shall not devour me.

“I defy iniquity; it shall not crush me.

“I defy Hell; it shall not swallow me.

“When, every morning, the sun reappears above their heads and everything begins to shine, they swell with pride, and they rejoice, and they all cry: ‘Here comes the day, dazzling son of morning. We are escaping the shadow; woe betide the man who is in the night.’

“And I reply: ‘Where is the night? Who has made it? I do not know it, nor the shadow that marches after it.’

“Let this be heard by God and man:

“I laugh at dolor; it is already passed. I laugh at death; it has come and I have buried it. Yes, it is me who has put the shroud upon it from which it will not emerge.

“I laugh at the day that passes after having risen in its glory. Oh, let it be ashamed to flee so quickly the first shiver of the leaves of the ash-tree, under the nocturnal tears of the hundred isles.

“I laugh at the cypress that withers like the rose, the star that is extinguished, worlds that are lost, temples that totter, gods who only live for a moment.”

Thus Merlin was intoxicated by the pride of the tomb—but that only lasted a moment, for the nearest peoples, whose sleep had been troubled by his songs, unable to go back to sleep, approached the base of his tomb, and cried:

“Who reposes here under this green mound? Is it you, Seigneur Merlin?”

“Yes, it’s me!”

“What! Is it from the tomb that your songs emerge today? You are singing in the sepulcher, Merlin, while the living groan!”

“It’s true, and if only I could send you my joy! But answer me truthfully: are baseness, ingratitude and cowardice still your three patrons?”

“Alas, yes.”

“Do you still know how to crawl like serpents?”

“We have not forgotten—but we still excel in combat.”

“In combat! Yes, that’s a glory that you must share with bulldogs. Do you still know how to bite the hand that frees you and lick the one that enchains you?”

“We have not forgotten.”

“If it is thus, stay where you are, and I shall stay where I am. It would cost me too much to see the noble human face descend into bestiality.”

“But Seigneur, will you not come back among us?” said the peoples, weeping.

“That depends entirely on you,” Merlin replied. “Unless you reform yourselves greatly, I shall have the greatest difficulty in the world in living near you even for a single day; for, to speak frankly, I have always felt—I don’t know why—something of a stranger in the midst of your cities, and even your rural regions. What I despise, you adore. Besides, which I was never able to do before, I can breathe here, with full lungs, justice, truth, liberty, peace and, above all, love. I would have difficulty losing the habit, and would doubtless stifle among you.”

“It’s said, Master, that you’re our friend.”

“Speak, shout, roar—your words will be wind until you have ballasted them with justice.”

In speaking thus, rudely, the Enchanter hoped to spur the hearts of men; which did not fail to happen, since the crowd immediately replied: “Don’t despise us too much, Seigneur Merlin.”

“That’s my greatest desire, but the tomb is no courtier.”

“To see Merlin among us again, there is nothing we would not do. Only leave us the hope.”

That word began to soften the Enchanter. Without thinking about it, he picked up his harp again, mechanically, and replied with a hint of excitement, after having run his fingers over the lowest strings:

“Has the noble Arthus with the snow-white beard not awakened?”

“No, Seigneur.”

“That astonishes me, good people; but he will wake up soon in his power, although the truth is more belated than I was able to foresee. He will come back, I tell you, on his horse the color of a swan; the pommel of his sword will be resplendent in Scandinavia, and the point will be sharpened on the Pillars of Hercules. When that happens, don’t fail to run to him promptly and kiss the hem of his garments and his magic buckler, which I forged with my own hands. That will be the signal for a great joy over almost all the earth.”

“By what signs shall we recognize that the moment is near?” asked the nations.

“I will tell you,” Merlin replied. “The teeth of wolves will be broken then. The very stones will speak and cry out, from France to England and from England to the Hesperides. The human heart will quiver like an overflowing lake. Winged thoughts will soar overhead. Dead pity will be reborn in the bosoms of women; they will rediscover tears in their eyes to weep for those at whom they laugh today, poor orphans of justice. Then Orion, after having drawn his sword, will put it back in the scabbard.”155

Among the peoples who interrogated Merlin there were men of all nations, all languages and all races. He spoke to each one in his native tongue, as was his custom, in order to persuade them all that he knew their veritable interests, better than they did themselves. To the inhabitants of the isles he spoke of the fay Alcina, to the French, the fay Morgane of Avalon, to the Germans the women of the waters of the Erl-King; to the African of the giant of the tempests, Adamastor; to the Spaniards of Don Juan de Tenorio; to the English of Robin Hood; to the Italians of the Hippogriff of Ferrara, on which he lavish the greatest praise; to the Rumanians of Dokia; to the Dalmatians of vampires; to the Serbs of Marko.156

If he was dealing with hunters, he talked about Oberon’s horn; if to pastors, of farfadets; if to laborers and cattle-drovers of gnomes; if to fishermen and fish-eaters, of follets and undines; if to miners, of kobolds. In brief, he was able to accommodate himself to the customs, mores and industry of whoever addressed themselves to him. All were astonished to find him so knowledgeable as to their ancestry, their needs, their laws and their ways of life; they were filled with hope.

So,” they said to him, “the fatherlands still means something to you, Seigneur Merlin. Even in the high spheres where you have acquired the habit of living, you have not forgotten the homelands?”

“At the word “homeland” Merlin’s excitement suddenly died away. His heart burst, and then melted like wax. The prophet divested himself of the man of bronze he had donned, and, dropping his harp on to the ground, changed his tone and replied: “Tell me, good people, about sweet France, although she has been hard to me alone. I’ve seen many fatherlands, but that is the one, after all, that still pleases me the most, although she has denied me more than once.”

“Forgive us,” said the peoples, “but we are witnesses to the fact that she has never denied her enchanter Merlin.”

“So be it!” Merlin said, “I would like to think so. Her children, it’s said, have hearts that have changed to stone; the splendor of gold has dazzled and blinded them. Outrages, calumnies, villainies, banishments—that’s the news I most often receive of them, but I’d willingly forgive them, because they call themselves French, and in spite of everything, I persevere in believing that the sons of their sons will be better than their fathers, for they’ll remember me. May I see them again, if only for a single day, with Viviane, in the company of the noble Arthus.”

“It shall be,” replied the crowd.

The Interred wiped a few tears from his eyes, and then he asked, with a simplicity that won all hearts, about his mother’s tomb, the little field of his heritage, his house and his garden: whether it was true that the house was in ruins, whether a few stones remained, at least—and from there, passing on to other objects, he wanted to know whether Jacques had returned to his village and was prospering there, which peasants and cowherds were married, which widowed, which orphaned; whether the lower marches had been drained; whether there were many people trembling with the fever; whether the rye-field of the Crau had yielded well that year; whether the swallows were nesting in his window; whether the apple-tree he had planted in the garden of bees had borne fruit, and of what variety.

In sum, he did not forget anything in the world that could show that a good part of his heart still remained in the village: all things to which he received satisfactory responses. They admire the fact that that he could so easily change his tone, and that, even after having traveled the universe and the constellations, he was still familiar with the careers of the hamlet and the hemp-field. As he pronounced his final words, his voice trembled and his heart shivered. He would have liked to launch himself toward those who were listening—but in the blink of an eye, he changed his mind. Then, taking his leave of the multitude, he added:

“Go, good people. My only pain, believe me, is to see you leave in such great distress. May it not last long.”

That said, the peoples withdrew; each felt fortified by Merlin’s words, as if nourished on the marrow of oaks and lions.

 

VI

 

And know that the desolation of the Syrian and Egyptian people, when they had lost Adonis and Osiris, was nothing by comparison with the initial desolation of the peoples immediately after Merlin’s disappearance. For a long time, nothing was seen but wandering kings, fallen princes, crowds in mourning, people beating their breasts, not in ceremonial grief, as at Egyptian festivals, but in real and agonizing dolor.

Everywhere, there were plaints of rusty armor, tearful moans, empires turned to dust; you might have thought it the death of a demigod.

Then you would not have recognized the vagabond nations that went in search of the Enchanter. If they had, at least, found one of his dispersed limbs, they would certainly have thought themselves saved, like an Egyptian on rediscovering the body, the head or the arm of Osiris. But of that, what appearance? No news, no vestige!

“What will become of us?” the nations had said to one another. “Where can he be buried? He was our joy, our support. Certainly, we shall die, to the last man, if he does not reappear.”

Such had been the cry of human beings for a long time. You could easily believe, therefore, that the first reverberation of Merlin’s harp was heard with delight all over the world; and, to be sure, there was no being, however petty or paltry, who did not rejoice in his soul, as for his own felicity. The bird-chicks in the depths of the woods peeps over the edges of their nests and said to one another: “Did you hear Merlin’s harp?”—with which, all the nightingales began to sing, which they had not done for centuries.

Their soft spring-like voices arrived in the tenebrous orchard where Merlin and Viviane were at that moment.

“Listen, listen,” she said to him. “They’re there, over our heads.”

Then, having taken the harp in her turn, she made it quiver under her fingers. To that which the nightingales heard, they responded as best they could, competing in seeking to duplicate it. And it was thus that they learned a quantity of songs that they have never forgotten since.

It is also necessary to know that Merlin, no longer differentiating between days and nights, had taken up his harp in the middle of the profound night, and that is the reason why nightingales love to sing their sweetest songs—those that they learned from Merlin and Viviane—at midnight, when all other beings are in repose.