Gates of Imagination presents: A Lodging for the Night; A Story of Francis
Villon by Robert Louis Stevenson. Read by Arthur Lane. It was late in November 1456. The snow fell over Paris with rigorous, relentless
persistence; sometimes the wind made a sally and scattered it in flying vortices; sometimes
there was a lull, and flake after flake descended out of the black night air, silent, circuitous,
interminable. To poor people, looking up under moist eyebrows,
it seemed a wonder where it all came
from. Master Francis Villon had propounded an alternative
that afternoon, at a tavern window: was it only Pagan Jupiter plucking geese upon Olympus? or were the holy angels moulting? He was only a poor Master of Arts, he went
on; and as the question somewhat touched upon divinity, he durst not venture to conclude. A silly old priest from Montargis, who was
among the company, treated the young rascal to a bottle of wine in honour of the jest
and the grimaces with which it was accompanied, and sw
ore on his own white beard that he had
been just such another irreverent dog when he was Villon’s age. The air was raw and pointed, but not far below
freezing; and the flakes were large, damp, and adhesive. The whole city was sheeted up. An army might have marched from end to end
and not a footfall given the alarm. If there were any belated birds in heaven,
they saw the island like a large white patch, and the bridges like slim white spars, on
the black ground of the river. High up overhead the
snow settled among the
tracery of the cathedral towers. Many a niche was drifted full; many a statue
wore a long white bonnet on its grotesque or sainted head. The gargoyles had been transformed into great
false noses, drooping towards the point. The crockets were like upright pillows swollen
on one side. In the intervals of the wind, there was a
dull sound of dripping about the precincts of the church. The cemetery of St. John had taken its own
share of the snow. All the graves were decently co
vered; tall
white housetops stood around in grave array; worthy burghers were long ago in bed, benightcapped
like their domiciles; there was no light in all the neighbourhood but a little peep from
a lamp that hung swinging in the church choir, and tossed the shadows to and fro in time
to its oscillations. The clock was hard on ten when the patrol
went by with halberds and a lantern, beating their hands; and they saw nothing suspicious
about the cemetery of St. John. Yet there was a small house,
backed up against
the cemetery wall, which was still awake, and awake to evil purpose, in that snoring
district. There was not much to betray it from without;
only a stream of warm vapour from the chimney-top, a patch where the snow melted on the roof,
and a few half-obliterated footprints at the door. But within, behind the shuttered windows,
Master Francis Villon the poet, and some of the thievish crew with whom he consorted,
were keeping the night alive and passing round the bottle. A great
pile of living embers diffused a strong
and ruddy glow from the arched chimney. Before this straddled Dom Nicolas, the Picardy
monk, with his skirts picked up and his fat legs bared to the comfortable warmth. His dilated shadow cut the room in half; and
the firelight only escaped on either side of his broad person, and in a little pool
between his outspread feet. His face had the beery, bruised appearance
of the continual drinker’s; it was covered with a network of congested veins, purple
in ord
inary circumstances, but now pale violet, for even with his back to the fire the cold
pinched him on the other side. His cowl had half fallen back, and made a
strange excrescence on either side of his bull neck. So he straddled, grumbling, and cut the room
in half with the shadow of his portly frame. On the right, Villon and Guy Tabary were huddled
together over a scrap of parchment; Villon making a ballade which he was to call the
“Ballade of Roast Fish,” and Tabary spluttering admiration at hi
s shoulder. The poet was a rag of a man, dark, little,
and lean, with hollow cheeks and thin black locks. He carried his four-and-twenty years with
feverish animation. Greed had made folds about his eyes, evil
smiles had puckered his mouth. The wolf and pig struggled together in his
face. It was an eloquent, sharp, ugly, earthly countenance. His hands were small and prehensile, with
fingers knotted like a cord; and they were continually flickering in front of him in
violent and expressive pantom
ime. As for Tabary, a broad, complacent, admiring
imbecility breathed from his squash nose and slobbering lips: he had become a thief, just
as he might have become the most decent of burgesses, by the imperious chance that rules
the lives of human geese and human donkeys. At the monk’s other hand, Montigny and Thevenin
Pensete played a game of chance. About the first there clung some flavour of
good birth and training, as about a fallen angel; something long, lithe, and courtly
in the person; so
mething aquiline and darkling in the face. Thevenin, poor soul, was in great feather:
he had done a good stroke of knavery that afternoon in the Faubourg St. Jacques, and
all night he had been gaining from Montigny. A flat smile illuminated his face; his bald
head shone rosily in a garland of red curls; his little protuberant stomach shook with
silent chucklings as he swept in his gains. “Doubles or quits?” said Thevenin. Montigny nodded grimly. “Some may prefer to dine in state,” wrote
Villon,
“On bread and cheese on silver plate. Or—or—help me out, Guido!” Tabary giggled. “Or parsley on a golden dish,” scribbled
the poet. The wind was freshening without; it drove
the snow before it, and sometimes raised its voice in a victorious whoop, and made sepulchral
grumblings in the chimney. The cold was growing sharper as the night
went on. Villon, protruding his lips, imitated the
gust with something between a whistle and a groan. It was an eerie, uncomfortable talent of the
poet’s, much det
ested by the Picardy monk. “Can’t you hear it rattle in the gibbet?”
said Villon. “They are all dancing the devil’s jig
on nothing, up there. You may dance, my gallants, you’ll be none
the warmer! Whew! what a gust! Down went somebody just now! A medlar the fewer on the three-legged medlar-tree!—I
say, Dom Nicolas, it’ll be cold to-night on the St. Denis Road?” he asked. Dom Nicolas winked both his big eyes, and
seemed to choke upon his Adam’s apple. Montfaucon, the great grisly Paris gibbet,
st
ood hard by the St. Denis Road, and the pleasantry touched him on the raw. As for Tabary, he laughed immoderately over
the medlars; he had never heard anything more light-hearted; and he held his sides and crowed. Villon fetched him a fillip on the nose, which
turned his mirth into an attack of coughing. “Oh, stop that row,” said Villon, “and
think of rhymes to ‘fish’.” “Doubles or quits,” said Montigny doggedly. “With all my heart,” quoth Thevenin. “Is there any more in that bottle?” asked
the
monk. “Open another,” said Villon. “How do you ever hope to fill that big hogshead,
your body, with little things like bottles? And how do you expect to get to heaven? How many angels, do you fancy, can be spared
to carry up a single monk from Picardy? Or do you think yourself another Elias—and
they’ll send the coach for you?” “Hominibus impossibile,” replied the monk,
as he filled his glass. Tabary was in ecstasies. Villon filliped his nose again. “Laugh at my jokes, if you like,” he said. “It
was very good,” objected Tabary. Villon made a face at him. “Think of rhymes to ‘fish’,” he said. “What have you to do with Latin? You’ll wish you knew none of it at the great
assizes, when the devil calls for Guido Tabary, clericus—the devil with the hump-back and
red-hot finger-nails. Talking of the devil,” he added in a whisper,
“look at Montigny!” All three peered covertly at the gamester. He did not seem to be enjoying his luck. His mouth was a little to a side; one nostril
nearly shut, and
the other much inflated. The black dog was on his back, as people say,
in terrifying nursery metaphor; and he breathed hard under the gruesome burden. “He looks as if he could knife him,” whispered
Tabary, with round eyes. The monk shuddered, and turned his face and
spread his open hands to the red embers. It was the cold that thus affected Dom Nicolas,
and not any excess of moral sensibility. “Come now,” said Villon—“about this
ballade. How does it run so far?” And beating time with his hand,
he read it
aloud to Tabary. They were interrupted at the fourth rhyme
by a brief and fatal movement among the gamesters. The round was completed, and Thevenin was
just opening his mouth to claim another victory, when Montigny leaped up, swift as an adder,
and stabbed him to the heart. The blow took effect before he had time to
utter a cry, before he had time to move. A tremor or two convulsed his frame; his hands
opened and shut, his heels rattled on the floor; then his head rolled backward over
one shoulder with the eyes wide open; and Thevenin Pensete’s spirit had returned to
Him who made it. Everyone sprang to his feet; but the business
was over in two twos. The four living fellows looked at each other
in rather a ghastly fashion; the dead man contemplating a corner of the roof with a
singular and ugly leer. “My God!” said Tabary; and he began to
pray in Latin. Villon broke out into hysterical laughter. He came a step forward and ducked a ridiculous
bow at Thevenin, and laughed stil
l louder. Then he sat down suddenly, all of a heap,
upon a stool, and continued laughing bitterly as though he would shake himself to pieces. Montigny recovered his composure first. “Let’s see what he has about him,” he
remarked; and he picked the dead man’s pockets with a practised hand, and divided the money
into four equal portions on the table. “There’s for you,” he said. The monk received his share with a deep sigh,
and a single stealthy glance at the dead Thevenin, who was beginning to sin
k into himself and
topple sideways of the chair. “We’re all in for it,” cried Villon,
swallowing his mirth. “It’s a hanging job for every man jack
of us that’s here—not to speak of those who aren’t.” He made a shocking gesture in the air with
his raised right hand, and put out his tongue and threw his head on one side, so as to counterfeit
the appearance of one who has been hanged. Then he pocketed his share of the spoil, and
executed a shuffle with his feet as if to restore the circulation. Tab
ary was the last to help himself; he made
a dash at the money, and retired to the other end of the apartment. Montigny stuck Thevenin upright in the chair,
and drew out the dagger, which was followed by a jet of blood. “You fellows had better be moving,” he
said, as he wiped the blade on his victim’s doublet. “I think we had,” returned Villon with
a gulp. “Damn his fat head!” he broke out. “It sticks in my throat like phlegm. What right has a man to have red hair when
he is dead?” And he fell al
l of a heap again upon the stool,
and fairly covered his face with his hands. Montigny and Dom Nicolas laughed aloud, even
Tabary feebly chiming in. “Cry baby,” said the monk. “I always said he was a woman,” added
Montigny with a sneer. “Sit up, can’t you?” he went on, giving
another shake to the murdered body. “Tread out that fire, Nick!” But Nick was better employed; he was quietly
taking Villon’s purse, as the poet sat, limp and trembling, on the stool where he
had been making a ballade not t
hree minutes before. Montigny and Tabary dumbly demanded a share
of the booty, which the monk silently promised as he passed the little bag into the bosom
of his gown. In many ways an artistic nature unfits a man
for practical existence. No sooner had the theft been accomplished
than Villon shook himself, jumped to his feet, and began helping to scatter and extinguish
the embers. Meanwhile Montigny opened the door and cautiously
peered into the street. The coast was clear; there was no meddlesom
e
patrol in sight. Still it was judged wiser to slip out severally;
and as Villon was himself in a hurry to escape from the neighbourhood of the dead Thevenin,
and the rest were in a still greater hurry to get rid of him before he should discover
the loss of his money, he was the first by general consent to issue forth into the street. The wind had triumphed and swept all the clouds
from heaven. Only a few vapours, as thin as moonlight,
fleeting rapidly across the stars. It was bitter cold; and
by a common optical
effect, things seemed almost more definite than in the broadest daylight. The sleeping city was absolutely still: a
company of white hoods, a field full of little Alps, below the twinkling stars. Villon cursed his fortune. Would it were still snowing! Now, wherever he went, he left an indelible
trail behind him on the glittering streets; wherever he went he was still tethered to
the house by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he must weave, with his own plodding
feet,
the rope that bound him to the crime and would bind him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man came back to him
with a new significance. He snapped his fingers as if to pluck up his
own spirits, and choosing a street at random, stepped boldly forward in the snow. Two things preoccupied him as he went: the
aspect of the gallows at Montfaucon in this bright windy phase of the night’s existence,
for one; and for another, the look of the dead man with his bald head and garland of
red curls. Both
struck cold upon his heart, and he kept
quickening his pace as if he could escape from unpleasant thoughts by mere fleetness
of foot. Sometimes he looked back over his shoulder
with a sudden nervous jerk; but he was the only moving thing in the white streets, except
when the wind swooped round a corner and threw up the snow, which was beginning to freeze,
in spouts of glittering dust. Suddenly he saw, a long way before him, a
black clump and a couple of lanterns. The clump was in motion, and the
lanterns
swung as though carried by men walking. It was a patrol. And though it was merely crossing his line
of march, he judged it wiser to get out of eyeshot as speedily as he could. He was not in the humour to be challenged,
and he was conscious of making a very conspicuous mark upon the snow. Just on his left hand there stood a great
hotel, with some turrets and a large porch before the door; it was half-ruinous, he remembered,
and had long stood empty; and so he made three steps of it and
jumped into the shelter of
the porch. It was pretty dark inside, after the glimmer
of the snowy streets, and he was groping forward with outspread hands, when he stumbled over
some substance which offered an indescribable mixture of resistances, hard and soft, firm
and loose. His heart gave a leap, and he sprang two steps
back and stared dreadfully at the obstacle. Then he gave a little laugh of relief. It was only a woman, and she dead. He knelt beside her to make sure upon this
latter point. S
he was freezing cold, and rigid like a stick. A little ragged finery fluttered in the wind
about her hair, and her cheeks had been heavily rouged that same afternoon. Her pockets were quite empty; but in her stocking,
underneath the garter, Villon found two of the small coins that went by the name of whites. It was little enough; but it was always something;
and the poet was moved with a deep sense of pathos that she should have died before she
had spent her money. That seemed to him a dark and
pitiable mystery;
and he looked from the coins in his hand to the dead woman, and back again to the coins,
shaking his head over the riddle of man’s life. Henry V. of England, dying at Vincennes just
after he had conquered France, and this poor jade cut off by a cold draught in a great
man’s doorway, before she had time to spend her couple of whites—it seemed a cruel way
to carry on the world. Two whites would have taken such a little
while to squander; and yet it would have been one more good t
aste in the mouth, one more
smack of the lips, before the devil got the soul, and the body was left to birds and vermin. He would like to use all his tallow before
the light was blown out and the lantern broken. While these thoughts were passing through
his mind, he was feeling, half mechanically, for his purse. Suddenly his heart stopped beating; a feeling
of cold scales passed up the back of his legs, and a cold blow seemed to fall upon his scalp. He stood petrified for a moment; then he felt
again with one feverish movement; and then his loss burst upon him, and he was covered
at once with perspiration. To spendthrifts money is so living and actual—it
is such a thin veil between them and their pleasures! There is only one limit to their fortune—that
of time; and a spendthrift with only a few crowns is the Emperor of Rome until they are
spent. For such a person to lose his money is to
suffer the most shocking reverse, and fall from heaven to hell, from all to nothing,
in a breath. An
d all the more if he has put his head in
the halter for it; if he may be hanged to-morrow for that same purse, so dearly earned, so
foolishly departed! Villon stood and cursed; he threw the two
whites into the street; he shook his fist at heaven; he stamped, and was not horrified
to find himself trampling the poor corpse. Then he began rapidly to retrace his steps
towards the house beside the cemetery. He had forgotten all fear of the patrol, which
was long gone by at any rate, and had no idea b
ut that of his lost purse. It was in vain that he looked right and left
upon the snow: nothing was to be seen. He had not dropped it in the streets. Had it fallen in the house? He would have liked dearly to go in and see;
but the idea of the grisly occupant unmanned him. And he saw besides, as he drew near, that
their efforts to put out the fire had been unsuccessful; on the contrary, it had broken
into a blaze, and a changeful light played in the chinks of door and window, and revived
his terro
r for the authorities and Paris gibbet. He returned to the hotel with the porch, and
groped about upon the snow for the money he had thrown away in his childish passion. But he could only find one white; the other
had probably struck sideways and sunk deeply in. With a single white in his pocket, all his
projects for a rousing night in some wild tavern vanished utterly away. And it was not only pleasure that fled laughing
from his grasp; positive discomfort, positive pain, attacked him as he sto
od ruefully before
the porch. His perspiration had dried upon him; and though
the wind had now fallen, a binding frost was setting in stronger with every hour, and be
felt benumbed and sick at heart. What was to be done? Late as was the hour, improbable as was success,
he would try the house of his adopted father, the chaplain of St. Benoît. He ran there all the way, and knocked timidly. There was no answer. He knocked again and again, taking heart with
every stroke; and at last steps were heard
approaching from within. A barred wicket fell open in the iron-studded
door, and emitted a gush of yellow light. “Hold up your face to the wicket,” said
the chaplain from within. “It’s only me,” whimpered Villon. “Oh, it’s only you, is it?” returned the chaplain; and he cursed him with
foul unpriestly oaths for disturbing him at such an hour, and bade him be off to hell,
where he came from. “My hands are blue to the wrist,” pleaded
Villon; “my feet are dead and full of twinges; my nose aches wi
th the sharp air; the cold
lies at my heart. I may be dead before morning. Only this once, father, and before God I will
never ask again!” “You should have come earlier,” said the
ecclesiastic coolly. “Young men require a lesson now and then.” He shut the wicket and retired deliberately
into the interior of the house. Villon was beside himself; he beat upon the
door with his hands and feet, and shouted hoarsely after the chaplain. “Wormy old fox!” he cried. “If I had my hand under your twist, I
would
send you flying headlong into the bottomless pit.” A door shut in the interior, faintly audible
to the poet down long passages. He passed his hand over his mouth with an
oath. And then the humour of the situation struck
him, and he laughed and looked lightly up to heaven, where the stars seemed to be winking
over his discomfiture. What was to be done? It looked very like a night in the frosty
streets. The idea of the dead woman popped into his
imagination, and gave him a hearty fright; wha
t had happened to her in the early night
might very well happen to him before morning. And he so young! and with such immense possibilities of disorderly
amusement before him! He felt quite pathetic over the notion of
his own fate, as if it had been some one else’s, and made a little imaginative vignette of
the scene in the morning when they should find his body. He passed all his chances under review, turning
the white between his thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately he was on bad terms with som
e
old friends who would once have taken pity on him in such a plight. He had lampooned them in verses, he had beaten
and cheated them; and yet now, when he was in so close a pinch, he thought there was
at least one who might perhaps relent. It was a chance. It was worth trying at least, and he would
go and see. On the way, two little accidents happened
to him which coloured his musings in a very different manner. For, first, he fell in with the track of a
patrol, and walked in it for some hundre
d yards, although it lay out of his direction. And this spirited him up; at least he had
confused his trail; for he was still possessed with the idea of people tracking him all about
Paris over the snow, and collaring him next morning before he was awake. The other matter affected him very differently. He passed a street corner, where, not so long
before, a woman and her child had been devoured by wolves. This was just the kind of weather, he reflected,
when wolves might take it into their heads
to enter Paris again; and a lone man in these
deserted streets would run the chance of something worse than a mere scare. He stopped and looked upon the place with
an unpleasant interest—it was a centre where several lanes intersected each other; and
he looked down them all one after another, and held his breath to listen, lest he should
detect some galloping black things on the snow or hear the sound of howling between
him and the river. He remembered his mother telling him the story
and point
ing out the spot, while he was yet a child. His mother! If he only knew where she lived, he might
make sure at least of shelter. He determined he would inquire upon the morrow;
nay, he would go and see her too, poor old girl! So thinking, he arrived at his destination—his
last hope for the night. The house was quite dark, like its neighbours;
and yet after a few taps, he heard a movement overhead, a door opening, and a cautious voice
asking who was there. The poet named himself in a loud whisper
,
and waited, not without some trepidation, the result. Nor had he to wait long. A window was suddenly opened, and a pailful
of slops splashed down upon the doorstep. Villon had not been unprepared for something
of the sort, and had put himself as much in shelter as the nature of the porch admitted;
but for all that, he was deplorably drenched below the waist. His hose began to freeze almost at once. Death from cold and exposure stared him in
the face; he remembered he was of phthisical tendency
, and began coughing tentatively. But the gravity of the danger steadied his
nerves. He stopped a few hundred yards from the door
where he had been so rudely used, and reflected with his finger to his nose. He could only see one way of getting a lodging,
and that was to take it. He had noticed a house not far away, which
looked as if it might be easily broken into, and thither he betook himself promptly, entertaining
himself on the way with the idea of a room still hot, with a table still loaded
with
the remains of supper, where he might pass the rest of the black hours, and whence he
should issue, on the morrow, with an armful of valuable plate. He even considered on what viands and what
wines he should prefer; and as he was calling the roll of his favourite dainties, roast
fish presented itself to his mind with an odd mixture of amusement and horror. “I shall never finish that ballade,” he
thought to himself; and then, with another shudder at the recollection, “Oh, damn his
fat head!
” he repeated fervently, and spat upon the snow. The house in question looked dark at first
sight; but as Villon made a preliminary inspection in search of the handiest point of attack,
a little twinkle of light caught his eye from behind a curtained window. “The devil!” he thought. “People awake! Some student or some saint, confound the crew! Can’t they get drunk and lie in bed snoring
like their neighbours? What’s the good of curfew, and poor devils
of bell-ringers jumping at a rope’s end in b
ell-towers? What’s the use of day, if people sit up
all night? The gripes to them!” He grinned as he saw where his logic was leading
him. “Every man to his business, after all,”
added he, “and if they’re awake, by the Lord, I may come by a supper honestly for
this once, and cheat the devil.” He went boldly to the door and knocked with
an assured hand. On both previous occasions, he had knocked
timidly and with some dread of attracting notice; but now when he had just discarded
the thought of a b
urglarious entry, knocking at a door seemed a mighty simple and innocent
proceeding. The sound of his blows echoed through the
house with thin, phantasmal reverberations, as though it were quite empty; but these had
scarcely died away before a measured tread drew near, a couple of bolts were withdrawn,
and one wing was opened broadly, as though no guile or fear of guile were known to those
within. A tall figure of a man, muscular and spare,
but a little bent, confronted Villon. The head was mass
ive in bulk, but finely sculptured;
the nose blunt at the bottom, but refining upward to where it joined a pair of strong
and honest eyebrows; the mouth and eyes surrounded with delicate markings, and the whole face
based upon a thick white beard, boldly and squarely trimmed. Seen as it was by the light of a flickering
hand-lamp, it looked perhaps nobler than it had a right to do; but it was a fine face,
honourable rather than intelligent, strong, simple, and righteous. “You knock late, sir,” sa
id the old man
in resonant, courteous tones. Villon cringed, and brought up many servile
words of apology; at a crisis of this sort, the beggar was uppermost in him, and the man
of genius hid his head with confusion. “You are cold,” repeated the old man,
“and hungry? Well, step in.” And he ordered him into the house with a noble
enough gesture. “Some great seigneur,” thought Villon,
as his host, setting down the lamp on the flagged pavement of the entry, shot the bolts
once more into their place
s. “You will pardon me if I go in front,”
he said, when this was done; and he preceded the poet upstairs into a large apartment,
warmed with a pan of charcoal and lit by a great lamp hanging from the roof. It was very bare of furniture: only some gold
plate on a sideboard; some folios; and a stand of armour between the windows. Some smart tapestry hung upon the walls, representing
the crucifixion of our Lord in one piece, and in another a scene of shepherds and shepherdesses
by a running stream.
Over the chimney was a shield of arms. “Will you seat yourself,” said the old
man, “and forgive me if I leave you? I am alone in my house to-night, and if you
are to eat I must forage for you myself.” No sooner was his host gone than Villon leaped
from the chair on which he had just seated himself, and began examining the room, with
the stealth and passion of a cat. He weighed the gold flagons in his hand, opened
all the folios, and investigated the arms upon the shield, and the stuff with whic
h
the seats were lined. He raised the window curtains, and saw that
the windows were set with rich stained glass in figures, so far as he could see, of martial
import. Then he stood in the middle of the room, drew
a long breath, and retaining it with puffed cheeks, looked round and round him, turning
on his heels, as if to impress every feature of the apartment on his memory. “Seven pieces of plate,” he said. “If there had been ten, I would have risked
it. A fine house, and a fine old master, so
help
me all the saints!” And just then, hearing the old man’s tread
returning along the corridor, he stole back to his chair, and began humbly toasting his
wet legs before the charcoal pan. His entertainer had a plate of meat in one
hand and a jug of wine in the other. He set down the plate upon the table, motioning
Villon to draw in his chair, and going to the sideboard, brought back two goblets, which
he filled. “I drink to your better fortune,” he said,
gravely touching Villon’s cup with his
own. “To our better acquaintance,” said the
poet, growing bold. A mere man of the people would have been awed
by the courtesy of the old seigneur, but Villon was hardened in that matter; he had made mirth
for great lords before now, and found them as black rascals as himself. And so he devoted himself to the viands with
a ravenous gusto, while the old man, leaning backward, watched him with steady, curious
eyes. “You have blood on your shoulder, my man,”
he said. Montigny must have laid his wet
right hand
upon him as he left the house. He cursed Montigny in his heart. “It was none of my shedding,” he stammered. “I had not supposed so,” returned his
host quietly. “A brawl?” “Well, something of that sort,” Villon
admitted with a quaver. “Perhaps a fellow murdered?” “Oh no, not murdered,” said the poet,
more and more confused. “It was all fair play—murdered by accident. I had no hand in it, God strike me dead!”
he added fervently. “One rogue the fewer, I dare say,” observed
the master of
the house. “You may dare to say that,” agreed Villon,
infinitely relieved. “As big a rogue as there is between here
and Jerusalem. He turned up his toes like a lamb. But it was a nasty thing to look at. I dare say you’ve seen dead men in your
time, my lord?” he added, glancing at the armour. “Many,” said the old man. “I have followed the wars, as you imagine.” Villon laid down his knife and fork, which
he had just taken up again. “Were any of them bald?” he asked. “Oh yes, and with hair as whit
e as mine.” “I don’t think I should mind the white
so much,” said Villon. “His was red.” And he had a return of his shuddering and
tendency to laughter, which he drowned with a great draught of wine. “I’m a little put out when I think of
it,” he went on. “I knew him—damn him! And then the cold gives a man fancies—or
the fancies give a man cold, I don’t know which.” “Have you any money?” asked the old man. “I have one white,” returned the poet,
laughing. “I got it out of a dead jade’s stocking
in
a porch. She was as dead as Cæsar, poor wench, and
as cold as a church, with bits of ribbon sticking in her hair. This is a hard world in winter for wolves
and wenches and poor rogues like me.” “I,” said the old man, “am Enguerrand
de la Feuillée, seigneur de Brisetout, bailly du Patatrac. Who and what may you be?” Villon rose and made a suitable reverence. “I am called Francis Villon,” he said,
“a poor Master of Arts of this university. I know some Latin, and a deal of vice. I can make chanson
s, ballades, lais, virelais,
and roundels, and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a garret, and I shall not improbably
die upon the gallows. I may add, my lord, that from this night forward
I am your lordship’s very obsequious servant to command.” “No servant of mine,” said the knight;
“my guest for this evening, and no more.” “A very grateful guest,” said Villon politely;
and he drank in dumb show to his entertainer. “You are shrewd,” began the old man, tapping
his forehead, “very shrewd; yo
u have learning; you are a clerk; and yet you take a small
piece of money off a dead woman in the street. Is it not a kind of theft?” “It is a kind of theft much practised in
the wars, my lord.” “The wars are the field of honour,” returned
the old man proudly. “There a man plays his life upon the cast;
he fights in the name of his lord the king, his Lord God, and all their lordships the
holy saints and angels.” “Put it,” said Villon, “that I were
really a thief, should I not play my life also, a
nd against heavier odds?” “For gain, but not for honour.” “Gain?” repeated Villon with a shrug. “Gain! The poor fellow wants supper, and takes it. So does the soldier in a campaign. Why, what are all these requisitions we hear
so much about? If they are not gain to those who take them,
they are loss enough to the others. The men-at-arms drink by a good fire, while
the burgher bites his nails to buy them wine and wood. I have seen a good many ploughmen swinging
on trees about the country, ay, I h
ave seen thirty on one elm, and a very poor figure
they made; and when I asked some one how all these came to be hanged, I was told it was
because they could not scrape together enough crowns to satisfy the men-at-arms.” “These things are a necessity of war, which
the low-born must endure with constancy. It is true that some captains drive over hard;
there are spirits in every rank not easily moved by pity; and indeed many follow arms
who are no better than brigands.” “You see,” said the poet, “
you cannot
separate the soldier from the brigand; and what is a thief but an isolated brigand with
circumspect manners? I steal a couple of mutton chops, without
so much as disturbing people’s sleep; the farmer grumbles a bit, but sups none the less
wholesomely on what remains. You come up blowing gloriously on a trumpet,
take away the whole sheep, and beat the farmer pitifully into the bargain. I have no trumpet; I am only Tom, Dick, or
Harry; I am a rogue and a dog, and hanging’s too good for
me—with all my heart; but just
you ask the farmer which of us he prefers, just find out which of us he lies awake to
curse on cold nights.” “Look at us two,” said his lordship. “I am old, strong, and honoured. If I were turned from my house to-morrow,
hundreds would be proud to shelter me. Poor people would go out and pass the night
in the streets with their children, if I merely hinted that I wished to be alone. And I find you up, wandering homeless, and
picking farthings off dead women by the
wayside! I fear no man and nothing; I have seen you
tremble and lose countenance at a word. I wait God’s summons contentedly in my own
house, or, if it please the king to call me out again, upon the field of battle. You look for the gallows; a rough, swift death,
without hope or honour. Is there no difference between these two?” “As far as to the moon,” Villon acquiesced. “But if I had been born lord of Brisetout,
and you had been the poor scholar Francis, would the difference have been any the
less? Should not I have been warming my knees at
this charcoal pan, and would not you have been groping for farthings in the snow? Should not I have been the soldier, and you
the thief?” “A thief!” cried the old man. “I a thief! If you understood your words, you would repent
them.” Villon turned out his hands with a gesture
of inimitable impudence. “If your lordship had done me the honour
to follow my argument!” he said. “I do you too much honour in submitting
to your presence,” said the knight.
“Learn to curb your tongue when you speak
with old and honourable men, or some one hastier than I may reprove you in a sharper fashion.” And he rose and paced the lower end of the
apartment, struggling with anger and antipathy. Villon surreptitiously refilled his cup, and
settled himself more comfortably in the chair, crossing his knees and leaning his head upon
one hand and the elbow against the back of the chair. He was now replete and warm; and he was in
nowise frightened for his host, havin
g gauged him as justly as was possible between two
such different characters. The night was far spent, and in a very comfortable
fashion after all; and he felt morally certain of a safe departure on the morrow. “Tell me one thing,” said the old man,
pausing in his walk. “Are you really a thief?” “I claim the sacred rights of hospitality,”
returned the poet. “My lord, I am.” “You are very young,” the knight continued. “I should never have been so old,” replied
Villon, showing his fingers, “if I h
ad not helped myself with these ten talents. They have been my nursing mothers and my nursing
fathers.” “You may still repent and change.” “I repent daily,” said the poet. “There are few people more given to repentance
than poor Francis. As for change, let somebody change my circumstances. A man must continue to eat, if it were only
that he may continue to repent.” “The change must begin in the heart,”
returned the old man solemnly. “My dear lord,” answered Villon, “do
you really fancy that I st
eal for pleasure? I hate stealing, like any other piece of work
or of danger. My teeth chatter when I see a gallows. But I must eat, I must drink, I must mix in
society of some sort. What the devil! Man is not a solitary animal—Cui Deus fæminam
tradit. Make me king’s pantler—make me abbot of
St. Denis; make me bailly of the Patatrac; and then I shall be changed indeed. But as long as you leave me the poor scholar
Francis Villon, without a farthing, why, of course, I remain the same.” “The grace
of God is all-powerful.” “I should be a heretic to question it,”
said Francis. “It has made you lord of Brisetout and bailly
of the Patatrac; it has given me nothing but the quick wits under my hat and these ten
toes upon my hands. May I help myself to wine? I thank you respectfully. By God’s grace, you have a very superior
vintage.” The lord of Brisetout walked to and fro with
his hands behind his back. Perhaps he was not yet quite settled in his
mind about the parallel between thieves and sold
iers; perhaps Villon had interested him
by some cross-thread of sympathy; perhaps his wits were simply muddled by so much unfamiliar
reasoning; but whatever the cause, he somehow yearned to convert the young man to a better
way of thinking, and could not make up his mind to drive him forth again into the street. “There is something more than I can understand
in this,” he said at length. “Your mouth is full of subtleties, and the
devil has led you very far astray; but the devil is only a very wea
k spirit before God’s
truth, and all his subtleties vanish at a word of true honour, like darkness at morning. Listen to me once more. I learned long ago that a gentleman should
live chivalrously and lovingly to God, and the king, and his lady; and though I have
seen many strange things done, I have still striven to command my ways upon that rule. It is not only written in all noble histories,
but in every man’s heart, if he will take care to read. You speak of food and wine, and I know very
wel
l that hunger is a difficult trial to endure; but you do not speak of other wants; you say
nothing of honour, of faith to God and other men, of courtesy, of love without reproach. It may be that I am not very wise—and yet
I think I am—but you seem to me like one who has lost his way and made a great error
in life. You are attending to the little wants, and
you have totally forgotten the great and only real ones, like a man who should be doctoring
a toothache on the Judgment Day. For such things
as honour and love and faith
are not only nobler than food and drink, but indeed I think that we desire them more, and
suffer more sharply for their absence. I speak to you as I think you will most easily
understand me. Are you not, while careful to fill your belly,
disregarding another appetite in your heart, which spoils the pleasure of your life and
keeps you continually wretched?” Villon was sensibly nettled under all this
sermonising. “You think I have no sense of honour!”
he cried. “I’m po
or enough, God knows! It’s hard to see rich people with their
gloves, and you blowing in your hands. An empty belly is a bitter thing, although
you speak so lightly of it. If you had had as many as I, perhaps you would
change your tune. Any way I’m a thief—make the most of that—but
I’m not a devil from hell, God strike me dead. I would have you to know I’ve an honour
of my own, as good as yours, though I don’t prate about it all day long, as if it was
a God’s miracle to have any. It seems quite
natural to me; I keep it in
its box till it’s wanted. Why now, look you here, how long have I been
in this room with you? Did you not tell me you were alone in the
house? Look at your gold plate! You’re strong, if you like, but you’re
old and unarmed, and I have my knife. What did I want but a jerk of the elbow and
here would have been you with the cold steel in your bowels, and there would have been
me, linking in the streets, with an armful of gold cups! Did you suppose I hadn’t wit enough to
see
that? And I scorned the action. There are your damned goblets, as safe as
in a church; there are you, with your heart ticking as good as new; and here am I, ready
to go out again as poor as I came in, with my one white that you threw in my teeth! And you think I have no sense of honour—God
strike me dead!” The old man stretched out his right arm. “I will tell you what you are,” he said. “You are a rogue, my man, an impudent and
a black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I have passed an hour with y
ou. Oh! believe me, I feel myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at my table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day
has come, and the night-bird should be off to his roost. Will you go before, or after?” “Which you please,” returned the poet,
rising. “I believe you to be strictly honourable.” He thoughtfully emptied his cup. “I wish I could add you were intelligent,”
he went on, knocking on his head with his knuckles. “Age, age! the brains stiff and rheumatic.” The old man precede
d him from a point of self-respect;
Villon followed, whistling, with his thumbs in his girdle. “God pity you,” said the lord of Brisetout
at the door. “Good-bye, papa,” returned Villon with
a yawn. “Many thanks for the cold mutton.” The door closed behind him. The dawn was breaking over the white roofs. A chill, uncomfortable morning ushered in
the day. Villon stood and heartily stretched himself
in the middle of the road. “A very dull old gentleman,” he thought. “I wonder what his goblets may b
e worth.” Thank you for listening. If you like our recordings consider liking
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Comments
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What a beautiful voice! Perfect for this kind of classic story.
I read this thirty five years ago and was deeply struck by the tale and the telling, but went on to forget its title and author and have been looking for it ever since. I am grateful.
I needed to hear twice. Such a lot going on in this short story. Cynicism seems to be the driver.
Really relished the layered characterization of Villon. The way his inner conflicts and moral struggles are portrayed amid the stark realities of poverty and crime is truly compelling.
The writing in this is just beyond brilliant, I had forgotten how in-depth, descriptive and the excellent. Effortless flow and ease he has with the English language 👍🏻thanks, really enjoyed this story
Impeccably voiced 👍 Thanks Arthur!
Such an interesting story, beautifully told, very attractive voice. Thank you
Thanks for taking me away to that cold Parisian nightmare...
What a cracking good story and a terrific narrator!
A truly great writer. Such a contrast to the usual trite that is dished up.
Lovely...author and narrator alike!❤
I love RLS, great narration.
Wonderful story and reading!
Beautifully narrated. 5:58
The storytellers voice sends me back in time...most exelent
You are a very good reader/actor and so easy to listen to. i was surprised at the suddenness of the end* as well as the ending itself, but a story like this in the hands of a master craftsman is emotionally understood and gives thought to the circumstances. so thanks much and i subscribed :) 🌷🌱 * (where you gave us space to react before talking, which some readers do not understand.)
A good story about the futility of trying to help those intent on repeating the same mistakes.
Very beautiful and mesmerizing voice
Great story beautifully presented