The Goddess of Reason 10
YVETTE
No!
SÉRAPHINE
Stubbornness!
‘Tis there!
LALAIN
A birthmark—a small blue flower!
DE VARDES
Ah!
SÉRAPHINE
Ay! a little mark.—Jehan Charruel!
He was a violent man,—the sea breeds such!
He cursed Yvonne upon her pallet there,
So pale she was, and dying with the tide!
He cursed the saints, the purple mark, the babe,
And some one else I dare not name—
LALAIN
I dare!
Henri-Etienne-Amaury de Vardes,
Late Baron of Morbec!
SÉRAPHINE
Then out he goes,
A-weeping hard—Jehan—into the night.
Ouf! how it blew!—
The sea ran high, he met it in the dark,
Was drowned! Yvonne went with the ebb. Behold
Yvette!
[SÉRAPHINE _retreats to the table, where she furtively
drinks from a half-emptied wineglass_. LALAIN _follows
her and the two talk together_.
DE VARDES
That purple flower, that violet
By nature limned upon thy slender throat,—
From north to south, from east to west ‘tis known!
A De Vardes bore that mark at Poitiers.
The marshal, Hugues the Fair, and black Arnaud,
The late baron—Why, what hast thou to do
With burning down châteaux to make a light
To show the Morbihan that purple flower?
YVETTE
O Our Lady of Thorns!
DE VARDES
Herd girl too fair!
And vision of Paimpont, fair as I dreamed!
How fair was thy errand last night?
YVETTE
Monseigneur!
DE VARDES
In the ashes of Morbec what shouldst thou find?
YVETTE
We only wished to make a little light—
A little light to let the neighbours know
That we were hungry!
DE VARDES
What neighbours hast thou?
YVETTE
Normandy and Maine, Anjou and Poitou,
The sea, the sky, and somewhat far away,
The Club of the Jacobins at Paris.
DE VARDES
Thy father was a nobleman of France!
YVETTE
I never had a father, monseigneur!
I had a mother, and she loved, they say,
She dearly loved the fisherman Jehan!
When for the dead I pray, I pray for them.
DE VARDES
How old art thou?
YVETTE
How old? Ah, let me see!
[_She counts upon her fingers._
The year the hailstones fell and killed the wheat;
The year the flax failed and we made no songs;
The year I begged for bread; the bitter year
We buried Louison who died of cold,
And Jacques was hanged who shot the seigneur’s deer;
The Pardon of Sainte Anne I had a gown;
Came Angélique from Paris, told us how
The wicked Queen was smiling, smiling there;
Justine pined away, they shot Michel If,
Down fell the Bastille, I learned _Ça ira_;
The deputy came to the curé’s house,
Beside the deep blue sea I walked with him.
A day there was at Vannes, a glorious day,
When music played, and every banner waved,
And all the folk went mad and rang the bells!
_Vive la Révolution! Vive Mirabeau!
Vive Rémond Lalain!_ I wept when ‘twas o’er,
Last summer was so fair! I wandered far,
One day I wandered through a darksome wood—
‘Twas on the Eve of good Saint John, I know!
DE VARDES
Ah—
YVETTE
The summer fled, the light, the warmth did go,
The winter came that was so cruel cold,
Cold as the dead! And hunger, monseigneur,
With bread at the château!—Died Baron Henri.—
The summer came again, the roses bloomed,
The roses bloomed, but they were not for us!
For us the dank seaweed, the thorny furze.
The lark sang well, but ah, it sang too high!
We could not lift our hearts to heaven’s gate;
We only heard the wind moan at our door.
We cried to the saints, but they took no heed!
One told us what they did at Goy and Vannes,
At Goy and Vannes, pardieu! they helped themselves!
We heard there had come a new lord to Morbec,
A soldier and a stranger to us all!
Three days have gone since I did sit alone
Upon the cliff edge in the waving grass;
The mew and curlew cried, the night wind blew,
And in the sunset glow red turned Morbec!
I thought of my mother, I thought of France,
I looked at the château cruel and high,
And as I was hungry I ate my black bread!—
I think, monseigneur, that I am nineteen.
DE VARDES
_Pauvre petite!_
YVETTE
Ah, poor indeed!
DE VARDES
How dark
Thine eyes!
YVETTE
My mother’s were darker, they say!
DE VARDES
Thy face is the face of a picture there.
YVETTE
I know—the Duchess Jeanne, who died for love.
DE VARDES
Did Vivien teach thee magic in the wood?
YVETTE
Monseigneur?
DE VARDES
_Pauvre petite!_
YVETTE
O Our Lady!
The roses smell so sweet—
[LALAIN _comes forward_.
LALAIN
I pardon crave,
But I must sup to-night at Rennes. Please you,
Release this peasant girl! Affairs there are
Of which I’d speak—
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