Chivalry (eBook)

James Branch Cabell (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
615 Seiten
Seltzer Books (Verlag)
978-1-4553-2361-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Novel set in the Middle Ages, first published in 1909, with 12 color illustrations. According to Wikipedia: 'James Branch Cabell (1879 - 1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres... Cabell's work was thought of very highly by a number of his peers, including Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis, H. L. Mencken, Joseph Hergesheimer, and Jack Woodford. When Twain died he was reading Cabell's Chivalry. And although now largely forgotten by the general public, his work was remarkably influential on later authors of fantastic fiction... Cabell's eighth (and best-known) book, Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice (1919), was the subject of a celebrated obscenity case shortly after its publication. The eponymous hero, who considers himself a 'monstrous clever fellow', embarks on a journey through ever more fantastic realms, even to hell and heaven. Everywhere he goes, he winds up seducing the local women, even the Devil's wife.'

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Novel set in the Middle Ages, first published in 1909, with 12 color illustrations. According to Wikipedia: "e;James Branch Cabell (1879 - 1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres... Cabell's work was thought of very highly by a number of his peers, including Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis, H. L. Mencken, Joseph Hergesheimer, and Jack Woodford. When Twain died he was reading Cabell's Chivalry. And although now largely forgotten by the general public, his work was remarkably influential on later authors of fantastic fiction... Cabell's eighth (and best-known) book, Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice (1919), was the subject of a celebrated obscenity case shortly after its publication. The eponymous hero, who considers himself a "e;monstrous clever fellow"e;, embarks on a journey through ever more fantastic realms, even to hell and heaven. Everywhere he goes, he winds up seducing the local women, even the Devil's wife."e;

Textauszug

 

"Je suis voix au désert criant

 Que chascun soyt rectifiant

 La voye de Sauveur; non suis,

 Et accomplir je ne le puis."

 

THE SIXTH NOVEL.—ANNE OF BOHEMIA HAS ONE ONLY FRIEND, AND BY HIM PLAYS THE FRIEND'S PART; AND ACHIEVES IN DOING SO THEIR COMMON ANGUISH, AS WELL AS THE CONFUSION OF STATECRAFT AND THE POULTICING OF A GREAT DISEASE.

 

In the year of grace 1381 (Nicolas begins) was Dame Anne magnificently fetched from remote Bohemia, and at Westminster married to Sire Richard, the second monarch of that name to reign in England. The Queen had presently noted a certain priest who went forbiddingly about her court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, and more forbiddingly into many hovels, where day by day a pitiful wreckage of humanity both blessed and hoodwinked him, as he morosely knew, and adored him, as he never knew at all.

 

Queen Anne made inquiries. This young cleric was amanuensis to the Duke of Gloucester, she was informed, and notoriously a by-blow of the Duke's brother, the dead Lionel of Clarence. She sent for this Edward Maudelain. When he came her first perception was, "How wonderful his likeness to the King!" while the thought's commentary ran, unacknowledged, "Ay, as an eagle resembles a falcon!" For here, to the observant eye, was a more zealous person, already passion-wasted, and ineffably a more dictatorial and stiff-necked being than the lazy and amiable King; also, this Maudelain's face and nose were somewhat too long and high; and the priest was, in a word, the less comely of the pair by a very little, and by an infinity the more kinglike.

 

"You are my cousin now, messire," she told him, and innocently offered to his lips her own.

 

He never moved; but their glances crossed, and for that instant she saw the face of a man who has just stepped into a quicksand. She trembled, without knowing why. Then he spoke, composedly, and of trivial matters.

 

Thus began the Queen's acquaintance with Edward Maudelain. She was by this time the loneliest woman in the island. Her husband granted her a bright and fresh perfection of form and color, but desiderated any appetizing tang, and lamented, in his phrase, a certain kinship to the impeccable loveliness of some female saint in a jaunty tapestry; bright as ice in sunshine, just so her beauty chilled you, he complained: and moreover, this daughter of the Caesars had been fetched into England, chiefly, to breed him children, and this she had never done. Undoubtedly he had made a bad bargain—he was too easy-going, people presumed upon it. His barons snatched their cue and esteemed Dame Anne to be negligible; whereas the clergy, finding that she obstinately read the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, under the irrelevant plea of not comprehending Latin, denounced her from their pulpits as a heretic and as the evil woman prophesied by Ezekiel.

 

It was the nature of this desolate child to crave affection, as a necessity almost, and pitifully she tried to purchase it through almsgiving. In the attempt she could have found no coadjutor more ready than Edward Maudelain. Giving was with these downright two a sort of obsession, though always he gave in a half scorn but half concealed; and presently they could have marshalled an army of adherents, all in rags, who would cheerfully have been hacked to pieces for either of the twain, and have praised God at the final gasp for the privilege. It was perhaps the tragedy of the man's life that he never suspected this.

 

Now in and about the Queen's unfrequented rooms the lonely woman and the priest met daily to discuss now this or that comminuted point of theology, or now (to cite a single instance) Gammer Tudway's obstinate sciatica. Considerate persons found something of the pathetic in their preoccupation by these trifles while, so clamantly, the dissension between the young King and his uncles gathered to a head: the air was thick with portents; and was this, then, an appropriate time, the judicious demanded of high Heaven, for the Queen of fearful England to concern herself about a peasant's toothache?

 

Long afterward was Edward Maudelain to remember this brief and tranquil period of his life, and to wonder over the man that he had been through this short while. Embittered and suspicious she had found him, noted for the carping tongue he lacked both power and inclination to bridle; and she had, against his nature, made Maudelain see that every person is at bottom lovable, and all vices but the stains of a traveller midway in a dusty journey; and had led the priest no longer to do good for his soul's health, but simply for his fellow's benefit.

 

And in place of that monstrous passion which had at first view of her possessed the priest, now, like a sheltered taper, glowed an adoration which yearned, in mockery of common-sense, to suffer somehow for this beautiful and gracious comrade; though very often a sudden pity for her loneliness and the knowledge that she dared trust no one save himself would throttle him like two assassins and move the hot-blooded young man to an exquisite agony of self-contempt and exultation.

 

Now Maudelain made excellent songs, it was a matter of common report. Yet but once in their close friendship had the Queen commanded him to make a song for her. This had been at Dover, about vespers, in the starved and tiny garden overlooking the English Channel, upon which her apartments faced; and the priest had fingered his lute for an appreciable while before he sang, a thought more harshly than was his custom.

 

Sang Maudelain;

 

"Ave Maria! now cry we so

 That see night wake and daylight go.

 

"Mother and Maid, in nothing incomplete,

 This night that gathers is more light and fleet

 Than twilight trod alway with stumbling feet,

 Agentes uno animo.

 

"Ever we touch the prize we dare not take!

 Ever we know that thirst we dare not slake!

 And ever to a dreamed-of goal we make—

 Est caeli in palatio!

 

"Yet long the road, and very frail are we

 That may not lightly curb mortality,

 Nor lightly tread together silently,

 Et carmen unum facio:

 

"Mater, ora filium,

 Ut post hoc exilium

 Nobis donet gaudium

 Beatorum omnium!"

 

Dame Anne had risen. She said nothing. She stayed in this posture for a lengthy while, reeling, one hand yet clasping either breast. More lately she laughed, and began to speak of Long Simon's recent fever. Was there no method of establishing him in another cottage? No, the priest said, the villiens, like the cattle, were by ordinary deeded with the land.

 

One day, about the hour of prime, in that season of the year when fields smell of young grass, the Duke of Gloucester sent for Edward Maudelain. The court was then at Windsor. The priest came quickly to his patron. He found the Duke in company with Edmund of York and bland Harry of Derby, John of Gaunt's oldest son. Each was a proud and handsome man. To-day Gloucester was gnawing at his finger nails, big York seemed half-asleep, and the Earl of Derby patiently to await something as yet ineffably remote.

 

"Sit down!" snarled Gloucester. His lean and evil countenance was that of a tired devil. The priest obeyed, wondering so high an honor should be accorded him in the view of three great noblemen. Then Gloucester said, in his sharp way: "Edward, you know, as England knows, the King's intention toward us three and our adherents. It has come to our demolishment or his. I confess a preference in the matter. I have consulted with the Pope concerning the advisability of taking the crown into my own hands. Edmund here does not want it, and John is already achieving one in Spain. Eh, in imagination I was already King of England, and I had dreamed— Well! to-day the prosaic courier arrived. Urban—the Neapolitan swine!—dares give me no assistance. It is decreed I shall never reign in these islands. And I had dreamed— Meanwhile, de Vere and de la Pole are at the King day and night, urging revolt. Within the week the three heads of us will embellish Temple Bar. You, of course, they will only hang."

 

"We must avoid England, then, my noble patron," the priest considered.

 

Angrily the Duke struck a clenched fist upon the table. "By the Cross! we remain in England, you and I and all of us. Others avoid. The Pope and the Emperor will have none of me. They plead for the Black Prince's heir, for the legitimate heir. Dompnedex! they shall have him!"

 

Maudelain recoiled, for he thought this twitching man insane.

 

"Besides, the King intends to take from me my fief at Sudbury," said the Duke of York, "in order he may give it to de Vere. That is both absurd and monstrous and abominable."

 

Openly Gloucester sneered. "Listen!" he rapped out toward Maudelain; "when they were drawing up the Great Peace at Brétigny, it...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.3.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• ISBN-10: 1-4553-2361-6 / 1455323616
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4553-2361-6 / 9781455323616