They of Poictesme narrate1 fine tales as to the deeds that Manuel the Redeemer performed and incited2 in the days of his reign3. They tell also many things that seem improbable, and therefore are not included in this book: for the old songs and tales incline to make of Count Manuel's heydey a rare golden age.
So many glorious exploits are, indeed, accredited4 to Manuel and to the warriors5 whom he gathered round him in his famous Fellowship of the Silver Stallion,—and among whom, Holden and courteous6 Anavalt and Coth the Alderman and Gonfal and Donander had the pre-eminence, where all were hardy,—that it is very difficult to understand how so brief a while could have continued so many doings. But the tale-tellers of Poictesme have been long used to say of a fine action,—not falsely, but misleadingly,—"Thus it was in Count Manuel's time," and the tribute by and by has been accepted as a dating. So has chronology been hacked8 to make loftier his fame, and the glory of Dom Manuel has been a magnet that has drawn9 to itself the magnanimities of other days and years.
But there is no need here to speak of these legends, about the deeds which were performed by the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion, because these stories are recorded elsewhere. Some may be true, the others are certainly not true; but it is indisputable that Count Manuel grew steadily10 in power and wealth and proud repute. Miramon Lluagor still served him, half-amusedly, as Dom Manuel's seneschal; kings now were Manuel's co-partners; and the former swineherd had somehow become the fair and trusty cousin of emperors. And Madame Niafer, the great Count's wife, was everywhere stated, without any contradiction from her, to be daughter to the late Soldan of Barbary.
Guivric the Sage12 illuminated13 the tree which showed the glorious descent of Dame11 Niafer from Kaiumarth, the first of all kings, and the first to teach men to build houses: and this tree hung in the main hall of Storisende. "For even if some errors may have crept in here and there," said Dame Niafer, "it looks very well."
"But, my dear," said Manuel, "your father was not the Soldan of Barbary: instead, he was the second groom14 at Arnaye, and all this lineage is a preposterous15 fabrication."
"I said just now that some errors may have crept in here and there," assented16 Dame Niafer, composedly, "but the point is, that the thing really looks very well, and I do not suppose that even you deny that."
"No, I do not deny that this glowing mendacity adds to the hall's appearance."
"So now, you see for yourself!" said Niafer, triumphantly17. And after that her new ancestry18 was never questioned.
And in the meanwhile Dom Manuel had sent messengers over land and sea to his half-sister Math at Rathgor, bidding her sell the mill for what it would fetch. She obeyed, and brought to Manuel's court her husband and their two boys, the younger of whom rose later to be Pope of Rome. Manuel gave the miller19 the vacant fief of Montors; and thereafter you could nowhere have found a statelier fine lady than the Countess Matthiette de Montors. She was still used to speak continually of what was becoming to people of our station in life, but it was with a large difference; and she got on with Niafer as well as could be expected, but no better.
And early in the summer of the first year of Manuel's reign (just after Dom Manuel fetched to Storisende the Sigel of Scoteia, as the spoils of his famous fight with Oriander the Swimmer), the stork20 brought to Niafer the first of the promised boys. For the looks of the thing, this child was named, not after the father whom Manuel had just killed, but after the Emmerick who was Manuel's nominal21 father: and it was this Emmerick that afterward22 reigned23 long and notably24 in Poictesme.
So matters went prosperously with Dom Manuel, and there was nothing to trouble his peace of mind, unless it were some feeling of responsibility for the cult7 of Sesphra, whose worship was now increasing everywhere among the nations. In Philistia, in particular, Sesphra was now worshipped openly in the legislative25 halls and churches, and all other religion, and all decency26, was smothered27 under the rituals of Sesphra. Everywhere to the west and north his followers28 were delivering windy discourses29 and performing mad antics, and great hurt came of it all by and by. But if this secretly troubled Dom Manuel; the Count, here as elsewhere, exercised to good effect his invaluable30 gift for holding his tongue.
Nor did he ever speak of Freydis either, though it is recorded that when news came of the end which she had made in Teamhair under the oppression of the Druids and the satirists, Dom Manuel went silently into the Room of Ageus, and was not seen any more that day. That in such solitude31 he wept is improbable, for his hard vivid eyes had forgotten this way of exercise, but it is highly probable that he remembered many things, and found not all of them to his credit.
So matters went prosperously with gray Manuel; he had lofty palaces and fair woods and pastures and ease and content, and whensoever he went into battle attended by his nine lords of the Silver Stallion, his adversaries32 perished; he was esteemed33 everywhere the most lucky and the least scrupulous34 rogue35 alive: to crown all which the stork brought by and by to Storisende the second girl, whom they named Dorothy, for Manuel's mother. And about this time too, came a young poet from England (Ribaut they called him, and he met an evil end at Coventry not long thereafter), bringing to Dom Manuel, where the high Count sat at supper, a goose-feather.
The Count smiled, and he twirled the thing between his fingers, and he meditated36. He shrugged37, and said: "Needs must. But for her ready wit, my head would have been set to dry on a silver pike. I cannot well ignore that obligation, if she, as it now seems, does not intend to ignore it."
Then he told Niafer he must go into England.
Niafer looked up from the marmalade with which she was finishing off her supper, to ask placidly38, "And what does that dear yellow-haired friend of yours want with you now?"
"My dear, if I knew the answer to that question it would not be necessary for me to travel oversea."
"It is easy enough to guess, though," Dame Niafer said darkly, although, in point of fact, she too was wondering why Alianora should have sent for Manuel; "and I can quite understand how in your sandals you prefer not to have people know about such doings, and laughing at you everywhere, again."
Dom Manuel did not reply; but he sighed.
"—And if any importance whatever were attached to my opinion in this house I might be saying a few things; but, as it is, it is much more agreeable, all around, to let you go your own hard-headed way and find out by experience that what I say is true. So now, Manuel, if you do not mind, I think we had better be talking about something else a little more pleasant."
Dom Manuel still did not say anything. The time, as has been noted39, was just after supper, and as the high Count and his wife sat over the remnants of this meal, a minstrel was making music for them.
"You are not very cheerful company, I must say," Niafer observed, in a while, "although I do not for a moment doubt your yellow-haired friend will find you gay enough—"
"No, Niafer, I am not happy to-night."
"Now, Manuel, how can music bother anybody! I am sure the boy plays his violin very nicely indeed, especially when you consider his age."
Said Manuel:
"Yes, but the long low sobbing42 of the violin, troubling as the vague thoughts begotten43 by that season wherein summer is not yet perished from the earth, but lingers wanly44 in the tattered45 shrines46 of summer, speaks of what was and of what might have been. A blind desire, the same which on warm moonlit nights was used to shake like fever in the veins47 of a boy whom I remember, is futilely48 plaguing a gray fellow with the gray wraiths49 of innumerable old griefs and with small stinging memories of long-dead delights. Such thirsting breeds no good for staid and aging men, but my lips are athirst for lips whose loveliness no longer exists in flesh, and I thirst for a dead time and its dead fervors to be reviving, so that young Manuel may love again.
"To-night now surely somewhere, while this music sets uncertain and probing fingers to healed wounds, an aging woman, in everything a stranger to me, is troubled just thus futilely, and she too remembers what she half forgets. 'We that of old were one, and shuddered50 heart to heart, with our young lips and our souls too made indivisible,'—thus she is thinking, as I think—'has life dealt candidly51 in leaving us to potter with half measures and to make nothing of severed52 lives that shrivel far apart?' Yes, she to-night is sad as I, it well may be; but I cannot rest certain of this, because there is in young love a glory so bedazzling as to prevent the lover from seeing clearly his co-worshipper, and therefore in that dear time when we served love together I learned no more of her than she of me.
"Of all my failures this is bitterest to bear, that out of so much grieving and aspiring53 I have gained no assured knowledge of the woman herself, but must perforce become lachrymose54 over such perished tinsels as her quivering red lips and shining hair! Of youth and love is there no more, then, to be won than virginal breasts and a small white belly55 yielded to the will of the lover, and brief drunkenness, and afterward such puzzled yearning56 as now dies into acquiescence57, very much as the long low sobbing of that violin yonder dies into stillness now the song is done?"
So it was that gray Manuel talked in a half voice, sitting there resplendently robed in gold and crimson58, and twiddling between his fingers a goose-feather.
"Yes," Niafer said, presently, "but, for my part, I think he plays very nicely indeed."
Manuel gave an abrupt59 slight jerking of the head. Dom Manuel laughed. "Dear snip," said he, "come, honestly now, what have you been meditating60 about while I talked nonsense?"
"Why, I was thinking I must remember to look over your flannels61 the first thing to-morrow, Manuel, for everybody knows what that damp English climate is in autumn—"
"My dearest," Manuel said, with grave conviction, "you are the archetype and flawless model of all wives."
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1 narrate | |
v.讲,叙述 | |
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2 incited | |
刺激,激励,煽动( incite的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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3 reign | |
n.统治时期,统治,支配,盛行;v.占优势 | |
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4 accredited | |
adj.可接受的;可信任的;公认的;质量合格的v.相信( accredit的过去式和过去分词 );委托;委任;把…归结于 | |
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5 warriors | |
武士,勇士,战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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6 courteous | |
adj.彬彬有礼的,客气的 | |
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7 cult | |
n.异教,邪教;时尚,狂热的崇拜 | |
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8 hacked | |
生气 | |
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9 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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10 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
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11 dame | |
n.女士 | |
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12 sage | |
n.圣人,哲人;adj.贤明的,明智的 | |
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13 illuminated | |
adj.被照明的;受启迪的 | |
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14 groom | |
vt.给(马、狗等)梳毛,照料,使...整洁 | |
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15 preposterous | |
adj.荒谬的,可笑的 | |
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16 assented | |
同意,赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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17 triumphantly | |
ad.得意洋洋地;得胜地;成功地 | |
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18 ancestry | |
n.祖先,家世 | |
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19 miller | |
n.磨坊主 | |
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20 stork | |
n.鹳 | |
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21 nominal | |
adj.名义上的;(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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22 afterward | |
adv.后来;以后 | |
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23 reigned | |
vi.当政,统治(reign的过去式形式) | |
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24 notably | |
adv.值得注意地,显著地,尤其地,特别地 | |
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25 legislative | |
n.立法机构,立法权;adj.立法的,有立法权的 | |
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26 decency | |
n.体面,得体,合宜,正派,庄重 | |
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27 smothered | |
(使)窒息, (使)透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 ); 覆盖; 忍住; 抑制 | |
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28 followers | |
追随者( follower的名词复数 ); 用户; 契据的附面; 从动件 | |
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29 discourses | |
论文( discourse的名词复数 ); 演说; 讲道; 话语 | |
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30 invaluable | |
adj.无价的,非常宝贵的,极为贵重的 | |
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31 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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32 adversaries | |
n.对手,敌手( adversary的名词复数 ) | |
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33 esteemed | |
adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 );敬重;认为;以为 | |
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34 scrupulous | |
adj.审慎的,小心翼翼的,完全的,纯粹的 | |
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35 rogue | |
n.流氓;v.游手好闲 | |
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36 meditated | |
深思,沉思,冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 ); 内心策划,考虑 | |
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37 shrugged | |
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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38 placidly | |
adv.平稳地,平静地 | |
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39 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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40 helpings | |
n.(食物)的一份( helping的名词复数 );帮助,支持 | |
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41 snip | |
n.便宜货,廉价货,剪,剪断 | |
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42 sobbing | |
<主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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43 begotten | |
v.为…之生父( beget的过去分词 );产生,引起 | |
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44 wanly | |
adv.虚弱地;苍白地,无血色地 | |
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45 tattered | |
adj.破旧的,衣衫破的 | |
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46 shrines | |
圣地,圣坛,神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 ) | |
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47 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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48 futilely | |
futile(无用的)的变形; 干 | |
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49 wraiths | |
n.幽灵( wraith的名词复数 );(传说中人在将死或死后不久的)显形阴魂 | |
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50 shuddered | |
v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 );发抖;(机器、车辆等)突然震动;颤动 | |
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51 candidly | |
adv.坦率地,直率而诚恳地 | |
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52 severed | |
v.切断,断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 );断,裂 | |
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53 aspiring | |
adj.有志气的;有抱负的;高耸的v.渴望;追求 | |
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54 lachrymose | |
adj.好流泪的,引人落泪的;adv.眼泪地,哭泣地 | |
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55 belly | |
n.肚子,腹部;(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分,膛 | |
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56 yearning | |
a.渴望的;向往的;怀念的 | |
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57 acquiescence | |
n.默许;顺从 | |
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58 crimson | |
n./adj.深(绯)红色(的);vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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59 abrupt | |
adj.突然的,意外的;唐突的,鲁莽的 | |
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60 meditating | |
a.沉思的,冥想的 | |
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61 flannels | |
法兰绒男裤; 法兰绒( flannel的名词复数 ) | |
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