“Yes, poor Katya.” Paul sat up. “Poor Paul, if it comes to that. Even poor Jean-Marc, I suppose. But—above all—poor, poor Papa.”
“No. Not ‘above all’! I am sorry for him, but his life is nearly spent. You and Katya are still young. And you’re sacrificing yourselves, wasting your lives!”
“We have no choice. We’ve discussed it, and we agree. How could Katya be happy, knowing she had purchased that happiness at the cost of her father’s being walled up with babbling madmen and sadistic keepers? As for me…” He shrugged. “Don’t waste your compassion on me, Montjean. I have carefully positioned myself in life so as to avoid the excesses of either happiness or pain. I have cultivated a safe and judicious shallowness. I have tastes, but no appetites. I laugh, but seldom smile. I have expectations, but no hopes. I have wit, but no humor. I cultivate intelligence, but abjure profundity. I am remarkably bold, but totally without courage. I am frank, but never sincere. I prefer the charming to the beautiful; the convenient to the useful; the well phrased to the meaningful. In all things, I celebrate artifice!” He paused and grinned. “And some might even accuse me of being self-pitying.” Then he shrugged. “At all events, the life you accuse me of gambling away is not worth all that much anyway. If indeed I gamble, it is only with small change.”
“But what of Katya’s life… and mine? They’re worth saving. What are we to do?”
“What we shall do is—” His eyes focused beyond my shoulder, “—is pretend we have been having a light-hearted little chat. For there they are, coming back up the hill. And we must do everything to give them an amusing and memorable day. Well, damn my soul if she isn’t clutching an armful of stinking weeds to shove up my nose!”
I spoke quickly. “Paul, listen. Before they arrive. Allow me a few minutes alone with Katya when we return to Etcheverria. I agree that you and I must make today as light and pleasant as possible for them, and I don’t intend to say a word during the fкte. But I insist on having an opportunity to tell her that I understand everything now. I want a last chance to persuade her to come away with me, to save herself.”
“It’s no use. She won’t go with you. Her sense of family is too strong. She loves her father too much.”
“I must have one last chance to convince her! Give me half an hour! A quarter of an hour!”
Katya and Monsieur Treville were near enough that she could wave and gesture towards the mass of wildflowers she was carrying.
“Paul? Please!”
“It’s too dangerous for you to be alone with her. Papa might see you.”
“I accept the risk. It’s my responsibility.”
He gnawed his lip. “Very well, Montjean. You can have your quarter hour alone with her at the bottom of the garden. But for everyone’s sake I must exact a price. You must promise that you’ll never return to Etcheverria after tonight. I must have your word. When Katya refuses to run off with you—as surely she will—you must never try to see her again. It’s too dangerous. Well?”
Monsieur Treville approached us, taking off his panama and wiping the perspiration from his forehead with a large handkerchief. “That’s a hard climb, young men! But it’s beautiful down by the Gave. You should have come with us.”
“No, thank you,” Paul called back. “Too much beauty rots the intellect—rather like sugar and the teeth.” Under his breath he said, “Well, Montjean? Have I your word?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I promise.” Then at full voice I asked, “What have you brought us, Katya? Good Lord, have you left any flowers down there at all?”
“Of course! I only took the ones that looked lonely.”
“Well, now!” Monsieur Treville said, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s set to tidying things up, then let’s be on our way to the fкte d’Alos. Think of it! I shall see with my own eyes the ritual of the Drowned Virgin! Now there’s something! And to have the doctor here as my guide. A young man from the canton. What luck!”
“Oh, yes,” Paul said in a nasal off-tone. “What appalling good luck.”
Since Paul chose to take his turn at the reins with Katya beside him, Monsieur Treville sat beside me in the back. He confided to me that his stroll along the river had put him in mind of the degree to which waterways had dictated the location and prosperity of medieval villages. “The Dark Ages were not ‘dark’ in the sense that they were devoid of the light of learning. They are ‘dark,’ not because they lacked light, but because we who examine them are partially blind. We know much, but we know all the wrong things. We know of the kings, the wars, the treaties, the great commercial waves and tides. The bold faзades of the era are quite clear, but we don’t know what happened behind those faзades. We have little feeling for the affairs of everyday life, the quotidian routine, the fears and aspirations of the common man. By and large, we know what he did, but we don’t know how he felt about it. And the medieval man’s feelings are more significant to an understanding of his time than are the feelings of the modern man to an understanding of today, for that was an era in which superstition mattered more than fact, belief more than knowledge. It was an age of miracles, and demons, and wonders. That is why I am so eager to witness the pastoral of Robert le Diable and the ritual of the Drowned Virgin.”
“I am interested in that myself, Papa,” Paul said over his shoulder. “Frankly, I applaud the practice of drowning all virgins after the age of, say, twenty-two. It might prompt young women to reconsider impulses towards chastity which are, if not downright selfish, at least inhospitable.”
“Is that any way to speak in the presence of your sister?” Monsieur Treville said, genuinely shocked. “I know you are only joking, but virginity is not a subject to be discussed in the presence of young women.”
“Oh? I should have thought it an ideal topic… as opposed, for instance, to promiscuity.”
“Paul?” Monsieur Treville said warningly.
Katya turned her face away with a suppressed smile.
“Have it your way, Father,” Paul continued. “I shall never speak of virginity again, nor indeed of any of the other seven deadly virtues. In fact, I’ve always considered them consummately dull. I may say ‘consummately,’ may I not? Or is consummation also a taboo subject?”
Katya made a little face at Paul, signaling him to stop ragging their father. “Do tell us of the Drowned Virgin, Papa,” she said, boldly piloting the conversation into safer waters.
“Ah, there’s a fascinating story, dear. One that is celebrated every year during the fкte d’Alos, which we shall be attending today. I suppose Jean-Marc here knows the tale better than I, as he must have attended the fкte every year of his boyhood.”
“Actually, sir, I never knew there was any real history behind the event. All I recall is that every pretty girl in the three villages sought to be selected to play the role of the Virgin. It was considered a great honor. The final selection was made by the priest—still is, I suppose.”
“Who’d be in a better position to know?” Paul asked.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” Monsieur Treville said, “there is firm history behind the tradition. In 1170, a famous Judgment of God was inflicted on Sancie, the widow of Gaston the Fifth of Beam. (I wonder why she’s always referred to as a virgin?) She was bound hand and foot and cast into the Gave—that very river off to our right—to test whether she had been guilty of killing her infant, which was born rather a long while after the death of her husband. It was her own brother, the King of Navarre, who designated the method of the trial. It was assumed that if she floated to the surface, then God supported her contention of innocence; but if she drowned, then that was God’s judgment against her. Ah, they had a real God, those medieval men! A God who inhabited the rivers and the rain; not a distant God such as we have, one who is little more than a broker for eternal punishment or pleasure. God lived in every village in those days… and the devil, too. Why, I recall an incident in Abense-de-Haut in 1223 in which….”