A wall!--and what is a wall to your true lover? What bones, pray, did the Sieur Pyramus, that ill-starred Babylonish knight, make of a wall? did not his protestations slip through a chink, mocking at implacable granite and more implacable fathers? Most assuredly they did; and Pyramus was a pattern to all lovers. Thus ran the meditations of Master François as he leapt down into the garden.
He had not, you must understand, seen Catherine for three hours. Three hours! three eternities rather, and each one of them spent in Malebolge. Coming to a patch of moonlight, François paused there and cut an agile caper, as he thought of that approaching time when he might see Catherine every day.
"Madame François de Montcorbier," he said, tasting each syllable with gusto. "Catherine de Montcorbier. Was there ever a sweeter juxtaposition of sounds? It is a name for an angel. And an angel shall bear it,--eh, yes, an angel, no less. O saints in Paradise, envy me! Envy me," he cried, with a heroical gesture toward the stars, "for François would change places with none of you."
He crept through ordered rows of chestnuts and acacias to a window wherein burned a dim light. He unslung a lute from his shoulder and began to sing, secure in the knowledge that deaf old Jehan de Vaucelles was not likely to be disturbed by sound of any nature till that time when it should please high God that the last trump be noised about the tumbling heavens.
It was good to breathe the mingled odor of roses and mignonette that was thick about him. It was good to sing to her a wailing song of unrequited love and know that she loved him. François dallied with his bliss, parodied his bliss, and--as he complacently reflected,--lamented in the moonlight with as tuneful a dolor as Messire Orpheus may have evinced when he carolled in Hades.
Sang François: "O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone! O Grace of her, that hath no grace for me! O Love of her, the bit that guides me on To sorrow and to grievous misery! O felon Charms, my poor heart's enemy! O furtive murderous Pride! O pitiless, great Cold Eyes of her! have done with cruelty! Have pity upon me ere it be too late!
"Happier for me if elsewhere I had gone For pity--ah, far happier for me, Since never of her may any grace be won, And lest dishonor slay me, I must flee. 'Haro!' I cry, (and cry how uselessly!) 'Haro!' I cry to folk of all estate, "For I must die unless it chance that she Have pity upon me ere it be too late.