Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/766

710 him seven years ago. That day François Villon was born. That was the name I swore to drag through every muck-heap in France. I have done it, Catherine. The Companions of the Cockle-shell—eh, well, the world knows us. We robbed Guillaume Coiffier, we robbed the College of Navarre, we robbed the Church of St.-Maturin—the list is somewhat lengthy. René de Montigny's bones swing in the wind yonder at Montfaucon. Colin de Cayeux they broke on the wheel. The rest—in effect, I am the only one justice spared—because I had a gift of rhyming, they said. Pigs! if they only knew! I am immortal, lass. Exegi monumentum. Villon's glory and Villon's shame will never die."

He flung back his head and laughed harshly, a shabby, tragic figure. She had drawn away from him a little. But still the nearness of her, the faint perfume of her, shook in his veins, and still he must play this ghastly comedy to the end, since the prize he played for was her happiness.

"A thief—a common thief!" But again her hands fluttered back. "I drove you to it. Mine is the shame."

"Holy Macaire! what is a theft or two? Hunger that makes the wolf sally from the wood may well make a man do worse than steal. I could tell you—Ask in hell, of one Thevenin Pensete, who knifed him in the Cemetery of St. John," he hissed at her.

He hinted a lie, for it was Montigny who killed Thevenin Pensete. But Villon played without scruple now.

Catherine's face went white. "Stop," she pleaded; "no more, François—ah, Holy Virgin! do not tell me any more."

But after a little she came back to him, touching him with a curious loathing. "Mine was the shame. I drove you to this, François. If you still care for me, I will be your wife." Yet she shuddered.

He saw it. His face, too, was paper.

"He, he, he!" François laughed, horribly. "If I still love you! Eh, ask of Denise, of Jacqueline, of Pierrette, of Marion the Statue, of Jehanne of Brittany, of Blanche Slippermaker, of Fat Peg—ask of any trollop in all Paris how François Villon loves. You thought me faithful! You thought I preferred you to any light o' love! Eh, the credo of the Hue St.-Jacques is somewhat narrow-minded. For my part, I find one woman much the same as another." And his voice shook, seeing how beautiful she was, seeing how she suffered. But he managed a laugh.

"I do not believe you," Catherine said, in muffled tones. "François! You loved me, François. Ah, boy, boy!" she cried, with a quick lift of speech; "come back to me, O boy that I loved."

It was a difficult business. But he grinned in her face.

"He is dead. Let François de Montcorbier rest in his grave. Your voice is very sweet, Catherine, and—and he could refuse you nothing, could he, lass? Ah, God, God, God!" he cried, in his agony, "why can you not believe me? I tell you Necessity pounds us in her mortar to what shape she will. I tell you that Montcorbier loved you, but François Villon prefers Fat Peg. An ill cat seeks an ill rat." And with this last great lie a sudden peace fell upon his soul, for he knew that he had won.

Her face told him that. Loathing. Loathing. He saw it there.

"I am sorry," said Catherine, dully. "I am sorry. Oh, for God's sake!" the girl wailed, on a sudden, "go, go! Do you want money? I will give you anything if you will only go. Oh, you beast! Oh, swine, swine, swine!"

He turned and went, staggering like a drunken man.

Once in the garden, he fell upon his face in the wet grass. About him the mingled odor of roses and mignonette was thick and intolerably sweet; the fountain plashed interminably in the night, and above him the chestnuts and acacias rustled and lisped as they had done seven years ago. Only he was changed.

"O Mother of God," the thief prayed, "grant that Noël may be kind to her! Mother of God, grant that she may be happy! Mother of God, grant that I may not live long!"