The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century

"Well, it was in the year 1521, during the siege of Pampeluna," the adventurer began, "and shortly after my enrollment with the Franc-Taupins. I was digging a trench with them before the place; we were throwing up the earth like veritable moles. The Spaniards made a sortie in order to destroy our works. At the first shot of the Spanish arquebuses, all my companions threw themselves flat down, with their noses in the hole. Their cowardice angered me. I took up my pick and rushed into the melee, plying my improvised weapon upon the Spaniards. A blow with a mace over my head knocked me down half dead. When I recovered consciousness I found myself lying upon the battle field among several of our men, all prisoners like myself. A company of Spanish arquebusiers surrounded us. Their captain, with the visor of his casque raised and mounted upon a Moorish horse as black as ebony, the housings of which were of red velvet embroidered with silver, was wiping his long, blood-stained sword upon the animal's mane. The captain was Don Ignatius Loyola. Moustache turned up in Castilian style, goatee, an olive complexion, intrepid mien, haughty and martial bearing – such was his portrait. He had noticed me pounding his soldiers with my pick, and took a fancy both to my pick and my youth. When he saw that I had regained consciousness, he started to laugh and addressed me in French: 'Will you be my page? Your wideawake face denotes an intelligent scapegrace; I shall furnish you a silver-embroidered red livery and a ducat a month, and you can eat your fill at my residence.' Oh, brother, an offer to eat my fill, to me whose stomach had long been as hollow as the barrel of St. Benoit and as open as an advocate's purse! The prospect of putting on a beautiful silver-embroidered livery, when my hose had for some time been reporting to me from which corner the wind blew! The thought of pocketing every month a ducat, when all my earnings during the whole campaign had so far been a wooden bowl that I plundered somewhere, and that I used for a hat! In token of glad acceptance I seized my pick that lay near me, threw it as far away as I could, and I told Don Ignatius that I accepted, and would follow him to the very devil's residence. The long and short of the affair was that I entered Pampeluna with my new master."

"I feel more and more mystified," interjected Christian; "what service could a page, ignorant of the country's language, render to Don Ignatius?"

"The devil take it! That was the very reason why I was employed by the cunning slyboots of a Don Ignatius. No sooner did I arrive at his residence, than an old majordomo, the only one of his men who spoke French, rigged me up in new clothes, from my feet to my head, – puffed hose of red velvet, white satin jacket, short cloak with silver trimmings, ruffs and bonnet after the Spanish style. Thus behold me, brother, attired as a genuine court page. In those days I had both my eyes – two luminaries of deviltry, besides the cunning nose of a fox cub. Thus dressed up in spick and span dashing new clothes, the majordomo led me to Captain Loyola, 'Do you know,' he asked me, 'why I take you, a Frenchman, for my page? It is because, as you do not know Spanish, you can not choose but be discreet towards the people in my house and those outside.'"

"That is not badly planned," remarked Christian; "Don Ignatius had, I suppose, many amorous secrets to conceal?"

"By the bowels of St. Quenet! I knew him to have as many as three sweethearts at a time: a charming merchant's wife, a haughty marchioness, and a bedeviled gipsy girl, the most beautiful daughter of Bohemia that ever trilled a tambourine. But Captain Loyola, a veritable Franc-Taupin in matters of love, courted behind concealed trenches. He reveled in mystery. 'What is not known does not exist' was, with him, a favorite maxim that the old majordomo, his master's echo, often repeated to me."

"'What is not known does not exist,'" repeated Monsieur John pensively. "Yes, judging by the motto, the man must be just what he has been described to me to be."

"Just listen," Josephin proceeded; "I shall describe to you the experiences that I made the first evening that I served Don Ignatius as page. You will then be able to judge of the scamp's calibre. A fifteen-days' truce was agreed upon between the French and the Spaniards, as a result of the sortie at which I was taken prisoner. As a longheaded man, Captain Loyola proposed to profit by the truce in his amorous intrigues. Towards midnight he summoned me to his side. The devil! If the fellow looked martial in battle outfit, he looked frisky in his court costume! A jacket slashed with gold-embroidered velvet, puffed hose of white satin, shoes turned like a crawfish, plumed bonnet, a gold bejeweled chain on his neck! What shall I say? He shone and glittered, and besides, smelled of balsam! A veritable muskrat! He hands for me to carry a silken ladder and a guitar; takes his dagger and sword; and wraps himself up to the eyes in a taffeta mantle of light yellow. The old majordomo opens a secret door to us; we issue out of the house; after crossing a few narrow streets, we arrive at a deserted little square. My master glides under a balcony that is shut with lattices, takes the guitar from my hands, and there you have him warbling his roundelay. In response to the carol of the moustachioed nightingale, one of the shutters of the balcony opens slightly, and a bouquet of pomegranate blossoms drops at our feet. Don Ignatius picks it up, extracts from amidst the flowers a little note concealed among them, and gives me the guitar together with the bouquet to hold for him. I imagined our evening performance concluded. By the bowels of St. Quenet, it had only commenced! Don Ignatius fanned the sparks of his libidinousness with his guitarade, on the same principle that one fans the sparks of his thirst by chewing on a pork-rind dipped in mustard. But by the way of thirst, brother, let us imbibe that pot; appetite comes with eating, but thirst goes with drinking. He who drinks without being thirsty drinks for the thirst that is to come. Thirst is an animal's quality, but to crave for drink is a quality of man. By St Pansard and St. Goguelu, let's moisten, let's moisten our whistles! Our tongues will dry up soon enough! Unhappy Shrove-Tuesday, the patron of pots and sausages – and the devil take the Pope and all his friarhood!"

"Josephin," said Christian, smiling and filling the Franc-Taupin's cup, as he broke into the midst of the latter's flow of bacchic invocations, "I know you to be an expert in the matter of quaffing, but our guest and myself are more curious about the end of your story."

"God's head! As truly as the mere shadow of a Carmelite convent is enough to cure any woman of sterility, I shall not allow the end of the adventure of Don Ignatius to drown at the bottom of this cup! There, it is now empty!"

Saying this, the Franc-Taupin passed the back of his hand over his moustache, moist with wine, wiped it dry, and proceeded:

"Well, as I was saying, after his guitarade, Don Ignatius proceeded with his nocturnal adventure on the streets of Pampeluna. We moved away, and pulled up next before a pretentious dwelling. My master plants himself under a balcony at some distance from the main entrance; passes his long sword over to me to keep with the guitar, and retains no weapon other than his dagger; he then disengages himself of his mantle also, which he throws over my arm and says to me: 'You will hold the lower end of the ladder while I climb up to the balcony; you will then keep a sharp lookout near the door of this house; if you see anyone go in, you will run quickly under this window and clap your hands twice; I shall hear your signal.' This being agreed upon, Don Ignatius himself claps his hands three times. Immediately thereupon I see through the darkness of the night, a white form lean over the balustrade and drop us a cord. My master ties his ladder to it; the white form draws it up; the upper end of the ladder is fastened to the balcony; I steady it by holding the lower rung in my hands; and there you have Captain Loyola clambering up nimbly and light of heel, like a tom-cat running over a roof-pipe. As to myself, no less distressed than the dog of the cook who is turning the roast on the spit over a fire, and looks at the savory meat out of the corner of his eyes without partaking of it, I run and place myself in ambush near the door. The devil! A few minutes later, what is that I see? Several seigneurs, lighted by lackeys with torches in their hands turn into the street. One of them walks straight to the door near which I stand on the watch, and enters the house where my master is regaling himself. Obedient to the watchword, but forgetting that the flames of the torches are lighting me, I run to the balcony and clap my hands twice. By the bowels of St. Quenet, I am perceived! Two lackeys seize me at the moment when, notified by my signal, Captain Loyola is straddling the balustrade in order to descend into the street. He is recognized by the light of the torches. 'It is he!' 'There he is!' cry the seigneurs who stand in a bunch in the street. Although discovered, Don Ignatius glides bravely down the ladder, touches ground and calls: 'Halloa, there, page, my sword!' 'Don Ignatius of Loyola, I am Don Alonzo, the brother of Donna Carmen,' says one of the cavaliers. 'I am ready to give you satisfaction,' answers the captain proudly. But by the bowels of St. Quenet, it was with Don Ignatius's duels as with his amorous appointments: before the one was well finished the next commenced. Suddenly, the man whom I had seen enter the house, in short, the husband, Don Hercules Luga, appeared at the balcony; he held a bleeding sword in his hand. He leans forward into the street and cries: 'Friends, justice is done to the woman! There now remains justice to be done to her accomplice. Hold him. I am coming down!'"

"Poor woman!" said Christian. "The death that he was the cause of must have horrified the libertine."

"Him? The devil! Horrified at so little? Judge for yourself. At the moment he learned of the death of his inamorata he receives his sword from the hands of Don Alonzo, who had taken it away from me. Don Ignatius pricks its point into the tip of his shoe, and without winking bends the blade in order to satisfy himself on its temper. That shows how frightened he was at the death of his lady-love. The husband, Don Hercules, comes out of the house, steps up to my master and says to him: 'Don Ignatius of Loyola, I received you as a friend at my hearth; you have led my wife astray; you are a felon, unworthy of knighthood!' And what do you imagine, brother, is the answer that Captain Loyola made to that? If you can guess, I shall be willing to die of thirst. But no; a pox on these funereal prognostics! I prefer to drink, to drink until my soles sweat wine!"

"Proceed, Josephin; proceed with your story."

"'Don Hercules,' answers Captain Loyola loftily, 'in leading Carmen astray, it was not your woman[10 - In Spanish, as well as French, "woman" and "wife" are the same word. Loyola punned upon the word.] that I led astray, but a woman, as any other! You insult me by accusing me of a felony. You shall pay dearly, and on the spot, for such an insult. I shall kill you like a dog.'"

"Did you grasp that? Can you imagine a more odious subtlety?" asked Christian of Monsieur John. "What a hypocritical distinction! The libertine seduced the unfortunate woman, but not his friend's wife – only the woman, as a woman! Just God, such subtle quibbling! and that while his victim's corpse is still warm!"

"That is, indeed, the man as he has been described to me," repeated the guest, with a pensive air. "What I am learning is a revelation to me."

"The issue of the duel could not be doubtful," proceeded the Franc-Taupin. "Captain Loyola enjoyed the reputation of being the most skilful swordsman in Spain. He fully deserved his reputation. Don Hercules drops dead upon the ground. Don Alonzo endeavors to avenge his sister and brother-in-law, but the young man is readily disarmed by Don Ignatius, who, raising his sword, says: 'Your life belongs to me; you have insulted me by sharing the unworthy suspicions of Don Hercules, who accused me of having betrayed his friendship. But go in peace, young man, repent your evil thoughts – I pardon you!' After which Captain Loyola repaired to the gypsy girl and spent with her the rest of the night. I heard the two (always like the cook's dog) laugh, sing and carouse, clinking their glasses filled with Spanish wine. We returned home at dawn. Now tell me, brother Christian, what do you think of the gallant? You may judge by the experience of that night the number of pretty women whom the captain Loyolized!"

"Oh, the man's infernal hypocrisy only deepens the blackness of his debaucheries and swordsman's prowess!"

Absorbed in his private thoughts, Monsieur John remained in a brown study. Presently he said to the Franc-Taupin:

"You followed Loyola to war. Was the captain's regiment well disciplined? How did he treat his soldiers?"

"His soldiers? By the bowels of St. Quenet! Imagine, not men, but iron statues, that, with but a gesture, a wink of his eye, Don Ignatius either moved or petrified, as he chose. Broken in and harnessed to his command like so many machines, he said: 'Go!' – and they went, not only into battle but whithersoever he ordered. They were no longer themselves, but he. What the devil, Captain Loyola controlled men and women like horses – by the identical methods."

"What methods, let us hear them, Josephin."

"Well, one day a wild stallion of Cordova was brought to him; the animal was savage, a veritable demon; two strong stablemen were hardly able to hold him by the halter. Don Ignatius ordered the wild beast to be taken to a small enclosed yard, and remained there alone with him. I was outside, behind the gate. First I heard the stallion neigh with fury, then with pain, and then there was silence. Two hours later Captain Loyola issued from the yard mounted on the animal which steamed with foam and still trembled with fear, but as docile as a curate's mule."

"That is wonderful!" cried Christian. "Was the man possessed of a magic charm with which to curb wild beasts?"

"Exactly so, brother, and his talisman consisted in a set of reins so fearfully and skilfully contrived that, if the horse yielded passive obedience to the hand that guided him, he felt no pain whatever; but at the slightest show of resistance, Captain Loyola set in motion a certain steel saw contrivance supplied with sharp points and fastened in the bit. Immediately the animal would neigh with pain, remain motionless and sink down upon his haunches, whereupon Don Ignatius would pat it with his hand and give it some cream cakes. By the bowels of St. Quenet! Iron reins and cream cakes – this was the trick wherewith the captain Loyolized men, women and horses!"

"And did his soldiers love him, despite his inflexible yoke?" asked Monsieur John.

"Did they love him? The devil! Do you forget the cream cakes? Puddings, sausages, capons, fatted geese, pouches filled with Val-de-Peñas wine, gay wenches, high jinks in the barracks; in the enemy's country, free pillage, free rape, fire, blood and sack, and long live the saturnalia! These were the cream cakes of Captain Loyola. Whenever occasion required, he would treat his soldiers to these dainties out of his own pocket like a magnificent seigneur; but to allow his soldiers to reflect, to think, to reason, to will? – Never! To ask why this and why that? Never! 'Kill,' the captain would say, and the response was: 'Listen, he says kill – we kill!' But it is your friend, your brother, your father, your sister, your mother that he orders you to kill. 'Makes no difference, he said kill – we kill, and we kill;' and then come the cream cakes and more cream cakes, otherwise the reins begin to play, and they play so severely – clubbings, strappings, croppings of ears, hanging by the limbs and other devices of the devil. 'Our dear master,' often did the old majordomo say to me, 'our dear master is everything to all of us, provided all of us let him have his own will untrammeled; omnipotence is the secret joy of the dear Don Ignatius; to possess a woman, curb a mettlesome horse, manoeuvre his men of iron as one bends a reed – that is his enjoyment! He delights in absorbing souls. As to bodies, he fondles, caresses, indulges, dandles, fattens and greases them – provided they move at his will.' It is ever so, he who holds the soul holds the body."

Christian hesitated to believe the account of the Franc-Taupin; he could hardly give credence to the monstrous description. Monsieur John looked less surprised, but more alarmed. He said to Josephin, who, having wished to help himself to some more wine, sighed at finding the pot empty:

"But by what combination of circumstances could Ignatius Loyola, such as you described him to us and such as, I do believe, he was, metamorphose himself to the extent of coming here, to Paris, and seat himself on the benches of the Montaigu College among the youngest of the students?"

"What!" cried Christian, stupefied. "Is Ignatius Loyola to-day a simple student?"

"He attended the College," replied Monsieur John; "and one day he submitted to be publicly whipped in punishment for a slip of memory. There is something unexplainable, or frightful, in such humility on the part of such a man."

"Ignatius Loyola! the debauchee, the skilful swordsman! The haughty nobleman, did he do that?" cried Christian. "Can it be possible?"

"By the bowels of St. Quenet, brother," put in the Franc-Taupin in his turn, "as well tell me that the monks of Citeaux left their kegs empty after vintage! Even such a thing would sound less enormous than that Captain Loyola slipped down his hose to receive a flogging! The devil take me!" cried the Franc-Taupin vainly trying to extract a few more drops from the pot. "I am choked with surprise!"

"But you must not be allowed to choke with thirst, good Josephin," put in Christian, smiling and exchanging a look of intelligence with Monsieur John. "The pot is empty. As soon as your story is ended, and in order to feast our guest, I shall have to ask you to go to the tavern that you know of and fetch us a pot of Argenteuil wine. That is agreed, brother."

"St. Pansard, have pity upon my paunch! By my faith, brother, the pots are empty. I guess the reason why. One time I used to drink it all – now I leave nothing. Did you say a pot of wine? Amen!" said the Franc-Taupin rising from his seat. "We shall furnish our guest with a red border, like a cardinal! Yes, brother, it is agreed. And so I shall go for the pot, but not for one only – for two, or three."

"Not so fast, first finish your story; I am interested in it more than you can imagine," said Monsieur John with great earnestness. "I must again ask you: To what do you, who knew Loyola so well, attribute this incredible change?"

"May my own blood smother me; may the quartain fever settle my hash, if I understand it! A few hours ago I strained my remaining eye fit to give it a squint, in contemplating Don Ignatius. Seeing him so threadbare, so wan, so seedy and leaning upon his staff, I had not the courage to remind him of me. By the bowels of St. Quenet, I felt ashamed of having been page to the worn-out old crippled hunch-back."

"How is that! You described him as having been such a fine-looking cavalier and such a skilful swordsman – and yet he was hunch-backed?"

"He was crippled through two wounds that he received at the siege of Pampeluna. The devil! All the fathers, all the brothers, all the husbands whose daughters, sisters and wives the captain Loyolized, would have felt themselves thoroughly revenged if, like myself, they had seen him writhe like one possessed and howling like a hundred wolves from the pain of his wounds. By the bowels of the Pope, what horrible grimaces the man made!"

"But how could so intrepid a man display such weakness at pain?"

"Not at the pain itself; not that. On the contrary. As a result of his wounds he voluntarily endured positive torture, beside which his first agonies were gentle caresses."

"And why did he submit to such tortures? Can you explain that?"

"Yes. The truce between the Spaniards and the French lasted several days. At its close Captain Loyola mounted his horse, and placing himself at the head of his forces ordered a sortie. He made havoc among the enemy; but in the melee he received two shots from an arquebus. One of them fractured his right leg just below the knee, the other took him under the left hip. My gallant was carried to his house and we laid him in his bed. Do you know what were the first words that Don Ignatius uttered? They were these: 'Death and passion, I may remain deformed all my life!' And would you believe it? Captain Loyola wept like a woman! Aye, he wept, not with pain, no, by the bowels of St. Quenet, but with rage! You may imagine how crossed the handsome and roistering cavalier felt at the prospect. Imagine a limping cripple strolling under balconies and warbling his love songs! Imagine such a figure running after the señoras! What a sight it would be to have such a disjointed lover throwing himself at their feet at the risk of being unable to pick himself up again and yelling with pain: 'Oh, my leg! Oh, my knee!' Just think of such a lame duck attempting to try conclusions with jealous and irate husbands and brothers, arms in hand! Don Ignatius must have thought of all that – and wept!"

"It is almost incomprehensible that a man of his temper could be so enamoured of his physical advantages," remarked Christian.

"Not at all!" replied Monsieur John thoughtfully. "Oh, what an abyss is the human soul! I now think I understand – " but suddenly breaking off he asked the Franc-Taupin: "Accordingly, Don Ignatius was dominated by the fear of remaining crippled for life?"

"That was his only worry. But I must hurry on. I have a horror of empty wine pots. My present worry is about the wine spigot. Well, all the same, after healing, Captain Loyola's legs remained, as he feared, of unequal length. 'Oh, dogs! Jews! Pagan surgeons!' bawled Don Ignatius when he made the discovery. 'Fetch me here the robed asses! the brothers of Beelzebub! I shall have them quartered!' Summoned in great hurry, the poor wretches of surgeons hastened to Don Ignatius. They trembled; turned and turned him about; they examined and re-examined his leg; after all of which, the slashers of Christian flesh and sawers of Christian bones declared that they could render Captain Loyola as nimble of foot as ever he was. 'A hundred ducats to each of you if you keep your promise!' he cried, already seeing himself prancing on horseback, prinking in his finery, strutting about, warbling love songs under balconies, parading, and above all Loyolizing. 'Yes, señor; the lameness will disappear,' answered the bone-setters, 'but, we shall have, first of all, to break your leg over again, where it was fractured before; in the second place, señor, we shall have to cut away the flesh that has grown over the bone below your knee; in the third place, we shall have to saw off a little bone that protrudes; that all being done, no doe of the forest will be more agile than your Excellency.' 'Break, re-set, cut off, saw off, by the death of God!' cried Captain Loyola 'provided I can walk straight! Go ahead! Start to work!'"

"But that series of operations must have caused him frightful pain!"

"By the bowels of St. Quenet! When the protruding bone was being sawed off, the grinding of Captain Loyola's teeth drowned the sound of the saw's teeth. The contortions that he went through made him look like a veritable demon. His suffering was dreadful."

"And did he heal?"