Ten-foot Chain — Princess or Percheron

I.

Some queer things had taken place in this same hall--some very queer things; but there were indications that this present affair was going to be queerer yet.

The old duke always had been a worthy descendant of his ancestors; like them, a little mad, with flashes of genius, very fine, very brutal, a murderer at heart, with a love for poetry and philosophic speculation.

The guests were already in a smiling tremor of curiosity when they arrived.

Some of them whispered among themselves: "It's on account of the Princess Gabrielle."

"They say the duke is furious."

"Not astonishing.

But--a marriage!

How can there be a marriage?"

Yet it looked as if a marriage there would be.

Manifestly, the hall had been prepared for some such event.

It was a chamber long, lofty and broad, walled and floored with the native Burgundy rock, richly carpeted, hung with tapestry.

And down a portion of the length of this ran a wide table already spread with the viands of a wedding-feast--huge cold pasties, hams and boarheads beautifully jellied, fresh and candied fruits from Spain and Sicily, flagons and goblets of crystal, silver, and gold.

What aroused curiosity and conjecture to the highest point, however, was the discovery that the immense fireplace of the hall had been transformed into a forge.

It was a forge complete--bellows and hearth, anvil and tub, hammers and tongs.

There was even a smutty-faced imp there to tend the forge fire, which already hissed and glowed as he worked the bellows.

"Aha!

So there _was_ a smith mixed up in the affair, after all!"

"_Mais oui!

_ Gaspard, the smith, whose forge is down there on the banks of the Rhone."

"But what does the duke intend to do?"

It was a question which more than one was asking.

There was never any forecasting what a whim of the duke might lead him to do even in ordinary circumstances--declare war on France, call a new Crusade.

And now, with this menace of scandal in his family!

There in front of the fireplace where the forge had been set up, the valets had placed the ducal chair.

All the same, the arrangements had something sinister about them.

There fell a period of silence touched with panic.

But not for long.

Curiosity was too acute and powerful to be long suppressed.

The whispering resumed: "The duke surprised them together--the princess and her smith."

"It looks like the torture for one or both."

"They say the fellow's an Apollo, a Hercules."

"You wait until the duke--" "Silence!

He comes."

One of the large doors toward the farther end of the hall was thrown open, and through this there came a surge of music--hautboys, viols, and flutes.

Two guardsmen came in, helmeted, swords drawn, and took up their stations at either side of the door.

There entered the duke.

He looked the philosopher, perhaps, if not the student--tall, bent, bony; a brush of white hair bristling over the top of his high and narrow head; a fleshless face, sardonic and humorous.

The guests were pleased to see that his mood was amiable.

He came forward smiling, waved his musicians into retreat; and half a dozen valets were assisting him into his chair as he greeted his guests.

They all bent the knee to him.

Some kissed his hand--and some he kissed, especially those who were fair and of the opposite sex.

If Princess Gabrielle had shown herself fragile in the matter of her affections, well, she had come by her failing honestly.

Seated in his chair, the duke delivered himself of a little pun which convulsed his audience--something about "court and courtship": "_Je fais--la cour.

_" And with no other preliminary he spoke to a page: "Summon _mademoiselle_."

Then to another: "Fetch in the smith."

There was a bitter smile on his face as he sank back into his chair and studied the forge set up in the fireplace.

The imp went white under his smudge and worked the bellows until the fire on the hearth was spouting like a miniature Vesuvius.

The wait was brief.

Once more the musicians struck into the royal march of Burgundy, and there was the Princess Gabrielle.

Every one who looked at her must have experienced some thrill of the heart--envy, desire, pure admiration.

It was impossible to look at her without some emotion; for she was eighteen, slender, white and passionate; with dusky, copper-colored hair hanging in two heavy curls forward over her brilliantly tender shoulders; and she had a broad, red mouth, and slightly dilated nostrils; dark eyes, liquid and heavily fringed, with disquieting shadows under them.

She came forward with a number of maidens in her train, but she so dominated them that she appeared to be alone.

She took her time.

She was a trifle rebellious, perhaps.

But she was brave, not to say bold.

She tossed her head slightly.

She smiled.

She and her maidens, familiar with the duke's intentions, grouped themselves at one side of the improvised forge.

Every one present was still looking at her when there came a rough command: "Stand aside!"

A good many of the guests were not in the habit of hearing orders except from the duke himself; but the command came again: "Stand aside!

Let me pass--me and my people!"

At that there was a rapid shifting of the crowd and a whispered cry: "The smith!

It's Gaspard the smith!"

And he attracted even more attention than the princess had done; for, manifestly, here was not only a man who could play the game of love, but could play the game of life and death as well--to shout out like this, and come striding like this into the presence of his ruler.

But he looked the part.

He was all of six feet tall, blond and supple and beautifully fleshed.

He was wearing his blacksmith's outfit of doeskin and leather, but he was scoured and shaven to the pink.

His great arms were bare; and the exquisitely sculptured muscles of these slipped and played under a skin as white as a woman's. He stood there with his shoulders back, his arms folded, feet apart.

But, curiously, there was no insolence in the posture.

Insolence is a quality of the little heart, the little soul, and shows itself in the eyes.

Gaspard the smith had gentle blue eyes, large, dark, fearless, and with a certain brooding pride in them.

There may have been even a hint of virgin bashfulness in them as well, during that moment he glanced at the Princess Gabrielle.

Then he had looked at the duke, and all his courage had come back to him, perhaps also a suggestion of challenge.

But neither had the smith come into the ducal presence alone.

There were two old people--a man and a woman, peasants, both of them very poor, very humble, so frightened that they could breathe only with their mouths open; and so soon as they were inside the circle of guests, they had dropped to their knees.

The other member of the smith's party would have done the same had he permitted.

This was a girl of twenty or so, likewise a peasant, healthy, painfully abashed, but otherwise not notable.

To her the smith had given a nudge and a word of encouragement, so that now she stood close to him and back of him.

"Our friends," said the duke, with studied nonchalance, "we are about to present to you the initial operation of scientific experiment.

Like all scientific research, this also should be judged solely by its possible contribution to the advancement of human happiness.

Ourself, we feel that this contribution will be great.

God knows it is concerned with a problem that is both elusive and poignant."

All this was rather above Gaspard's head.

He turned to the imp at the bellows.

"Stop blowing that fire so hard," he whispered.

"You're wasting charcoal."

The duke smiled grimly.

"The problem," he continued, "is this: Can any man and woman, however devoted, continue to love each other if they are too closely held together?"

There was a slight movement among some of the younger gentlemen and ladies present--a few knowing smiles.

"There have always been those who answered _No_; there have always been those who answered _Yes_," the duke went on.

"Which were right?"

No answer.

"My granddaughter here, while having her horse shod some weeks ago, became enamored of this worthy subject of mine."

He nodded toward the smith.

"She would have him.

She would have no one else.

We knew how hopeless would be any attempt to impose our will--in an affair of the heart."

He smiled gallantly.

"We are familiar with the breed."

"Long live the House of Burgundy," cried the chivalrous young Vicomte de Macon.

But the duke silenced him with a look.

"And now," said the duke, "we wish to test this so great passion of hers--test it under conditions that while apparently extraordinary are none the less classical and scientific.

Our experiment is this--" For the first time since he began to speak the duke now leaned forward, and both his face and his voice took on that quality which made his name a source of trembling from Spain to Denmark.

"Our experiment is this: "_To have the princess and her smith, whom she is so sure she loves, handcuffed and linked together by a ten-foot chain.

_" II.

There was a gasp from the audience.

Every one stared at the princess.

Even the duke himself.

Without turning his head he took her in with his furtive eyes.

"_Mlle.

la Princess_," he said icily, "was good enough to insist upon the sacrifice."

At this, a stain of richer color slowly crept up the throat of the Princess Gabrielle; there came a touch of extra fire to her eyes.

Perhaps she would have spoken.

But the duke hadn't finished yet.

"We'll see whether she loves him so much or not," said the duke.

"We'll give them three days of it--three days to go and come as they wish--and to do as they wish--together--always together--bound to each other by their ten-foot chain."

But while the excitement caused by the duke's announcement was still crisping the nerves of every one present, the smith had cast one more glance in the direction of the Princess Gabrielle.

And this time their eyes met.

There were those who saw a glint of terror--of delicious terror--in the eyes of the princess; and in the eyes of Gaspard a look intended to be reassuring.

Then the smith had unfolded his arms, thrust them forward.

"Wait," he cried.

At that there was a fresh sensation.

For it was seen that one of his wrists--his left--was already encircled by a bracelet of shining steel, forged there of a single piece, and that to the bracelet itself there was forged a link, fine but powerful, and that other links ran back over his shoulder.

"Ha!"

snarled the duke.

"So you've come prepared!"

"By the grace of God!"

replied Gaspard the smith, unafraid.

He cast a look about him, brought his eyes back to the duke.

"_Moi_, Gaspard," he said, "I forge my own chains--always!

I'm a smith, I am."

The two old people kneeling just back of him began to sob and to groan.

Gaspard turned and looked down at them.

"Shut up," he ordered; "I'm talking."

He smiled at the duke.

He explained.

"You see, they're frightened," he said.

"When I found out what your highness and your highness's lady-granddaughter were planning up here in the castle, why, I went to these old folks and told them that I wanted their daughter Susette."

"I suppose you loved her," the duke put in with ironical intent.

But the smith saw no reason for irony.

"Eh, _bon Dieu_!"

he ejaculated.

"And save your highness's respect, we've loved each other ever since we were out of the cradle, we have.

So I made the old folks consent.

I'm a smith, I am.

I forge my own chains.

Stand around, Susette!

His highness won't hurt you.

Look!"

He stepped aside.

He gave a gentle thrust to the girl who had been sheltering back of him.

The chain rattled.

And there was another cry of surprise.

One of the girl's wrist's also was ornamented with a steel handcuff tightly welded.

Not only that, but to this also was attached a chain.

The smith threw up his arm.

It was the same chain that was welded to his own handcuff--ten feet of it, glistening steel, unbreakable.

"There's your ten-foot chain, highness," cried Gaspard.

"And it's no trick-chain, either," he added.

"It's a chain that will hold.

You bet it will.

I forged it myself, and I know.

It's a chain you couldn't buy.

Why?

Because--because the iron of it's mixed with love.

Nor can it be cut, nor filed, nor broken.

I'm a smith, I am.

And each link of it I tempered myself--with sweat and blood."

There for a time it was a question--possibly a question in the mind of the duke himself--just how many minutes the smith still had to live.

Many a valet had been executed for less.

During a period of about thirty seconds the duke's face went black.

Then the blackness dispersed.

He slowly smiled.

After all, he wasn't to be cheated of his experiment.

But he answered the question that was in his own mind and the minds of all the others there as he looked at the smith and said: "Fool, you'll be sufficiently punished--by your own device."

He let his eyes drift again to the Princess Gabrielle.

"And thou," he said, "art sufficiently punished already."

III.

It happened to be a day of late spring; and as Gaspard and this strangely wedded bride of his and her parents came out of the castle, both fed and forgiven, it must have seemed to all of them that this was the most auspicious moment of their lives.

The old folks, who had partaken freely of the generous wines pressed upon them, had now passed from their trembling terror to a spirit of frolic.

Arm in arm, their sabots clogging, they did a rigadoon down the winding road.

It was a spirit of tender elation, though, that dominated Gaspard and Susette.

They were like two beings distilled complete from the mild and fragrant air, the sweet mistiness of the verdant valley, the purpling solemnity of the Juras.

"What did he mean, his highness?"

asked Susette as she pressed the smith's arm closer to her side.

"What did he mean that you'd be punished by your own device?"

Gaspard looked down at her, pressed her manacled wrist to his lips, took thought.

"I don't know," he answered gently.

"He must be crazy.

It's like calling it punishment when a true believer receives the reward of paradise."

"You love me so much as that?"

"_Pardi!

_" he ejaculated.

"And thou?"

"So much," she palpitated, "so much that when you looked at the princess like that--I wished you were blind!"

At the bottom of the hill, the old folks, Burgundians to the souls of them, happily bade the young couple to be off about their own affairs.

They knew how it was with young married people.

The old were obstacles--so they themselves well recalled--albeit that was more than twenty years ago.

Said Gaspard fondly: "This business has put me back in my work; but we'll call this a holiday.

Shall we go to my cottage or into the forest?

I know of a secret place--" "Into the forest," whispered Susette.

"I don't like the forge.

It makes me think--think of that cursed princess--and of the work that almost lost you to me."

Her blue eyes filmed as she looked up at him.

"Oh, Gaspard, I also have dreamed so much--of love--a life of love with thee!"

There was no one there to see.

Some day, perhaps, in the far distant future, this part of the world would be thickly populated.

But this was not yet the case.

Gaspard brought his bride close to his breast, smiled gravely into her upturned face.

He kissed her tears away.

Sweet Susette!

She was such a child!

How little she knew of life!

And yet what was that fragile, fluttering, elusive, tiny suggestion of a regret in the back of his brain?

Now he saw it; now it was gone--a silver moth of a thought, yet one, some instinct warned him, was there to gnaw a hole in his happiness.

He said nothing about this to Susette, of course; he chased it from his own joy.

And this joy was a beautiful, tumultuous thing.

"It's like the source of the Rhone, which I saw one time--this joy of ours," he said with placid rapture.

"All sparkling it was, and wild cataracts, and deep places, clean and full of mystery."

"Ah, I want it to be always like this," said Susette.

Gaspard let himself go in clear-sighted thought.

They were seated on a grassy shelf that overhung the great river.

The forest hemmed them in on three sides like a wedding-bower fashioned to order; but here they could follow the Rhone for miles--with its drifting barges, its red-sailed shallops, its hamlets, and villages.

"Yes, ever like the Rhone," he said; "but growing, like the Rhone, until it's broad and majestic and strong to carry burdens--" Susette interrupted him.

"Kiss me," she said.

"Kiss me again.

No--not like that; like you did a while ago."

And Gaspard, laughing, did as he was bidden.

But what was that silver glint of something like a regret, something like a loss, that came fluttering once more across the atmosphere of his thought?

Susette, though, kept him diverted.

She was forever popping in upon his reflections with innocent, childish questions; and he found this infinitely amusing.

"Did you desire me--more than the princess?"

"Beloved, I have desired you for years."

"Did you think me more beautiful--than she?"

Again Gaspard laughed; but it set him to thinking.

He liked to think.

He thought at his forge, at his meals, nights when he happened to be awake.

"Love and beauty," he said, "these are created by desire.

As a stone-cutter desires what is hidden in the rock, and hews it out and loves the thing he shapes, though it be as ugly as a gargoyle, because of the desire that brought it forth--" "Do you think that I'm a gargoyle?"

queried Susette hastily.

"Certainly not."

"Then, why did you call me one?"

So he had to console her again, and took a certain joy in it, although she protracted the dear, silly dispute by telling him that he had chained her to him simply so that he could torture her, and that he had wanted to spare the princess such suffering, and that therefore it was clear that he loved the princess more.

"Why, no," said Gaspard; "as for that, she's really in love with that young Sieur de Macon."

But thereupon Susette wanted to know how he came to be so well informed as to the contents of the lady's heart.

So the smith gave over any attempt to reason, except in the silences of his brain; and just confined his outer activities to cooings and caresses, as Susette would have him do.

Yet his thought would persist.

That was the trail of a great truth he had almost stated back there, about the place held by desire in the origins of love and beauty.

He had watched a certain Italian named Botticelli do a mural painting in the duke's private chapel.

Lord, there was a passion!

He had helped in the building of the cathedral at Sens.

Lord, what fervor the builders put into their work!

They were all like young lovers.

The smith sat up.

It was almost as if he had cornered that glinting moth of doubt.

Yes, they had been like young lovers--Sieur Botticelli, in pursuit of the beautiful; the church-builders in pursuit of God.

But--and here was the point--what if their desire had been satisfied?

The quest would have stopped.

The vision of the artist would have faded.

The steeple would have fallen down.

For desire would have ceased to exist.

"I'm hungry and I'm thirsty," said Susette.

He kissed her pensively.

They started home.

IV.

"Gaspard!

Gaspard!"

The smith sat up swiftly on his couch.

"What's the matter?"

he demanded.

All the same, in spite of certain disquieting dreams, it struck him as sweet and curious to be awakened like that by Susette.

But he perceived that she was alarmed.

"Some one hammers at the door," she said.

Then he heard it himself, that thing he had already been hearing obscurely in his sleep.

"Coming!"

he yelled.

And he smilingly explained to Susette: "It's my old friend, Joseph, the carter.

He'd bring his work to me if he had to travel five leagues."

And he was for jumping up and running to the door.

"Wait," cried Susette.

"I'll have to go with you, and I can't be seen like this."

"That's right," said Gaspard.

"That confounded chain!

I'd forgotten all about it."

So he called out again to his friend, and the two of them held quite a conversation while Susette tried to make herself presentable.

But Gaspard turned to her as she shook her hair out for the third time, starting to rearrange it.

"Quick!"

he urged.

"He's in a hurry.

One of his horses has cast a shoe."

"You can't show yourself like that, either," cried Susette, playing for time.

"Me?"

laughed Gaspard.

"I'm a smith.

I'd like to see a smith who couldn't show himself in singlet and apron!"

"You look like a brigand."

But he merely laughed: "Joseph won't mind."

And, indeed, Joseph the carter did appear to have but little thought for anything except the work in hand.

For that matter, neither, apparently, did Gaspard.