Kitabı oku: «Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, The Indiscreet Toys», sayfa 7

CHAP. XXIV.
Eleventh trial of the Ring.
The Pensions

Congo had been disturbed by bloody wars in the reigns of Kanaglou and Erguebzed; and those two monarchs had immortalized themselves by the conquests they had made over their neighbours. The emperors of Abex and Angola look'd on the youth of Mangogul and the beginning of his reign, as favourable conjunctures to recover the provinces that had been taken from them. Wherefore they declared war against Congo, and attacked it on every side. Mangogul had the best council in all Africa: and old Sambuco and the Emir Mirzala, who were train'd up in the former wars, were placed at the head of the troops, gain'd victories on victories, and formed generals capable of succeeding them; an advantage of greater importance than even their successes.

Thanks to the activity of the council, and the good conduct of the generals, the enemy, who thought themselves sure of overcoming the empire, did not advance as far as the frontiers, made a poor defence of their own, and saw their fortified towns and provinces ravaged. But, such constant and glorious successes notwithstanding, Congo grew weaker by aggrandizing itself: the frequent raising of troops unpeopled the towns and country: and the treasury was exhausted.

The sieges and battles had cost a vast number of lives: the grand Visir, very lavish of the blood of the soldiery, was accused of having hazarded battles that tended to nothing. Every family was in mourning: not one, but wept a father, a brother, or a friend. The number of officers slain was prodigious; and could be compared to naught but their wives, who sollicited pensions. The closets of the ministers were beset with them. They pestered the Sultan himself with petitions, in which the merit and services of the deceased, the grief of their widows, the dismal condition of their children, and other moving motives were not forgotten. Nothing seemed more equitable than their requests: but on what fund to ground pensions which amounted to millions?

The ministers, after having exhausted speeches, and sometimes peevishness and rough language, were obliged to deliberate on the means of bringing this affair to a final issue: but they had an excellent reason for concluding nothing: there was not a penny left.

Mangogul, tired with the false reasonings of his ministers and the lamentations of the widows, hit upon the expedient, which his ministry had been so long hunting after. "Gentlemen," said he to his council, "I am of opinion that, before any pensions are granted, it would be proper to examine if they are lawfully due." "This examination," answered the great Seneschal, "will be immense, and of prodigious discussion. Yet how to resist the clamors and persecution of these women, by whom you, sir, are particularly teazed?" "It will not be as difficult a talk as you imagine, Mr. Seneschal," replied the Sultan; "and I promise you that by to morrow noon the whole affair shall be terminated, by the laws of the strictest equity. Do you only bring them to my audience chamber by nine in the morning."

The council broke up, the Seneschal went into his office, pondered profoundly, and drew up the following proclamation; which in three hours time was printed, published by sound of trumpet, and fixed up at all the most public places of Banza.

By the Sultan's most excellent majesty, and my lord the grand Seneschal,

We Gander-beak, grand Seneschal of Congo, visir of the first bench, train-bearer to the great Manimonbanda, chief and super-intendant of the sweepers of the divan, give notice, that to-morrow morning at nine of the clock, the magnanimous Sultan will give audience to the widows of the officers slain in his service, in order to decree, on sight of their pretensions, what to him shall seem meet. Given at our office the twelfth of the moon of Regeb, in the year 147200000009.

All the distressed women of Congo, and a great number of them there was, did not fail to read the proclamation, or to send their footmen to read it; and less still to be at the appointed hour, in the lobby of the audience chamber. "In order to avoid a crowd, let no more enter," said the Sultan, "than six of these ladies at once. When we have heard them, let them pass thro' the back door, which leads to the outward courts. You, gentlemen, be attentive, and pronounce on their demands."

This said, he made a signal to the first gentleman usher of the audiences; and the six, who happen'd to be next the door, were introduced. They entered in long mourning robes, and made low reverences to his highness. Mangogul addressed the youngest and handsomest of them, whose name was Ifec. "Madam," said he, "how long is it since you have lost your husband?" "Three months," answered Ifec weeping. "He was lieutenant general in your highness's service. He was kill'd in the last battle, and six children are the only legacy he left me" – "He left you?" interrupted a voice, which, tho' issuing from Ifec, was not exactly in the same tone with her's. "Madam knows better than she says. They were all begun and finished by a young Bramin, who daily came to comfort her, while my master was in the field."

'Tis easy to guess, whence proceeded the indiscreet voice, which pronounced this answer. Poor Ifec, being put out of countenance, grew pale, trembled, fainted. "Madam is subject to the vapors," said Mangogul with an air of tranquillity: "let her be carried into an appartment of the Seraglio, and be taken care of." Then immediately addressing Phenice: "Madam," said he, "was not your husband a Pacha?" "Yes, sir," answered Phenice in a trembling voice. "And how have you lost him?" "Sir, he died in his bed, quite exhausted with the fatigues of the last campaign" – "With the fatigues of the last campaign," replied Phenice's Toy. "Go, madam, your husband brought a firm and vigorous state of health from the camp; and he would still enjoy it, had not two or three scoundrel players, – you understand me, take care of yourself." "Write," says the Sultan, "that Phenice demands a pension, for the good services, which she has rendered to the state and her husband."

A third was interrogated on her husband's age and name, who was said to have died in the army of the small-pox. "Of the small pox," said the Toy, "a fine story indeed: say, madam, of two good strokes of a scymeter which he received from the Sangiac Cavaglio, because he took it ill, that his eldest son was said to be as like the Sangiac, as one egg is to another: and madam knows as well as I," added the Toy, "that a likeness was never better grounded."

The fourth was going to speak without being interrogated by Mangogul, when her Toy was heard to cry out from the lower regions, that these ten years part, which the war had lasted, she had made pretty good use of her time; that two pages and a huge scoundrel of a footman had supplied her husband's place; and that without doubt she designed the pension, which she was solliciting, for keeping an actor of the comic opera.

A fifth stept forward with intrepidity, and with an air of confidence demanded the reward of her late husband's services, who was an aga of the Janissaries, and lost his life under the walls of Matatras. The Sultan turn'd his ring on her, but to no purpose. Her Toy was mute. "I must own," says the African author, who had seen her, "that she was so ugly, that the by-standers would be astonished, if her Toy had any thing to say."

Mangogul was got to the sixth, and here are the express words of her Toy. "Truly, it well becomes madam," meaning her, whose Toy was obstinately silent, "to sollicite pensions, while she lives upon the poule, keeps a breland table which brings her in three thousand sequins a year, makes private suppers at the expence of the gamesters, and received six hundred sequins from Osman, to draw me to one of these suppers, where the treacherous Osman – "

"Due regard shall be paid to your petitions, ladies," said the Sultan: "for the present ye may withdraw." Then directing his words to his counsellors, he ask'd them, if it did not seem ridiculous to them to grant pensions to a herd of little bastards of Bramins and others, and to women whose employment it was to dishonor brave men, who had enter'd into his service in quest of glory, at the expence of their lives.

The Seneschal stood up, answered, declaimed, resumed, and gave his opinion obscurely as usual. While he was yet speaking, Ifec recovered from her fit, quite enraged at her adventure; and, as she expected no pension for herself, and would run distracted, if any other obtain'd one, which would have happened in all likelihood, she went directly into the antichamber, and whispered to two or three of her female friends, that they were summoned thither purely to hear their Toys chatter; that she herself heard one deliver horrid things in the audience chamber; that she would not name it for the world; but that they must be fools, to expose themselves to the same danger.

This advice passed from hand to hand, and dispersed the crowd of widows. When the gentleman usher opened the door to let in a second parcel, not one was there. "Well, Seneschal, will you believe me another time?" said Mangogul informed of the desertion, to the good man, clapping him on the shoulder. "I promised to rid you of these female weepers, and I have done it. Yet they were very assiduous in making court to you, notwithstanding your fourscore and fifteen years of age. But whatever pretensions you may possibly have: for I am not ignorant of the facility you had to form pretensions on these ladies, I fancy you are obliged to me for their retreat. They gave you more embarras than pleasure."

The African author informs us, that the remembrance of this trial is kept up in Congo; and for that reason it is, that the government is so sparing of granting pensions: but this was not the only good effect of Cucufa's ring, as we shall see in the following chapter.

CHAP. XXV.
Twelfth Trial of the Ring.
A Law Case

Rapes were severely punished in Congo: and there happened a most notorious one in Mangogul's reign. This prince, at his accession to the crown, had sworn, like all his predecessors, never to grant a pardon for that crime: but be laws ever so severe, they seldom curb those, whom a considerable advantage urges to infringe them. The criminal was condemned to lose that part of him, by which he had sinned; a cruel operation, of which he generally died; as the person who performed it, used less precaution than B – ll.

Kerfael, a young man of a good family, had now languished six months in a dungeon, waiting for the day of execution. Fatme, a young pretty woman, was his Lucretia and accuser. Every body knew, that they had been very well together: Fatme's indulgent husband took no exceptions against it: therefore it would be ungenteel in the public to intermeddle in their affairs.

After an undisturbed commerce of two years, whether thro' inconstancy or disgust, Kerfael took to a dancer at the opera of Banza, and grew cold towards Fatme, yet without coming to an open rupture. He resolved to make a decent retreat; which obliged him to continue his visits in the house. Fatme enraged for being thus forsaken, meditated revenge, and made use of this remnant of his assiduities to destroy her unfaithful lover.

One day, that the convenient husband had left them tête à tête, and that Kerfael, having ungirt his scymeter, was endeavouring to allay Fatme's suspicions by protestations, which cost nothing to lovers, but never surprize the credulity of a jealous woman; she assumed an affrighted air, and having tore her dress at five or six pulls, shriek'd out horridly, and call'd to her husband and domestics for help; who ran immediately, and became witnesses to the injury, which Fatme said she received from Kerfael; and shewing the scymeter, added: "This the infamous villain lifted at my head ten times to make me submit to his will."

The young man, struck dumb at the blackness of the accusation, had not power either to answer or make his escape. He was seiz'd, dragg'd to prison, and deliver'd up to justice and the prosecution of the Cadilesker.

The laws ordained that Fatme should be visited. Accordingly she was; and the report of the matrons proved very unfavourable to the accused. They had an original standard, by which they could determine the condition of a violated woman; and every circumstance concurred against Kerfael. The judges examined him, Fatme was confronted with him, and the evidence was heard. In vain did he plead innocence, deny the fact, and demonstrate by the commerce which he held with his accuser above two years, that she was not a woman to be ravished. The circumstance of the scymeter, the tête à tête solitude, Kerfael's confusion at the sight of the husband and domestics; taken all together formed, in the opinion of the judges, violent presumptions. Fatme on her side, far from owning that she had granted him favors, would not even allow that she gave him the least glimmering of hopes; and maintain'd that her obstinate adherence to her duty, from which she had never flinch'd, was without doubt what urged Kerfael to acquire by force, what he despair'd obtaining by craft. The verbal process drawn up by the commissaries was another terrible piece. Nothing more was requisite, than to run it over, and compare it with the articles of the Criminal Code, to read unhappy Kerfael's condemnation therein. He lost all expectations of life either by his defence, or the credit of his family; the magistrates had fixed the definitive sentence to the thirteenth of the month of Rebeg: and this was even published by sound of trumpet, according to custom.

This affair became the topic of conversations, and people were divided upon it for a good while. Some old hags, who had always been very safe from any apprehensions of a rape, ran about crying: "That Kerfael's attack was enormous; that unless a severe example were made of him, innocence would be no longer in security; and that an honest woman would be exposed to insults, even at the horns of the Altar." Then they cited instances of little impertinent puppies having attack'd the virtue of several respectable ladies: and the circumstances left no room to doubt, but that those respectable ladies mentioned by them were themselves: and all these speeches were made to Bramins less innocent than Kerfael, and by devotes as chaste as Fatme, by way of edifying conversations.

The Petits-Maitres on the contrary, and even some Petites-Maitresses, asserted that a rape was a chimæra, that a woman never surrendered but by capitulation; and that, if a fort was defended, tho' ever so little, it was absolutely impossible to take it by storm. Examples were alledged in support of this reasoning: the women knew some; the Petits-Maitres invented others; and there was no end of quoting instances of women, who had not been ravished. "Poor Kerfael," said they, "what the devil had he in his head, to take to little Bimbreloqua," which was the dancer's name, "why did he not stick to Fatme? They were extremely well together, and the husband left them at full liberty: what a blessing – Those witches the matrons put on their spectacles to no purpose, for they saw nothing. And indeed, who is the person that can see clear in that place? And besides, the senators are going to deprive him of his joy, for having burst an open door. The poor lad will die of it, no doubt. After that, pray consider, what will not dissatisfied women be authorized to do." – "If this execution takes place," interrupted another, "I will make myself a free mason."

Mirzoza, naturally compassionate, remonstrated to Mangogul, who was joking her on Kerfael's case, that if the laws spoke against Kerfael, good sense deposed against Fatme. "Moreover," added she, "it has never been heard, that, in a wise government, the letter of the law should be so closely adhered to, that the simple allegation of a female accuser should be sufficient to endanger the life of a subject. The reality of a rape cannot be too clearly proved; and you will allow, Sir, that this fact is as much at least within the province of your ring as of your senators. It would be very singular, that the matrons should be more knowing on this head than the Toys themselves. Hitherto your highness's ring has done little more than satisfy your curiosity. Might not the Genius, from whom you had it, have intended some more important end? If you employ it for the discovery of truth, and the happiness of your subjects, can you think the Genius will be offended? Try. You are in possession of an infallible method of drawing from Fatme a confession of her crime, or a proof of her innocence." "You are in the right," replied Mangogul, "and you shall be satisfied."

The Sultan departed immediately: and indeed there was no time to lose: for it was the night of the twelfth of the moon Rebeg, and the senate was to pronounce sentence on the thirteenth. Fatme was just got into bed, the curtains were not quite closed. A night taper threw a dull light on her countenance. The Sultan thought her beautiful, notwithstanding the violent commotions which disfigured her. Compassion and hatred, grief and revenge, audaciousness and shame were painted in her eyes, according as they succeeded each other in her heart. She uttered deep sighs, shed tears, wiped them off, shed fresh ones, remained some moments with her head drooping and eyes dejected, then suddenly raised them, and darted furious looks towards the heavens. What was Mangogul doing all this time? He was talking to himself, and saying. "These are the symptoms of despair. Her former tenderness for Kerfael has revived in all its violence. She has lost sight of the offence he committed, and has nothing in view but the punishment reserved for her lover." As soon as he had finished these words, he turned the fatal ring on Fatme, and her Toy cried out with vehemence.

"Twelve hours more, and we shall be revenged. The treacherous ingrateful man shall perish, and his blood shall be shed." Fatme affrighted at the extraordinary motion which she felt within her, and shock'd at the buzzing voice of her Toy, clapt both hands on it, and put herself upon duty to stop its mouth. But the powerful ring continued to act, and the ungovernable Toy breaking thro' every obstacle, added: "Yes, we shall be revenged. O! thou who hast betray'd me, wretched Kerfael, dye, and thou, whom he has preferred to me, O Bimbreloqua, despair! – Twelve hours more! Alas! how tedious will this time appear to me. Hasten, sweet moments, when I shall see the treacherous, the ingrateful Kerfael under the executioner's knife, his blood trickling down – Ah! Wretch, what have I said? Can I without horror see the dearest object of my love perish? Can I see the fatal weapon lifted up? – Ah! far from me this cruel thought. – He hates me, 'tis true; he has quitted me for Bimbreloqua, but perhaps some time or other – why do I say, perhaps? Love will certainly recall him under my yoke. That little Bimbreloqua is a fancy that will fly off; he must sooner or later be sensible of the injustice of his preference, and the ridiculousness of his new choice. Comfort thyself, Fatme, thou shalt see thy Kerfael again. Yes, thou shalt see him again. Arise quickly, run, fly to remove the dreadful danger which threatens him. Dost thou not tremble to come too late? – But whither shall I run, mean wretch that I am. Does not Kerfael's disdain foretel me, that he has abandoned me for ever. Bimbreloqua enjoys him, and 'tis for her that I was going to save him: ah! let him rather dye a thousand deaths. If he lives no more for me, why should I be concerned for his death? – Yes, I am now convinced that my wrath is just. The ingrateful Kerfael has deserved all my hatred. I no longer have any remorse. I had done every thing to keep him, I will do every thing to destroy him. Yet one day later, and my revenge was disappointed. But his evil genius delivered him up to me, the very moment that he thought to escape me. He is fallen into the snare which I laid for him. I have him fast. The appointment, to which I contrived to bring thee, was the last which thou intendedst for me: but thou wilt not so soon forget it. – With what address did you bring him to your beck? Fatme, how well concerted was your disorder? Your shrieks, your grief, your tears, your confusion, every thing, even to your silence, has ruin'd Kerfael. Nothing can snatch him from his impending fate. Kerfael is dead – You weep, wretched woman. He loved another, of what consequence is his life to you."

Mangogul, filled with horror at this discourse, turned off his ring; and while Fatme was recruiting her spirits, he flew back to the Sultana. "Well, prince," said she, "what have you heard? Is Kerfael still guilty, and the chast Fatme" – "I beseech you to excuse me," answered the Sultan, "from repeating the abominations which I come from hearing. How an exasperated woman is to be dreaded! Who could believe, that a body formed by the graces, sometimes enclosed a heart molded by the furies? But the sun shall not set to-morrow on my dominions, before they be purged of a monster more dangerous than those which are produced in my deserts."

The Sultan immediately sent for the Seneschal, and commanded him to seize Fatme, to remove Kerfael into one of the appartments of the seraglio, and to inform the Senate, that he reserved to himself the cognizance of his affair. His orders were executed that very night.

The next morning at dawn of day, the Sultan attended by the Seneschal and an Effendi, went to Mirzoza's appartment, and had Fatme brought thither. This unfortunate woman threw herself at Mangogul's feet, confessed her crime with all its circumstances, and conjured Mirzoza to intercede for her. Mean while Kerfael was conducted in. He expected nothing but death: however he made his appearance with that composed assurance, which innocence alone can give. Some ill-natured wags said, that he would be in greater consternation, if what he was threaten'd to lose, was worth preserving. The women were upon the tenters to know the issue. He prostrated himself respectuously before his highness. Mangogul made him a signal to arise, and giving him his hand, "You are innocent," said he, "be free. Render thanks to Brama for your preservation. In order to make amends for the misery you have suffered, I grant you a pension of two thousand sequins on my exchequer, and the first commandery that shall fall in the order of the Crocodile."

The more favors were bestowed on Kerfael, the more Fatme dreaded punishment. The great Seneschal gave his opinion for death, grounded upon the law: Si foemina ff. de vi C. calumniatrix. The Sultan was inclined for perpetual imprisonment. Mirzoza finding too much rigor in one of these judgments, and too much indulgence in the other, condemned Fatme's Toy to the padlock. The Florentine machine was publickly clapt on, upon the same scaffold that had been erected for Kerfael's execution. Thence she was conducted to a house of correction, together with the matrons who had given their decisive opinions with so much knowledge.