“Alas, no!” she replied.
“Well, that is really fine!”
Phoebus came back and sat down beside her, but much nearer than before.
“Look here, my dear—”
“The gipsy gave him a few little taps on the lips with her pretty hand, with a childish playfulness full of gaiety and grace.
“No, no, I will not listen. Do you love me? I want you to tell me if you love me.”
“Do I love you, angel of my life!” cried the captain, half kneeling before her. “My body, my soul, my blood, are yours. I am all yours,—all yours. I love you, and never loved any one but you.”
The captain had so often repeated this phrase on many a similar occasion, that he uttered it in a breath, without making a single mistake. At this passionate declaration the gipsy turned towards the dirty ceiling, which took the place of heaven, a look of angelic happiness. “Oh,” she murmured, “at such a moment one might well wish to die!”
Phoebus thought “the moment” a good one to steal another kiss, which inflicted fresh torment on the wretched archdeacon in his lair.
“To die?” exclaimed the amorous captain. “What are you talking about, my lovely angel? It is just the time to live, or Jupiter is but a paltry knave! Die at the beginning of such a pleasant thing! By Saint Luke’s face, what a joke! that would never do! Listen, my dear Similar—Esmenarda—Forgive me! but you have such a vastly outlandish name that I can never get it straight. I’m forever getting entangled in it.”
“Good Heavens!” said the poor girl, “and I thought the name pretty just for its oddness! But if you don’t like it, I am quite ready to change it for anything you please.”
“Ah, do not cry for such a trifle, my dearest! It’s a name to which one has to get used, that’s all. Once I have learned it by heart, it will be all right. Now listen, my dear Similar; I adore you passionately. I love you to such a degree that it is really marvelous. I know a little girl who is bursting with rage about it—”
The jealous damsel cut him short: “Who is she?”
“What difference does that make to us?” said Ph?bus; “do you love me?”
“Oh!” said she.
“Well, then, that is all that is necessary. You shall see how I love you, too. May the great devil Neptune bestride me if I do not make you the happiest creature in the world. We will have a pretty little room somewhere! I will review my archers under your windows. They are all mounted, and make nothing of Captain Mignon’s men. There are spear-men, cross-bowmen, and culverin men. I will take you to see the great Paris musters at the Grange de Rully. It’s a very fine sight,—eighty thousand helmeted heads; thirty thousand bright harnesses, coats of mail, or brigandines; sixty-seven banners of the various guilds; the standards of the Parliament, the Chamber of Accounts, the Treasury, the Assistants in the Mint; in fact, the devil’s own train! I will take you to see the lions at the king’s palace, which are wild beasts; all the women like that.”
For some moments the young girl, wrapped in her own delightful thoughts, had been dreaming to the sound of his voice, without heeding the meaning of his words.
“Oh, how happy you will be!” continued the captain; and at the same time he gently unclasped the gipsy’s belt.
“What are you doing?” said she, quickly. This act of violence startled her from her reverie.
“Nothing,” answered Phoebus; “I was merely saying that you must give up this ridiculous mountebank dress when you come to live with me.”
“When I live with you, my Ph?bus!” said the young girl, tenderly.
She again became pensive and silent.
The captain, made bold by her gentleness, took her by the waist without any resistance on her part, then began noiselessly to unlace the poor child’s bodice, and so disarranged her neckerchief that the panting priest saw the gipsy’s lovely shoulder issue from the gauze, plump and brown, like the moon rising through the mists on the horizon.
The young girl let Phoebus have his way. She did not seem conscious of what he was doing. The bold captain’s eyes sparkled.
All at once she turned towards him.
“Ph?bus,” she said, with a look of infinite love, “instruct me in your religion.”
“My religion!” cried the captain, bursting into laughter. “I instruct you in my religion! Thunder and guns! What do you want with my religion?”
“To be married to you,” she answered.
The captain’s face assumed an expression of mingled surprise, scorn, recklessness, and evil passion.