Champavert by Petrus Borel the Lycanthrope & Brian Stableford

Author:Petrus Borel the Lycanthrope & Brian Stableford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, fantasy, contes cruels, France, werewolf
ISBN: 9781434446862
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2013-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

II.

Aro’s fa ranson dë l’Angei Blan78

O my dove, thou art in the clefts in the rock,

in the secret places of the stairs,

let me see they countenance,

let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice

and thy countenance is comely.79

The Bible.

“Yes, every year I come down from Montélimart, my father’s abode and my birthplace, to go, out of idleness, to spend a few days in Avignon. One evening, when I was parading my ennui along the rampart, fleeing society and noise, I was unwittingly attracted by the secret charm of harmony, and, awakened with a start, I fell into the midst of a crowd assembled on the bowling green, where the town’s elite gather every evening, the fiddlers, the players of lutes, mandolins, hurdy-gurdies, trumpets and buccinas, in order to make concerts of voices and instruments.

“What delightful evenings I spent there beneath and ultramarine sky speckled with stars, in the cool and serene breeze that played, perfumed and melodious, over our heads, lulled and delighted by choirs of human voices and celestial music! Oh, above all, what rapture, when someone intoned some glorious song, some ballad in the sweet Provençal language; or when, in religious solemnities, on holy days, sacred music was sung, those spiritual hymns, those grave, funereal chants, those majestic psalms, the languorous and sonorous Stabat, the sepulchral Dies irae, which, although deprived of the organs and mystery of the cathedral, made us shiver with awe, like the solitary contemplation of the immensity.

“As in a carousel, the demoiselles and ladies were seated in a circle in places of honor, their worthy spouses and escorts, posted behind them, entirely dedicated to petty attentions, exchanging forceful courtesies, on the lookout for the slightest gesture of a finger, the slightest blink, sign of satisfaction or pleasure, in order gallantly to applaud the motet or the fiddler who has charmed their beloved.

“Now, one evening, I noticed a young woman nearby, isolated from the ladies, apart from the crowd, leaning on the shoulder of an old man.

“I turned, surprised, and contemplated her.

“From then on, the music no longer affected me; I no longer heard it; perhaps it did not even reach me; the thought of her beauty exorcised it. I cannot describe my rapture; fixed, like a statue whose marble breast had begun to beat, I studied her; she appeared to me like a virgin in an aureole: a virgin painted by Barthélemy Murillo or Diego de Sylva Velásquez. Her beautiful face, in my memory, had no sister; she seemed to belong neither to the beautiful daughters of my mountains, nor the ravishing women of Arles, nor the lively daughters of Marseilles, nor the pretty daughters of Lyon, nor the demoiselles of Paris, nor the blonde Brabantines; she was something Oriental, celestial, unknown! Red-haired, with noble features, tall, graceful, a pale complexion tinted with red, a soft gaze veiled beneath a diaphanous eyelid, grenadine lips. Her costume was simple, but sparkling jewels wound around her hair, her forehead, her ears, her neck, her fingers, and betrayed her fortune.

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