The Dedalus Book of French Horror: The 19th Century by Terry Hale Page B

the fluttering of the voices that had followed them to their end; the holy water had not yet settled in its fonts; the bells had been scarcely lulled after tolling at their loudest, when two small side doors, directly facing one another in this church, were opened at the same moment, and a man and a woman entered through each of them, each proceeding towards the choir. But when they saw one another they stopped, fell on one knee, and lowered their heads as if in contemplation. They knew one another; it was not chance that brought them to the same place and made them act the same way.
    The woman was not very young; but heavens! how noble she was, how graceful!
    The man, by contrast, was no more than twenty; he had large tear-filled eyes; it was happiness that caused the tears; for a smile gave his face serenity then went to find that of the woman opposite as if to say: ‘Oh! Each one of my tears upon seeing you is an angel which flows from my eyes. Ah! How well we are like this, are we not? Loving one another as we do, means that we dream of a single tomb for both of us, and if something deprived us of the hope of being flesh to flesh when we are dead in the earth, we should be sad as mourning while we live upon it.’ This is more or less the meaning of the smile given to Blondina (a childhood name, the only one she must have had) by our young man, who was called Muguetto.
    Muguetto was Spanish, a native of Tortosa, who always carried an orange blossom in his hand. His heart was made of fire, his body was filled with life and his soul was full of love. ‘When you no longer see me with this flower’, he would always tell his friends, ‘say to yourselves: Muguetto loved a woman and was deceived. Then something strange will happen between him and her.’
    ‘And what is it that will happen?’ the young dom Sangouligo, another Spaniard, interrupted mockingly one day.
    The man from Tortosa answered him first with his eyes, then added, biting his lips like a pale-mouthed flirtatious woman: ‘All of you who are listening well to me, gentlemen, might perhaps learn what would take place between her and me, if … But I shall never tell you. Vengeance, remember this if you will, holds at its centre a fragrance from the mouth of love. Which one of you would not consent to taste just the tiniest part of that? No one, I imagine. Very well! That is enough. For the taking of revenge,’ Muguetto went on, ‘a man locks himself up alone and thinks. His stomach must be empty for his head to be full. Vengeance comes a little from the heart and a lot from the mind; one must take oneself apart from the noise of men and of things, even from what resembles them; only the voices of bells and of thunder are allowed. Let the room in which you meditate be dark, narrow and warm. Pray to the Madonna, do not forget the Madonna; speak to yourself; listen out for the echo that will come from this. Be calm after disturbance; do not sing or shout; return to being silent, cold and dreamy and you will find something to satisfy your fever. Above all, no blood; for you see, unless it fell from veins that were opened, closed and then re-opened, what you would give would be only a peaceful repose.’
    Those who had approached Muguetto as a fine fellow, walked away from him as from a hanged man on a gallows, while he murmured with a smile: ‘Are you pleased, Sangouligo, mocker whom I hate, and who, I know, returns me the favour?’
    I might perhaps remember and make use of his lesson, Sangouligo told himself.

    *

    Blondina’s life was wholly her own. One autumn night, as the wind blew burning and sultry, two monks, one tall, the other short, walked unsteadily along the banks of the Ebro. The cloak of the tall one seemed to conceal something other than his body; and in truth he opened it so as to place on the ground a manner of basket which contained a child.
    ‘Let us hope that the child does not wake and cry out!’ said the other monk.
    ‘We have