James Flecker - The King of Alsander

"What?"

"She's taken a fancy to you all at once and goes off, leaving me alone with you as if you were a pet lamb instead of a…"

"Lascivious lion," suggested Norman. "By the way, Peronella…"

"Yes."

"Peronella, have you any more lovers?"

"How fond you are of repeating my name! Of course I have. Do I look as if I hadn't? He is called Cesano. He will be coming soon. He will certainly try to kill you. Do you mind?"

"What?"

"Being killed."

"Of course, I should hate it."

"You silly fellow. I mean, you aren't afraid?"

"I am deadly afraid of being killed, so soon after meeting you."

"Would you kill somebody for me if I asked you to?"

"Yes, unless I was likely to be hanged for it."

"I don't believe you're at all brave, or very fond of me, after all."

"I am rather frightened of you, Peronella, at all events."

Some time after, a ring at the bell interrupted some similar inane, mock-passionate conversation.

"You were talking about my lovers, dear Normano," said the girl. "If you want to see one, you have only to wait here while I open the door. Now, if that's Cesano, as I suppose it is, there will be fireworks. Be careful, Normano; he's a rival. Alsandrian lovers are not like English. They have hot blood in their veins. Listen, how he rings. He is angry already. Oh, Normano, go into your bedroom. It would be dangerous for you to stay here – "

"Nonsense; I have come to stay. Do you think I am frightened? I am longing to see this very passionate man and to learn how I ought to make love."

She undid the door and Cesano entered. He was a dark individual, a few years older than Norman, with a bulging forehead, and a black moustache. He looked very much like an English maidservant's idea of a typical Spaniard, being, furthermore, dressed in one of those horrible colour-combinations in velvet and silk that we English, perhaps the best-dressed people in the world, find so charmingly picturesque and so essentially artistic.

"Good evening, Cesano; let me introduce you to our new lodger, an Englishman."

The two men bowed to each other without saying a word. Cesano wasted no time.

"Are you coming out?" he said.

"I should like to, Cesano, but I can't possibly leave a stranger quite alone for his first night in Alsander, can I?"

"Oh, he looks as if he could look after himself, that great pink-faced lout of an Englishman. Besides, what does he matter? And he must be tired if he has only just arrived."

"I am not at all tired," said Norman. "I have been asleep all day."

Cesano gasped. It had never crossed his mind that a foreigner could understand a word of the language of Alsander.

"Then you understand me, sir? Then you don't mind?"

"I do rather. Especially since you have said I didn't matter. Particularly so since you called me a pink-faced lout of an Englishman."

"Forgive me, sir," said Cesano, with intensive courtesy. "I could not have imagined that you understood my words. It is so rarely that we Alsandrians have the pleasure of hearing foreigners speak our tongue. And as you have understood me, you have understood that I was only in jest. And if there was a little offence, you must pardon me. I am a lover. We lovers are so hasty. It is natural to be jealous of all men when one is a lover. Of course, for me to have been jealous of you, even for an instant, was purely ridiculous."

"I pardon you certainly, Signor Cesano," said Norman. "I pardon you with all my heart, but…"

Norman felt uncomfortable. He heartily wished that Peronella would go for her passion-walk with Cesano, and leave him to his too long neglected pipe. But, despite all his Englishman's vague terror of the foreigner, he had all a brave man's objections to hauling down his colours, especially in the face of so ridiculous an opponent as the Italian opera personage who stood there gesticulating at him, and whose politeness was thrice as offensive as his rudeness. So he dwelt a second on the word "but" and glanced at Peronella, who came to his aid only too gladly, and with consummate impudence took up the tale.

"Normano desires to say" – murmured the young lady in a very sweet voice – "that you have plenty of cause for jealousy."

"Cause for jealousy! What do you mean by cause for jealousy? Of him?"

"Ah! he still finds the language a little difficult to speak, you know. Even you who are native do not seem to have mastered it completely, Cesano. Yes, of course, of him!"

"But what do you mean – what do you mean? What do you dare to mean?" cried Cesano, crescendo.

"This!" Here Peronella looked up at Norman with a glance of admiration and put her arm round his waist. Proud of her new lover, she thought also that it would be more prudent to display her colours at once. Cesano staggered to the wall, doubtless moved by real emotion, but with such theatrical gestures that he appeared a mere buffoon.

"What has happened? Can I believe my eyes? Am I moon-mad? Have all the devils possessed me? Are you Peronella? Am I Cesano? Is he your lover?"

He buried his face in his hands. Peronella would not answer the poor fellow.

"What has happened? Has that pink foreigner bewitched your heart? Are you tormenting me or are you tired of me?" he cried.

"Not tired of you," said the girl, growing a little white but not relaxing her grip of Norman, "but very fond of him."

"Fond of that person? Who or what is he? I have not the honour…"

"He is an English lord who came here this afternoon to live here."

"An English lord in this mud-house?"

"It is good enough for him where I am."

Meanwhile Norman was feeling awkward enough. The girl, it seemed, had taken possession of him almost without asking him, though doubtless it was his own fault, for kissing lonely nymphs all in the morning of the world. There she was publicly avowing him, and making him feel very mean and foolish before her honest, if extravagant, lover, who now went on with a sort of portentous dignity:

"I am sorry. Forgive me, Peronella. I am confused. I cannot understand what has happened. You cannot give me up after all these months for some one you do not know at all. It is absurd. It could not be. It is fantastic. It is unreal."

"I did not know I had ever taken you," replied Peronella. "What have we ever done but go out for walks like friends?"

"But I was going to give up everything for you. Do not blast my youth."

"It has been blasted before, Cesano."

"Not like this time. I cannot sleep. Come, take away your arm, last of creatures. I cannot bear it. I will go mad. I will beat you. As for you, sir" (to Norman, in a deep bass), "I will deal with you after with cold steel!"

"Come, now," said Peronella, smoothly. "I am very sorry indeed. One cannot help the hand of Fate."

"Hand of Fate," said Cesano, in justifiable wrath. "It has driven many women to hell, that hand of Fate. Do you kiss a new man every week? Have you a price? Was I not honourable? Did we not talk of marriage? Did I not pick you coral from the sea – violets from the meadows?"

"Don't be poetic, Cesano, or I shall cry."

"Cry! Can you shed tears? I have shed many for you at night beneath your window. But you have no heart!"

"Why trouble then about so stony a young girl?"

The affected languor of her tone irritated Norman almost as much as it was intended to irritate Cesano, but he could not well desert her now, and stood his ground. Cesano sobbed, put one hand on his breast and the other on a tableknife with which he made the most threatening gestures at Norman. The latter, who understood the hand-play more than the rhetoric, could not help laughing at the grotesque but unfortunate Alsandrian.

"Ah! you laugh now!" said Cesano, ferociously. "Some day I will make you smile at the back of your head."