LA FÉE VERTE - FEUILLETON INTRODUCTION

La Fée Verte - Une nouvelle en cinq chapitres

A rather silly and somewhat strange retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen story.

Originally printed in the 2017 Advent calendar Once Upon 24 Times and owing much to Hans Christian Andersen. And CLAMP. And Kunihiko Ikuhara. And Pink Floyd. And Genesis. And William Shakespeare. And Michael Ende. And Günter Grass. And Julio Cortázar. The list is endless. 

Last year, I had the Fairytale Tarot by Lisa Hunt given to myself as an encouragement gift, right before Christmas (Spanish edition, published by Editorial Sirio). And I had the idea to let 2017's Advent Calendar be based upon the premise of drawing a card of the day from that deck and retelling the tale as a fic, a story with original characters of mine, or a poem.

It turned out to be a most pleasant surprise. Many bunnies from my old bunny farm came back, all of them pêle-mêle, thanks to that impetus.
Including the one for an Enjoltaire Snow Queen AU. A bunny which had been lying dormant for years, like a puzzle whose pieces I was struggling to put into place: Enj as Gerda and R as Kai, first things first: Grantaire is the realist at best and cynic at worst, dark-haired, stubbly, more muscular one (making him the more masculine-looking one) and he struggles with addiction but still has Enj for a guiding star and redeeming factor... Enjolras looks distinctly girly, with long golden hair, and a slender waist and limbs, and is dressed in scarlet, just like Gerda (most illustrators and character or costume designers have her wear red to symbolise the warmth of her feelings; the icing of the cake is the royal velvet ensemble in Christian Birmingham's illustrations, trimmed and frogged with golden soutaches making her look even more Enjolraic)!

You see what I mean? 

And here we can see her with Kai

And most surely Marius and Cosette as the Prince and Princess. A better-looking dark-haired bohemian and his fiancée-young wife; also, my straight OTP to mirror my queer OTP in the leading cast. And the Mariusette pairing arc in canon also mirrors the Fourth Story subplot of the fateful test-interview (not to mention Shakespeare's Portia, which was most likely the inspiration for Andersen!). The hair colour of the princess is something that fluctuates between adaptations: Christian Birmingham made her a brainy brunette, for instance, Edmond Dulac gave her powdered hair, and in the Atamanov film and Manuel Sumberac illustrations, she is a ginger. Fair nutbrown, like caffè latte, in The Fairytaler. But there are versions, like the Elspethdixon fic or the Nicki Raven retelling, or the illustrations by Sanna Annukka or Enrique Bernárdez or Rie Cramer (below), in which she is golden-haired or Titian-haired, as a young adult Gerda to her prince's young adult Kai -and of course Cosette may be the straight Enjolras to Marius's straight Grantaire!

Sanna Annukka 

 

Enrique Bernárdez

Rie Cramer

The next piece fell into place the winter before the AU was published (2016), as I did the FutureLearn MOOC course "Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales", and had a chat with a French coursemate of mine. Our chat went on something like this:

• Fabienne Ellis23 NOV
• Going back to the Robber girl...is it just me or does she remind anybody of Gavroche in Les Miserables or rather the depiction of Gavroche on Delacroix's painting "liberty leading the people",where, just like the robber girl, he brandishes his two pistols ?
  ...or maybe that is just me being far too French..

Sandra Elena Dermark Bufi

23 NOV

Yes, she reminds me of both Éponine and Gavroche.

23 NOV (Fabienne)

True, she has Eponine's plucky personality too ! 

Sandra Elena Dermark Bufi

23 NOV

And she renounces to Kai to let him have his Gerda, much like Éponine when it comes to Marius (only that, unlike Éponine and the Little Mermaid, the Robber Girl does not sacrifice her own life).

Emma Robertson 24 NOV

Okay, I have to see Les Miserables now!

And from that moment on, I had cast the robber maiden in my Enjoltaire fusion. The icing on the cake is that the Thénardier girl is the spitting image of the dark-featured robber maiden!
With her Maman as the robber woman and the rest of the Patron-Minette as the other brigands.

Christian Birmingham

Anastasia Arkhipova

I felt that I had left 'Ponine to deal with the korrigans and not given Enj enough demanding tasks by means of having him run thrice around the fort. So the thorn bush came in handy; it also echoed Sleeping Beauty and added more symbolism of warmth and blood to the story and to Enj's character arc in both canon and this Snow Queen fusion.

Rie Cramer

Angela Barrett -- this illustration inspired A LOT of the Enjonine chapter

But still something seemed to be amiss. It took yet another year to realise that the original Andersenian Snow Queen was not the right villainess for the story.

After re-reading Les Misérables and re-watching Moulin Rouge that winter 2017, and then a subsequent re-read of The Silver Chair, it suddenly clicked. It just said click when I thought of the Green Faery of Absinthe, as a Lady of the Green Kirtle - click, like that - and the final piece of the puzzle fell into place. It all suddenly made sense. The shard of the shattered mirror of truth was, in consequence, replaced with absinthe - the green blood of the temptress - as the catalyst for Grand'R's downfall.

I had the bunny for a Snow Queen Enjoltaire AU just like this one since long ago. Including whom to cast as the prince and princess, and the robber maiden (some unrequited, one-sided Enjonine, aside from obvious Mariusette!): I knew exactly how they would fit into the grand scheme of things (ie Cosette, Marius, and the Thénardier family). As well as the whole "Enj is Gerda and R is Kai" thing, and not the other way around, knowing who was the most feminine and the most masculine of the two (and, the icing on the cake: Enj is a blond in scarlet, while R has this addiction...). This classic adventure story fit this pairing, just like it fit Jaimienne, like a glove. Et voilà, it became my first Enjoltaire, and my first Mizzie, story EVER!! I figured out how to fit most of the Les Mis characters into it, for one thing. That bunny took a while to star the Green Faery as the titular villainess (I must clarify she is not my OC, but still she is the Green Faery from Moulin Rouge, with a dash of Lady of the Green Kirtle; while the Mizzie characters look as they do in the musical film of 2012... except for Enj's hairstyle: that long golden queue is from the WMT anime and the manga by Arai, aside from the SunNeko Lee manga! And I am as weak for men in low ponytails as for Enjoltaire... In the animated version, all the characters would be just like in the anime Shoujo Cosette or the Arai manga, but the Green Faery would look like Alala in Pichi Pichi Pitch!).

Alala - though I imagine her as older and larger, though with the same Perky Female Minion personality!

A lot of inspiration also came from the Laboulaye story "Perlino" (http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12120/pg12120-images.html), a Snow Queen/Pintosmalto nineteenth-century French retelling with an addicted, frozenhearted love interest "saisi d'une soif ardente" by the drug he ingests dissolved in liquor, but saved in extremis by a persistent heroine (this is the same plot, but adding Andersen elements and at least slightly queered, starring my Mizzie OTP!).

An illustration of a frozenhearted Perlino (in canon, like in this illustration, he looks far more like Enj than R, but no matter)

 Also, the effect of the intoxicant, including the withdrawal symptoms, is that of rauha. I just adore this take on the fairytale sleeping-draught and thought of absinthe with rauha...  There are also "Goblin Market" references in the form of that bloodstained awakening kiss... and Rossetti's poem, the third fairytale that inspired me for this AU, is also one of the great Victorian fairytales concerning drug addiction and sacrificial love, starring a queer couple (Laura and Lizzie, said to be "sisters," and living under the same roof; but, just like the "sibling" bond of Gerda and Kai, or Enj and R for that matter, this may rather be referring to moirallegiance). The final releasing kiss, that thaws the frozen heart, and much of the scene there I paraphrased in prose from "Goblin Market", in particular from this illustration (just think these two are Enj and R, hair colour obvious, and not Lizzie and Laura respectively)!

The potion being made from the villainess's blood and trapping the antihero in an addiction-fueled toxic relationship is from the cautionary tale "La adormidera" in the collection La vida de las flores, another of my sources. The story being a cautionary tale, however, ends in a far more tragic fashion - unlike Kai or Laura, Martín has no one to look after him and save his life, and he dies of an overdose. 

From the MOOC, I also took another Andersenian element that I mentioned as being echoed by Oscar Wilde in my comments, the painful ordeal of embracing a thornbush: As for the barren thornbush that blossoms when watered with heart's blood once a loving character's chest is pushed against the thorns...
That qualifying test of warming the thornbush had always been a poignant image, all the way since childhood. Jacob Böggild, the educator on the MOOC, gave the following analysis of the qualifying test of the thorns:
[···] contains several of the basic components of the folk tale.
[···] initiates a quest to get [···] back. Before being able to meet and fight [···] adversary, [···] must overcome a number of obstacles. 
Firstly, in order to acquire information about which way to go, [···] must [···] and then warm up the thorn bush with heart blood. 
But the story is also a psychological allegory; an allegory about what one could call the work of mourning.
[···] mental pain is then translated into physical pain by the thorns which draw blood. 
And I replied to Böggild: "as for the thorns-into-chest-heart's-blood-make-barren-rose-bush-blossom, it's such a beautiful metaphor for the good that can spring out of suffering." So a thread sprung from this, just like the Éponine/robber maiden simile:

Ritva-Liisa Cleary

30 NOV

Thank you for pointing to the other similar 'rose/thorn' stories. I read the episode as partly physical pain, but also indicating the psychological pain or sharing pain with others - other people benefited from empathy.

-----------------------------

22 NOV

I would add to the symbols of deep sorrow the scene with thorn bushes. If 

 [···], can the scene with the bushes, when  [···] clasps the bushes to  [···] breast and they go deep into [···] flesh and blood comes out, symbolise that  [···]  hurts [···]self unconciously in pain?

22 NOV

Jacob BøggildLEAD EDUCATOR

i think the physical pain reflects or symbolizes mental or psychic pain, Gayane.

Marianne Stecher-Hansen points out that "this sacrifice may represent the creator's sacrifices for their art: when one's blood flows for the thorn bush, it is the artist offering their heart to the public." Just like both Enjolras and Yours Truly, and so many other authors who have echoed the motif, have done. The motif has been echoed in subsequent literary tales by Oscar Wilde and Magda Bergquist. 
I just felt that such a cathartic motif would never be out of place in an Enjoltaire gothic fusion fic like this; it encapsulates Enjolras' character perfectly (and also echoes the refrain of La Marseillaise to a certain degree = ie the blood that will water the meadows and furrows of France). That qualifying test of warming the thornbush had always been a poignant image, all the way since childhood. I felt that I had left 'Ponine to deal with the korrigans and not given Enj enough demanding tasks by means of having him run thrice around the fort. So the thorn bush came in handy; it also echoed Sleeping Beauty (the prince making his way through) and the Tireur d'Épine in the first chapter, and added more symbolism of warmth and blood and hearts/chests to the story and to Enj's character arc in both canon and this Snow Queen fusion. Furthermore, the Biedermeier (early Victorian idyl) style in which the original tale is written unfurled in the 1820s-1830s that are most popular choice of setting for illustrators, theatre groups, and filmmakers when it comes to adapting Andersenian tales. The same historical setting of Les Misérables, long story short.
As the AU went on, it gradually unfurled into a novella, even longer than the French versions that Louis Moland and Alexandre Dumas translated of "La Reine des Neiges" by adding more detail (their mis-translation of Finnmark as "la Finlande" aside). And that notwithstanding that I pruned away all the big-lipped alligator moments in the Andersenian tale: the middle and last thirds of Story the Third (the whole flower garden of eternal springtime) and the first half of Story the Sixth (the Saami wise woman, just like a bureaucrat, merely redirects Gerda to the Finnmark wise woman with a message to deliver). So, cutting out all these big-lipped alligator moments, the basic story of The Snow Queen fits neatly into a classical Shakespearean five-act structure, I thought; and the five-act structure was implemented into this Enjoltaire fusion.

Also, Éponine became a Finnwoman+Robber-Maiden composite. I couldn't find the right people in the Mis-verse... I thought of casting Fauchelevent/Valjean as the owner of the springtime garden, but I was obliged to portray him as Cosette's guardian, so I have skipped that chapter entirely (and got earlier to Mariusette)... Ditto for finding out who would be the Finnwoman.

Then there was the inspiration from Shakespeare, from symphonic rock tunes and lyrics (Genesis: mainly Lilywhite Lilith, The Musical Box, and The Fountain of Salmacis - Pink Floyd: Crazy Diamond, Lunatic, Wish You Were Here, any song dedicated by Roger Waters to Syd Barrett [might as well be an Enjoltaire song, sent from the leader to the drugged prodigal without whom, at the end of the day, makes the group what it is]- Yes: that Roundabout that became the ending tune to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure sagas 1 and 2), from Celtic lore, from Mylène Farmer videoclips (where the French popstar has always got something of Éponine in her), from One Piece (kuroashi fighting style, which was inspired by savate), from the anime adaptations of CLAMP manga series, and many other sources; aside from my own Mediterranean upbringing and first brushes with the Scandinavian climate...

*********************************************
It wound up being faaaaaar longer than its Westerosi counterpart and spiritual predecessor, The Queen Beyond the Wall, because there is so much more lore (knowledge, culture...) to nineteenth-century France, and to nineteenth-century Europe as a whole, than to Westeros!
However, the story "La Fée Verte" I have published for Once Upon 24 Times was sentenced to be but a Director's Cut, due to the constraints of the size limits of blog posts.
It seems that La Fée Verte is exceeding the length allowed by the size limits -I have had this problem before with other fics-. So I cut out most of the commentaries -and the epilogue- from the original document in order to make it fit. I hope I can write as much as I want about this world and these characters... I wish I could, indeed. XOXO
As mentioned earlier, if your one post already exceeds the 1MB limit, there is little you can do except to split that article into separate posts.
"Your readers might be happy, if you were to segment your narrative..." I heard that advice and resolved to pay heed to it.
There is autopagination. So there is nothing to do but surrender, and leave this as but a draft-first version-director's cut of the integral story (ditto for the Baratheon saga, I must say).

And thus, for this year's Samhain (this is a pretty adult, scary version, though not bereft of fluff) I decided to post the uncut version in chapters.

PLEASURE PAST AND ANGUISH PAST

PLEASURE PAST AND ANGUISH PAST

A Gundam Wing AU - a 3/4 Retelling of Goblin Market
Rewritten by Sandra Dermark
Dedicated to Marina Lancel Fiquet

Evening by evening,

boys heard the goblins cry:

“Come buy our orchard fruits,

come buy, come buy!:
Plump unpecked cherries,

Melons and raspberries,

Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches, 

Wild free-born cranberries,

Crab-apples, dewberries,

Pineapples, blackberries,

Apricots, strawberries;—

All ripe together

in summer weather,—

morns that pass by,

fair eves that fly;

Come buy, come buy:

Our grapes fresh from the vine,

Pomegranates full and fine, 

Rare pears and greengages,

Damsons and blueberries,

Taste them and try:

Currants and gooseberries,

Fire-like loganberries,

Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrus from the South,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;

Come buy, come buy!” 

Evening by evening,

among the brookside rushes,

Trowa raised his head to hear,

Quatre veiled his blushes:

Crouching close together

in the cooling weather,

with clasping arms and cautioning lips,

with tingling cheeks and fingertips.

“Lie close,” Trowa said,

pricking up his nutbrown head:

“We must not look at goblin men,

we must not buy their fruits:

who knows upon what soil they fed

their hungry thirsty roots?”

“Come buy!,” call the goblins

Hobbling down the glen.

“Oh,” cried Quatre, “Trowa, Trowa!

You should not peep at goblin men.”

Quatre covered up his eyes,

covered close lest they should look;

Trowa reared his glossy head,

and whispered like the restless brook:

“Look, Quatre, look, Quatre...

Down the glen tramp little men.

One hauls a basket,

one bears a plate,

one lugs a golden dish

of many pounds' weight.

How fair the vine must grow

whose grapes are so luscious;

How warm the wind must blow

through those fruit bushes...”

“No,” said Quatre “No, no, no;

their offers should not charm us,

their evil gifts would harm us.”

He thrust an index finger

in each ear, shut eyes and ran:

Curious, Trowa chose to linger

wondering at each merchant man.

One had a cat’s face,

one whisked a tail,

one tramped at a rat’s pace,

one crawled like a snail,

one like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,

one like a badger tumbled hurry-skurry.

He heard a voice like voice of doves

cooing all together:

They sounded kind and full of loves

in the pleasant weather. 

 Trowa stretched his gleaming neck

Like a rush-imbedded swan,

Like a lily from the beck,

Like a moonlit poplar branch,

Like a vessel at the launch

when her last restraint is gone.

Backwards up the mossy glen

turned and trooped the goblin men,

with their shrill repeated cry,

“Come buy, come buy!”

When they reached where Trowa was

they stood stock-still upon the moss,

leering at each other,

Brother with queer brother;

Signalling each other,

Brother with sly brother.

One set his basket down,

one reared his plate;

one began to weave a crown

of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown

(men sell not such in any town);

One heaved the golden weight

of dish and fruit to offer him:

“Come buy, come buy,” was still their cry.

Trowa stared but did not stir,

longed but had no money:

The whisk-tailed, foxy merchant bade him taste

In tones as smooth as honey,

the cat-faced one purred,

the rat-faced spoke a word

of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;

One parrot-voiced and jolly

cried “Pretty Goblin!” still for “Pretty Polly!;”—

One buzzed like a hummingbird.

But sweet-tooth Trowa spoke in haste:

“Good folk, I have no coin;

To take were to purloin:

I have no copper in my purse,

I have no silver either,

And all my gold is on the furze

That shakes in windy weather

Above the rusty heather.”

“You have chocolate upon your head,”

they answered all together:

“Buy from us with a nutbrown curl.”

He clipped a precious nutbrown lock,

then dropped a tear more rare than pearl,

then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:

Sweeter than honey from the rock,

Stronger than red rejoicing wine,

Clearer than water flowed that juice;

he'd never tasted such before,

how should it cloy with length of use?

He sucked and sucked and sucked the more

fruits which that unknown orchard bore;

He sucked until his lips were sore;

then flung the emptied rinds away

but gathered up one kernel stone,

and knew not was it night or day

as he turned home alone.

Quatre met him at the gate,

full of wisest eye-light:

“Dear, you should not stay so late,

for striplings is not good twilight;

should not loiter in the glen

in the haunts of goblin men.

Do you not remember Solo?

How he met them in the moonlight,

took their gifts both choice and many,

ate their fruits and wore their flowers

plucked from bowers

where summer ripens at all hours?

But ever in the noonlight,

he pined and pined away;

Sought them by night and day,

Found them no more, but dwindled and grew grey;

Then fell with the first snow,

while to this day no grass will grow

where he lies low:

I planted daisies there a year ago

that never bloom.

You should not loiter so.”

“Nay, hush,” said Trowa:

“Nay, hush, my lover:

I ate and ate my fill,

yet my mouth waters still;

Tomorrow night I will

buy more;" and clasped him in the cover:

“Have done with sorrow;

I’ll bring you plums tomorrow

fresh on their mother twigs,

Cherries worth getting;

you cannot think what figs

my teeth have met in,

what melons icy-cold

piled on a dish of gold

too huge for me to hold,

what peaches with a velvet nap,

pellucid grapes without one seed:

fragrant and cool indeed must be the mead

whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink

with lilies at the brink,

and sugar-sweet their sap.”

Golden head by nutbrown head,

like two pigeons in one nest

folded in each other’s wings,

they lay down in their curtained bed:

Like two blossoms on one stem,

like two flakes of new-fall’n snow,

like two wands of ivory

tipped with gold for dreadful kings.

Moon and stars gazed in at them,

breeze sang to them lullaby,

lumbering owls forbore to fly,

not a bat flapped to and fro

'round their rest:

Cheek to cheek and chest to chest,

locked together in one nest. 

Early in the morning,

when the rooster crowed his warning,

as sweet and busy as e'er before,

Quatre rose with Trowa:

Fetched in honey, milked the cows,

aired and set to rights the house,

kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,

cakes for dainty mouths to eat,

next churned butter, whipped up cream,

fed their poultry, sat and sewed;

Talked as modest striplings should:

Quatre with an open heart,

Trowa in an absent dream,

One content, one sick in part;

One warbling for the mere bright day’s delight,

one longing for the night.

At length slow evening came:

They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;

Quatre most placid in his look,

Trowa most like a leaping flame.

They drew the gurgling water from its deep;

Quatre plucked lavender and golden flags,

then turning homeward said: “The sunset flushes

those furthest loftiest crags;

Come, Trowa, not another stripling lags.

No wilful squirrel wags,

all in their dens are fast asleep.”

But Trowa loitered still among the rushes

and said the bank was steep.

And said the hour was early still,

the dew not fall’n, the wind not chill;

Listening ever, but not catching

the customary cry,

“Come buy, come buy!,”

with its iterated jingle

of sugar-baited words:

Not for all his watching

once discerning even one goblin

racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;

Let alone the herds

that used to tramp along the glen,

in groups or single,

of brisk fruit-merchant men.

Till Quatre urged, “O, Trowa, come;

I hear the fruit-call but I dare not look:

You should not loiter longer at this brook:

Come with me home.

The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,

each firefly winks her spark...

Let us get home before the night grows dark:

For clouds may gather

though this is summer weather,

put out the lights and drench us through;

Then, if we lost our way, what should we do?”

Trowa turned as cold as stone

To find his comrade heard that cry alone,

that goblin cry,

“Come buy our fruits, come buy!”

Must he then buy no more such dainty fruit?

Must he no more such succous pasture find,

gone deaf and blind?

His life had been plucked from the root:

he said not one word in his heart’s sore ache;

But peering through the dimness, nought discerning,

trudged home, his pitcher dripping all the way;

So crept to bed, and lay

silent till Quatre slept;

then sat up in a passionate yearning,

and gnashed his teeth for stopped desire, and wept

as if his heart would break.

Day after day, night after night,

Trowa kept watch in vain

In sullen silence of exceeding pain.

He never caught again the goblin cry:

“Come buy, come buy!”—

he never spied the goblin men

hawking their fruits along the glen:

But when the noon waxed bright,

his face turned pale and grey;

he dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn

to swift decay and burn

her fire away.

One day, remembering his kernel-stone,

he set it by a wall that faced the south;

dewed it with tears, hoped for a root,

watched for a waxing shoot,

but there came none;

It never saw the sun,

it never felt the trickling moisture run:

While with sunk eyes and faded mouth

he dreamt of melons, as a traveller sees

false waves in desert drouth

with shade of leaf-crowned trees,

and burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.

He no more swept the house,

tended the hens or cows,

fetched honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,

brought water from the brook:

but sat down listless in the chimney-nook

and would not eat.

Tender Quatre could not bear

to watch his comrade's cancerous care

yet not to share.

He night and morning

Caught the goblins’ cry:

“Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy!”—

Beside the brook, along the glen,

he heard the tramp of goblin men,

the call and stir

poor Trowa could not hear;

longed to buy fruit to comfort him,

but feared to pay too dear.

He thought of Solo in the grave,

who should have taken war in stride;

But who for joys lads hope to have

fell sick and died

in his gay prime,

in earliest wintertime

with the first glazing rime,

with the first snow-fall of crisp wintertime.

Till Trowa dwindling

seemed knocking at death's door:

Then, Quatre weighed no more

better and worse;

but put a silver penny in his purse,

kissed Trowa, crossed the heath with clumps of furze

at twilight, halted by the brook:

And, for the first time in his life,

began to listen and look.

Laughed every goblin

when they spied him peeping:

Came towards him hobbling,

flying, running, leaping,

puffing and blowing,

chuckling, clapping, crowing,

clucking and gobbling,

mopping and mowing,

Full of airs and graces,

pulling wry faces,

demure grimaces,

Cat-like and rat-like,

badger- and wombat-like,

snail-paced in a hurry,

parrot-voiced whistler,

Helter skelter, hurry skurry,

chattering like magpies,

fluttering like pigeons,

gliding like fishies,—

Hugged him and kissed him,

squeezed and caressed him:

Stretched up their dishes,

panniers, and plates:

“Look at our cherries,

bite at our peaches,

Citrus and dates,

Grapes for the asking,

Pears red with basking

out in the sun,

Plums on their twigs;

Pluck them and suck them,

Pomegranates, figs...”—

“Good folk,” said Quatre,

mindful as any:

“Give me much and many:" —

Held out his coattails,

tossed them his penny.

“Nay, take a seat with us,

honour and eat with us,”

They answered grinning:

“Our feast is but beginning.

Night yet is early,

warm and dew-pearly,

wakeful and starry:

Such fruits as these

no man can carry:

Half their bloom would fly,

half their dew would dry,

half their flavour would pass by.

Sit down and feast with us,

Be welcome guest with us,

Cheer you and rest with us.”—

“Thank you,” said Quatre: “But one waits

at home alone for me:

So without further parleying,

if you will not sell me any

of your fruits though much and many,

give me back my silver penny

I tossed you for a fee.”—

They began to scratch their pates,

no longer wagging, purring,

but visibly demurring,

grunting and snarling.

One called him proud,

Cross-grained, uncivil;

Their tones waxed loud,

their looks were evil.

Lashing their tails

They trod and hustled him,

elbowed and jostled him,

clawed his fair face with their nails;

Barking, meowing, hissing, mocking,

tore his coat and soiled his stockings,

twitched his fair hair by the roots,

stamped upon his tender feet,

held his wrists and squeezed their fruits

against his mouth to make him eat.

White and golden Quatre stood,

like a lily in a flood,—

like a rock of blue-veined stone

lashed by tides obstreperously,—

like a lighthouse left alone

in a hoary roaring sea,

sending up a golden fire,—

like a fruit-crowned orange-tree

white with blossoms honey-sweet

sore beset by swarm of bee,—

like a royal virgin town

topped with gilded dome and spire

close beleaguered by a fleet

mad to tug her standard down.

One may lead a horse to water,

Twenty cannot make him drink.

Though the goblins cuffed and caught him,

coaxed and fought him,

bullied and besought him,

scratched him, pinched him black as ink,

kicked and knocked him,

mauled and mocked him,

Quatre uttered not a word;

Would not open lip from lip

lest they should cram a mouthful in:

but laughed in heart to feel the drip

of juice that syrupped all his face,

and lodged in dimples and in chin,

and streaked his neck, which quaked like curd.

At last the evil people,

worn out by his resistance,

flung back the penny, kicked their fruit

along whichever road they took,

not leaving root, or stone, or shoot;

Some writhed into the ground,

some plunged into the brook

with ring and ripple,

some scudded on the gale without a sound,

some vanished in the distance.

In a smart, ache, tingle,

Quatre went his way;

knew not was it night or day;

sprang up the bank, tore through the furze,

threaded copse and dingle,

and heard his penny jingle

bouncing in his purse,—

its bounce was music to his ear.

He ran and ran

as if he feared some goblin man

sought him with rant or curse

or something worse:

But not one goblin scurried after,

Nor was he pricked by fear;

The kind heart made him windy-paced

that urged him home quite out of breath with haste

and inward laughter.

He cried, “Trowa!” up the garden,

“Did you miss me?

Come and kiss me.

Never mind my bruises,

Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices

squeezed from goblin fruits for you,

goblin pulp and goblin dew.

Eat me, drink me, love me;

Trowa, make much of me;

For your sake I have braved the glen

And had to do with goblin merchant men.”

Trowa started from his chair,

flung his arms up in the air,

clutched his own fragile hair:

“Quatre... Quatre, have you tasted

for my sake the fruit forbidden?

Must your light like mine be hidden,

your young life like mine be wasted,

undone in mine undoing,

and ruined in my ruin...

Thirsty, cancered, goblin-ridden?”—

He clung about his lover;

Kissed and kissed him under the cover,

tears once again

refreshed his sunken eyes,

dropping like rain

after long sultry drouth;

Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,

he kissed and kissed with eager, hungry mouth.

His lips began to scorch,

That juice was absinthe to the tongue,

he loathed the feast:

Writhing as one possesed, he leapt and sung,

Rent all his shirt, and wrung

his hands in lamentable haste,

And beat his chest.

His quiff streamed like the torch

borne by a rider at full speed,

or like the mane of horses in their flight,

or like an eagle when she stems the light

straight towards the sun,

or like a caged thing freed,

or like a flying flag when armies run.

Swift fire spread through his veins, knocked at his heart,

met the fire smouldering there

and overbore its lesser flame;

he gorged on bitterness without a name:

Ah! fool, to choose such part

Of soul-consuming care!

Sense failed in the mortal strife:

Like a lightning-stricken mast,

Like a wind-uprooted tree

spun about, which nought can save,

like a foam-topped tidal wave

cast down headlong in the sea,

he fell at last;

Pleasure past and anguish past...

Is it death or is it life?

Life out of death.

That night long Quatre watched, astir,

counted his pulse’s flagging stir,

felt for his breath,

held water to his lips, and cooled his face

with tears and fanning leaves:

But when the first birds chirped about their eaves,

and early reapers plodded to the place

of golden sheaves,

and dew-wet grass

bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,

and new buds with new day

opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,

Trowa awoke as from a dream,

laughed in the innocent old way,

hugged Quatre once, not twice or thrice;

his skin showed not one speck of grey,

his breath was sweet as May,

and light danced in his eyes.

Days, weeks, months, years

afterwards... they told of their early prime,

those pleasant days long gone

of not-returning time:

Would talk about the haunted glen,

the wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,

their fruits like honey to the throat

but poison in the blood;

(Men sell not such in any town):

And Trowa would tell how Quatre stood

in deadly peril to do him good,

and win the fiery antidote:

then, joining hands to lily hands,

 to the end they would cling together, 

dying like Enjolras and Grantaire:

“For like love no power is there

in calm or stormy weather;

to cheer one on the tedious way,

to fetch one if one goes astray,

to lift one if one totters down,

to strengthen whilst one stands.”