The Count of Monte Fato

Chapitre 13. L’éclat du Passé.

Before leaving for the Morrie residence at rue Jadis-Joppelin, the Count requested permission to visit Shélobe through her maid of honour, an orquette. The young spider-woman was in an apartment entirely separate from that of the Count.  This apartment was furnished in the style Mordor, so that, instead of a bed, Shélobe reclined on a divan of spider-web woven in the most intricate arabesque design; the curtains were of similar make.  Exotic viands hung from strings attached to the wall. Shélobe possessed many exits from her alcove, which she employed to dispatch her attendants in search of food.  The latter must always be well-spiced; for never would she drink cold coffee nor eat cold meat.

The young woman was lying in the most remote part of her apartment, that is, in a round bewebbed boudoir, in which the light of day never penetrated.  She lay on one side, her head encadred in three of her four slightly rounded arms, while her fourth held in her lips the bony tube of a nazghouleh, which would not let the vapour enter her mouth but it were perfumed by eau de Morgoule.

Shélobe had become pleasantly plump through sempiternal broodings upon her unusual repasts, weaving beautiful tapestries of shadow.  Upon each of her four legs, she wore a white satin stocking, delicately enmeshed with mithril, leaving uncovered her feet, which one had taken for the most exquisite marbles of Argonault were it not for the sandals of orc-hair enlaced with sigaldry. A kind of corset let her neck and the top of her bosom be seen; it was fastened under the breast by three silmarils.  Everything between the bottom of the corset and the top of the stockings was veiled under one of those belts with long cobwebby fringes that are the ambition of our elegant Annuminasiennes.  A beautiful white Mordor rose set off her hair, which was as black as the hand of Sauron.  Her face was of a perfect arachnid beauty, the crystals of her eyes mirroring those of the candelabra that hung from the ceiling, and adding to their many colors the light of her indwelling heart.  And upon all this charming ensemble, the flower of youth spread its éclat and its perfume; Shélobe, the youngest child of Ungolianne to brighten the civilised world, had lived 451 years, and seemed not a day above 33.  So she appeared when the Count entered the apartment.

Shélobe extended her third hand to the Count with a smile, saying, “Vhy do you azzk pairmeesion zat you entairr?  Are you not ze maisterr andt I ze sclave?”

 “Shélobe,” replied Monte Fato, smiling in turn, “You know we are in Arnor, and that you are therefore free – far freer, indeed, than these hobbites and Dunédains will be when I finish my affairs here.  In fact, when you reign here as queen, every breakfast you shall be fed a glut of pâtisseries, and be swollen so that the salons will no longer contain you.”

“Vfree to do vhat?”

“Who knows?  Perhaps you will find, when we go out to the opera, some good-looking young hobbite will attract your eye; I would not be so unjust …”

“Vhat nnedt haff I to meet ozerrs.  I haff nefvverr met so hahnd-some a mahn as you, vizz your rredt eye zat looks on me vizz lawffve.  Yoo arr my Preciouss, my petite mort, and I dream off you all ze night andt all ze day.”

“Poor child,” said Monte Fato. “It is that you have hardly spoken to any but your father and me. Do you remember your father?”

“He is heerr andt hherre,” said the spider-maid, touching her eyes and her heart.  “But you, you arrrre everrryvwhferre.”

Monte Fato took Shélobe’s hand to kiss it, but the innocent withdrew her hand and presented her crystalline eyes.

“Now, Shélobe,” said the Count. “You know that you are free, you are mistress of many slaves, you are a queen among queens.  For I shall use the weapon of the Dark Lord for your glory; in place of the King I will set up a Queen, and all shall love her and despair.  You may keep your costume or leave it at whim; you will go out whenever you wish.  Only one thing I ask: do not reveal the secret of your birth; never pronounce the name of your illustrious parents.”

“I tell you, I villl zpeak to no vone,” said Shélobe.

“That altogether sudronique seclusion may not be possible here in Annuminas,” said the Count.  “You must learn the life of the northern countries as you have those of the South and even of Morie, where the local habits are rather more inflammatory than here.  That will continue to serve you, whether you return to Harade or live in the West.”

“Vhezher vee rreturrrn, you mean, eez eet no, my lorrdd?”

“Oui, ma fille,” said Monte Fato.  « You know I will never leave you.  It is not the pod that abandons the Orc, nor the wearer that abandons the ring; but the Orc that leaves the pod, and the ring its wearer.”

“I vill neeffvverr leavvfe you, my lorrrrd,” said Shélobe.  “Szooner leaffvesz ze fvly se net, orr ze Frrodo ze catfviszzsh, zan zat I should leaffve you.”

“Poor child,” said Monte Fato.  “In a thousand years I shall be an enormous red eye, but you shall still be in the flush of youthful beauty that dies not.  I fear you may grow weary.”

“Nefvverr, my lord.  Forr in ze morrrninkg I vill zinc zat you vill kome, andt ze eveningk I vill zink zat you heffv kome, andt vhen I am alone, I ave ze grret meammorries, I szzee again ze great tableaux ofv Quirithe-Oungallant, ze cafvves, andt ze zstill, zstagnant air, andt ze blakck vapourssz wrought ofv verrrritable darrrknessz itself, more reszzstful zan ze opium ofv z balrrrogks andt ze garrdenzs ofv Minas-Morgoule, verre ze perfume turrendt ze minssz ofv leevingk meen to madness, andt ze imprisszondt moonlight veldt zrough ze marble vallsz, fvairr andt rradiandt, lightingk ze vhite floversz andt buativfuul asz ze dented forrmsz ofv an uneaszy drrream.”

“You are a worthy daughter of Quirithe-Oungallant, Shélobe, gracious and poetic, and it is evident that you descend from the family of goddesses that were of old worshipped in Harade.  Be tranquil, then; I shall see to it that your beauty will never fade, for I love you as the hobbite loves the herbe-à-pipe.”  

“And I you, as ze Balrogq lovethz ze ckoffveeh.”

The Count extended a hand to the spider-maid with a smile of profound tenderness, and she imprinted it with her lips.  With that, he left murmuring the verse of Quendar, “By that pool long ago I found the river-daughter, the fair young golden-berried one, sitting in the rushes, sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating!”

~~~

The Count arrived betimes at rue Jadis-Joppelin, no. 14.  The house was white, laughing, and preceded by a courtyard whose two large banks contained quite beautiful mushrooms.

In the concierge who opened the door, Monte Fato recognised the old Céléborne.  However, as Céléborne had never been one of the great minds of Terre-moyenne, and had taken to obsessing about the boats wherein his wife had been accustomed to make her trysts, he did not recognise the Count.  

The house had, besides the rez-de-chaussée, two smiaux or tunnels in the Neo-Gondorian style.  The dining-room was of oak, the salon of willow and blue lotus; the bedroom of citronnier and pipe-weed; there was also a smoking-room for Armalvéguil Hornebloueur, who did not smoke, and a piano salon for Bilbette, who was not a musician.

The entire second floor was reserved for Meurtrier, who had converted a large part of it into a seraglio, since he was incapable of amorous adventures save with star-crossed beauties who were locked up by their cruel and vaguely sinister parents.

A Fantôme du Ring inquired of Meurtrier de Morrie, who was in the garden writing a book about the invention of the cigar, whether he and M. and Mme. de Hornbloueur were visible for the Count of Monte Fato.  (The irony of this question was regrettably lost on Meurtrier, though not on the Count.)

“For the Count of Monte Fato!” cried Meurtier, throwing away the book and the cigar-box and hurling himself in front of the visitor.  “I believe well that we are visible for him!”  (The Count smiled.)  “A thousand thanks, monsieur le comte, for not forgetting your promise.”  And the young officer shook the Count’s hand with such force, that had the latter been wearing the Ring, he must have lost it and perhaps been mutilated as well; so that he could not doubt that he was awaited with impatience and received with enthusiasm.

“Come in,” said Meurtier.  “I will introduce you; a man like you ought not to be announced by a domestic as if he were merely a trifle that had not even been finished.  My sister is in the garden concocting something out of mushrooms; my brother-in-law, who is never far away from Bilbette, especially when there is any male company in the house, is reading the flamewars in Le Gnousegroupe.”

A young woman of between twenty and twenty-five years, who was making a highly artistic sculpture out of various domestic and exotic fungi, raised her head; on seeing the stranger, she cried out, “Oh, comme ouaoue!”

“Do not derange yourself, my sister,” said Meurtrier.  “Monsieur le comte has not been in Annuminas but two or three days, but he already knows who is la Silmarilette du Marais; and if he does not, you will teach him.”  (The Marais was a district renowned for its mushroom groves, cultivated by the family of Magot since the reign of Aragon XIII.  The Magot family were also known for their vicious attack poodles, which had played a crucial role in the restoration of the Telbourbons.)

“He has an air that reminds me of … of sailors and hashberry,” said Bilbette.  “Céléborne!” she cried.  “Call Armalvéguil at once!  The Count is arriven, and the mushrooms that were withered shall be renewed!”

“Ah! Mon cher monsieur Morrie,” said Monte Fato. “I perceive with sorrow that I have brought about a revolution in your family.”

“Tenez, tenez,” said Meurtier laughing, “it is that you are known in rue Jadis-Joppelin, and that your coming was foretold by Malbet the wit:


The Count laughed.  “That is truly diverting!” he said.  “But your family seems happy.”  

“Of course,” said Morrie.  “They are young, they love each other, and with their 25, 000 floquerins of rent per year, they imagine that they will be rich as the Glamhothschilds or Bilbon.”

“It’s so little, however, twenty-five thousand floquerins,” said Monte Fato with the gentleness of a balrogue feeding coals to its balroguelets.  “I was robbed of ten times that once, and would never have noticed the difference, had not my intendant amused me greatly by burning the perpetrators to a crisp.”

“And much fighting of the long debt did it take them to achieve that much,” said Morrie.  “For an unpleasant competitor by the name of Smaugue le Dragon undercut them in their every endeavour.”

“I must remember to have one of my lackeys occupy himself of that,” said the Count.  “Your story is attendrissant.”

At this point, they reached the salon, which was perfumed by flowers barely contained in a vase from Rhoûne adorned with a beautifully calligraphic haiku about rings.  One heard the song of those charming insects called niquebriquiers from a nearby cage. Bilbette, suitably clad and marvellously coiffed in the most modern “style parapluie”, and with admirably polished nails (she had accomplished this barad-tour de force in ten minutes), presented herself to receive the Count at his entrance.

Monte Fato remained mute for several seconds at such a picture of happiness, that seemed an echo of Valinor in the day before days when the Two Cheeses, Laurelingot St.-Bousquet d’Orb and Tellepinière, wafted their fragrance through the Blessed Realm. He perceived that this silence had become almost unseemly, and, tearing himself from his rêverie, said at last: “Madame, forgive me an emotion that must astound you, you are accustomed to the peace and contentment that reign here, for we who have lived under the Shadow of Bad Taste have rarely had an opportunity to perceive the echoes of a home untroubled by it.  A plague on bankers and their stiff cravats!”

“We are indeed happy, monsieur le comte,” said Bilbette.  “But we had to suffer long.  Few have bought their happiness more dearly since the dowry of Luthienne.  But Érou and the Valards do indeed aid he unfortunate; for they sent us one of their messengers, to contest the power of our creditors, and to place upon our absinthe a spell of surpassing quality that has endured ever since.”

The Count became bright red, and hastened to veil himself in shadow, that he might conceal his emotion.  Having recovered, he said, “Grief does indeed make happiness all the sharper, like the swords of the Noldor.  Had Béren not lost his hand in a bet with Carcharot the Loup-garou, his winning of Luthienne and the silmaril serait tout à fait banal.”

Monte Fato began to pace around the room.

“Our magnificence makes you smile, as a gamin might threaten a full-clad brigadier with a water-blunderbuss,” said Meurtier.

“Non, non,” said the Count, paler than the tobacco of Ithiliande and suppressing the palpitations of his heart with one hand, whilst, with the other, he pointed at a small grey box of wood, half-open, marked with an S, and containing one of the lesser rings of power with a tag that read “Bilbette’s Dowry.”  The box was set in imperishable crystal.

“This,” said Meurtier gravely, “is the most precious of all our family heirlooms, more sacred than the living hands of Galadriella.”

“Indeed, the ring is fort beau,” said the Count.

“My brother does not speak of its price, monsieur le comte” said Bilbette.  “We keep this as a memorial to him who succoured us in our need, and delivered us from the wrath of the creditors even as Thingolaud did with Turin the Gambler.  And although the letter on the box is a mystery to us, we always say S for “saviour.’  And at meal-tide, we stand and face the south in his remembrance.”

The Count bowed and said, “I hope I have not been indiscreet.”

“Indiscreet?” cried Bilbette. “Au contraire, monsieur le comte, you make us happy in providing us an opportunity to dilate upon such a subject!  Did not Béren rejoice to sing of the bounty shown him by Luthienne of the Unnumbered Lingeries?  We have not encased this instrument of the benediction of the Valards in imperishable crystal that we might conceal it like the bastard children of Saroumand!  We would have eagles proclaim it to the entire world, that we might know our benefactor from a golden tear that might effuse from his beloved eye.”

“Ah, veritably?” said Monte Fato in a choked voice, trying to conceal the brightness of his own red eye.

“Monsieur,” said Meurtrier, lifting the crystal and devoutly kissing the S on the grey box, “this has touched the hand of a man, or rather of one the blessed lackeys of the Valards, who saved my father from the assault of the creditors, who had triumphed over him so utterly that none could foresee his rising again, and it seemed he was destined to perish utterly in a black bankruptcy far from living lands.  This letter (and Meurtrier drew a letter from the box and presented it to the Count) was written by him to my sister at a time when my father had succumbed to folly and despair, as if cozened by the Dark Banker himself, and this ring was given to my sister as a dowry, and rejoiced us a blessing greater than the cigars of Yavanne.”

The Count took the letter and read it with ineffable happiness; it was the note Éarendeau le marin had delivered to Bilbette.

“Alas, monsieur le comte,” continued Meurtier, “we have never been so fortunate as to shake the hand of that man, which healed our souls like the ancient kings of Arnor, though not for want of praying for this blessing.  Underneath the story there is some deeper mystery, and all has been conducted by a hand so invisible that one would think the Ring of Power sat upon it.”

“I have not given up hope of kissing that hand, be it ringed or no,” said Bilbette.  “Légolon, the brave quartermaster of the Pharazon who has become gardener, said four years ago he saw a Snowman on a yacht near Ville-du-Lac, and recognised him as the selfsame whom the Valards made their instruments, so that we never say, ‘The Eagles are coming!’ but always ‘The Snowmen are coming!’”

“Perhaps this Snowman was someone whom your father had aided in years past, by … who knows … fixing his invincible bubble, perhaps.  What was his name?”

“The only name he gave was Éarendeau le marin,” said Bilbette, looking closely at the Count.  

“Ah,” said Monte Fato.  “Was it a snowman of about my height, perhaps a little taller, carrot nose, felt hat, vaguely … invincible air?”

“You know him, then?” cried Bilbette with an orgasm of joy.

“No, I only guess,” said the Count.  “I once met a Lord Adam who did good deeds anonymously, from some caprice or other, without ever letting his identity be known.  Occasionally he would go about in blue with a red cape.  Rather bizarre.”

“Oh, if you know him, monsieur, tell us, tell us, can you bring us to him?  Like to the citizens of Mina Tiretta had we given him lilies with full hands, and even mushrooms!”

Monte Fato felt two tears stream down his cheek. “Alas,” he said.  “If it be indeed Lord Adam, I fear you will never find him.  I last saw him departing for the lands of Far Harade, and fear he will never return from the seragli thereof.”

“You are cruel, monsieur,” said Bilbette.

“Madame,” said the Count gravely, regarding the tears that glistened upon the cheeks of Bilbette like two enormous silmarils upon the pearls of the Naouglamir, and seeing in her greater depth of feeling than any debate about the uniforms of the Uruc-haïs.  “Could Lord Adam have seen what I see here, he would rejoice more than if the One Ring were to give him dominion over all the earth, or if the pipe-weed of Gandault were to come into his possession.”  And he extended a hand to Bilbette, who held it more rapturously than she had, had it been the hand of Trolquien.

But then, the Count spoiled the mood, saying, “Now that I mention it, I doubt it was Lord Adam.  He was more interested in architecture than in banking.”

Bilbette began to protest, but Meurtier interrupted her.

“My sister, my sister, monsieur is right,” said he. “Remember what our father said: It was not a Snowman who gave us this happiness.”

Monte Fato trembled.  “Your father told you … monsieur Morrie?”

“My father, monsieur, saw in this event a miracle more marvellous than the transformation of Gandault on adopting the new fashions of Valinor,” said Meurtrier. “My father believed in a benefactor arisen for us from the tomb. How many times did he dream thereof, pronouncing in a low voice the name of a close friend, a friend who was as lost as the pompadours of Aragon XV or the style of the Précieux after Bilbon satirised it in his notorious Ballades de Vulcain.  Near death, when the approach of eternity had given some of the illumination of the tomb, this thought, which had formerly only been a suspicion, became a conviction, and the last words he uttered while dying were: Meurtrier, it was Samouard Gamgès!”

The Count’s pallor, which had been growing for the last several minutes, became terrifying as the exhalation of a corpse-candle at these words.  He could not speak, but for the words “Ougah-bougah,” and remained like a log with eyes for seconds uncounted before he recovered.  He took out his pocket watch (clearly the work of Durin) and put on his hat in the style of Gondor, paid Bilbette a brusque and embarrassed compliment, shook the hands of Meurtrier and Almavéguil, and said:

“Madame, permit me to come sometime to pay my respects, and to bring such blessings as I have it in my power to bestow, that your hands may run with gold, and yet the bankers over you have no dominion.  I love your house, and am grateful for your welcome, as it is the first time in long years like the leaves of the tobacco plantations of the Blessed Realm that I have so forgotten myself.”  The first thing he did on arriving home was to send a Chevalier Noir to rue Jadis-Joppelin, 14, with the goose who laid the golden eggs.

“What a singular man is the Count of Monte Fato,” said Almavéguil.

“Oui,” replied Meurtier.  “But I believe he has an excellent heart, and is our friend.”

“And I!” said Bilbette.  “His voice sang into my heart as if he combined the eloquence of Saroumand with the beneficence of Gandault, and two or three times me seemed that I had heard it before.  He has an air that reminds me … of sailors and of jewellers.”