Chapitre 7: Printable

“Messieurs,” said the Count of Monte Fato, entering, “please accept my deepest apologies for

suffering you to anticipate me in coming here, when I should rather have transported myself to

you; but I feared that introducing myself earlier would have been indiscreet, and that you would

have died, if you are not of tougher material than you seem.”

“Arafrantz and I owe you a thousand thanks, monsieur le comte,” replied Réginard. “You have

veritably rescued us from a black pit, where Orcs prowl and wolves howl, and we were in the

middle of inventing the most fantastic avian vehicles when your gracious invitation reached us.”

“Eh, mon Érou, messieurs!” responded the Count, making a sign for his guests to be seated on one

of the elegant mithril divans. “It’s the fault of that long-haired imbecile of an Orlando if I

left you so long in distress! He never said a word to me about your embarrassment, to me who, as

solitary as Gandault in prison – or more so, for at least he had a moth to keep him company –

wished for nothing more than to make the acquaintance of my neighbours. As soon as I learned of

the extremes to which your misfortune had driven you in your search for aerial transport, you see

with what eagerness I seized the opportunity to offer my compliments.”

The two bowed. Arafrantz had still not uttered a word, uncertain as he was whether to make

allusion to the hashberry of the past, or let time show him more proofs – nothing in the Count

indicating any desire to be recognized. Nevertheless, Arafrantz decided to lead the conversation

where it could resolve certain doubts. “Monsieur le comte,” said he. “You have already procured

for us eagles and windows in the Palazzo Tralalalli; could you also obtain for us a seat on the

Piazza de’ Calaquendi?”

“Ah, oui, c’est vrai,” said the Count with a distracted air, and looking intently at Pérégrin

with large red expressionless eyes. “Isn’t something like an execution supposed to take place

there?”

“Yes,” said Arafrantz, seeing that the discussion, like Gandault in the mines of Morie, was going

exactly where it should.

“Wait,” said the Count. “I believe I asked one of my Orcs or Trolls or Balrogues to take care of

this little matter yesterday.” He pulled three times on a chord that had been hand-made by

Galadriella herself. “Have you ever meditated upon the proper way of subjecting your domestics

utterly to your will?” he inquired of Arafrantz. “Moi, I have made a study of it, and find that

on the whole directly implanting your will into your servants’ minds is the most effective way of

keeping them on their toes – besides the fact that one need never doubt whether the wrong

domestic will answer your call by mistake. Voilà notre Balrogue.” And on cue the Count’s

intendant, a dark shadowy shape with a hidden fire, entered the room and bowed.

“Monsieur Roguccio, did you procure seats on the Piazza de’ Calaquendi as I ordered you

yesterday?”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” said the intendant. “Those which had been rented to Prince Pyotr

Djaksonoff, but I had to burn …”

“Bien, bien, that’s good enough, monsieur Roguccio. Spare these messieurs the details de ménage.

You may go and see to it that the coachman has the proper address … and inform us when luncheon

is served.”

“These messieurs will do me the compliment of dining with me?” he added. “For I fear that the

board in this city is not all that one would wish.” (As indeed it was not; for no cuisine is

more abominable than that of the Elves.)

“Really, monsieur le comte,” said Réginard. “That would be to abuse your kindness.”

“On the contrary,” said the Count. “Perhaps you will return the favor some day in Annuminas.

Monsieur Roguccio, prepare three places.”

Roguccio bowed and left.

The Count picked up a newspaper and began leafing through the Style section. “’Today, the 22

February, will be executed Vermilingo Smeagollo, guilty of murthering the very respectable and

venerable person of Don Deagollo Frodoni, canon of the church of St. Lutienna of the Long Hair,

and the one named Pippino, convicted of complicity with the detestable bandit Luigi Vanya …’ Hum!

‘The first will be goblinato, the second decapitato.’ Yes, indeed,” resumed the Count.

“That was how things were originally planned, but I believe there’s been a change, and that …”

(he glanced at the newspaper, as if to recall the name) “Pippino will be accorded mercy. That

deprives you of the guillotinade, but the goblinata remains – it is a very curious punishment

when you see it the first time, or even the second … My first time was when some rebel eagles

were executed for refusing to take passengers to Mordor. Fifteen birds in five fir trees … What,

I wondered, would the authorities do with the amusing little things? The guillotine, on the

other hand, is boringly predictable; it never fails, never needs to be repeated three times, as

happened to the Count of Brie … Bha!” exclaimed the Count contemptuously. “Don’t speak to me

about hobbites and their punishments; they are at the infancy, or rather the decrepitude of the

art of cruelty.”

“In verity, monsieur le comte,” replied Arafrantz. “You seem to have made a comparative study of

means of execution.”

“There are few I have not seen,” replied the Count, drily. “Few subjects are more interesting

than the study of the divers ways in which the spirit can leave the body. The goblinata is the

best that the Elves have been able to devise: it consists in roasting the victim alive, stewing

him in a pot, frying him, boiling him, and finally baking him hot. As you can see, it is rather

simplistic, but affords nonetheless an interesting spectacle. The Free Peoples do not comprehend

that, while death may be a punishment, it is not an expiation.”

“I don’t understand you,” replied Arafrantz. “Please explain yourself, because I cannot tell you

to what extent you pique my curiosity.”

“Listen,” said the Count, and his face became a frightful mask, and in the sockets of his eyes

and his nostrils there burned a flame. “If a man had made disappear, among horrible torments,

your family, your mistress, your pipe-weed, your Precious, in short one of those beings whose

absence leave an eternal void, as empty and barren as the field of Gorgorot, where nothing lives,

not even the leprous growths that feed on rottenness, leaving you with no hope but to die in the

dust, dust! – do you think the reparation would be sufficient?”

“But did not Gandault write: ‘Many that live deserve death in excruciating torments. And some

who die in torments deserve cognac. Can you give that to them? Be not so eager then to dispense

death in judgement, taking pleasure in inflicting torture. Rather get thyself a pipe, some

crêpes, and a flagon of good Mordeaux.’”

“I always get myself a good Mordeaux while my lidless Eye watches evildoers be put to a cruel

death,” said the Count. “But while the laws of the hobbites may suffice to punish a relatively

trivial thing like murder, there are a million torments that may devour a man’s heart without

society caring more than for a misattributed text in Gandault’s Lettres. Are there no crimes

for which neither the razors of the Dweargues, nor the frying pans of the Orcs, nor yet the poems

of Bombadil would be an adequate punishment?”

“There are,” said Arafrantz. “It is to punish them that the flame war has been instituted.”

“Bha!” snorted the Count. “I would fight a flame war for a bagatelle, a lie, an insult, and with

all the more insouciance given that, thanks to my possession of the bane of Isildour, I am

certain to kill my adversary. But for a slow, profound suffering, in the halls of lamentation,

where thy flesh be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked …: eye for eye, tooth for

tooth, ring-finger for ring-finger, foot-hair for foot-hair, as the Haradrins, our teachers in

all things, say in their wisdom – those elects of creation who have known how to make a life of

pipe-dreams and an Aman of realities. … But my word of honor, messieurs, this is a singular

conversation for a day of Carnival! How came we to discuss the art of capital punishment? Ah, I

remember now, it was your request for a window … But if I am not mistaken, our meal is served.”

During the dinner, Arafrantz glanced at Réginard to see what effect the Count’s rather sanguinary

views had had on him – which apparently was none whatsoever, whether on account of Réginard’s

habitual insouciance or because the food was unusually good – especially to one who has had the

misfortune of subsisting for several days on lembasagna, without any doubt one of the worst

eatables in Terre-moyenne. The entrée consisted of the most charmingly dubious mushrooms

Arafrantz had ever seen; and the conversation deteriorated somewhat after the Count had turned

into an enormous Portobello mushroom.

After recovering from this repast, Arafrantz took out his watch. “You will excuse us, monsieur

le comte, but we have a thousand things to do. We must buy ourselves some of the golden masks of

Lorienna.”

“Do not concern yourself with that,” replied the Count. “I will provide costumes at our private

box at the Piazza de’ Calaquendi.”

“Before the scaffold?” cried Arafrantz.

“The scaffold forms part of the feast. Not uncommonly, scantily clad elf-maidens perform the

most exquisite pirouettes during the prisoner’s dying gasps.”

“Monsieur le comte, I thank you very much for your graciousness, but I will accept the eagle and

the windows, and dispense with my seat at Piazza de’ Calaquendi.”

“But you will miss a very curious thing,” said the Count.

“You will relate to me afterwards; I have no doubt that your account will be so vivid that I will

seem to be there in person. In any case, I have never been able to attend an execution. And

you, Réginard?”

“I was at the execution of Lothon; but I think I was a little drunk,” replied the Viscount. “We

had been celebrating my coming of age in a cabaret, and some of my cousins and I had set up an

impromptu orchestra while Éveraud and Mélilotte danced the can-can …”

“Moreover,” said the Count, “just because you haven’t done something in Annuminas is no reason

not to do it abroad. If you miss the execution, then when people ask you, how do Elves put

criminals to death, you will look rather silly. And besides, they say the condemned man is a

rogue who strangled his benefactor and bit off his ring-finger under the mistaken belief that his

ring was a ring of power. Morgot! When one takes up arms against a man of the church, one finds

a more fitting weapon than one’s fangs, especially if the priest has raised you like a son and

removed the rope that the cruel minions of justice had used to bind him as a penalty for making

love to someone else’s spider. If you were travelling in Rhoûne, you’d go to see the wild-kine

fights, no? How is this any different, except in being a good deal more entertaining?”

“The Count’s eloquence has decided me!” said Réginard. “We would indeed be milksops not to go.”

Arafrantz bowed his head to the inevitable, and vowed to smuggle some of the Count’s mushrooms to

the event in hopes of rendering it bearable.

A domestic arrived and announced that a man disguised as a gypsy faith-healer wished to speak to

the Count.

“Messieurs,” said the latter. “If you pass back into the salon, you will obtain fine cigars of

Yavanna there; I will rejoin you in an instant.”

“How do you find the Count?” asked Arafrantz of Réginard, as soon as they were alone.

“I find that he is charming, that he is a philosopher of the calibre of Gandault, and that he has

excellent cigars,” replied Réginard promptly, inhaling one of the latter. “And you?”

“He seems a bit above my likes and dislikes,” said Arafrantz tactfully. “I did wonder,

nonetheless, why he kept staring at you.”

“Nothing astonishing about that,” said Réginard. “Since it’s almost a year since I’ve been in

Annuminas, the Count will have taken me for a provincial, possibly even for a Boucquelandier. I

beg you, disabuse him at the earliest opportunity.”

The arrival of the Count brought this conversation to an end. “It is now half-past noon,” he

said. “We have no time to spare.”

~~~

On the way to the eagle, Arafrantz espied the Palazzo Tralalalli looming like a tree-borne

volcano. “Which are your windows?” inquired Arafrantz of the Count as they mounted the Count’s

eagle.

“The last three,” said the Count with an indifference that had nothing of affectation, for he

could not know to what purpose the question was posed.

Arafrantz looked and, voilà, the last three windows had curtains bearing a large red … eye.

There could not be the slightest doubt: the Count was indeed the mantled aristocrat whom

Arafrantz had heard holding secret colloquies at the Teleporneum, as tourists yelled in

touristese.

Before long, the eagle deposited the three at the Count’s loggia on the amphitheatre called

Piazza de’ Calaquendi. Arafrantz barely noticed the lavish warg-costumes that the Count had

placed at his guests’ disposal; for his attention was drawn to the horrific spectacle of the

guillotine, in the likeness of a swan, whose beak was of burnished gold – so much beauty in an

object of death! And those two elves in Lincoln green: those were the assistants of the

executioner! Arafrantz felt queasy, and fervently wished he had remembered to bring some

mushrooms along. The elves, however, apparently regarded this ceremony as a charming event to

bring their children to see. Instead of reverence before the sombre spectacle of death, laughter

mingled with drunken singing of “Elberette, gentille Elberette” and children playing hangman.

Evidently, immortals were of a remarkable sang-froid.

Finally, the executioner appeared, dressed in a clown costume.

Arafrantz glanced at Réginard; he was pale, and had – unheard of event – thrown away his cigar

half-smoked. The Count, on the other hand, looked jovial, and if anything bore an expression of

mildness and contentment, sipping his cognac as if he were in the finest salon in Annuminas.

The condemned arrived, Pippino with a lordly air, as if he were the prince of the halflings at

the court of the steuard, and Smeagollo looking base, cruel, and both stinky and slinky – in

short, not at all the sort who would have conquered many ladies’ hearts at the annual ball at

Rivendeau.

At the moment in which Pippino arrived at the foot of the guillotine, a penitent cloaked in grey,

with yellow boots and a silver beret, approached the official in charge of the execution, though

all the hosts of Lottaloria stood between them, and handed him a small sheet of paper. Having

read the paper, the official raised a hand and said, “May Elberette be praised, and may Her

Buxomness be blessed!” he cried. “Clemency is granted to Pippino. Eglerio! Andave laituvalme

Alatariella!”

“Praise her with great praise!” cried the people.

But Smeagollo struck a discordant note. “Clemency for Pippino? Why clemency for him and not for

me? So wise they are, so just, so very just,” he added sarcastically. He threw himself from the

hands of the two elf-sages who held him, and writhed and tried to bite the rope. “The rope burns

us, Precious, but yet more burns us the knowledge that he will live and I will die! He’s a

villain and a mushroom-thief. Kill him!”

“Look, look,” said the Count, seizing each of his companions by the hand. “Look – for, by my

soul, it is a curious spectacle. Here is a man who was resigned to his fate, who was going to

die like Morgot the Coward, it is true – but at any rate without protest. Do you know what gave

him strength? It was the knowledge that another shared his fate, like the companions of Félagond

devoured by the werewolf! Lead you two talking foxes, two huornets, even two critics to

slaughter, and spare the life of one; its companion will bleat for joy in the knowledge that the

other is saved. Not so man, the lord of creation! Unhappy Men, race of crocodiles, baseborn

mortals, who in the realm of Morgot have learnt to creep in secret as his spies and thralls, and

for whom there will be no dawn – did not Thingolaud speak the truth of you, vile wretches?”

And the Count burst into laughter, for heart’s ease not for jest – but it was a horrible laugh of

one who had been wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and with a long burden.

The struggle between Smeagollo and his guardians continued, but, although grabbing from behind

was an old game of his, it failed to have any final effect on his current predicament. The

public, enraged against him, cried “Death!” in a loud voice. Arafrantz cast his hood over his

face.

“What are you doing?” said the Count, seizing him and throwing his hood back. “Pity? For a

wretch who murdered his own benefactor, although no one had done him harm, and now would slay yet

another, his comrade in misfortune, were his hands not tied – in short, a sneak who means to

throttle victims in their sleep and drink their blood, who even cuts down trees that he should

not? Ma foi, your pity is well-placed! He deserves death. No, look!”

Despite all his efforts, Smeagollo was placed in the cauldron and goblinated.

“I feel sick,” said Réginard, gagging as if caught in the dust-heap of L’Anfauglisse. Arafrantz

did not speak. The Count stood erect, with the triumphant smile of a Balrogue.

~~~

When he came to, Arafrantz looked around and saw that every trace of the horrific scene he had

just witnessed had vanished, like a trick of elvish magic or a Nazghoule that had overindulged in

his Ring. Réginard, a bottle of cognac in one hand, was mechanically putting on his

warg-costume. Since there was no point in playing the petite maîtresse, Arafrantz followed the

example of his companions and pretended, as far as one possibly can when one is recovering from a

faint, that nothing more untoward than a mild embarrassment at a hobbite contredanse had taken

place. At least, he reasoned, the warg-disguise would conceal his pallour. The elvish populace

was overflowing with gaiety, and many a “Tra la la” or “Merri dol de rol” rang out over the

hubbub of miruvor-guzzling sylvans. The eagles swarmed from treetop to treetop, burdened with

harlequendils, knights, Balrogs, pierrots, goblin-barkers, pieds-orgueuilleux, and peasants, all

yelling, gesticulating, throwing confetti, rings, mallorne-fruits, phials containing the light of

the Two Cheeses, broken plates; attacking with word or projectile friend and stranger alike,

without that any have the right to take umbrage or swear oath of revenge, or indeed to do aught

but laugh, whether he will or he nill. Réginard and Arafrantz were swept up in the general

clamor, letting out Nazghoule-whoops and throwing peasants in both hands to the passengers of a

neighbouring eagle, who had knocked out one of Réginard’s warg-fangs with an enormous Ring of

Power.

From then on, battle raged over the treetops of Lorienna. The memory of what they had seen

vanished from the two friends’ memory, as it were a deceit of the Prussian Avari that had never

been. Let the reader imagine the great and beautiful via Amrotto, bordered on either side by

tree-palaces of four or five stories, with their balconies adorned with translucent pink

elf-tapestries; these balconies and windows overflowing with three hundred thousand spectators,

Elves, Men, Halflings, Dwarves, Ents, Snowmen, Balrogues, Pointy-eared Ghouls; charming women,

themselves undergoing the influence of the spectacle, let fall upon the eagles a rain of

arkenstones that one repays with mallorn-fruits; the atmosphere thickens with gragons* that

descend and niphredil blossoms that ascend; then, on the treetops, a joyous crowd, in the most

insane costumes: giant potatoes that fly, elves with the enormous mooing heads of Fell Beasts,

bombadils that seem to walk on their hind feet; and in the midst of it all a mask that, like a

vision of Luthienne exulting in her nakedness before the nobility of Doriat, shows a ravishing

figure to the thronging mob that would follow her, but for the Balrogues who attend her and bar

all comers – imagine this, and you will have but a feeble picture of the aerial glory that is the

carnival of Lorienna.

“Messieurs,” said the Count, dismounting from his eagle, “when you are weary of being actors and

wish to be spectators, you know that you have access to my windows. In the meanwhile, my eagle

and my Nazghoules (or Fantômes if you prefer) are at your disposal.”

We forgot to mention that the Count’s eagle was saddled with a bearskin, exactly like that of

Béarn in The Bear and the Coudouc, and that the two lackeys who stood before the tail feathers

wore the costumes of green goblins and waved psychedelic pumpkins at passers-by.

Arafrantz thanked the Count for his obliging offer; Réginard was in coquetterie with a full

eagle-load of charming dragon-ladies, and oblivious to all else. Some time later, Réginard, on

re-encountering the eagle with the lovely draguines, delicately placed a ring of power on the

finger of the most charming of them. No doubt the lady was ravished by this gallantry, for, on

their next meeting, she tossed a bouquet of the most succulent fungi, one of which Réginard

victoriously placed in his boutonniere; and the eagle resumed its triumphant course.

When Réginard and Arafrantz again crossed baths with the dragon-ladies, she who had thrown the

fungi clapped her hands on seeing it in Réginard’s boutonniere, and sang, “Who’s afraid of the

big bad warg, tra-la-la-la-lalli!”

“Bravo, my friend, bravo!” cried Arafrantz. “The adventure is going à merveillles, and we are

stuck in one of the best parts of the story, so that it is only too likely that a reader would

say at this point, let us continue! Do you wish to be left alone?”

“Nay,” replied Réginard. “They go heedlessly, thinking that the power of their charm suffices,

so that their mere figure will gain them an inevitable triumph. I shall teach them another

lesson.”

“In verity, my dear Réginard,” said Arafrantz, “you are as wise as Féanoir and as prudent as

Béren; and if your Luthienne comes to change you into a wolf or chauve-souris, she will have to

be very adroite or very puissante.”

*“Gragons exhale absinthe lightly tinged with the smoke of the Gauloise, and are the most

excellent possible guides to the best bordelli." – Saurtre