“The King of Heaven.”
Many murmured, “Ah, poor thing, poor thing!”
and others, “Ah, her mind is but a wreck!”
The governor hailed Laxart, and said:
“Harkye!—take this mad child home
and whip her soundly. That is the best cure for
her ailment.”
As Joan was moving away she turned and said, with
simplicity:
“You refuse me the soldiers, I know not why,
for it is my Lord that has commanded you. Yes,
it is He that has made the command; therefore I must
come again, and yet again; then I shall have the men-at-arms.”
There was a great deal of wondering talk, after she
was gone; and the guards and servants passed the talk
to the town, the town passed it to the country; Domremy
was already buzzing with it when we got back.
Human nature is the same everywhere:
it defies success, it has nothing but scorn for defeat.
The village considered that Joan had disgraced it
with her grotesque performance and its ridiculous failure;
so all the tongues were busy with the matter, and
as bilious and bitter as they were busy; insomuch
that if the tongues had been teeth she would not have
survived her persecutions. Those persons who did
not scold did what was worse and harder to bear; for
they ridiculed her, and mocked at her, and ceased
neither day nor night from their witticisms and jeerings
and laughter. Haumette and Little Mengette and
I stood by her, but the storm was too strong for her
other friends, and they avoided her, being ashamed
to be seen with her because she was so unpopular, and
because of the sting of the taunts that assailed them
on her account. She shed tears in secret, but
none in public. In public she carried herself
with serenity, and showed no distress, nor any resentment—conduct
which should have softened the feeling against her,
but it did not. Her father was so incensed that
he could not talk in measured terms about her wild
project of going to the wars like a man. He had
dreamed of her doing such a thing, some time before,
and now he remembered that dream with apprehension
and anger, and said that rather than see her unsex
herself and go away with the armies, he would require
her brothers to drown her; and that if they should
refuse, he would do it with his own hands.
But none of these things shook her purpose in the
least. Her parents kept a strict watch upon her
to keep her from leaving the village, but she said
her time was not yet; that when the time to go was
come she should know it, and then the keepers would
watch in vain.
The summer wasted along; and when it was seen that
her purpose continued steadfast, the parents were
glad of a chance which finally offered itself for
bringing her projects to an end through marriage.
The Paladin had the effrontery to pretend that she
had engaged herself to him several years before, and
now he claimed a ratification of the engagement.
