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"With all the modern stories you know the formula an ounce of sordidness, a flavor of sensationalism, a dash of sex " One had to look back for the real thing Aucassin and Nicolette, and all the rest. "That's why I haven't married." "Well, I have often wondered." "If I loved a woman, I should want to make her life all glow and color and mine with her " Anne's eyes were shining.
Together with the Chanson de Roland though in such an infinitely different style Aucassin et Nicolete represents the most valuable elements in the French poetry of this early age.
"Aucassin," she said suddenly, almost fiercely, "can you really jest? Tell me this, do you love me?" "I love you," I said simply; "and it is just because I love you so much that I have talked as I have done. No man situated as I am who loved you could have talked otherwise."
And Aucassin crept in and looked through a gap in the fragrant walls of the lodge, and saw the stars in heaven, and one that was brighter than the rest. Does one not feel it, the cool of that old summer night, the sweet smell of broken boughs and trodden grass and deep dew, and the shining of the star?
"The damoiseau was tall and strong, and the horse whereon he sat fierce and great, and Aucassin laid hand to sword, and fell a-smiting to right and left, and smote through helm and headpiece, and arm and shoulder, making a murder about him, like a wild boar the hounds fall on in the forest.
If she had not had a jewel in the world, she would not have kept his sapphire. Didn't he know that? But how could he know? To him it had been "a sweet dream a rare old tale," and she had thought him a Romeo ready to die for her sake, an Aucassin willing to brave Hell rather than give her up, a Lohengrin sent from Heaven! She shuddered and hid her face in her hands. At last she crept into bed.
With a stern bow her father turned from me to join her; but she suddenly slipped past him, threw her arms round me, and kissed me one long passionate kiss. "Aucassin, be true," she cried, "I will never forget you, no one shall come between us;" and then bursting into tears, she buried her face in her hands and followed her father from the room.
These adventures are of the simplest sort, adventures which seem to be chosen for the happy occasion they afford of keeping the eye of the fancy, perhaps the outward eye, fixed on pleasant objects, a garden, a ruined tower, the little hut of flowers which Nicolette constructs in the forest whither she has escaped from her enemies, as a token to Aucassin that she has passed that way.
Myths are to be judged, as M. Sorel says, by their ability to express aspiration. They stand or fall by that. In such a test the Christian myth, for example, would be valued for its power of incarnating human desire. That it did not do so completely is the cause of its decline. From Aucassin to Nietzsche men have resented it as a partial and stunting dream.
Then the beauty that is thine Did he look on; and it fell That the Pilgrim straight was well, Straight was hale and comforted. And he rose up from his bed, And went back to his own place Sound and strong, and fair of face." Thus Aucassin makes a Legend of his lady, as it were, assigning to her beauty such miracles as faith attributes to the excellence of the saints.
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