Count of Monte Fato, chapitre 12, part 3; 404 THIS

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Fantasy » alt.fan.tolkien » Count of Monte Fato, chapitre 12, part 3; 404 THIS

Count of Monte Fato, chapitre 12, part 3; 404 THIS [message #74583]

Mi, 06 Juli 2005 07:15

Count Menelvagor

That evening, the Count of Monte Fato travelled to his residence in
Barroue-Don, accompanied by Gali. The next afternoon, the Count
summoned Gali to his cabinet and questioned him in Haradric.

"Gali, you have often spoken, or rather signed, of your skill with
rope, is it not so?"

Gali nodded and stood up proudly.

"But will you stop two moumaques in their tracks, blundering in blind
wrath like grey moving towers of evil?"

Gali smiled.

"Eh bien, listen," said Monte Fato. "Tout =E0 l'heure a car
will pass by, drawn by two moumaques of Harade, careering down the
boulevard. Should you be crushed in the effort, you must stop that car
before my gate - the one with the newly renovated Teeth of Mordor."

Gali danced a jarjaromirade, waving a fish in token of obedience. The
Count thanked the Sudron in the manner of his own people, by hissing
/Poisssson/; Gali then went to smoke a chibouque on the corner that
separated the house from the road, bringing rope from Lottaloria with
him.

Suddenly, there was heard a distant rolling, that approached with the
rapidity of an aroused Ent; then a cal=E8che whose driver sought in vain
to hold back the oliphants advancing furiously, with their enormous
ears extending like sails, and their long snouts poised like a serpent
or industrial labourer on the verge of striking. Within the cal=E8che,
a woman and a cat held each other tight, unable for force of terror to
cry out. Four or five smiaux, or residences hobbitaines, were
destroyed. "Gare aux moumaques!" cried the onlookers. "May the
Valards render them insensible with absinthe!" "This would never
have happened under Aragon XVIII," grumbled an elderly monsieur with
a pipe. "I knew affairs were going downhill when Aragon-Philippe
tore down Sarehole in order to build the Champs-Valinor=E9es."

Gali put aside his chibouque, pulled the rope from his pocket, flung
it, enveloped the forelegs of the oliphant to the right, and dragged it
to the ground; he then inserted his chibouque into the trunk of the
second oliphant, which immediately sat upon the ground and enjoyed a
good smoke - for so permeated is Terre-moyenne with pipe-weed that
the very cherrystone clams partake thereof.

The Count dashed from the palace, followed by several servants, and, as
soon as the driver had opened the door, removed from the cal=E8che the
lady and her unconscious cat. Monte Fato brought them both into the
salon and said, while placing them on a sofa of genuine dragon-scales,
"Fear not, madame; you are saved." The lady turned, and saw the
Count, and yet not the Count, for some strange incense in the room made
him appear as a king returning from exile on an obscure Mediterranean
island to his native land.

She gazed mutely at her cat, with a look more eloquent than the prayers
of the Eldards.

"Oui, madame, I understand," said the Count, examining the feline.
"But be calm: no harm has come to him, and it is fear alone that has
brought him to this pass." Opening a phial from Goundabaden-Baden,
encrusted with gold, he fed the cat one drop of a liquor red as the
politics of the Orcs. The cat, although still pale, opened its eyes
immediately.

"Where am I?" cried the lady, delirious with joy. "And to whom
do I owe such happiness?"

"I am he who is the unfortunate cause of your chagrin, for I bought
the oliphants from Sacqueville-Danglars; but the baroness seemed so to
regret them, that I sent them back, begging her to accept them from my
hand."

"Are you then that marvel of Terre-moyenne of whom the minstrels
sing, the Count of Monte Fato?"

"Oui, madame," said the Count.

"I am B=E9ruthielle de Villefaramir, and this is my cat, or rather my
prince of cats, Thibaut."

The Count bowed as if he had never seen her name spelled nor heard it
spoken.

During a moment of silence, Monte Fato contemplated the cat whose owner
covered it with kisses. This creature was a mighty cat and coal-black
and evil to look upon, and when he mewled it turned the blood cold and
made poodles fall lifeless to the ground; and he had evidently partaken
of far too much catnip for one his age. His first movement was to
disengage himself brusquely from his owner's arms, and to open the
cabinet whence the Count had obtained the elixir.

"Do not touch that, my friend," said the Count. "For it contains
substances that are perilous even to breathe; if you dare, sooner or
later the dark power will devour you."

At this moment, Gali entered, and Madame de Villefaramir made a
movement of joy.

"See, Thibaut, the good servant who risked his life to save you from
the wrath of the oliphants," she said. "Thank him, for without his
aid we would assuredly both be dead, and the halls of Mandaux are not
amusing at all." The cat turned its head disdainfully, and said,
"Get you gone; for you smell of tuna, a fish so tasteless that I
cannot tolerate its odor."

The Count smiled, as if the feline had fulfilled one of his hopes; but
Gali looked as offended as if he had been accused of smoking an
inferior variety of hashberry.

"Monsieur," said Mme de Villefaramir, rising, "is this house your
habitual abode?"

"Non, madame; it is merely a little pied-=E0-terre I bought myself; I
live at Champs-Valinor=E9es, No. 30. But I see, madame, that you have
recovered and wish to be on your way. I will order Gali, this boy who
smells of tuna" - he smiled at the cat - "to attach the
moumaques to my car and drive you home."

"I would not dare with those oliphants."

"Have no fear; under the hand of Gali, they will be as tame as
Acefalot, the legendary equine seducer." And so it happened; for
after Gali had fed them some narcotic fish, they were barely able to
sustain a trot.

The Count followed this marvel by paying a princely sum for the
restoration of the buildings destroyed by the charge of the moumaques;
for hobbites can work like bees when the mood and the financial
incentive strikes them. The fa=E7ades were entirely redone, with a
Haradric eye-motif that the inhabitants found enchanting, and were with
the typical bon sens hobbitain renamed /Smiaux Meilleurs/.

On arriving home, Mme de Villefaramir immediately wrote a letter to Mme
de Sacquevile-Danglars, telling her that, although yesterday she had
with difficulty restrained herself from mocking the baroness's
enthusiasm for the Count, she now found that enthusiasm to be as far
beneath his true value as the wine-cellars of Sauron are beneath the
eagle-borne caf=E9s of Manvre. Before long, tongues were wagging in the
fashionable monde of Annuminas: R=E9ginard related the occurrence to his
mother; Ch=E2teau-Renard sang of it at the Foxtrot-Club; De Brie in the
salon of the minister; Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel
Boyen-X=E8nes-Baguines himself paid the Count the compliment of devoting
twenty lines to the affair in the /Leaf du Shir=E9/. And the
aelurophilous lady's husband, M. de Villefaramir, hastened that very
evening to visit the Count at Champs-Valinor=E9es.

Well-received at the Court, whether the reigning monarch belonged to
the elder branch or the cadet branch, whether the minister were
doctrinaire, conservative, or radical; hated by many, but protected by
some, without, however, being loved by any, even his mistresses,
Villefaramir held one of the highest positions of the magistrature, a
position to which he clung with the tenacity of a Gollon clinging to
the style of the Pr=E9cieux long after it had fallen from fashion. His
salon, though rejuvenated by a young wife and the daughter of a
previous marriage, remained the most severe in Annuminas. Cold
civility, absolute fidelity to governing principles, profound contempt
for theories and theoreticians, deeming them but the webs of wizards
and the hopes of fools - such were the elements of M. de
Villefaramir's public and private life. None opposed him, for fear
that they, like Guillaume Piedblanc, the former leader of the popular
party, would find themselves transported to the Ch=E2teau des
Locqueholles. The office of steuard constituted an inexpugnable
fortress, whose advantages he exploited to the fullest; although in
verity, had he and not the Count received the Ring, it had overthrown
not only him, but the dynasty of the Telbourbons as well.

M=2E de Villefaramir made few visits, preferring to send his wife in his
stead; he was never seen at the theatre, or the opera, or the ballet;
when he gave balls, he only appeared for a quarter of an hour.
Sometimes, but rarely, he played a hand of whist; but he always ensured
that his adversaries were both worthy of him (at the very least a
duchess), and very poor players. Others accounted for this distance
through the cares of office, when they were really only a calculation
of pride, a quintessence of aristocracy, the application, in short, of
the maxim: /Getting past the Watchers is the labor of tarques/.

The valet de chambre announced M. de Villefaramir at the moment when
the Count was bent over a table, studying the itinerary from Rivendeau
to the Profondeur de Heaume in Rohan. The steuard entered with the
same grave and deliberate step he employed when entering the Cour des
Usenettes. His nature was unchanged from the time when he served in
Hobbitonne and judged the case of Samouard Gamg=E8s. He was dressed
entirely in black, save his cravate that was adorned with the white
tree. An untrained eye might, perhaps, have found Villefaramir far
more like a great wizard: older, more handsome, and more royal; such an
eye, however, would have to be as blind as the ear of Bombadile was
tone-deaf.

Master of himself, and indeed of the entire world (albeit somewhat
incognito) as the Count was, he examined with a visible curiosity the
magistrate who, like all the untrustworthy, was ever distrustful, and
saw in Monte Fato rather a chevalier of industry in search of new
terrain, or a malingering orc who had deserted the army, than a prince
of the Holy Mushroom or a sultan of the /Thousand and One Pipeweeds/.

"Monsieur," said Villefaramir with that yelping tone affected by
magistrates in the public forum, and which they cannot or will not
abandon in conversation. "The signal service you have performed in
saving the life of my wife and her cat imposes upon me the duty of
thanking you. I come therefore to fulfil this duty and to offer you my
recognition."

"Monsieur," replied the Count in turn, with a coldness more glacial
than the alps of Charadras or the women of Forodeterre, "I am highly
content to have preserved a cat for its owner, for it is said that the
love of a woman for her feline companion is of the most pleasing to
Yavanna; and this happiness should dispense you, monsieur, from a duty
whose execution no doubt honours me, for I know that you are less
prodigal of the favour you bestow upon me than the Dwarves are of their
debentures, but which cannot equal my interior satisfaction."

M=2E de Villefaramir, astonished at this sally more brutal than the
laughter of the Roi-Sorcier of Anguemar, trembled, and a disdainful
frown indicated that he did not consider the Count to be a gentleman,
or gentilhobbite, or even a gentildwargue. He looked around for some
object on which to fasten a conversation that seemed broken and in need
of being reforged.

"You take an interest in cartography?" he said, indicating the map
on which the Count was intent. "It is a study of many years,
especially for one such as you who have doubtless traversed all the
regions on your map."

"Oui, monsieur," replied Monte Fato. =AB I have chosen to make of
the human, elvish, dwarvish, orkish, entish, roggish ... well, it is a
long list, and you Arnorians are an impatient people, so I will simply
say, of all speaking peoples ... what you have done for the exceptions:
that is, I have split them apart (for the most part, only
metaphorically) to execute upon them a physiological study. For that,
said Gandault, is the path of wisdom. At the least, it is a very
interesting algebraic theorem ... But be seated, monsieur, I beg."

Villefaramir sat on a very elegant stone dwarf that Jadis Joppelin,
Duchess of Narnia and archmistress of Poudeglomme, had sold the Count
in exchange for Sudron Delight. "If, like you, monsieur le comte,"
said he, "I had nothing to do, I would find a happier way to pass the
time, such as sending anonymous troll letters to the newspaper or
writing quizzes about myself."

"You have a point, monsieur," said the Count. "Humans are a
rather depressing study - although, fortunately, I have other
business. But you just said that I have nothing to do. Do you,
monsieur, think you have something to do? Or, to speak more clearly,
do you think what you do is worth calling something to do?"

The astonishment of Villefaramir redoubled at this second coup so
rudely fired by this strange adversary; and, from a social point of
view, his retreat before the inexorable wit of Monte Fato was almost a
rout. Then, like the Rohanois after they had seized the tobacco of
Saroumand, he rallied. "Monsieur," he said, "you are a
foreigner, and have, as you yourself have said, spent much of your life
among orcs, balrogues, and other b=EAtes noires; you do not, then, know
how justice, expeditious as a raging moumaque in barbarous lands, in
Arnor is as prudent and methodical as an Ent who partakes of opium."

"Yes, indeed I do, monsieur. It is the ancient /ticklium ulmo/ of
the elves. It is especially of the justice of all lands of
Terre-moyenne that I occupy myself, and I have compared the criminal
procedures of all the speaking peoples; and I must say, monsieur, that
it is the law of retaliation, or /lekhs talyoniz/, that I find most
according to the Music of the A=EEn=E9s that opened the opera of our
existence."

"It must then have been an opera of very few notes, monsieur; and
following that law, magistrates would indeed have little to do, beyond
perhaps presiding at banquets and judging sack races. But among us, no
man cometh to the laws of Terre-moyenne but through the books. Arduous
is the task of learning the twelve volumes of the /Code de
Terre-moyenne/, with its various and contradictory readings; and the
interpretation of the /Letters of Aracharlemagne/ have occasioned more
than one bitter dispute."

"Such as the one about whether the wings of balrogues constitute real
property," replied the Count in a somewhat blas=E9 tone of voice.
"Yes, yes. But all that you know of the code of Arnor, I know not
only of that code, but also of the codes of all nations: the laws of
the Snowmen, Haradrins, Elves, Dwarves, Ents, Balrogues, Marchouigres,
and Trolls Flamb=E9s, are as familiar to me as those of the Hobbites and
Doun=E9dains."

"But to what end have you learned all that?" cried Villefaramir,
astounded.

Monte Fato smiled. "Bien, monsieur," he said. "I see that,
despite your reputation as an homme sup=E9rieur, you see everything from
the vulgar and material point of view of society, that begins with man
and ends in fish and chips and mushrooms and prancing ponies; and that
view is as narrow and restricted as a hole that a hobbite is too fat to
escape."

"Explain yourself, monsieur," said Villefaramir, more and more
astonished. "I do not understand you ... very well."

"I say, monsieur, that you have a mind of metal and wheels, and see
only the outward workings of the machine, like the scholar who studies
the works of Trolquien to discover the plate tectonics that led to the
sinking of Mordor, in ignorance or indifference to the superb artistry
and deeper intentions with which he writes. You view an ent as
firewood, a balrogue as a renewable energy source, and a literary
classic as a means to show yourself cleverer than your adversaries.
Thus you are blind to those whom =C9rou and the Valards have placed
above all the ministers and kings of the earth, and veritably an
invasion of dragons or trolls would benefit your civilisation
enormously. The nations took Sauron, who came to conquer them, as an
invader like any other; and Ulmon had to reveal himself in majesty
before Tueur realised he was more than a peculiarly annoying
fl=E2neur."

"Alors," said the steuard, marvelling, and uncertain whether he was
dealing with a crank, a wizard, or a madman. "You regard yourself as
one of these exceptional beings to which you refer?"

"Why not?" said the Count, coldly.

"Pardon, monsieur, said Villefaramir. "I see you are a philosophe,
and not merely a captain of industry. It is not usual among us for one
who has obtained great wealth by mysterious means - not that I
question, I only repeat - to lose their time in philosophical
r=EAveries, made at most to console those whom destiny has disinherited
of earthly goods."

"Monsieur, do you never exercise your regard to see at once upon what
kind of man it is fallen? Should not a magistrate be, not only the
best interpreter of the law, not only the most cunning refuter of the
lies of Morgot, but able to wrestle with his adversary in thought, as
if possessed of a palantir, and to penetrate the mind deeper than the
dwarves penetrated Morie, and awakened the balrogue from a slumber
induced by dissipation?"

"Then, you yourself?"

"I, I am one of those exceptional beings whose power is such that
none can foresee its fall while the world lasts. You believe me a
Dun=E9dain, n'est-ce pas, because I speak the Parler commun with the
same facility and purity as you. Gali, my Haradric slave, believes me
a Haradrin; Sh=E9lobe, my spider, believes me an arachnid; Roguccio, my
intendant, believes me a balrogue. Do you not then understand that no
living man can hinder me? For I am the Wit, the Ring-maker, the Count
of Many Colours!"

Villefaramir looked, and saw that the Count's /smoking/, which had
seemed black, was not so, but was woven of all colours, so that the eye
was dazzled and the mind bewildered.

"But, monsieur, can you say that, for you live in Arnor, where
Arnorian laws are enforced and fashion imposed still more strictly?"
he said.

"Sans doute," replied the Count. "But I know the hearts and
minds of mortals better than they do, so that the steuard du roi who
durst prosecute me would be far more embarrassed than I."

"Do you mean," said Villefaramir hesitantly, "that all in
Terre-moyenne have committed faults?"

"Faults, or crimes," replied Monte Fato, casually.

"Monsieur, by your brilliant conversation you lift me above common
levels as a hobbite were to grow wings and fly to the moon, that he
might offer pipe-weed unto Tilion. But even at those exalted levels
one must sometimes utter cruel truths, such as that the d=E9cor on the
moon is rather lacking; and so I do now, in telling you that you
sacrifice to pride: as you are above the others, so =C9rou and the
Valards are above you."

"They are above /everyone/!" said the Count in a voice so deep that
Villefaramir shuddered. "I reserve my pride for Men, who rise
against him who surpasses them, as a child might threaten an Uruc-ha=EF
with a blunderbuss or an elf with a fashion statement. But I abandon
that pride before the power that took me out of the nothingness I was,
and made me Lord of the Rings."

"Then, monsieur le comte, I admire you," said Villefaramir,
employing for the first time, in that strange dialogue, this
aristocratic formula. "But beware! Disease and death you may
escape, since you wear the Ruling Ring; but =C9rou may still crush you,
even as he did when he transformed my father into a potato as a
punishment for voting Sharcol=E9onist."

The Count smiled.

"Adieu, monsieur," continued Villefaramir. "I now depart, taking
with me a memory of esteem that I hope will be agreeable to you when
you know me better; for I am not a common man, and in me the blood of
the Dun=E9dains runs pure."

The Count bowed, and accompanied the steuard to the door with the
civility of the Orcs.

Vorheriges Thema:	real world Minas Tirith
Nächstes Thema:	Count of Monte Fato, chapitre 12, part 2; triumph of willpower over technology

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