lifts his wand and says his mysterious word and all things real pass
away and the phantoms of your mind walk before you clothed in
flesh.
That was the King’s invention, that sweet and dear surprise.
Indeed, he had fine things hidden away in his nature, though one
seldom got a glimpse of them, with that scheming Tremouille and
those others always standing in the light, and he so indolently
content to save himself fuss and argument and let them have their
way.
At the fall of night we the Domremy contingent of the personal
staff were with the father and uncle at the inn, in their private
parlor, brewing generous drinks and breaking ground for a homely
talk about Domremy and the neighbors, when a large parcel
arrived from Joan to be kept till she came; and soon she came
herself and sent her guard away, saying she would take one of her
father’s rooms and sleep under his roof, and so be at home again.
We of the staff rose and stood, as was meet, until she made us sit.
Then she turned and saw that the two old men had gotten up too,
and were standing in an embarrassed and unmilitary way; which
made her want to laugh, but she kept it in, as not wishing to hurt
them; and got them to their seats and snuggled down between
them, and took a hand of each of them upon her knees and nestled
her own hands in them, and said:
“Now we will nave no more ceremony, but be kin and playmates
as in other times; for I am done with the great wars now, and you
two will take me home with you, and I shall see–” She stopped,
and for a moment her happy face sobered, as if a doubt or a
presentiment had flitted through her mind; then it cleared again,
and she said, with a passionate yearning, “Oh, if the day were but
come and we could start!”
The old father was surprised, and said:
“Why, child, are you in earnest? Would you leave doing these
wonders that make you to be praised by everybody while there is
still so much glory to be won; and would you go out from this
grand comradeship with princes and generals to be a drudging
villager again and a nobody? It is not rational.”
“No,” said the uncle, Laxart, “it is amazing to hear, and indeed not
understandable. It is a stranger thing to hear her say she will stop
the soldiering that it was to hear her say she would begin it; and I
who speak to you can say in all truth that that was the strangest
word that ever I had heard till this day and hour. I would it could
be explained.”
“It is not difficult,” said Joan. “I was not ever fond of wounds and
suffering, nor fitted by my nature to inflict them; and quarrelings
did always distress me, and noise and tumult were against my
liking, my disposition being toward peace and quietness, and love
for all things that have life; and being made like this, how could I
bear to think of wars and blood, and the pain that goes with them,
and the sorrow and mourning that follow after? But by his angels
God laid His great commands upon me, and could I disobey? I did
as I was bid. Did He command me to do many things? No; only
two: to raise the siege of Orleans, and crown the King at Rheims.
The task is finished, and I am free. Has ever a poor soldier fallen
in my sight, whether friend or foe, and I not felt the pain in my
own body, and the grief of his home-mates in my own heart? No,
not one; and, oh, it is such bliss to know that my release is won,
and that I shall not any more see these cruel things or suffer these
tortures of the mind again! Then why should I not go to my village
and be as I was before? It is heaven! and ye wonder that I desire it.
Ah, ye are men–just men! My mother would understand.”