Tragedy In Blue

By Richard Thoma

Richard Thoma's Tragedy In Blue dates from 1936, and has been described by Henry Miller in his seminal study The Books In My Life as - A poetic justification, unique in its genre, and true as only highly imaginative works can be... a breviary for the initiated'. First published by the Obelisk Press in Paris in an edition of only 100 copies and later reprinted anonymously under the title The Book Of Sapphire, Thoma's short novella announces itself as an - evocation of the Middle Ages, their splendour, their abomination and their God'. It is a vivid and intense depiction of the Satanic child-killer Gilles de Rais' life and crimes, remarkable for its baroque imagery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elektron Ebooks
• Release date: Mar 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781908694577

Book preview

prosecution

I. THE WHITE ENIGMA

Gilles came into the room where Beaumanoir was weeping.

It was a remote stony room and Beau manoir was cold and aloof and bitter.

I know, he said, the King is sending you away. Gilles! Why don’t you go...

I leave at once, said Gilles, to join the maid, Jéhanne.

Damn the witch! Beaumanoir cried. Together we took Lude. Together we killed Blackburne. We were together at Rainefort, in Anjou. Do you remember the Loire, bear ing the moon along? Do you remember the shadows of the dark green trees? Do you remember the softest hands?

Beaumanoir... Beaumanoir...

But you’re going, you say. You leave at once. Oh, I hope the sorceress puts a curse on you, Gilles. I hope she gives life to your ghosts. May she multiply your deaths! May she suck your brain away...

Gilles turned in the doorway sadly.

Good-bye, Beaumanoir, he said. I love you always.

But Jéhanne was waiting astride her pale blue horse.

She was waiting and the mare was still. The cavalcade advanced towards them, Rais the Herald first, in velvet, with a silver trumpet. Gilles followed in armour proclaiming the day. Behind him came the steel and the coats of mail, the scarlet gowns, the brocaded robes, all decorated with plumes and furs, of his retinue.

Rais the Herald drew up his horse and saluted the morn ing. Gilles did not stop but went past him into the eyes of the maid. His own eyes were puckered and greedy. He looked at Jéhanne and did not understand. What were the spectres that drew them to each other? Why did she sud denly burst into flames?

The holy sun was rising and now the horse she rode was orange and bled.

Gilles saw the truth as he reined in the beast between his knees. She was male! She was a fresh boy with firm young breasts. She had a boy’s hands and a boy’s smile and her grey eyes were bright blue and her splendid teeth were appearing between a boy’s lips, red underlip drawn in for love.

Without a word they dismounted and paled as their hands dropped away. She was a white cloud, dancing in a hollow. She was a white mist rising from a sea. She was a white tomb, blossoming. She was a white enigma, facing the world.

That night they prayed together at an altar in a tent of shields. Her voice was mechanic on the air and rang bells somewhere.

Help me to conquer, Mother of God, she implored.

Help me!

I will help you, thought Gilles in the silence. I will remain at your side. I will protect you. I will love you.

Cream and blue and pink angels flew about the tent invulnerably, invisible and soft. There was a murmur of voices that were not for Gilles. Jéhanne knelt at the altar, her face upturned, cut in two. She listened with all her faith. Her mouth open, her eyes closed, a violent nostalgia distorted her features. Mary! Mary! she cried. Take me away! Take me back! I’m so tired... I’m so sad...

Then the fluttering voices thundered in their ears for a moment and ceased entirely. Jéhanne, frightened, cold, unsure, took Gilles’s hand and covered it with her tears.

Soon she was calmer and rose and walked about and turned to Gilles again.

Sometimes, she said, I lose patience. Why doesn’t the end come? Why isn’t the King crowned? Why am I not in Heaven? Then Mary is angry with me and a battle is lost.

Your voices, said Gilles between ironical teeth, sounded to me rather like threats.

No, no, cried the maid. Mary is good and kind and loves me. It is I who am selfish and hasty. In visions, in dreams, in wide bright daylight I have seen the end and I need it more than it is necessary.

Side by side, they inspected the widespread troops, their faces haggard and dirty, their eyes immense, shot with stars. They did not speak. They saw nothing. They soared.

The soldiers, wise, cruel, awed, pointed at them behind their backs and said: See, the Virgin rides with Satan.

God had vanished. The bloody tyrants and the pitched horror of battles had driven him out of every heart. The proud bishops and the slow cardinals pursued him in their own way.

But he eluded them all. Tired of the falsehoods and man unkind he had disappeared utterly, never to return.

Jéhanne had come pitilessly, proclaiming nothing, asking only a sword. She was a girl, a child who had tended sheep, but she was strong as a man and set as steel. She was a virgin... the organic whispers swirled in the flung winds: she was the Virgin! The Mother of God had come to save France, to drive back the English, to see the King crowned.

Jéhanne was asked questions, traps were set for her; she heard nothing but asked for a sword. She walked with an eye on Rheims, straight before her, without cunning, without pride, serene, determined, honest.

It was from Chinon that Gilles and Jéhanne set out with their armies for the flames and the splendours. They fought at Poitiers, Blois, Jargeau, Beaugency, Patay. At Orléans, Jéhanne entered to the sheer lacquer cries of the performing populace. Noël! Noël! they shouted in the streets and at their windows till the sky was like a burning tree. In full view of the English Jéhanne set up an altar to the Mother of God and celebrated mass while her men prayed, while the wounded shrieked, while the foreigners rattled in retreat.

Rheims fell in the end in a silence. The cathedral, like a titanic offering of rose and sun, was draped with banners and pennons. The pageant was prepared. The torches were lifted and the colours displayed. The pomp of the Church blossomed and flowered. Only those knights in the brightest armour were permitted in the open square. The King was coming! Charles the Seventh, King of France at last, was on his way to Rheims for the sacred rites of coronation, for the robes of office, for the sceptre, for the crown, for the glorious throne, so high, so magnificent, so terrible that it was to rival the sun-god’s.

After the ceremony, Gilles dreamed carefully in the cold cathedral, twice alone. Charles was King, had made him a Marshal of France in a moment of graciousness and largesse, had awarded him honours and palms. But he had forgotten these things, forgotten also the rainbow day, the incense that still lingered, the loud organ, the fierce black priests. He thought of Jéhanne, not of Jéhanne alone but of her with himself at her side. She had smiled at him but he knew she had had tears but for the King of France, the ermine and the fleur-de-lis.

She was not a child. She was not