"That is the voice of one of the King's servants," said Marceline. "He is coming for you, Yvon. Oh, you are going to fall into another tormentor's hands!"
Indeed, one of the men of the royal chamber appeared at the turning of the winding stairs and said to the idiot: "Come, get up quick and follow me! Our lord the King wishes to amuse himself with you, you double Calf!"
"The King! Oh! Oh! The King!" cried Yvon with a triumphant air, clapping his hands gayly. The bucket being left unsupported on his head, fell and broke open at the feet of the King's servitor whose legs were thereby drenched up to his knees.
"A plague upon the idiot!" cried Marceline despite all her good-heartedness. "There is the bucket broken! My mistress will beat me!"
Furious at the accident that drenched his clothes, the royal servitor hurled imprecations and insults upon Yvon the Calf, who, however, seeming not to notice either the imprecations or the insults, continued to repeat triumphantly: "The King! Oh! Oh! The King!"
Like his wife Louis the Do-nothing was barely twenty years of age. Justly nicknamed the "Do-nothing," he looked as nonchalant as he seemed bored. After having scolded through the window at the serfs, whose noise annoyed him, he stretched himself out again upon his lounge. Several of his familiar attendants stood around him. Yawning fit to dislocate his jaws, he said to them: "What a notion that was of the Queen's to go at sunrise with only one lady of the chamber to pray at the hermitage of St. Eusebius! Once awakened, I could not fall asleep again. So I rose! Oh, this day will be endless!"
"Seigneur King, would you like to hunt?" suggested one of the attendants. "The day is fine. We would certainly kill some game."
"The hunt fatigues me. It is a rude sport."
"Seigneur King, would you prefer fishing?"
"Fishing tires me; it is a stupid pastime."
"Seigneur King, if you call your flute and lute-players, you might enjoy a dance."
"Music racks my head, and I cannot bear dancing. Let's try something else."
"Seigneur King, shall your chaplain read to you out of some fine work?"
"I hate reading. I think I could amuse myself with the idiot. Where is he?"
"Seigneur King, one of your attendants has gone out to find him.... I hear steps.... It is surely he coming."