Colas Breugnon

By Romain Rolland

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Title: Colas Breugnon

Author: Romain Rolland

Translator: Katherine Miller

Release Date: March 25, 2023 [eBook #70371]

Language: English

Produced by: Peter Becker, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
             produced from images generously made available by The
             Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLAS BREUGNON ***





  COLAS BREUGNON

  BY
  ROMAIN ROLLAND
  Author of “Jean-Christophe”

  TRANSLATED BY
  KATHERINE MILLER

  “There is life in the old dog yet”

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK
  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY




  COPYRIGHT, 1919
  BY
  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY


  The Quinn & Boden Company
  BOOK MANUFACTURERS
  RAMWAY      NEW JERSEY




  To
  SAINT MARTIN OF GAUL
  PATRON SAINT OF CLAMECY


  “St. Martin gaily drinks his fill
  and lets the stream flow to the mill.”

                     _xvith cent. Proverb_




TO THE READER


The readers of “Jean-Christophe” certainly never expected this
new volume, but they cannot be more surprised than I am myself.
I had sketched out other works,--a play and a novel on subjects
of the day, in somewhat the same tragic key as “Jean-Christophe,”
but I had to break off abruptly, throwing aside all my notes and
well-planned scenes, for this trifling work which only came into my
head the day before. This book is a reaction from the constraint of
“Jean-Christophe,” which, like an outgrown cuirass, fitted well enough
at first, but had become too tight for me; I felt an absolute need
of something gay, in the true Gallic spirit--even perhaps verging on
impropriety.

On returning to my native place for the first time since my youth, the
renewed contact with the soil of Burgundy woke a past within me which I
had believed silent forever; and roused all the Colas Breugnons under
my skin, so that I was forced to speak for them--as if their tongues
had not wagged enough in their lifetime!

They took advantage of the circumstance that one of their descendants
chanced to have the pen of a ready writer (something that they
had always coveted) and turned me into their secretary. To my
protestations, “Now, Grandad, you had your day, it is my turn to
speak now,” they only answered: “Young one, you can talk when we have
finished. In the first place you have nothing more interesting to say,
so sit down, and listen with all your ears: you might do that much for
the old man; when you stand where I am now you will know that silence
is the worst of death.”

How could I help writing what was dictated to me? Now it is all over
and I am free again--at least I suppose so--and can take up the thread
of my own thoughts, if some one of these old chatter-boxes does not
take it into his head to start up from the tomb and impart to me his
message to posterity.

I am afraid that the society of my Colas Breugnon will not amuse my
readers as much as the author; but they must take the book for what
it is; something perfectly frank and straightforward which has no
idea of transforming or explaining the world either politically, or
metaphysically. He is just a true Frenchman, who laughs because he is
well and hearty and life is sweet to him.

One cannot escape the Maid of Orleans at the beginning of a French
story, so, as she used to say, “Take kindly to it”!

                                                         ROMAIN ROLLAND.

May, 1914.




PREFACE AFTER THE WAR


When the War broke out this book was already printed and ready to
appear, so I have left it untouched. The grandchildren of Colas
Breugnon have just emerged as heroes and victims of a bloody epic, only
to show an unquenchable flame to the world. Let me hope that the people
of Europe, full of courage in spite of their sufferings, may find some
solace in these reflections of “a little lamb caught between the wolf
and the shepherd.”

                                                                   R. R.

November, 1918.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                     PAGE

       FOREWORD TO THE READER                                    v

     I THE LARK OF CANDLEMAS-DAY                                 3

    II THE SIEGE; OR, THE LAMB, THE SHEPHERD, AND THE WOLF      21

   III THE VICAR OF BRÈVES                                      50

    IV THE IDLER                                                75

     V BELETTE                                                 103

    VI BIRDS OF PASSAGE; OR, THE SERENADE AT ASNOIS            136

   VII THE PLAGUE                                              152

  VIII MY OLD WOMAN’S DEATH                                    169

    IX THE FIRE                                                181

     X THE RIOT                                                200

    XI A PRACTICAL JOKE                                        227

   XII OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES                                   245

  XIII PLUTARCH’S LIVES                                        262

   XIV HEALTH TO THE KING!                                     278




COLAS BREUGNON




COLAS BREUGNON




I

THE LARK OF CANDLEMAS-DAY


Thanks be to St. Martin, business is bad, so there is no use in
breaking one’s back; and Lord knows I have worked hard enough in my
time to take a little rest and comfort here at my table, with a bottle
of wine on my right hand, the ink-well on the left, and a new quire of
paper before me.

“Your good health, old boy!” I say to myself, “I am to have a talk with
you now.” Downstairs I can hear my wife raging while the wind roars
outside and I am told there are threatenings of war. Well, let them
be!--How jolly it is to be alone face to face with the best fellow in
the world (I am talking of course of my other self, of you, Colas, with
your old red phiz, and queer grin, with your long Burgundian nose all
askew like a hat on one ear). Tell me if you can why it is so good to
see you like this, just our two selves; to look closely at your elderly
countenance, touching lightly, as it were, on the wrinkles, and to
drink a bumper of old remembrance from the bottom of my heart which is
like a deep well, worse luck! It is pleasant enough to dream, but still
better to pin one’s dreams down to paper! However, I am no visionary,
but wide-awake, full of fun and clear-sighted, with no idle fancies in
my head. I only tell what I have seen, done, and said; and for whom
do I write? Certainly not for fame; for I am no fool, and know what I
amount to, the Lord be praised!

I write for my grandchildren? Little will be left of all my scribblings
in ten years, as the old woman is jealous of them, and burns whatever
she can lay hands on. For whom, then? Why, for my other self, of
course, for our good pleasure.--I am sure I should burst if I did not
write! Truly I am not for nothing the child of my grandfather, who
could not sleep unless he had put down on the edge of his pillow the
number of flagons he had emptied. I feel I must talk, and here in
Clamecy I have had my fill of word contests. I must break loose, like
the fellow who shaved King Midas. I know my tongue runs away with me;
and it would be at the risk of my neck if I were heard; but what’s
the odds! without its dangers life would be flat enough. I am like
our big white oxen, and love to chew the cud of the day’s food. How
good it is to taste, feel, and handle all one has thought, observed,
or picked up; to smack one’s lips, to relish, as one tells it over to
one’s self, something one snapped up hastily--it seems to melt in one’s
mouth, and slip down softly; and how good it is to glance around one’s
little world and say, “All this is mine, here I am lord and master, no
frost or cold can nip me; here reigns no king, no pope! Not even my old
shrew!” But now I must take an account of this world of mine.

The first and best of my possessions is myself. Colas Breugnon, a good
Burgundian, plain and straightforward, with a well-rounded waistcoat.
I am not exactly in my first youth--fifty last birthday,--but well
set-up, my teeth still good, and my sight as clear as a fish’s. My
beard still sprouts vigorously, but is undoubtedly grayish, and I can’t
help regretting the fair hair of my youth, and would not say no, if
you offered to set my clock back twenty or thirty years. But after
all ten lusters are a fine thing. The youngsters may laugh, but how
many of them could have paraded up and down France as I have done, for
all these years? Lord! how much sun and rain have hit this old back!
I have been roasted, soaked, and warmed over dozens of times and my
body, like a cracked leather sack, is full of joy and sorrow, spite and
good-humor, wisdom and folly, hay and straw, figs and grapes, fruit
ripe and unripe, roses and haws--what I have seen, felt and known,
owned and lived, all jumbled together in the game-bag, and what fun to
dive into it;--but hold on, Colas! We will go into that tomorrow, we
shall never be done if we take it up today, so just now we will draw up
the inventory of all property belonging to me.

I own a house, a wife, four boys, and a girl (thank God she is
married!), eighteen grandchildren, a gray donkey, a dog, six hens,
and a pig.--So, I may be called rich. I want to look closely at these
treasures, so I must put on my glasses, for, to tell the truth, the
latter items exist only in memory. Wars have swept over them, soldiers
of the enemy and friends too, so the pig was long ago salted down, the
ass foundered, the cellar emptied, and the fowls plucked. I have the
wife still, by Heavens! It is not easy to forget my happiness when I
hear that squalling tongue,--she’s a fine old bird, and mine to the
last feather. The whole town envies Breugnon, the old scamp. Come on
then, gentlemen, speak up, if you would like to have her! She is a
saving, active, sober, good woman, with all the virtues, but they do
not seem to fatten her, and I must confess, fellow-sinner, that I like
one plump little frailty better than all the seven bony virtues. Well,
since it is the will of God, let us be good for lack of something
better. Hear her rushing about; her bones seem to be everywhere. She
goes poking and climbing, sulking, scolding, grumbling, growling from
garret to cellar; dirt and tranquillity flee at her approach. Nearly
thirty years ago we were married. Devil take me if I know why! I was
smitten with another girl who jilted me, and my wife doted on me
because I cared nothing for her. At that time she was small, dark and
pale, with hard bright eyes which seemed to eat into me as two drops of
acid burn steel; but she loved and _loved_ me fit to kill herself! Men
are such fools, that by dint of running after me (through pity, vanity
too, because I was tired of it all, and because I wanted to get rid of
her; a fine way I took to do it!) I became her husband; Johnnie the
fool, who kept out of the rain when he jumped in the pool. Ever since,
she and all the cardinal virtues dwell in my house, but she would like
to get even with me, sweet creature that she is! to make up for the
love she threw at me. She wants to stir me up; but it can’t be done,
I like my ease too much, and I am not such a fool as to make myself
unhappy for a word more or less. Let the rain come down, my voice
echoes the thunder and I only laugh when she screams. Why shouldn’t she
scream if she likes it? Why should I keep a woman from such a simple
pleasure when I do not want to kill her? Women and silence do not dwell
together; so let her sing her song, and I will sing mine. As long as
she does not try to shut my mouth (and she will not attempt that, if
she is wise) she may warble as she likes, each to his own music.

We may not have been exactly in tune, but none the less we played some
pretty pieces together; a girl and four boys, all good and well-built
regardless of expense, but of the lot the only one in whom I see my own
flesh is my girl, Martine, the little witch! What a time I had with
her before I got her safely married! She has settled down now, though
I don’t count too much on it, but it is no longer my business to look
after her and trot about at her heels; my son-in-law can take his turn.
She and I always wrangle whenever we meet, but at bottom we understand
each other as no one else does; she is a good sort, cautious even when
she seems most reckless, good too, if there is fun in it; for boredom
is to her worse than wickedness. She does not mind trouble, for that
means effort, which is joy, and she loves life and has an eye for what
is good. My blood runs in her veins, the only trouble is I gave her too
much of it.

The boys are not quite so successful. There was an undue share of the
mother in them and the dough did not rise; two out of the four are
bigots like her, and what is worse their bigotries are antagonistic,
for one is always running after priests’ skirts, while the other is
a Huguenot. I cannot think how I came to hatch out such a couple of
ducks. My third son is a soldier, and has to fight, when he is not
loafing about, God knows where! and the fourth is just a nonentity; a
little sheepish, insignificant shopkeeper--it makes me yawn to think of
him, but when the whole of us are seated round the table, each with a
fork in his fist, then I feel indeed that we are all of one breed, all
of one mind; and well worth looking at, our jaws going like clockwork,
bread and wine disappearing down the trapdoor.

You have heard of the furniture, now let us talk of the house itself,
which is like another daughter to me, for I built it with my own hands
bit by bit, and some parts over and over again, on the banks of the
Beuvron, which flows along slowly smooth and green, full of grass, mud
and slime, just where the suburbs begin on the other side of the bridge
which is like a crouching hound with the water licking below. Directly
in front the tower of St. Martin rises light and proud, its edges like
an embroidered skirt. They tell us the steps leading to Paradise are
dark and steep; so are those of Old Rome leading up to the carved
doorway. My shell, my niche is outside the walls, and the result of
that is that when from the top of St. Martin’s tower they spy an enemy
in the plain the town shuts its gates, and the enemy comes to me;--I
could get along without that sort of visit, though I like conversation
as a general thing. So I leave the key under the door, and get out,
but when I come back it sometimes happens that both door and key have
disappeared, leaving only the four walls, and then I have to rebuild.
My friends say to me, “Stupid! to take all this trouble for the enemy.
Come out of your mole-hill into the town where you will be safe.”
But I always answer, “I know when I am well off. Perhaps I should be
safer behind a thick wall, but what could I see there? the wall, and
nothing else.” That would bore me to death, for I need elbow room;
and I like to spread myself out along my river bank, and when I am in
my little garden, with nothing to do, I love to watch the reflections
in the still water, the bubbles the fish make on the surface and the
long-tressed weeds stirring at the bottom. I fish there too, or even
wash my clothes, and empty my pots in it. Good or bad, here I have
always been, it is too late for me to change; and, after all, nothing
can happen worse than what has happened before. Even if the house is
burned down again (for you never can tell), I do not propose to build
for all eternity, but here where I have taken root it is not easy to
pull me up. I have rebuilt twice, if necessary I can do it ten times
more; not that I look upon it as an amusement, but it would be still
less amusing to change, and I should be like a man stripped of his
skin; there would be no use in offering me a fine new white one; I know
it would not fit; it would wrinkle on me or I should burst it. On the
whole I prefer the old one.

Now let us add it all up: Wife, children, house; have I reckoned up all
my goods? I have kept the best to the last, my trade. I am a carpenter
and woodworker, belonging to the brotherhood of St. Anne, and when we
have a procession I am the one who carries the staff with the device of
a compass on a lyre, and there you may see God’s grandmother teaching
the little Mary to read, a Virgin full of grace no bigger than your
thumb. Armed with hatchet, chisel, and auger, with my plane at hand,
I rule over knotted oak and smooth walnut from my workbench, and the
result rests with me--and with my customer’s pocket. Many shapes lie
hidden there! To rouse Beauty sleeping in the wood, her lover must
penetrate to the heart of it, but the loveliness which is unveiled
under my plane has no unrealities. You know those slim Dianas of the
early Italians, straight behind and before?--a good Burgundy piece
is better yet, bronzed, strong, covered like a grapevine with fruit;
a fine bulging cupboard, a carved wardrobe, such as Master Hugues
Tambin wrought fantastically. I dress my houses with panels, and
moldings, and winding staircases in long twists and my furniture is
like trained fruit trees, full and robust, sprouting from the wall,
made for the very spot where I place it. The best of all is when I can
fix on my wood something I see smiling in my mind’s eye, a gesture, a
movement, a bending back or swelling breast, flowery curves, garlands
and grotesques, or when I catch the face of some passerby on the wing
and pin it to my plank. The finest thing I ever turned out, the choir
stalls in the Church of Montreal, show two men at table drinking and
laughing with a jug between them, and two lions snarling over a bone.
I did that to please myself and the vicar. To work after a good drink,
and drink after good work, is my idea of a fine life!... I see all
sorts of useless grumblers around me; they say I have picked out a
queer time to shout in, that we are in a sad state now; but no state
is sad, there are only dreary people, and I am not one of them, the
Lord be praised! Men ill-treat you and rob you?--so it ever shall be.
I would wager my neck that centuries from now our great-grandnephews
will be equally keen to claw and scratch each other’s eyes. No doubt
they will have thought of forty new ways to do the trick better than
we, but I bet they cannot find out a new way to drink, and I defy them
to do better in that line than I. Who knows what those fellows will
be up to in four hundred years? The Curé of Meudon had an herb, the
wonderful Pantagruelion; maybe thanks to that our descendants will
visit the glimpses of the moon, the forge of the thunder, and the
sluices of the rain; perhaps stay a while in Heaven to sport with the
gods. Good enough! I’ll go with them. Are they not the fruit of my
loins, and seed of my own sowing? The future is yours, my sons--but
I like it better where I am, it is safer on the whole, and how can I
be sure that wine will be as good in four centuries from now? My wife
reproaches me because I am too fond of a spree, but I own that I can’t
bear to lose a trick. I take what the gods provide, good food, good
drink, pretty plump pleasures, and then those soft tender downy things
that a man enjoys in a day dream, that divine do-nothing state where
all things are possible, where you are young, handsome, triumphant,
with the world at your feet, and you work miracles, hear the grass
grow and talk with trees, beasts, and gods. There is one old chum that
never goes back on me, my other self, my friend,--my work. How good it
is to stand before the bench with a tool in my hand and then saw and
cut, plane, shave, curve, put in a peg, file, twist and turn the strong
fine stuff, which resists yet yields--soft smooth walnut, as soft
to my fingers as fairy flesh; the rosy bodies or brown limbs of our
wood-nymphs which the hatchet has stripped of their robe. There is no
pleasure like the accurate hand, the clever big fingers which can turn
out the most fragile works of art, no pleasure like the thought which
rules over the forces of the world, and writes the ordered caprices of
its rich imagination on wood, iron, and stone. I am king of a magic
realm; my field yields me its flesh, my vine its blood, and to serve
my art the elves of the sap push out the fair limbs of the trees,
lengthen and fatten them until they are polished fit for my caresses.
My hands are docile workmen, directed by their foreman, my old brain
here, and he plays the game as I like it, for is he not my servant too?
Was ever man better served than I? I’m a true little king, and really
must drink my majesty’s health, and that of my faithful subjects, for
I am not ungrateful. Blessed be the day when I saw the light! How many
glorious things there are on this round ball, things which smile at
you, and taste sweet. Life is good, by the Lord! I always hunger for
more, no matter how much I stuff myself; but I am afraid that I shall
make myself sick; sometimes, I give you my word, my mouth fairly waters
before the feast spread for me by the earth and the sun.

But while I am boasting, old boy, the sun has gone, and left my little
world all chilled. That beastly old winter has pushed his way into
my very room, so that the pen trembles in my stiff fingers; there is
actually ice in my glass, and my nose is blue. Detestable color! it
makes me think of graveyards. I hate anything pale.--Hullo, wake up!
St. Martin is ringing his chimes; it is Candlemas today. “When the days
begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen,” does it indeed? then
we must do likewise, we will go out and meet it face to face. It is
cold, and no mistake; my cheeks sting with the frost needles, and the
north wind lies in wait at the corner to catch me by the beard, but I
am beginning to warm up, thank the Lord! and my complexion is once more
brilliant. I like the ring of the hard ground under my feet, it makes
me as merry as a grig, but what ails all these folks that they are so
pinched and wretched-looking?

“Well, Mrs. Neighbor, what has put you out? It’s the wind, hey,
rumpling up your skirts? I don’t blame him, young rascal! I wish I
were young myself; he knows the right spot--greedy scamp! he picks out
the toothsome morsels. Have patience, old girl; live and let live. And
where are you running, as if the devil were after you? To church? God
will always get the better of Satan. Those who weep will rejoice, and
frost will burn. Now you are laughing yourself? good, good; I am on the
run for church too, yes I am off to Mass like you, only it will not be
said by the Curé,--Mass in the fields is what I mean.”

I stop at my daughter’s first to get my little Glodie, for we walk
together every day. Best little friend that she is to me! my lambling,
my little chirping frog, just five years old; as wide-awake as a mouse
and keen as mustard. She comes running to meet me, for she knows I
always have a lot of new stories for her, it is hard to say which she
loves most;--so we go on hand in hand.

“Come along, darling, to meet the lark.”

“What lark?”

“It is Candlemas. Did you never hear that today the lark comes back to
us out of the skies?”

“What did he do up there?”

“He went to look for fire.”

“What fire?”

“Fire to make sunshine, fire to boil the kettle.”

“Did the fire fly away then?”

“Why yes, on All Saints’ Day. In November every year it leaves us to go
and warm up the stars.”

“And how do we get him back again?”

“We send three little birds to fetch him.”

“Oh, do tell me!”

There she is trotting along the road, all warmly snuggled in a jacket
of soft white wool, looking like a little robin in her red hood. She
doesn’t mind the cold, not she! but her fat cheeks are like rosy
apples, and her little nose runs.

“Ah, this little candle needs the snuffers, is that because of
Candlemas? and the lights in Heaven?”

“Oh, Grandfather, do tell about the three little birds.”

“Three little birds set off on a journey, three bold companions;
the Wren, the Red-Breast, and their friend the Lark; Wren, brisk as
quicksilver and proud as Artaban, soon spied a bright spark floating
in the air. He snapped at it, crying, ‘I have it! I, I, I!’ The others
joined in the same cry, but as Wren flew down he screamed, ‘Fire! I
am burning!’ He rolled the hot morsel from one corner of his beak to
the other, and at last his tongue was peeling, and he could bear no
more, so he spit it out and hid it under his little wings. Did you ever
notice the red spots, and his frizzled feathers?--Red-Breast rushed
to help him. He seized the spark of fire and put it carefully on his
soft waistcoat, but the fine waistcoat got red and redder and poor
Red-Breast screamed, ‘Enough--my clothes are burning.’ Then came the
Lark, the brave little friend, catching the spark which was flying
off to Heaven, and quick, prompt, and swift as an arrow she fell to
the earth; then with her little beak she buried the bright spark of
sunshine in the frozen ground, and, oh, how glad it was to feel it!”
My story came to an end, and it was Glodie’s turn to tell one; then
when we got outside the town, I took her on my back as we climbed the
hill. The sky is gray and the snow creaks under our wooden shoes; the
delicate little skeletons of the trees and bushes are all wadded with
white, and the smoke mounts up straight from the cottage chimneys slow
and blue. There is no sound but the chirp of my little frog,--but here
we are at the top. Below at our feet lies my town, wrapped about by the
lazy Yonne and the trifling Beuvron, like silver ribbons, covered with
snow, frozen, chilled and shivering, yet somehow it warms my heart only
to look at the place.

City of bright reflections and rolling hills, the soft lines of tilled
slopes surround you like the twisted straw of a nest. The undulations
of five or six ranges of wooded mountains in the distance are faintly
blue like the sea, but it is not the perfidious element which overthrew
Ulysses and his fleet. Here are no storms, no ambuscades; all is calm,
save that here and there a breath seems to swell the breast of a hill.
From the crest of one wave to the other, the roads run deliberately
straight, leaving, as it were, a wake behind them, and beyond the edge
of the waters, far away the spires of St. Marie Madeleine of Vézelay
rise like masts. Close by, in a bend of the Yonne, you can see the
rocks of Basseville sticking up through the underbrush like boars’
tusks, and in the center of the circle of hills the town, carelessly
adorned, leans over the water with her gardens, her buildings, her
rags, and her jewels. Here is filth; but here also is the harmony of
her long limbs, and her head crowned with the pierced tower. You see
the snail admires his shell. The chimes of the church float up from the
valley and their pure voices spread like a crystal flood through the
thin clear air. As I stand happily drinking in the music, suddenly a
ray of sunshine breaks through the gray mantle which hides the sky, and
Glodie claps her hands, crying:

“Grandad, I hear him--the lark, the lark!” Her dear little fresh voice
made me laugh as I kissed her and said:

“I hear him too, my sweet little spring Lark!”




II

THE SIEGE

OR

THE LAMB, THE SHEPHERD, AND THE WOLF

  “Three lambs of Chamoux can put to flight
  Any wolf who comes in the night.”


My cellar will soon be empty, for the soldiers whom our lord the Duke
of Nevers sent to defend us have tapped my last cask, so there is no
time to be lost. I must drink with them. Taken in the right spirit, I
do not object to being ruined, and it is not by any means the first
time, but God send it may be the last! The soldiers, good fellows that
they are, felt worse than I did when I told them that the liquor was
running low. Some of my neighbors take such things tragically, but
that is not my way. I have been too often to the play in the course of
my life to be impressed by clowns. Since I was born into this world,
how many of these masqueraders I have seen! Swiss, German, Gascons,
Lorrainers; all dogs of war, with harness on their back and arms at
their side; victual swallowers, hungry hounds, always ready to devour
us fellows. No one can tell for what they are fighting. Today it is for
the King; tomorrow for the League; now for the Black-beetles; now for
the Protestants; but one side is as good as another. The best of them
is not worth the powder it would take to shoot them. What difference
does it make to us which robber ruffles it at court? And as for the
way they appeal to Heaven, ye gods and little fishes! The Lord is old
enough to know what to do. If your hide itches, scratch yourself. God
is not left-handed that He should need you, and He acts as He pleases.
But the worst of all is when they make it out that I too must try to
pull the wool over His eyes! With all due reverence, Lord, I can say
without boasting, You and I meet several times in the twenty-four
hours; that is, if the good old French saying is true, “He who can
good wine afford has a chance to see the Lord!” But these frauds say
something else that would never enter my head. They say that I know
Thee like a brother; that I am to carry out Thy will; but Thou wilt do
me the justice to admit that if I leave Heaven in peace I only ask that
it will do as much for me. Each of us has enough to do to keep his own
house in order, Thou in Thy big world, and I in my little one. Since
Thou hast made me free, Lord, Thou shouldst be free also! But these
fools want me to mix myself up in Thy concerns, to speak in Thy name,
to decide how men are to take Thy Sacraments, and if they do otherwise,
to declare them my enemies and Thine. Mine indeed! By no means; I have
none; for all men are my friends. Let them fight, then, if it likes
them, I am out of the game;--that is if they will let me alone, but
that is just what the rascals will not do. If I will not be the enemy
of one of them they will both set on me, so between two fires I must be
hit. Here goes then! I will get to fighting myself, for I would rather
on the whole be first anvil and then hammer, than anvil all the time.
I wish some one would tell me why such brutes came into the world?
marauders, politicians, great nobles, who bleed our France while they
blow her trumpet and stick their fingers in her pocket. They are not
content to devour our own substance, but they must needs attack the
stores of others. They threaten Germany, cast the eye of longing on
Italy, and even poke their noses into the harem of the Grand Turk! They
would like to absorb half the earth, they who would not know enough to
grow cabbages on it! Never mind, old boy, do not let us fret over it,
since all is for the best as it is until the happy day when we can
make it better in the shortest possible time. It is a poor beast that
is of no use, and I heard a story once about the good Lord;--(Pardon,
Almighty, my head is full of Thee today)--He was walking with Peter in
one of our suburbs, Béyant,[1] and a woman sat cooling her heels on her
doorstep. She looked so bored that our Father, out of the goodness of
His heart, drew a hundred fleas from his pocket and threw them to her,
saying, “There is something to amuse yourself with, my daughter!” The
woman roused herself to see what she could catch, and every time she
caught one of the beasts she laughed for joy.

Through this same charity, no doubt, Heaven has bestowed on us those
big two-legged beasts who shear our wool. They keep us busy, so let us
be joyful. Vermin is a sign of health, they say, (and our masters are
certainly vermin), so I say again, be joyful, my friends, for if that
is true no one is healthier than we are. Let me whisper a word in your
ear; we shall have the best of it if we are patient; cold and frost,
good-for-nothings at court or in camp, will have their day. They too
will pass, but the good ground remains and we are there to enrich it.
One crop will put all to rights, meanwhile let us suck up the bottom
of my cask, if only to make room for the vintage of next year.

       *       *       *       *       *

My daughter, Martine, said to me one day, “You are a braggart. To
hear you one would think that you only work with your mouth, idling,
gossiping like a bell-clapper, yawning, and staring; you pretend to
live only for feasting, and are ready to drink up the sea; yet really
you cannot be happy one day without work. You want people to think you
are careless, wasteful, and idle as a cock-chafer; you pretend not
to count what goes into your purse nor what comes out of it, but it
would make you ill if your day was not marked off hour by hour like a
striking clock, and you know to a penny what you have spent since last
Easter, and the man does not live who ever got ahead of you. Dear old
stupid head, innocent lamb that he is! ‘Three lambs of Chamoux can put
to flight any wolf who comes in the night.’”

I laughed, but did not answer Madame Saucy-Tongue. Besides, the child
is right, though she ought not to say so, but a woman only hides what
she knows nothing about. It is true that she understands me, for did I
not make her?

Come, Colas Breugnon, you may as well confess you commit many follies,
but you are not a fool. Like every one else, by Jove, you have a
simpleton up your sleeve who shows when you like, but he is tucked
away out of sight when you need a clear head and free hands. Like all
Frenchmen, you have the sense of reason and order so firmly fixed in
your noddle that you can let yourself go safely. The only danger is
for those poor fools who look at you with an open mouth and try to
imitate you. Fine speeches, sounding verse, daring projects, are all
enjoyable. They exalt and kindle the soul. But _we_ only burn up our
chips, and leave the big logs in order on the wood-pile. My reason sits
at ease and looks on at the freaks of my imagination, and all for my
own amusement. The world is my theater, and without stirring from my
seat, I am the play; I can applaud Matamore or Francatrippa; I witness
tourneys and royal processions, I shout “At him again!” when a man gets
his head cracked all for our good pleasure, and to add to it, I pretend
to take part in the farce and to believe in it only just enough to
keep up the joke. No more, you may be sure. That is the way to listen
to fairy tales and not to them only! There is Some One up there above
the clouds for whom we have a great respect when the procession passes
through our streets with cross and banner, chanting the _Oremus_; we
drape the walls of our houses with white--but between ourselves?--Shut
up, chatterer, you go too far! Be deaf, Lord, to my folly, and accept
my humble service.


                                                   The end of February.

An ass having eaten the grass in the meadow, said, “There is no further
need to watch it,” and so went to eat (I mean watch) in another field
near by. The garrison of the Duke of Nevers left us today. I was really
proud of our cookery when I looked at them, for they were as fat as
seals. We parted with smiles in our hearts and on our lips; they with
the kindest wishes for the next season, hoping our crops would be good
and our vines safe from the frost.

“Work hard, dear uncle,” said my guest, the Sergeant Fiacre Bolacre,
(it is his pet name for me and one which I deserve, for that relation
gives a good ration.) “Go prune your vines, no matter how much trouble
it costs you, and next St. Martin’s Day we will come back to drink the
wine.” Gallant fellows! Always ready to help an honest man with his
bottle.

Now that they are gone, what a weight is off our shoulders! The
neighbors are carefully uncovering their little hiding places. They
have gone about for the last few days with long faces complaining
of hunger as if a wolf were gnawing at their vitals, and now from
the straw of the garret, or the earth of the cellar, they have dug
out something to feed the beast. Those who bewailed their destitute
state the loudest, the worst beggars of them all, found means to tuck
their best wine away in some corner. I don’t know how it happened, but
scarcely had my guest, Fiacre Bolacre, left me, (I went with him to
the end of the Jews’ quarter,) when I suddenly remembered a small cask
of Chablis left by mistake under the dunghill in a good warm place. Of
course this upset me dreadfully! You can easily understand that, but
when harm is done, if it is well done, one must bear it as best one
can, and I bear it well. “Bolacre, my dear nephew, you don’t know what
nectar you have lost, ah-h! It is not all loss to you though, my good
friend, for here’s your health in it!”

We all began visiting from house to house, showing what we had found
in our cellars, congratulating each other, and winking like the Roman
Augurs. We spoke also of our injuries and losses; (losses of our
lasses,) and as sometimes the misfortunes of one’s neighbors are an
amusing consolation, we all inquired solicitously for the health of
Vincent Pluviaut’s wife. (By an extraordinary chance, after a body of
troops has passed through the town this brave Frenchwoman usually has
to let out her belt.)

We congratulated Pluviaut, and praised him for his public services in
these trying times, and by way of a joke, meaning no harm, I gave him
a friendly tap, telling him he was lucky to have a house full now that
all the others were empty. Every one laughed, of course, but not too
loud, just enough to be heard, but Pluviaut did not much like it, and
told me I had better look after my own wife. “Ah,” said I, “as far as
she is concerned I may sleep in peace. No one is likely to rob me of my
treasure.” And, do you know, they all agreed with me!

Feast days will soon be upon us, so, though somewhat short of means,
we must live up to our reputation and that of the town. What would
the world say if Shrove-Tuesday caught Clamecy without its justly
celebrated meat-balls? You can hear the grease frying, and sniff the
delicious fragrance in the streets. The flapjacks fairly hop from the
pan for my little Glodie! Now the drums go “rub-a-dub,” and the flutes
“twee-wee,” as amid cheers and shouts the “Gentlemen from Judæa” come
on their car to visit “Rome.”[2] First appears the band; then the
halberdiers, and the crowd actually falls back before the great noses
they wear. Some are shaped like trumpets, or lances, there are snouts
like hunting-horns or pea-shooters, noses stuck full of spikes, like
a chestnut burr, or with a bird perched on the tip. They hustle the
passers-by, and tickle the ribs of the squealing girls; and at last
comes the Nose King, scattering all before him like a battering-ram
with his great proboscis which rests on a gun-carriage like a bombard.

Then comes the car of Lent, Emperor of the Fish-eaters. Their masks
are pale green, skinny, and chilled-looking. They shiver under hoods,
or heads of fishes. One has a perch, or a carp, in each hand; another
brandishes a gudgeon stuck on a fork; a third wears a hat like a pike’s
head, with a roach dangling from its mouth, and little fishes falling
all around. It is enough to give a man a surfeit. Some stick their
fingers into their jaws and try to force down eggs too big to swallow.
To right and left, high up on the car, are masks of owls and monks and
fishermen dangling their lines over the heads of urchins, who jump up
like goats to catch at what may be sweetmeats or perhaps only dirt
rolled in sugar. Behind is a dancing devil, dressed like a cook, waving
a saucepan and big spoon. Six souls of the damned stick their grinning
heads through the rungs of a ladder behind the car, and the devil keeps
thrusting his spoonful of disgusting stew at them.

Hurrah! Here come the conquerors, heroes of the day! On a throne
built of hams, under a canopy of smoked tongues, comes the queen of
the Meat-Balls, crowned with saveloys, while her pudding fingers play
coquettishly with the sausages around her neck. She is escorted by her
aids, black and white puddings, and little Clamecy balls. They make a
fine appearance, as their Colonel Riflandouille leads them to victory,
armed with fat and greasy spits and larding needles. I like best of all
those dignified old fellows with bellies like a great soup-pot, or with
a body made of bread crust, bearing gifts like the Magi: a pig’s head,
a bottle of black wine, or mustard from Dijon. Now to the sound of
brass cymbals, skimmers, and dishpans, comes the King of Dupes, mounted
on a donkey, and greeted with shouts of laughter. It is our friend,
Vincent Pluviaut, who has been elected. Riding backwards, a turban
on his head, a goblet in his hand, he is listening to his body-guard
of horned imps, who prance along with pitchforks or rods on their
shoulders, shouting out in good plain French the tale of his glory. He
is too wise to betray his pride and tosses off a bumper with a careless
air, but when they pass a house as distinguished as his own, he cries,
“Here’s your good health, Brother!” as he raises his glass.

The procession ends with lovely Spring; a young girl, fresh and
smiling, with smooth brow and fair curling locks crowned with yellow
primroses, and wearing across her slender breast a chain of green
catkins plucked from the young nut trees. The pouch by her side and
the basket in her hands are brimming with good things. Her delicate
eyebrows arch over her wide blue eyes; her sharp little teeth show
as she opens her mouth like a round “O” to sing in her treble pipe
about the swallow who will soon be here again. Four white oxen draw
her chariot, and by her side are plump maids, well-developed, rounded
and graceful, and little girls at the awkward age, sticking out like
young trees in all directions. Something is lacking to each one; they
are no beauties as yet, but toothsome morsels for the wolf in future
none the less. Some carry migratory birds in cages, and some dip their
hands in the basket of Spring and shower treasures on the crowd; cakes,
sweetmeats and surprises, out of which fall hats and vests, mottoes
telling your fortune, lovers’ couplets, horns of plenty, or of ill-luck.

When they come to the market-place, near the tower, the maids jump from
the car and dance with the clerks and students, while Shrove-Tuesday,
Lent, and King Pluviaut continue their triumphal progress, pausing
every few feet to chaff the people, or toss off a glass,

  “Let your goblets chink--
  Drink, Drink, Drink!
  Shall we go without it?
      No!
  See the bottom of your glass
  Or we shall write you down an ass!”

After all, too much soaking is bad for one’s tongue and one’s wit, so
I leave friend Vincent and his escort drawing more corks, and make for
the open fields. The day is really too fine to waste between walls.
My old friend Chamaille, the vicar, has come up from his village in a
little donkey-cart to dine with the Archdeacon of St. Martin. As he
asked me to go with him for part of the way back, we climb into the
tail of the cart, little Glodie and I, and off goes the donkey! She is
so small that I suggest we shall take her up on the seat between us.
As the road stretches out long and white, the sun looks drowsy, as
if he meant to warm his own chimney corner more than ours. The donkey
drowses also and stops as if to think, so the vicar shouts indignantly,
in his great voice like a bell, “Madelon!” Donkey jumps, stirs her
spindle-shanks, zigzags from one rut to another, then stops again to
meditate, regardless of our objurgations. “Beast of ill-omen, if you
had not the sign of the Cross on your back, I would break this stick on
you,” roars the vicar, all the time basting her flanks with his cane.

We stopped to rest ourselves at the inn, just where the road turns to
go down to the white hamlet of Armes which lies looking at its fair
reflection in the water. Near by in the field we see some girls dancing
round an old nut tree whose great withered branches stretch toward
the pale sky. They have been carrying Shrove-Tuesday pancakes to the
magpies. “Come and dance too!” they cry.

“Look, Glodie, look at the magpie ’way up there; look at her white
breast over the edge of the nest! She is peeping out to see what she
can see, and she has made her little house open all around so that
nothing can escape her sharp eye and her chattering tongue. The wind
blows through it, so that she is wet and cold, but as long as she sees
all that goes on, she is satisfied. Now she is out of humor and seems
to say, ‘Rude people, be off with your presents. Do you think if I
wanted your cakes I could not pick them up in your very houses? There
is no fun in eating things that are given to you; stolen dainties are
the only ones I relish.’”

“Grandad, why do they give her pancakes all tied up with ribbons? Why
do they bring good-wishes to that old pilferer?”

“Because, darling, in this world it is better to be on good terms with
evildoers.”

“What’s that, Colas Breugnon? What idea are you putting in the child’s
head?” growled the vicar.

“I am not holding it up for her admiration. I only tell her that is
what every one does, you yourself, vicar, among the first. Don’t
stare at me like that, you know when you have a parishioner who knows
everything, sees everything, pokes her nose into everything, and is as
full of spite as a nut is full of meat you would stuff her mouth with
cakes, if that would keep her quiet.”

“Lord, if that were enough,” sighed the vicar. “I am really not fair to
old magpie, she is better than some women, and her tongue is sometimes
of use!”

“What is it good for, Grandfather?”

“She screams when the wolf is near.”

And at these words, all of a sudden the bird begins to cry, swear, and
blaspheme. She flaps her wings, flies, and pours out abuse toward I
don’t know who or what down in the valley near Armes. At the edge of
the wood her feathered companions, Charlot the jay, and the crow Colas,
answer sharply in the same irritated key. The villagers laugh and cry,
“Wolf!” No one believes it, but still they think they will go and look
(it is good to trust, but better to know), and what do you think they
see? A band of armed men coming up the hill at a trot. We know them
only too well; they are those rascals, the soldiers of Vézelay, who
knowing our town is off its guard, think they will catch the bird on
its nest. (Not this old magpie, however.)

We did not stop to look at them, as you may well believe! Every man
for himself, was the cry, and we all tumbled over each other. We took
to our heels by the road, across the fields; some on all fours, and
some sliding on the hinder side of their anatomy. We three jumped into
the donkey-cart; and, as if she understood it all, off went Madelon
like an arrow from the bow. The vicar forgot in his excitement the
consideration due to a donkey which has a cross marked on its back, and
belabored her with all his might. We rushed along through a crowd of
people screaming like blackbirds, and entered Clamecy first by a head,
covered with dust and glory, but with the rest of the fugitives hard
on our heels. Madelon scarcely touched the ground as we flew through
Béyant at full gallop, the cart bouncing, the vicar beating, and
shouting at the top of his lungs, “The enemy is upon us!”

People laughed at first as they saw us flying past them, but it did
not take them long to catch the idea, and the town was soon like an
ant-heap when you thrust a stick into it. Every one got to work,
running in and out. Men armed themselves; women packed up their
goods, piling things into baskets and wheelbarrows; and all the folks
in the suburbs, abandoning their homes, fled to the shelter of the
town walls. The masquers rushed to the ramparts, still wearing their
costumes, masks, horns, claws, and paunches; some as Gargantua, some as
Beelzebub, armed with gaffs and harpoons; and so when the advance guard
of Vézelay reached the walls, the drawbridges were raised, and only
some poor devils remained on the other side of the moat, who having
nothing to lose made no effort to save it, and poor old King Pluviaut,
deserted by his escort, full as a tick, like the Patriarch Noah, sat
snoring on his beast, holding on by the tail.

Here is where you can see the advantage of having Frenchmen for your
enemies. Germans, Swiss, or English, do their thinking through their
fists, and are so thickheaded that it takes them till Christmas to
understand what was told them on All Saints’ Day. I would not have
given a button for poor Pluviaut’s chance with such people as these.
They would have thought we were playing a joke on them, but no
words are necessary between us. If we come from Lorraine, Touraine,
Champagne, or Bretagne, geese from Beauce, asses from Beaune, or
rabbits from Vézelay, a good joke hits us all in the right spot, no
matter how much we may pound and beat each other. When they caught
sight of our old Silenus, their whole camp burst out laughing. They
laughed all over their faces, with their throats, with all their
hearts, and even their stomachs, and by St. Rigobert! to see the way
they laughed set us off too, all along our line. Like Ajax, and Hector
the Trojan, we hurled gay defiance at each other across the moat. Our
remarks, however, had much more snap than theirs. If I were not so
busy, I would write them down, but if you can put up with it, I mean
to include them in a collection I have been making for the last dozen
years of the best jokes, quips, and witticisms that I have heard, said,
or read, in the course of my pilgrimage through this vale of tears. I
would not lose it for a kingdom. It makes me crack my old sides only to
think of it. There now! I have made a great blot on my paper.

When the noise had subsided, it was time to fight; (nothing is so
restful when one has been talked to death), but neither side was keen
for it. Their surprise had failed, and we were well protected. They did
not care much about scrambling up our walls (you may break your bones
at that game) but something had to be done at any cost; it did not
matter much what, so a little powder was burned, some petards let off
at random, from which the sparrows were the only sufferers. We sat with
our backs to the wall inside the parapet, waiting while their plums
flew over our heads for the right moment to discharge our own without
taking aim, (there is no sense in exposing one’s self too much).

When we heard their prisoners squalling we ventured to look out. They
had caught a dozen men and women from Béyant and were beating them as
they stood in a row, with their faces turned to the wall. The poor
devils were not much hurt, but they screamed like curlews. Being safe
enough ourselves, we slipped down along the ramparts and brandished
pikes over the walls, on which we had stuck hams, saveloys, and
black-puddings. We could hear the besiegers uttering yells of hunger
and rage, and how that did put new life into us! To squeeze out the
last drop (for there is never too much of a good thing), when it grew
late we set out tables in the open air on the slopes, sheltered by the
wall, and loaded them with victuals and drink. There we had a noisy
feast, singing and drinking to Shrove-Tuesday. The outsiders nearly
went out of their skins with fury, and so that day went off gaily, and
no harm done. There was only one drawback. When Gueneau de Pousseaux,
that big fool! got too mellow, nothing would do but he must walk on top
of the wall with his glass in his hand, just to defy them, and they
knocked his head and his glass into splinters with a musket ball. This
did not much bother us, but to make it even, we wounded one or two of
them, for there can be no festivity, you know, without a little broken
crockery. Chamaille waited till nightfall before leaving the town to
go home. In vain we all said, “Old friend, you risk your neck. Wait
here till it’s all over; God will take care of your parishioners.” He
answered:

“My place is with my flock. God would be maimed without me, for I am
truly His right arm. But I will not fail Him, you may swear.”

“I believe you,” said I. “You gave full proof of it when the Huguenots
attacked your church, and you threw a great lump of plaster at their
Captain Papiphage and knocked him over.”

“That was a surprise for him, miscreant that he was,” said he. “For me
too, really. I mean no harm and hate to see blood flow; it disgusts
me, but the devil alone knows what gets into a man when he is among
hot-heads. He becomes a wolf.”

“That is true,” said I, “you lose what little sense you have when you
are in a crowd. A hundred wise men make a fool, and a hundred sheep a
wolf. But tell me, Vicar, how can you reconcile two codes--that of the
man who lives alone with his conscience and wants peace for himself and
all the world, and that of men in the mass, who make a virtue out of
war and wickedness. Which of these is of God?”

“That is a very silly question! Both. Everything comes from God.”

“Well, then He doesn’t know His own mind. Or rather I believe He cannot
do as He likes. It is easy enough to manage one man,--there is no
difficulty about that, but when He has a crowd to deal with, that is
another pair of shoes. What can one do against many? So man falls back
on his Mother Earth, who whispers to him of fleshly things. In the old
legend, if you remember, there are times when men become wolves, and
then get into their old skins again. Ah! my friend, there is more truth
in many an old song than in your Mass-book. Every man in the country
wears his wolf skin; States, Kings, and Ministers may dress themselves
up with shepherd’s crooks as much as they please, and claim descent,
like the hypocrites they are, from your Good Shepherd; they are really
all lynxes, bulls, jaws, and bellies, always crying for food, and for
the best of reasons; they must satisfy the hunger of the earth.”

“You are a raving heathen,” said Chamaille. “God sends the wolves like
the rest, and He does all things well. Did you never hear that the
Blessed Virgin had a little garden where cabbages grew, and Jesus, they
say, made the wolf to keep off the goats and the kids? No doubt He was
right, and we can only bow to His will. Why should we complain of the
strong? It would be a thousand times worse if the weak were raised to
power, so in conclusion all are for the best, sheep and wolves alike.
The sheep need the wolves to protect them, and the wolves need the
sheep, still more, for we all must eat. So now, Colas, off I go to
my cabbages.” He confided Madelon tenderly to my care, tucked up his
gown, grasped his cudgel, and made off; though the night was dark and
moonless.

We were not quite so merry for the next few days. We had foolishly
stuffed ourselves the first evening, just to show off and from stupid
greediness, so there was but little left of our provisions. We had to
draw in our belts, which was soon done, but we still had some swagger
in us. When the puddings were all gone, we made some stuffed with
bran and tarred strings which we stuck on a pike and dangled before
the enemy. The rogues soon saw through it, though, for a ball caught
one of our puddings fair in the middle, and who had the laugh on his
side then? Not we, I vow, and to cap the climax when these robbers saw
that we were fishing over the top of our wall, they stretched nets
from the locks up and down the river to catch the fry. Our Archbishop
reprimanded them for bad Christians who would not let us keep Lent, but
in vain, so we had to fall back on our own fat.

We might of course have implored the Duke of Nevers to come and help
us, but to tell the truth we were not anxious to have his troops
quartered on us again. It cost less to have the enemy outside the
walls than the friend within, so the best way was to keep quiet as
long as we could get along without them, and the enemy on his side was
prudent enough not to send for them. “Two is company, three is none,”
so we began negotiations, but without undue haste. Both camps led an
exemplary life. Early to bed and late to rise, playing bowls all day
and drinking. We yawned more from boredom than hunger, and we actually
slept so much that we grew fat in spite of our fast. The grown people
moved about as little as possible, but it was hard to keep the children
in order. These imps were always running, crying, or laughing; always
on the go and putting themselves in danger. They would climb the
walls, stick out their tongues at the besiegers, and bombard them with
stones. They had batteries of squirts, which they made from the elder
twigs; slings and sticks;--“Here goes. Hit him in the head!” the little
monkeys would cry. Those they struck vowed to be the death of them, and
they called out to us that the first child that poked its nose over
the top of the wall should be shot. We promised to be careful, but
the rogues slipped through our fingers in spite of our scoldings and
ear-pullings. Still water runs deep, so one fine evening, (it makes me
tremble only to think of it!) I heard a squeal, and if you can believe
it, there was that little hypocrite of a Glodie,--witch that she is!
my own treasure!--she had slipped down the bank into the ditch. Oh,
Lord, I could have whipped her! I was on the wall at one bound, and
there we all stood craning over. We made a fine target if the enemy
had chosen to shoot at us, but he too was looking at my darling at the
bottom of the ditch. Thanks to the Blessed Virgin, she had rolled down
gently like a little kitten, and sat there among the flowering grasses,
not in the least frightened, and looking up at the two rows of heads
above her. She was laughing and making a nosegay. We all laughed too,
and Monseigneur de Ragny, the enemy’s commander, ordered that no harm
be done to the child, and, good fellow that he was, threw her a bag of
sugar-plums. But you never know what a woman will do next, and while we
were all looking at Glodie, Martine rushed to save her lamb and she too
fell down the bank, running, slipping, and rolling, her skirts turned
up over her head. What a spectacle for the enemy! Immense applause! But
nothing daunted, she hugged and slapped her baby. One of the soldiers,
carried away by her charms, disobeyed his commanding officer, jumped
into the ditch and ran towards her. She stood fast while we threw a
broom down to her from the ramparts, seized it bravely, and marched on
the enemy. Whick, whack! The gallant kept his distance, and fled from
the field without sound of trumpets. Both camps roared with laughter,
and we pulled Martine up, triumphant, with her child in her arms, I on
the end of the rope as proud as a peacock.

Since talking is always in season, we took another week for discussion.
A rumor was heard that the Duke of Nevers was coming,--a false alarm,
but it brought us together and a treaty was drawn up on fairly easy
terms. We agreed to pay to the Vézelayans a tenth of our next vintage,
for it is always best to promise for the future; one may never get
there, and in any case much water runs under the bridge first and much
wine into our stomachs.

Both sides were satisfied with each other, and most of all with
themselves. Still, it never rains but it pours, and the very next
day after the treaty, a sign appeared in the heavens. About ten
o’clock it arose and slid across the field of stars toward St.
Peters-on-the-Height, like a long serpent. It resembled a sword with a
flame on the point, and great tongues of smoke; a hand seemed to grasp
the hilt. You could see the five fingers ending in dreadful heads; one
was a woman with her hair streaming in the wind, and the width at the
hilt of the sword was a span, at the point six or eight rods, and in
the middle exactly three rods and two inches. The color was scarlet and
violet, and inflamed like a wound in the side. We all stood, our eyes
raised to Heaven, our mouths open, our teeth chattering in our heads.
In the two camps the question was “To which one did the warning come?”
Each of course attributed it to the other, and every man shivered,
except me. I was not in the least frightened, for having gone to bed
at nine o’clock, I naturally saw nothing. Regularly as the day comes
round, I take medicine and go to bed early; when the stomach commands
I obey without question. Every one, however, told me all about the
portent, so I write it down, for it is the same as if I had seen it.

       *       *       *       *       *

As soon as peace was signed, friends and foes betook themselves once
more to feasting, and as by this time we had come to the middle of
Lent, we let ourselves go. It was a great day, I can tell you. Throngs
of people came pouring in from the neighboring villages, bringing
their provisions as well as mouths to eat them with, and tables were
spread the whole length of the ramparts. Three young pigs were served,
roasted whole, stuffed with spiced boar’s meat and heron’s liver.
There were hams, smoked and perfumed with juniper; rabbit and pork
pies, simply reeking with garlic and laurel; our own meat-balls and
tripe, pikes and snails, jugged hare so fat that our noses fed on them
first; calves-head that melted in the mouth; and heaps of peppery
lobsters enough to set your throat on fire. On top of all, to cool
it off, salads with plenty of vinegar; and then bumpers of the best
vintages from Chapotte, Mandre, and Vaufilloux. For dessert we had
curds and cream to slip gently down our throats, and biscuits with
which we sopped up a full glass at one mouthful. As long as a scrap
remained not one of us let go, and the Lord gave us strength to squeeze
all these dishes and drinks into our small bread-baskets. There was
a great contest between two eating champions. The Vézelayans put up
their hermit--Court-Oreille from St. Martin’s at Vézelay; (he was the
man, we are told, who first discovered that an ass must have his tail
in the air before he can bray); ours, (hermit, I mean not ass,) was
Dom Hennequin, who declared that he had such a hatred for cold water
that he believed he must have been a carp or a pike in some former
existence and been forced to swallow too much of it. Well, when the
Vézelayans and Clamecyans left off eating at last, they loved each
other more than they did at first; since a man’s fine qualities come
out strong at table, and he who loves good cheer is my brother. While
we were settling our dinner on the best of good terms, what should turn
up but the re-enforcements sent by our Duke to protect us? We burst
out laughing, and both sides politely requested them to go home. What
could they do? So they went off rather crestfallen, like dogs chased by
sheep, while we hugged each other and cried out:

“What fools we were to fight for these people! Our protectors,
forsooth! They would stir up enemies if we had none, in faith, just for
the sake of defending us. God keep us from our keepers, we can look
out for ourselves. Silly sheep that we are, we should be safe enough
if wolves were all that threatened us,--but who will save us from the
shepherd?”




III

THE VICAR OF BRÈVES


                                                     Early in April.

As soon as the roads were clear of our unwelcome visitors, I decided
to go at once and see Chamaille in his village; not that I was really
anxious about him, for he knows how to take good care of himself,
but all the same nothing is so reassuring as to see with one’s own
eyes,--besides my legs wanted stretching. So off I started without a
word to any one. The river flowed at the foot of the wooded hills and
I followed the river, whistling as I went. A soft spring rain came
pattering down, now ceasing, now falling again, dropping like beads
from the young leaves, and in the thickets I could hear the cry of an
enamored squirrel. Geese were feeding in the meadow, the blackbirds
sang fit to crack their throats, and the little thrush trilled tipu’ti
tipu’,--Paillard, the notary at Dornecy, is a great friend of mine, so
I thought I would stop and see him, for he, Chamaille, and I are as
inseparable as the Graces. I found him in his study making notes on
the weather, his recent dreams, and the political situation; close
beside him lay the manual “De Legibus,” and also the “Prophecies of
Nostradamus.” When a man spends his life shut up between four walls,
his mind is all the more eager to fly forth into dream spaces and the
forests of memory; and since he cannot rule this terrestrial ball,
he tries to peer into the future of the world. They say all is known
beforehand, and I can well believe it, but I must confess that I have
never had much luck in predicting the future until after the event.
Dear old Paillard fairly shone with joy when he saw me, and the house
shook with our peals of laughter. I love the very sight of him. He is
a little man, inclined to stoutness; his broad face is pockmarked, his
nose red, and his little eyes dance with cunning. He is always growling
and complaining of everything and everybody, but at bottom good-natured
and full of fun, and more of a joker really than I am myself. He loves
to get off the most awful whoppers with a perfectly straight face, and
at table he is a sight to behold invoking Comus and Momus, singing a
good song, and emptying his bottle. He was enchanted to see me, and
there we stood like two children hand in hand. His are large and thick,
but adroit, like the rest of him, and clever as the devil with all
kinds of tools. He is a bookbinder and carpenter, and declares that
everything in his house is the work of his own hands; not much beauty
perhaps to boast of, but good or bad it is all characteristic of him.
He began as usual by finding fault right and left, and so to take the
opposite side I praised the world in general, for it is a favorite joke
of his to call me “so much the better,” and I retort by calling him “so
much the worse.” He always has many complaints to make of his clients,
and with some reason, for they are by no means prompt in the matter of
payment; some of them have owed him money for thirty-five years and he
has taken no steps to collect his bills, however much it would be to
his interest. Some of his debtors pay when they happen to think of it,
but generally in kind; a dozen eggs, a pair of chickens;--that is the
usual custom, and it would be thought insulting if he insisted on his
money. I suppose he would do the same in their place so he submits,
growling.

Luckily he has enough to live on, a nice round sum getting rounder
every year, for he is an old bachelor with few expenses, no
extravagances, and as for the pleasures of the table, nature has spread
her board lavishly in our fields. We have vineyards, orchards, game,
and fish in abundance, so there are but two ways for Paillard to spend
his money: he buys books, which he likes to show at a distance, for he
is chary of lending, and then there are the new spectacles from Holland
with which he loves to look at the lady in the moon, sly dog.

He has put up a sort of scaffolding in the roof of his house among
the chimneys and from there he carefully studies the movements of the
heavenly bodies, and tries to discover the course of our destinies,
little as he understands them. To tell the truth he does not really
believe in all this, but he likes to persuade himself that he does,
and there I agree with him, for what can be more charming than to
look out at the stars as if from our window, just as we see fair
ladies in the streets,--we imagine a story about them, some romantic
adventure, it may not be true, but it is at least amusing---- We had
much to say to each other about the portent; that terrible bloody
sword which had been seen in the heavens during the night of the
previous Sunday and each interpreted it according to his own idea,
insisting most positively that his view was the right one. After all
we found that neither of us had so much as set eyes on it, for the
astrologer unluckily had chosen that very evening to fall asleep at
his instrument; and thus we were perfectly delighted to find ourselves
companions in misfortune and foolishness. Having determined not to
mention this incident to Chamaille, we set out across country,
admiring the young shoots on the bushes, the pink buds, the birds
making their nests, and a hawk slowly circling above the plain. We
had a great deal of fun as we went along, over an old joke that we
had once played on Chamaille; we shut a blackbird up in a cage, and
worked day and night to teach him a Huguenot song, and when he had
it well in his head, we turned him loose in the vicar’s garden. His
new accomplishment was soon picked up by all the other blackbirds in
the village, and they sang so loud as to disturb Chamaille at his
devotions. He swore, crossing himself, that the devil was loose in
his garden, then tried to exorcise him, and finally took aim with an
arquebus from behind the shutters, and shot the evil spirit; but in the
bottom of his heart he must have had some doubts, for having killed the
devil he then proceeded to eat him. Our walking and talking brought
us at last to Brèves, which seemed to be half asleep. We peeped into
the houses as we went by; the sun was streaming in through the open
doors, but we did not see a human being except one urchin enjoying the
fresh air on the edge of a ditch. We strolled on arm in arm through
the narrow street, encumbered with straw and filth, till, as we got
near the center of the town, we began to hear a buzzing like the sound
of a swarm of angry bees; and when we came out on the market-place
it was packed with people gesticulating and shouting at the top of
their lungs. Chamaille was standing at his garden gate purple with
rage, and he too was screaming and shaking his fist in the faces of
his parishioners. All this was perfectly unintelligible to us, for
we could only catch a word here and there in the midst of the tumult
of voices. “Caterpillars,--locusts,--field-mice,--cum Spiritu tuo!”
Here Chamaille’s voice struck in. “No! nothing shall induce me to go!”
Retort from the crowd, “Devil take it, are you our vicar or not? You
know that you are, and it is your duty to work for us.” “Upstarts!--I
am God’s servant, not yours!” To put an end to the uproar Chamaille
banged the gate in the faces of the foremost, but through the bars we
could see him still threatening his people with one hand, while by
force of habit the other was raised in the attitude of benediction. We
could catch a glimpse of him through the window, square of face and
round of belly, and as he could no longer make himself heard above
the clamor, we could see the derisive gesture with which he replied;
but from that moment the house was closed and turned a blind eye on
the street, so the noise gradually died down, the crowd grew thinner,
and at last we could get near enough to knock at the door. It was a
long time before we could get an answer. “Hi, Vicar!” we called, but
there was no reply. “Go to the devil! I am out,” came from behind the
shutters, and we continued to hammer on the door. “Get out, I tell you!
If you don’t let my door alone you will get a deluge that will astonish
you!”--and the contents of a bucket began to trickle down our backs.
“Chamaille!” we called out; “make it wine if you want to soak us.” The
tempest instantly subsided; and our friend stuck his jolly red face
out of the window crying, “Name of a name, boys, is it you? In another
minute you would have caught it finely--why didn’t you say who you
were?” Then he came rushing downstairs. “Come in! come in! Give us your
hand, and come upstairs and have a drink; you need it if you are half
as hot as I am! It is a real treat to see a civilized human being after
those dancing apes; did you see the row they were kicking up? But they
can kick as they please, I will not stir one step. Do you know they
actually wanted me to go out with the Holy Sacrament? There is a storm
coming up too, and the Host and I would both have been soaked; but the
idea of treating me as if I were a plowboy! I am no servant of theirs,
sacrilegious rascals! I’ll teach them to treat God’s minister with
respect. My business is to cultivate their souls and not their fields.”

“What in the world is the matter with you?” said we. “Tell us what
has happened.” “Well, come in first,” said he, “upstairs where we
shall be more comfortable. My throat is as dry as a lime-kiln, I must
have something to drink. Now what do you say to that? You must have
tasted worse in your time. But would you believe it, my friends, those
brutes actually wanted me to have fasts and feasts every day, and for
what do you think? For nothing in the world but insects.”--“Insects!”
we shouted. “Well, you really must have a bee in your bonnet; are
you crazy, or are we?” This was the last straw, and he protested
indignantly that it was bad enough to be troubled by all this folly,
without being called a fool. “Well then, tell us all about it like a
sensible man.”--“You will drive me to perdition,” said he, wiping the
sweat from his brow, “the good Lord and I have been so harried and
bothered with all this nonsense, I must try to calm down!--You know
these people of mine want their vicar to provide rain and sunshine
for them. They jeer at the life eternal and don’t keep their souls
any cleaner than their feet, but they expect me to make the sun and
the moon stand still at their desire.--‘Not too much rain,’ they say,
‘now a little warm weather and a gentle breeze--no frost for pity’s
sake--now, Lord, a few drops more on my vineyard--stop!--now give us a
wee bit more sunshine!’--If you listen to them you would think prayer
was a kind of whip with which to drive their Maker, as a gardener does
his old ass that turns a water-wheel. The worst of all this is that
they cannot agree among themselves; one wants wet weather, another
dry, so they take refuge with the saints, for you must know that
there are thirty-seven of them up there, who have charge of rainy
weather. The foremost with his lance in his hand, is the great St.
Médard.--The fair-weather saints are only two in number, St. Raymond
and St. Dié, and it is their duty to brush away the clouds. Then
there are St. Blaise, the wind calmer, St. Christopher, St. Valerian,
and St. Aurelian who saves us from the hail, the storm, and the
thunder; lastly, St. Clare who sweeps the cobwebs out of the sky.--The
contradictory prayers of our farmers stir up discord in heaven, and
all these saintly personages are at daggers drawn with one another,
till Sts. Susan, Helen, and Scholastica actually pull each other’s hair
down. The good Lord himself does not know where to turn, and if He
does not know, how is it with His poor vicar? After all it is none of
my business; my duty is only to forward petitions and the Proprietor
can attend to them as He sees fit. This idolatry positively revolts
me, but I would not object if these good-for-nothings would not drag
me into their quarrels with Heaven, but they are mad enough to try to
make use of me and the Cross as a talisman against the pests which
devour their crops. They wanted the rats driven away from the grain in
their barns, so there were prayers, exorcisms, and processions in honor
of St. Nicaise;--all this on a bitter day in December, with snow up
to my neck; I have had lumbago ever since. Then caterpillars attacked
them, and we had more processions, this time addressed to St. Gertrude,
in a March storm with melting sleet;--a racking cough for me was the
result. Now we have the locusts, and they want another procession
round the orchards; think of it! with the sun like a furnace, and
black clouds rolling up before a thunderstorm. I should come back
with a rush of blood to the head, chanting the verse ‘Ibi ceciderunt,
workers of iniquity, atque expulsi sunt!’ but it is I who would be cast
out,--(‘Sacred to the memory of Baptiste Chamaille, commonly called
Dulcis, vicar of this parish.’)--No! I am in no hurry to quit this
world, and the best of jokes may be carried too far. It is no business
of mine to get rid of their caterpillars, and as for their locusts, the
lazy-bones can drive them off with their own hands. Help yourself and
others will help you! It would be really too comfortable for them to
sit down and let me do all the work. No, I will do my duty to the Lord,
and let them do likewise. They can besiege me here if they choose. It
would not bother me in the least, and I tell you, my friends, that they
could raise this house from the ground easier than they could make me
move out of this armchair. So now let’s have another bottle.” Having
come to the end of his breath and his eloquence, he took a long drink
and we followed his example, looking through our glasses at the world
and our future which appeared rosy enough. Then there was silence for
a few moments.--Each had his own special way of drinking, Paillard
smacked his lips, looked at his glass inside and out, held it up to
the light, tasted the wine and swallowed it down little by little,
taking it in through his nose and his eyes as much as by his palate.
Chamaille threw the wine into his big throat at one gulp. “Ha!” he
would say as he felt it going down, rolling up his eyes to Heaven. As
for me, I enjoyed both drink and drinkers; the more I looked at them
the happier I felt. What can be more delightful than to taste two
pleasures at once? All the same the bottle did not stand still with me.
Not one of the three was behind the others, but would you believe it?
at the end of the race the old notary was first by a good bumper. Our
souls seemed to dilate under this refreshing dew, which moistened our
throats and brightened up our wits and our faces. We leaned out of the
open window, touched and charmed at the sight of the fields in their
fresh spring dress, the young poplar shoots opening under the soft
sunshine, the Yonne down in the valley twisting and turning through the
meadows, like a playful puppy. We could hear the gay voices of women as
they beat their linen on the stones, and the ducks quacking among the
reeds. By this time Chamaille had quite recovered his good humor and
began to talk as he leaned out between us. “It’s a pretty good place
to live in after all; we were all three of us born here, the Lord be
praised! Was there ever a sweeter, dearer country? it fairly smiles at
you, it is so soft, so tender and graceful, fit to bring tears to your
eyes and to make your mouth water.” We nodded our heads, and he began
again.--“Our Master of course does what is right, we all know that,
but why the devil did He put such disagreeable people in this heavenly
place? I wish with all my heart that He would send them off somewhere
to live under the Incas or the Great Mogul, anywhere but here.” “But,
Chamaille,” said we, “all men are alike, you would not gain by getting
rid of these.” “Well then, they must have come into this world not that
I might save their souls, but to discipline mine through this earthly
Purgatory. My friends, you must admit that no lot is so hard as that
of a country priest who has to struggle to knock the truths of our
holy religion into the thick skulls of these stupid peasants; they may
take in the Catechism with their mother’s milk but it does not stay
by them, for such rude natures need coarse provender. They will fill
their mouths with aves and litanies, often just for the sake of hearing
themselves; they will bray out vespers and complines, but the sacred
words seldom get any farther than their thirsty jaws; for all the good
done to their hearts and stomachs they might as well have held their
tongues; pagans they were before, and pagans they remain. We have been
striving for hundreds of years to drive out the gnomes and fairies from
our fields, woods, and streams; but though we crack our cheeks and
lungs in the effort to blow out these infernal fires, so that we can
make God’s true light to shine in the black darkness of the world, we
cannot prevail over these base spirits, vulgar superstitions, of the
earth earthy. The people will still find some of this brood of Satan
hidden in the trunks of aged oaks, or under rocking stones, though the
Lord alone knows how many we have broken, thrown down, and uprooted;
but to get rid of all the devils which our mother Gaul holds hidden
within her, would be endless. Every sod and stone in the country would
have to be overturned. The truth is, nature is always slipping through
our fingers; if you clip her wings one day they grow out the next, and
ten gods spring up for each one that you destroy. Our stupid peasants
think everything is a god or a devil; and they believe in were-wolves,
headless horses, human snakes, imps, and sorcerers. Just imagine the
figure the gentle Son of Mary and Joseph must cut among all these
monsters out of Noah’s ark!” “If we could only see ourselves as others
see us,” said Paillard. “No doubt your people are a crazy lot, but how
about you yourself? is there much to choose between you? and are your
saints much better than demons and fairies? Three Gods in one was not
enough; besides a goddess mother, you fill your Pantheon and the niches
left empty by the old deities, with all kinds of godlings, male and
female; but as far as I can see these newcomers are no better than the
old: they appear like snails from no one knows where, deformed, maimed,
eaten up with dirt and vermin.--They make a display of their sores and
ulcers; one carries a trencher on his head, another sticks his head
itself under his arm, like a hat. Then there is his saintship who goes
about with his skin in his hand, and worst of all here in this Church
is your own particular St. Simon Stylites, who stood for forty years on
top of a pillar on one leg, for all the world like a crane.”

“Hold up there!” cried Chamaille, jumping from his seat. “Say what you
please about the other saints, they are no affair of mine, but here in
St. Simon’s own house, the least we can do is to be civil to him.”

“Well, as I am your guest, I will leave your old crane in peace on
his pedestal, but how about the Abbot of Cortigny who has the Blessed
Virgin’s milk in a bottle, and Count Sermizelles who took powdered
relics and washed them down with holy water when he happened to need
medicine?”

“You might do the same thing under the same circumstances,” said
Chamaille, “for all that you laugh at it now,--but as for the Abbot
of Cortigny, or any other monk, they would sell angel’s milk or
archangel’s cream, if they thought they could get our customers away
from us: we are like cat and dog; their very name is an abomination to
me!”

“Come, now, do you believe in these relics, or do you not?”

“I believe in my own, not in theirs, of course,--I have here the
shoulder-blade of St. Diétrine, a sovereign cure for the scurvy, and
the skull of St. Etoupe, which drives devils out of the sheep.--Now
what are you jeering at? I tell you I have documents here, signed
parchments, to prove the truth of what I say; if you do not believe me,
I will go and fetch them.”

“Sit down, old man, I don’t want to see your documents; now, Chamaille,
honor bright, you have no more faith in these things than I have, I
can see it in your eye. A bone is a bone, no matter where it comes
from, and you are an idolater if you adore it. Everything has its
place in this world, and corpses should stay in the graveyard; so for
my part I believe in life, in the light of day. I know that I live
and think--very clearly too,--I know also that two and two make four,
and that the earth is a fixed star hung in infinite space.--I believe
in our local customs, and could recite the whole list of them to you.
Then there are books where man’s knowledge and experience are distilled
drop by drop! I believe firmly in them. Above all I trust my own
understanding, and like any wise and prudent man, I have faith in Holy
Writ. Now are you satisfied?”

At this Chamaille fairly lost his temper. “What! satisfied?” cried he;
“you are a horrible mixture of Calvinist, heretic, and Bible-pattering
Huguenot; you would push aside even the vicar, and presume to dictate
to your Mother Church. Oh! generation of vipers!”

It was now Paillard’s turn to be angry, because, as he said, he could
not suffer any one to apply the term Huguenot to him; he declared he
was a loyal Frenchman and son of the Church, and had a good head on his
shoulders too, so that he could see through a millstone as well as the
next man; that he knew a fool when he saw him, and Chamaille was three
parts a fool or three fools in one, just as he pleased; and he added
that since God is the fountain of light and reason, if we would respect
God, we should respect our own reason also.

After this silence settled down, except for an occasional grunt as
they sat back to back at the table, finishing their bottle.--I burst
out laughing, and they noticed then for the first time that I had
taken no part in the dispute, though I had followed the whole argument
with delight, and caught myself imitating the motions of their lips,
frowning when they frowned, and moving my features like a rabbit
eating a cabbage leaf. Now they both appealed to me to know on which
side I was.

“I agree with both of you,” said I, “and not with you alone: let us
thresh this thing out together. Folly leads to laughter, and laughter
to wisdom;--when you want to estimate your possessions what do you do?
You begin naturally by writing down your column of figures, and then
you add them up. Now why not pursue the same method with any crotchets
you may have in your head? Add them all together and the sum may be a
truth, though truth is hard to seize, and mocks at those who would lay
hands on her; still there is more than one answer to the riddle of the
world, my children. We only see one side of the shield, so I am for all
gods, pagan and Christian alike, and for the god of reason first and
foremost.”

This lucid exposition had no better result than to unite both the
others in an onslaught on me, and what they called my pagan and
atheistic opinions. “Atheist!” cried I, “and why not? my door is open
to all comers; gods and laws of every degree are welcome. I reverence
God, and worship His saints, and love to gossip and laugh with such
as are good company, but to tell you the plain truth, one god is
not quite enough for a man as greedy as I am, so I have saints and
saintesses, fairies and spirits of the earth, air, and water. I believe
in reason, but I believe also in folly, from which truth sometimes
springs. If I have faith in sorcery, I like also to think of this earth
hanging in the clouds, and I should love to have my fingers on all the
springs that move the world.--What joy to listen to the bright-eyed
planets, and watch the man in the moon.--‘Silly talk!’ say you, who are
all for rule and order, but let me tell you, these things are to be
had at a price only, and a high one. To be orderly means not to follow
one’s own will, but that of others; it means to cut down the tall trees
that the highroad may run straight;--convenient if you will, but ugly
as the devil. No, mine are the old Gallic ideas,--many chiefs and a
strong law, but every man for himself, and all brothers. Believe as you
choose, but leave me to my belief, and the worship of my reason. Above
all, let the gods alone; they are everywhere, in the heavens and in
the waters under the earth; the world teems with them, and I not only
respect those I know, but I am willing to accept new ones; only no one
shall take from me one I have already known, unless he has deceived me.”

Paillard and the vicar looked at me with positive compassion, and
asked how I expected to get through the world with my head in such a
tangle.

“There is no difficulty as to that,” I assured them. “I know just where
to put my feet. Do you think I need to take the highroad from Clamecy
to Vézelay when I can cut through the woods? I find my way blindfold
through little bypaths, it takes rather longer perhaps, but I pick up
something for my game-bag. In my world everything is in its place: God
in His Heaven, the saints in their chapels, out of doors the fairies,
and my good brains in my head, so it all works smoothly; to each his
proper task, with no despotic king to rule over us. It is more like a
confederation of allied cantons, some strong and others weak; but in
case of necessity the little ones band together, and who will get the
upper hand then? Of course the Lord is mightier than any fairy, but
it is another pair of shoes when a swarm of fairies make common cause
against Him. The biter, you know, is sometimes bit. You think me crazy
I know, but it sticks in my head that the head God of all is yet to be
seen, for He is above everything; far, far away like our good King; we
know his stewards and lieutenants only too well, but he is invisible
in his palace,--so the sovereign to whom we bow is one Concini. Now,
Chamaille, don’t look at me like that, if you like it better, we will
say that the Duke of Nevers is our ruler just now. Blessings on his
head! I admire and respect him, but when he of the Louvre raises his
voice our Duke is silent, and a good thing too!”

“I wish it were good,” said Paillard, “but as the proverb says, when
the sun is hid, you see the stars, and since the death of our lamented
Henry, the whole kingdom is under petticoat government, princes and
all; you know who profits by the sport of nobles; there are plenty to
dip their fingers in the bag of gold, (the price of future triumphs,)
that Sully has laid up there in the Arsenal. How long, O Lord? before
these thieves are brought to justice!”

This was the signal for us to break out and talk with the utmost
imprudence; for we had now hit on a tune which we could all sing,
and we did sing it with variations on princes, hypocrites, lazy
monks, and fat prelates. It is only fair to Chamaille to say that his
improvisations on this theme were by far the most brilliant; but the
trio continued in most melodious measure to chant of bitter and sweet,
of those who have too much faith, and those who have none; fanatics,
Huguenots, bigots, and fools who think that they can put the fear of
God into a man by a dagger thrust or a blow on the head. As if we were
donkeys to be driven with a stick along the heavenly way! Damnation
should be free to all who desire it, but let them burn in a future
state without tormenting them here on earth, and meanwhile leave us
in peace, each to act as seems good in his own eyes. We are told that
Christ died for men; for the infidel, as well as the Christian, and in
truth are we not all poor creatures, as like as peas in a pod, neither
better nor worse? What place, then, should pride and cruelty have among
us?

Somewhat fatigued by all this conversation, we then resumed the worship
of Bacchus, the only god respected by all three; even Chamaille
declared that all the monks and sermons in the world could not turn him
from this allegiance, for Bacchus is everywhere acknowledged as of true
French lineage, and a real Christian. Are there not old pictures where
our Saviour is represented treading the winepress under His feet? “Let
us drink then, my friends, to our smiling god, whose red blood warms
our hillsides and vineyards, rejoices our hearts, loosens our tongues,
and breathes his right generous spirit over our France, filling her
with the elixir of life.”

Just here we stopped to take breath, and drink to France and common
sense; for her motto is always to avoid extremes, if you would be wise;
sometimes, it is true, one falls between two stools. All at once we
heard a great banging of doors and heavy steps on the stairs, mingled
with portentous puffings and appeals to all the saints in the calendar,
and Mistress Louisa, the vicar’s housekeeper, made her appearance,
wiping her fat red face with a corner of her apron. “Oh! Master, you
are wanted at once! Come and help us.”

“Come where, you old fool?” said her master with pardonable irritation.

“Oh! save us, they will be here in a jiffy!”

“Who? the caterpillars?--let them spread over the fields. Now I won’t
hear another word about those brutes of farmers.”

“But they are threatening the most dreadful things!”

“Pooh! what do I care for them? Do they threaten to bring me before the
Tribunal? Let them come on, I am ready for them.”

“Ah, dear Master! a suit is nothing to what they threaten to do.”

“For the love of Heaven, woman, speak out!”

“They are all at big Picq’s house down in the village, and what do you
think? They are making charms and exorcisms to drive all the mice and
insects from their own fields to your orchard and cellar!”

Chamaille sprang to his feet. “To think of those fiends! Sending
locusts to eat up my fruit! How dare they even think of such a thing!
St. Simon, have mercy on your poor vicar!”

We could not help laughing, and tried our best to calm him, but it was
of no use.

“It is all very well!” he cried, “but you would laugh on the other side
of your mouths if you were in my shoes; I suppose I must go and get my
storeroom ready for these guests! Locusts! How revolting! And mice! It
is enough to drive one crazy!”

I tried to persuade him that he could easily get the better of his
parishioners and advised him to try some strong counter exorcism, but
nothing could console him.

“I am lost!” he cried, wringing his hands. “Picq is terribly clever and
sharp; the Lord alone knows what will come of it. I shall have to give
in. To think how happy and comfortable I was just a minute ago! Ah! my
dear friends, it is all up with me. Run, Louisa; run, and tell them
to stop; say I am coming as fast as I can. Beasts that they are! Just
let them wait till the next time they are dying and send for me! Well,
the will of the Lord be done; it is not the first time I have had to
knuckle down.”

“Where are you going, old man?” we said.

“I am off on a crusade against locusts, of course!” he cried.




IV

THE IDLER


                                                      A Day in Spring.

Fair April, daughter of spring, the pink and white apricot blossoms
are like your slender breasts, and your sweet eyes shed soft sunshine
over my garden. Ah! what a lovely day lies before me! And how good to
stretch my old arms and shake off the stiffness of the night. I have
been working hard for the last two weeks to make up for lost time, and
we three, my two apprentices and I, have made the shavings fly under
our planes, but unfortunately we rather lack customers; there are few
to buy, and fewer still to pay for what they order; now purses are lean
and empty, but red blood still runs in our arms, good soil is in our
fields, and we reign over both.

Since early morning the voice of the working city has risen up to
Heaven, “Our Father, give us our daily bread,” but meanwhile, like
sensible folks, we are kneading it ourselves.... You can hear the
clatter of the millwheel, the wheeze of the forge bellows, and the
hammers beating on the anvil; horses stamp and splash through
the ford, carts bump along the road, whips crack, wooden shoes go
pitter-patter; the butcher swings his chopper, the cobbler sings as
he hammers in his nails,--and above is the blue spring sky, the white
clouds flying before the light fresh breeze, and the genial sun warming
everything. My youth revives, coming from far on swift wings to build
her swallow’s nest in my old heart once more, where she is more than
ever welcome after her long absence, dearer even than in those first
sweet days.

Just at this moment I hear the harsh grind of the weather-cock on the
roof, or is it my old woman screaming something or other at me? I turn
a deaf ear, but deuce take the sound, it has scared away my lovely
youth.... She--I mean my wife--comes down in a rage as usual.

“What in the world are you doing there with your arms folded, gazing
into the clouds, with your big mouth open as if you expected larks to
drop into it? while here am I working for you like a pack-horse,--you
think that’s what women are made for, but the good Lord never meant
Adam to stand with his hands in his pockets while his wife slaved about
the house. I say he ought to take his share of all that is going, good
and bad alike; there must be that much justice in Heaven or I will know
the reason why! Stop laughing, you great fool! Get to work if you
want to eat. Ah! I thought that would hit him! Now then begin, and the
sooner the better.”

“Of course I am going,” said I, smiling sweetly. “It is a sin to stay
in the house on a day like this.” So back I went to the workshop and
told my apprentices to come with me to Rion’s woodyard to choose a long
smooth plank for the work I had in hand. Cagnat, Robinet, and I went
out whistling, and met my old girl on the threshold still railing at
men and things.

“Don’t go on so about it, Mistress,” said Cagnat, “we shall be back in
no time.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” shrieked my sweet partner.

Nine was striking on the town clock as we reached Béyant, no distance
at all, but we had the manners to pause just a second at the bridge
and speak to Fétu, Gadin, and Trinquet, who were sitting on the
parapet watching the water--by way of beginning their working day.
We had a moment’s chat about nothing in particular, and then went on
our way like steady responsible workmen, straight on, saying nothing
to anybody, because, for one thing, there was no one on the road;
but being persons of taste, we appreciated the beauties of nature,
admiring the sky, the fresh spring verdure, a blooming apple-tree under
the walls, the flight of a swallow, with some talk about the weather
and the direction of the wind. All at once I remembered that I had not
seen my little Glodie the whole morning, so I told my men to go on
ahead, I would catch up with them at Rion’s.

When I got to Martine’s I found her down on her knees scrubbing the
shop, her tongue going like a mill-race, talking to her husband, to
his apprentice, to Glodie, to every one else within hearing, in the
highest of spirits, and the floor being done, she flung the dirty water
into the street, and hit me fair on the legs, where I was standing just
outside the door admiring her,--there is no use denying it, she is the
light of my eyes. Of course we both laughed louder than ever; she made
a real picture, with her dark hair all tousled over her bright eyes and
thick eyebrows, her lips as red as ripe plums, and her plump neck and
arms, and her skirts tucked up just as far as need be.

“I hope you got it all, Father Noah?”

“Every drop, but I don’t mind that, as long as I am not obliged to
drink it.”

In I went and kissed my little Glodie, who was sitting under the
counter to be out of the wet.

“I bet I know what brought you here so early in the morning,” said
Martine.

“You knew the reason before you were born,” was my answer.

“You mean Mother?”

“Who else?”

“Men are such cowards!”

Florimond heard the last word, just as he was coming in, and drew
himself up, thinking it was meant for him. “No offense,” said I, “she
was talking to me.”

“If the cap fits put it on!” said my daughter.

Florimond always stands a good deal on his dignity and hates to be
laughed at; besides he is apt to be suspicious of Martine and me when
we get together, and fancies, sometimes with some reason, that we are
making him the butt of our jokes, so I said innocently, “You know well
enough, Martine, that Florimond is master in his own house, not like
your poor old father, who always let himself be put upon; you inherit
your docile submissive nature from me, my child.”

“Get along with you, old humbug,” cried Martine, who by this time
was at her house-cleaning again, rubbing the windows, the walls, and
the furniture, as if to take the very skin off. She filled the whole
place to overflowing with life and energy, while in the background
stood Florimond as usual, stiff and particular; he is always chilly,
never quite at his ease with us, our jokes shock him, and he cannot
understand why we often laugh just out of sheer health and jollity,
for he is himself somewhat undersized, thin, and low-spirited. Nothing
is ever quite to his mind, perhaps because he is always thinking of
himself, so there he stood with a knitted scarf round his scraggy
fowl’s neck, and kept glancing about uneasily, till at last he said:

“There is a gale here fit to blow your head off. Shut a few of those
windows.”

“It is as hot as Tophet!” said Martine, scrubbing harder than ever, but
as a matter of fact there was a good fresh breeze coming in from all
directions, too much for Florimond, who went off like a thunder-cloud.
“He can go back and warm himself in his oven,” she said, laughing. I
could not help asking her how she got along with her baker, though I
knew perfectly well she would let herself be cut in pieces before she
would admit that she had ever made a mistake; true enough, she declared
that he suited her down to the ground. “One should always be content
with what one has,” said she.

“You are right,” said I, “but if I may venture to say so, I should
think your little man might sometimes have cause for uneasiness.”

“And why, I should like to know? My worst enemy would admit that I am
a woman of my word, if he keeps his part of the bargain, but if he
doesn’t, just let him look out for himself, that’s all I have to say.
If he does his duty, I will do mine!”

“His whole duty?”

“You don’t suppose he would admit that it is too much for him?”

Martine sat back on her heels, her bright eyes sparkling with laughter,
then jumped up and gave me a great push.

“You are wasting my whole day for me, there never was such an old
gossip since the world was made. Get out now, take Glodie with you,
she is forever under my feet, with her fingers in everything that goes
on, (there, she has been in the bakeshop again, I can see dough on her
nose). Get along with you, do, before I sweep you both out!”

So out we had to go, glad enough to be together, and on the way at
last to Rion’s, but there were some fishermen by the riverside, and we
had to stop to look at them, give them some advice and watch the line,
and see the float disappear under the green water with a jerk. Glodie
noticed the worm wriggling on the hook. “Poor thing,” she said, “he is
going to be eaten, and that makes him unhappy.”

“Well, darling, it is rather nasty to be eaten, but then think how nice
for the fish that swallows him, and says, ‘that’s good!’”

“How would you like it, Grandad, if any one swallowed you?”

“I should say, ‘What luck for the man that gets such a toothsome
morsel!’ It is just the way you look at it, ducky, everything is good
if you only see it in the right light; all is for the best to a true
son of Burgundy.”

It was not quite eleven o’clock when we got to Rion’s, and there we
saw Binet, (who like a careful lad had brought his rod), fishing for
gudgeon, while Cagnat lay stretched out on the grass looking on.

I went on to the woodyard, for there is nothing I love so well as to
handle the big logs stripped of their bark, and breathe in the clean
fresh smell of sawdust; on my honor I believe a fine tree appeals to me
even more than a woman, though I am not one of those narrow fools who
can only enjoy one thing at a time. If I were in the slave market at
Constantinople, and saw the girl of my heart there among twenty other
beauties, do you think my love for her would prevent me from seeing
the charms of the others? No, thank Heaven! my eyes are windows wide
open to beauty of every kind, and nothing is lost on me. I am besides
rather a sharp old bird,--long experience, you know,--and can detect
the little tricks and dodges of the fair sex under no matter what
disguise; in the same way beneath the rough skin of my tree-loves I can
see life waiting for me to bring it forth.

Meanwhile Cagnat (who is impatient, like all young men) has been
exchanging pleasantries at the top of his voice with loungers on the
other end of the bridge, for though the people in the two suburbs may
differ in some ways, they both like to spend the livelong day sitting
on the wall of the bridge, with occasional trips to the nearest tavern;
and as you may guess, a conversation between Beuvron and Béyant
consists chiefly of abuse. They call us Burgundy snails and peasants;
we retort with “frogs,” or “pike-eaters,”--I say “we,” because for the
life of me, I never can keep out of any squabble that’s going on; it
seems just ordinary civility to answer when you are spoken to. In the
midst of our little encounter, all at once the clock struck twelve!
Noon already? There must be something wrong with the hourglass, still I
ought to be getting home, so I pressed our friends, who were looking
on, to help us load our planks on the cart, and give us a hand with it
back to Beuvron. “Cheeky devil,” was their first answer, but at bottom
they were good-natured enough, so off we went running up the hill to
the admiration of all beholders. When we got to our own bridge there
were Fétu, Gadin, and Trinquet, just where we left them three hours
ago, still watching the water. They jeered at us for working so hard,
we called them good-for-nothings, and as the issue seemed in doubt, I
sat down on the corner to see how it would all turn out, when suddenly
I heard a well-known voice, and there was the old lady, “Will you tell
me what you have been doing with yourself ever since nine this morning?
It is my belief that you would never come home, if I did not drag you
in by the hair of your head, idle, greedy vagabond! And your dinner is
all burnt to a cinder!”

“You win!” said I, laughing; “there’s not one of these boys that can
stand up to you when it comes to talking--but I was on my way home
truly. I had only stopped to rest,--go ahead, I’ll be there in a
minute.”

The two apprentices, my wife, and Glodie went off towards home at a
brisk pace, and I followed in a more leisurely manner--I was going as
I was bid, when down from the upper town came the sound of voices, of
horns, and the gay chimes from St. Martin’s tower; and I remembered
that the wedding of Mademoiselle Lucretia Champeaux, and Monsieur
d’Amazy, the Receiver of Taxes, was to take place today. Every one made
a bee-line for the castle, and rushed off at the top of his speed, I
among the foremost, for shows like that don’t come our way often. Fétu,
Gadin, and Trinquet were the only ones who stayed behind, as if they
were glued to the wall of the bridge; they said it was undignified to
put themselves out for those upper-towners, and as a rule I agree with
them, and stand on my dignity as much as any man, but not when it comes
between me and my amusement,--there is reason in all things! I took
the flight of thirty-six steps up to St. Martin’s at one jump, but all
the same by ill-luck I was not in time to see the wedding procession,
which had already gone into church; naturally there was nothing left
for me to do but to wait and see it come out, but as the service seemed
interminably long--the clergy love the sound of their own voices,--I
managed to squeeze my way between the bulging corporations of my
fellow-citizens, till I found myself just inside the door under a
regular human feather-bed. I am the last man to forget the respect due
to the sacred edifice otherwise I might have been up to some of my
jokes, but I know what’s what, and can be solemn as an owl at the right
moment. Only sometimes even owls lose their gravity, and that is what
happened to me, for while I was standing there, a model of propriety
and devotion, the service went on, and as Monsieur d’Amazy is a great
votary of the chase, hunting-horns were introduced at suitable moments.
If only the pack of hounds had been there too! I did not dare to laugh,
of course, but I whistled a flourish under my breath, and just then
came the crucial point of the ceremony when the bride answers “Yes”
to the fatal question. At once the horns burst out with the “set to,”
and that was too much for me; I cried, “Hallali!” and the whole church
roared with laughter, so that the beadle came to restore order, and I
thought it a good time to make my way out, as quiet as a mouse.

There were plenty of people outside, many like myself who are aware
that ears were made to hear, eyes to see, and tongues to tell what
takes place--or what does not,--in the world around us; so it seemed
but a moment before the great doors swung open again, and the sound of
the organ came pouring out, as the bridal party appeared. First came
the Amazy, leading his beautiful prize, her large eyes glancing to
right and left like a frightened doe as she advanced. Lovely creature!
I wish she had fallen to my charge, but to whom much is given, of him
much is demanded, and Amazy has his work cut out for him. Unfortunately
I saw little more, so that afterwards I could not even describe the
dresses of the bride and bridegroom, for just then we were distracted
by a grave question of precedence which arose among the dignitaries who
formed part of the procession.

I shall never get over having missed the entrance into the church,
for it seems that the Chief Magistrate of the Manor, and the Provost,
acting as Mayor, had locked horns in the doorway like two old rams, and
the Mayor being the bigger man got through first; the great question
now was which of the two would be first coming out, so bets were freely
offered, and meanwhile the head of the procession went on its way,
but the tail delayed its appearance. We could see, just inside the
entrance, that a furious dispute was in progress between the rival
officials, and as they could not talk loud in church, there they were,
scolding, puckering their faces into the most portentous frowns and
scowls, and cursing at each other, all in dumb show. It was enough to
make one die of laughing, but we all ended by taking part with one
side or the other; the older ones for the Judge, because he was the
Duke’s representative, and you must respect others, if you would be
respected yourself; but the young men inclined to the side of the Mayor
as champion of our liberties, and personally I backed the better man.
We all shouted to encourage them with cries of “Go it, Grasset!” “At
him again, Pétaud!!” “Shut his mouth!” But to our great disappointment
the contestants were too much afraid of spoiling their fine clothes to
get to their hands, and the dispute might have lasted till the crack
of doom,--for there was no danger of their breath giving out,--if it
had not been for the priest, who wanted to get to the castle in time
for dinner,--so he smoothed them down, telling them it was bad manners
to be late, and worse yet to show their evil tempers in the house of
the Lord, that they could settle their difficulties another time,--and
in short he got them all in motion. I was not near enough to hear all
this, but I could see that he put his two big hands behind their heads
and brought their faces gently together for the kiss of peace, and out
they all came at last, marching in two lines, with the big priest in
the middle. When masters fall out, we are always the gainers, so we
were well pleased to see three at the head of the column, instead of
one.

When they had all gone into the castle where their well-earned feast
awaited them, we remained outside sniffing the delicious odors of a
dinner we were not to share; but it was a sort of satisfaction to
hear the list of dishes, for there were three of us there, Tripet,
Bauldequin and I, who knew what was good, so our mouths watered as we
heard all the toothsome things, and we approved or not as seemed best
to us, the final decision being that the dinner was not so bad on the
whole, only we ought to have been consulted, as persons of experience.
When jugged hare was mentioned, every one had his own recipe to
give,--for by this time we had a circle of auditors,--and there was
lively disputing to and fro, in which I took part, as I always maintain
that a man who is not interested in such subjects is nothing but a fish.

The best housekeepers in the town are Mistresses Perrine and Jacquette,
who are rivals in the art of dinner-giving; each tries to eclipse the
other, and naturally each has her partisans, for our best jousts in
Clamecy take place at table. No one loves a good argument better than
I do, but I would rather be doing myself than hear the exploits of
others, and I cannot grow fat by talking of other men’s dinners. Tripet
was of my way of thinking, and you may guess that I was delighted when
he whispered to me:

“It is ill talking of good drink to the thirsty, or of love to a
neglected lover; I can’t stand any more of this sort of thing; it is as
if a beast were gnawing at my vitals; let us find some place where we
can feed him.”

I told him to come along with me, that I knew where to look for the
best remedy for his complaint; of course neither of us thought for a
moment of going home, it was after two o’clock, and we should have
found tempers boiling and soup cold, so we made for the Dolphin Inn
at the corner of the High Street. It was market day, so the room was
crowded, but we managed to get a table, and after all nothing is so
appetizing as to see one’s friends around one, unless it be to sit down
all alone to a good meal,--both ways are best.

For some time we had better use for our jaws than to talk. A delicate
little shoulder of lamb with cabbage fully occupied us; on top of
that a pint of the best, just to clear the mist from our eyes,--you
know the proverb, “To eat dry, blinds the eye. Food unwined makes a
man blind,” but when we had washed the dust out of our throats we had
time to look about and enjoy ourselves. At the next table sat a vicar
from the country and an old woman, a farmer’s wife, full of respect
for his Reverence, bowing and bending her old head and turning up her
eyes as if in the confessional; and he too had something of the same
air, sitting sidewise, returning bow for bow, but with his mouth full,
radiating forgiveness of sins from a full stomach.

Further on was our notary, Pierre Delavau, who was treating a brother
lawyer to a good solid meal. The air was thick around them with talk
of interest, money, politics, contracts--Roman republics, etc., for he
likes to dabble in such things on a holiday, but in everyday life is a
conservative loyal subject of the King.

My eye lighted presently on Perrin Le Queux, who caught sight of me
at the same moment, and waved his glass towards me with the greatest
cordiality,--old fox, in his stiff starched blouse! I’ll bet he saw me
the moment I came in, but as he owes me the price of a fine carved oak
chest for the last two years, he was conveniently short of sight. He
jumped up and came over to our table.

“The best of luck!” said he, holding out his bottle, and when I shook
my head he still pressed it on me. “At least you will have a bite of
dinner,” he said, thinking of course I would refuse, having already
dined, but I took him up at once. “So much to the good on my bill,”
thought I to myself.

We began all over again, but this time without undue haste, as the
first rage of hunger was abated and the crowd thinning out,--there are
always people who leave as soon as they have swallowed their food,--and
there remained only men of ripe age and wisdom who know what’s what,
and reckon a good dish to be equal to a good deed any day. I sat where
I could feel the sunshine and fresh air through the open door, where
some chickens were picking at the crumbs, and an old hound lay dozing
on the threshold; outside were the street cries, “Fine fish!” “Mend
your windows!” and the shrill voices of women. On the other side of
the dusty square were two big white oxen lying down with their legs
folded under them, peacefully chewing the cud, with their eyes half
shut, while from the sunny roofs came the cooing of pigeons. Really
I could have cooed or purred myself if any one had stroked my back.
We all began to talk from table to table, in perfect good-fellowship,
the country vicar, the notary, his partner, the innkeeper (Baiselat
by name), and I, and as we were all full, and contented with our
lot, we took a certain pleasure in discussing the hard times and the
political situation. We all groaned over the bad state of business,
the high cost of living, the poverty and ruin of France, general
decadence of the race, mistakes in administration, etc., but we were
careful to name no names, for the ears of the great are as large as
their fortunes, and who knows when an unlucky word may drop into
them? Truth, as we know, is at the bottom of a well, so we ran but
little risk in abusing those of our masters who were the farthest off,
especially that wretched Concini brought from Florence under the fat
Queen’s petticoats. Each had something to say against him, and with
perfect justice, for if you catch two curs fighting over a bone, you
beat your own dog, of course, but you half kill the stranger. However,
I took the other side of the argument, partly for love of fair play,
and partly out of perversity; so I said the dogs should be treated
alike, that any one would suppose, to hear people talk, that all our
evils were imported from Italy, whereas if the truth were known plenty
of wicked things, and wicked people too, grow in our own garden. To
this they all declared with one voice that a scamp from over the Alps
was three times worse than one of us, and that three honest Italians
were not equal to a third of a good Frenchman. I answered that man is
pretty much the same animal wherever you find him, that I knew a good
one when I saw him, and liked him, even if he came out of Italy, but
this raised a perfect riot, and they all fell on me at once saying
they knew I talked like that because I was a wanderer and a gadabout,
always stumping along the highroad. I had to admit that there was some
truth in this, for in my time I did kick about the world a good deal,
when our good lord the old Duke--father of the present man--sent me
to Mantua to study the enamels, potteries, and art industries which
were afterwards transplanted here. The whole journey from St. Martin’s
to St. Andrew’s in Mantua was made on my two feet, with a stick in my
hand, so you may guess if I spared shoe-leather! I love to feel the
ground under me, and the world before me where to choose, but don’t
say another word about it, or I shall be off again, like a true son of
those Gauls who pillaged the world. “I should like to know what you
ever brought back from your travels by way of booty,” they said. As
much as any of my ancestors; all that I could cram into my head or my
eyes,--empty pockets if you like, but Lord! what a lot I saw and heard
and tasted,--it is a treat only to think of it. A man cannot know all
and see all, but he can do his best, and I was like a big sponge in the
ocean, or rather like a ripe bunch of grapes full to bursting of the
rich juices of the earth; you would have a fine vintage if you could
squeeze me, but I mean to keep it for my own particular drinking; you
fellows pretend to look down on it, so much the better for me. When I
first came home you know I tried to share some of my good things with
you, the treasures I had picked up in sunny climes, but people here
have no curiosity except about the doings of their neighbors; the rest
of the world seems too far off, there is as good at home, and they
think those who come from Rome are none the better for their journey.
I never try to force a thing down any man’s throat, so I kept what I
had for myself, and let people go on in their own way, and I even went
along with them, for that is the path of wisdom; you can’t make people
happy against the grain, but you can share content with them.

Following this plan I joined in the usual hymn of praise. What pride,
what joy to be a Clamecyan! and I believe it, by Heavens! so I sat
there furtively drawing Delavau’s nose, and the curate’s long arms
which he flaps about when he speaks, and we talked about our good
town;--a place where I was born must have merit,--besides, all human
plants flourish here, they are not thorny and spiteful, even if their
tongues are somewhat long and sharp at the end. No one is the worse for
a little gossip, particularly if you get as good as you send; at bottom
you love your neighbor as yourself, and would not hurt a hair of his
head.

We are all proud of our province, which remained calm in the midst
of the excitement everywhere else; our Provost Ragon would not join
the Guisards, the League, the heretics, the Catholics, or any of
the extremists, persecutors, or rebels; and it was here that St.
Bartholomew came to wash his bloody hands, where we all stood firm
around our good Duke, like an island of safety against which the waves
of trouble dashed themselves in vain.--I cannot speak without emotion
of Duke Louis, and our late King,--how we loved them both!--for we
really seemed made for one another, in spite of faults on both sides;
no one is perfect in this world, of course, but these very faults in
them were endearing, and brought us closer together; they were so
human! We used to laugh and say, “Nevers is younger than ever,” or “Our
good King is once more a father to his people!” Those were the good
times, and we can truly say that we had the cream of it then--Delavau
knew Duke Louis as well as I, but the honor of having seen King Henry
is mine alone, and I love to tell for the hundredth time of how it
happened. It always seems a new story to me and to my friends too, for
they are Frenchmen of the right sort, and so I told them once more
of the gray King mounted on a gray horse with his gray hat, his gray
coat,--his elbows sticking through the sleeves,--his gray eyes, the
outside all gray, but pure gold within!

Just as I was in the middle of my story the notary’s clerk ran in to
call him to a dying client, so I was interrupted, for he had to leave
at once, which was all the more annoying as he had a story of his own
on the tip of his tongue. I knew he had been hatching it for an hour,
but I wanted first to get off my own little tale. I must admit in all
fairness that his was funny when it did come; he has not his equal for
a story with a dash of salt to it.

       *       *       *       *       *

We all went out together, cheered from head to foot. It must have been
just about five o’clock or a bit later, and see how in three short
hours I had raked in two good dinners, and an order from the notary for
an oak press, to say nothing of all the fun we had had going over old
stories:--well, we just stopped to take a thimble full of cherry brandy
and a biscuit at Rathery’s, the apothecary, and then the party broke
up. Delavau had finished one story and begun another, so as we wanted
to hear the end of it, we went on with him as far as Mirandole, and
there we left him at last, only stopping to lean against the wall for
a minute or two, long enough to say good-by.

It was now rather too late to go home, or perhaps I should say too
early, so I walked down towards Béyant with a man who was pushing his
barrow loaded with charcoal, trumpeting his wares as he went. On the
way we met a blacksmith coming up trundling a wheel before him; when it
slackened speed he made a running jump and sent it flying on ahead, for
all the world like those allegories where you see men pursue Fortune
which always eludes their outstretched hand. This impressed me as a
very good image, and I made a note of it for future reference. I was in
two minds which way to take towards home, when I saw a funeral issuing
out of the hospital gates. First came two tiny choir-boys, giggling
together as they walked, one carrying a cross three times as high as
himself clutched against his little fat tummy. Behind came the body
under its pall, borne by four tottering old men, and then the vicar. I
felt it a matter of simple politeness to go with the poor sleeper to
his last lodging, for misery loves company, and then I wanted to hear
what the widow had to say. As is the custom, she was walking beside
the officiating priest pouring out her sad tale; how the departed was
taken ill, what remedies were applied, how he died, his faults, his
virtues, his affection, in short the story of his life and hers, while
the priest’s chants filled in the pauses. Before we had gone far our
numbers were swelled by many worthy souls with ears to hear and hearts
to feel, so at last we came to the resting-place where they put down
the bier at the edge of the grave. You know a pauper cannot take his
wooden shirt with him--not that he sleeps the less sound for that,--so
they lifted the pall and the coffin lid, and let him slide down into
his hole. I threw a handful of earth over him, and made the sign of the
Cross, to keep bad dreams away, and then went off at peace with all the
world; since morning I had seen and heard everything, rejoiced with the
fortunate, and wept with the sorrowful. My cup was full, and, the day
being over, I sauntered back along the waterside.

I was making for the junction of the two rivers, meaning to follow the
Beuvron to my own house, but the lovely evening tempted me on till
almost without knowing it I found myself outside the town and I kept
on by the bewitching little Yonne nearly to the narrows at La Forêt.
The water flowed by calm and still with scarcely a ripple on its smooth
surface; my sight was drowned in it, as a fish is held by the hook; the
whole sky was entangled by the river as if in a net, where it seemed
to float with its rosy clouds caught among the reeds and grasses, and
the golden sun rays trailing in the water. There was an old cowherd
on the bank with his two skinny cows: I went and sat down beside him,
and as he was rather shaky on his pins, I told him of a remedy for his
rheumatic complaint;--(I am rather a good doctor when I have time for
it),--so he told me all about himself, his ills and sorrows, but he
seemed jolly enough, and even resented my thinking him younger than
he was. He was seventy-five years old, and took pride in it, saying
the older you were, the more you could bear. It seemed quite right to
him that we should all have to suffer, and, on the other hand, he said
God’s favors fall alike on the just and the unjust, so all is as it
should be; rich and poor, gentle and simple will sleep at last in the
same Father’s arms. As he talked his quavering old voice mingled with
the chirp of crickets, the water pouring over the dam, the smell of
wood and tar blowing towards us from the harbor, the tranquil flowing
river, the fair reflections all melting into the peaceful evening.

When he had gone I walked back alone with my hands behind my back,
watching the circles in the water, and was so absorbed that I forgot
where I was till I heard a well-known voice on the other bank, and
saw I was just opposite our house. There was my wife,--gentle
soul!--shaking her fist at me out of the window! I fixed my eyes on the
stream and made believe not to see her, but she was reflected upside
down as if in a glass; I did not say a word, but shook all over with
inward laughter, and the more I laughed the angrier she got. It was too
killing to see her bobbing up and down in the Beuvron head first! At
last she lost all patience; I heard doors and windows banging behind
her, and she came rushing out after me like a whirlwind. She had to
cross a bridge to get at me, and the question was which? Right or left,
for we were just between the two. She made for the little foot-bridge
to the right, and I naturally took the other, where I found Gadin
planted on the very same spot where I had left him in the morning.

Night was falling as I came to my own door. Though I am not like that
lazy Roman who was always complaining that he had lost a day, still I
do not know where time goes, though none of this day has been lost, and
I am content enough, but if only there were forty-eight hours instead
of twenty-four! I do not feel that I always get my money’s worth, for
my glass is no sooner filled than it is empty; there must be a crack in
it. I sometimes think I envy people who sip and sip without ever coming
to the bottom. It cannot be that their glass is longer than mine, that
would be too much to bear. “Hi there! you landlord of the Sun, fill up
my mug to the brim when you are pouring out the daylight!” But I have
nothing really to complain of, for the Lord has blessed me with an
appetite that nothing can ever satisfy, so I love both day and night
and cannot get enough of either.

Swift flying day of April, are you gone indeed? But it is good to feel
that I have not lost a moment of your sweet presence. I have kissed and
held you close in my arms;--so now welcome, dear night, it is your turn
to share my couch, but good Lord! I forgot, there will be three of us,
for the old woman is just coming up to look for me.




V

BELETTE


                                                                  May.

Three months ago I got an order from the château of Asnois for a
dresser and a chest, but I would not begin to work on them until I
was able to see the room and the place where they were to stand; for
according to my idea, furniture is like wall fruit. A good apple comes
from a good tree; and there is no use in telling me that a beautiful
thing is beautiful no matter where it is, like a wayside Venus, who
sells herself to the highest bidder. True art is an expression of
our inmost selves; it is the spirit of home and of the fireside,
our domestic deity; and to know him you must know the house where
he dwells. He is so made for man, and his work meant to fulfil and
complete man’s existence, that nothing can be really beautiful unless
it is in its proper setting.

I set off early, then, to see where my chest was to stand, and what
with the walk and my dinner, it took up nearly half a day; but man must
eat to live, and everything was so much to my mind, that I was in the
best of spirits when I at last started back towards home. The path
to Clamecy ran straight enough, but when I came to the crossroads, I
could not help glancing down a by-way, which went wandering across the
meadows, between the blossoming hedges.

Said I to myself, “How nice it would be to leave the stupid highroad,
and follow that little path; the day is yet young, and anyhow it would
never do to get home ahead of the sun, and early or late the wife
will have something to say to me.... I really must go a step or two
farther, and have a look at that dear little pear tree; surely those
are not snowflakes? no, of course not, they are the white petals blown
off by the wind. Listen to the birds! and the tinkling of the brook,
sliding along under the grass, like a kitten chasing a ball.... I have
a great mind to follow it, and see if the roots of this oak will not
stop it; where can it have gone? well, upon my word! it has squeezed
its way under the big gouty knees of yonder elm,--did you ever see such
impudence? I might as well go and find out where this path does lead.”

It was all very well to saunter along thus at the heels of my vagrant
shadow, but in the back of my head I knew perfectly well where that
beguiling footway would take me. Like Ulysses, I tried to play the
hypocrite with myself, but the truth is, that I made up my mind where
I meant to go from the moment I left the gates of Asnois. An old flame
of mine lived at a mill down in these parts, and I had a fancy to go
and surprise her,--or perhaps surprise myself, who knows? It was many
a long day since I had set eyes on Céline, or “Belette” as they called
her, and the chances were that her saucy face would be changed out of
knowledge. Ah! Belette, I am not afraid of you now! Those little teeth
of yours can no longer hurt this poor old dried-up heart! Perhaps
the teeth are gone too? I can see them now, and hear your charming
laughter! What a fool she did make of you, Breugnon; you were a mere
toy in those hands of hers; but, after all, why not? if she could get
some fun out of such a country blockhead as I was then. I learned the
noble art of wood-carving from Master Médard Lagneau, and I can see
myself now leaning over the wall of his place, gazing with my mouth
open. The wall ran between the yard where we worked and a big kitchen
garden, planted with lettuce, strawberries, pink radishes, cucumbers,
and melons; and there, at all hours of the day, I could see a tall
active slip of a girl, balancing two great watering pots in her strong
brown hands, as she carefully sprinkled the thirsty borders. She wore
a coarse chemise of unbleached linen, which showed her bare arms and
long throat; her feet too were bare, and her short skirt was tucked up
to her knees, which were round and strong like a boy’s. The first thing
you noticed about her was the heavy mass of her twisted reddish hair. I
literally could not take my eyes off her as she came and went emptying
her watering pots, going back to fill them at the well, carrying them
steadily and carefully along the narrow paths, where her long bare toes
felt their own way cleverly in the damp earth between the strawberry
plants. She did not seem to know that I was there, keeping steadily on
with her work; but when she came close, all at once she turned her head
and shot a look at me. Ouch!--I can still feel the hook in my gills,
and the net around me. “A woman’s eye catches the fly,” as the proverb
has it. I struggled of course, but what was the use? There was the
silly fly on the wall, with his wings stuck together.

She paid no more attention to me, and squatted down on her heels to
plant her cabbage, but from time to time she stole a look to make
sure that her prey was still there. There was no use in my saying to
myself, “She is trying to make a fool of you, my lad!” I could see
her snickering, and that made me grin too:--what an ass I must have
looked! At last up she jumped, ran across the garden, came back, stuck
her feet wide apart over the edge of the border, caught at a floating
spray of bloom, and said, waving her arm at me, “Another good fellow
gone!” As she spoke she thrust her flower in the front of her dress.
“That’s where I should like to be,” said I, for though I may have been
a fool at that age, I was no laggard in an affair of this kind.

She put her arms akimbo and burst out laughing. “Not for the likes of
you,” cried she. “Greedy!”... That was the beginning of my acquaintance
with the pretty gardener Belette, on a warm August evening.

The nickname of “Weasel” suited her long body, with the small head and
pointed nose, and wide prominent mouth; just the mouth to crack nuts
and hearts, and made too for laughter. Oh, her eyes! dark blue like
thunder-clouds, and her wildcat smiling lips!--What chance had the poor
prey, once in her toils?

I did very little work after this, but spent most of my time gawking
over the wall, till Master Lagneau would come behind, and dislodge me
with a vigorous kick. Belette got tired of me sometimes, and would tell
me to stop staring at her and get out; but I often told her, with a
wink, that you cannot know either a woman or a melon just by looking.
How much I should have liked to try a slice of her! But perhaps another
fruit would have served my turn then equally well; for I was at the age
when a man could fall in love with the eleven thousand virgins. Did
I love Belette really?--there are times when a boy like me will love
anybody;--but no, Breugnon, that is all humbug, and you know it; your
first love is the real article, your fate, marked out for you by the
stars in their courses, and it is perhaps because I missed my destiny
that my whole life long I have gone unsatisfied.

We understood one another at half a word; though we did nothing but
tease. Both of us had glib tongues, and I would give her back as good
as she sent, quick as lightning. Sometimes we nearly died of laughing,
and when she thought that she had got the better of me, she would throw
herself down and roll over and over on the ground with joy, among her
beets and onions. She would come too and stand under my wall, and talk
to me in the warm twilight evenings. How well I remember her once,
as she stood there laughing, her bright eyes looking into mine,--she
could see my heart at the bottom of them,--and I can see her now, as
she reached up and pulled down a branch of the cherry tree, the ripe
fruit resting like jewels on her hair, and then she did not pick the
cherries, she just bit off the flesh of them, leaving the stones on the
stem. Ah! eternal eager youth, with your lips at the fountain!--When
I have been carving on a panel, how many a time since have I drawn
the lines of her beautiful arms, her breast, her throat with the head
thrown back, her full rich mouth!... I bent over the wall, and drew the
branch towards me, putting the moist stones to my lips, where I could
still feel the touch of hers.

On Sundays we walked over to Beaugy, and there we used to dance; though
I was a perfect stick at it in spite of what they say, that love lends
wings, and would give grace to the very bean-poles. She was always at
me, and never for a moment did we cease our sparring; she liked to
laugh at my long crooked nose, my big mouth like an oven, my scrubby
beard, and all the rest of it. They say we are made in the likeness of
God, but I hope not, for His sake.... Belette at least never stopped
laughing at my queer looks, and I did my best to get even.

This kind of thing went on till we both of us took fire. I shall never
forget the vintage that year; Belette and I worked side by side, bent
double among the poles, our heads nearly touching, and sometimes as
I stripped the vines my hand would brush against her, and then she
would rear up like a young colt and give me a smart slap, or squeeze
a bunch of grapes in my face. Naturally I retorted with another, till
the red juice ran down over her sunburned bosom. You never saw such a
little devil as she was, but I could not catch her off her guard. We
always kept a wary eye on each other, for she knew well enough what I
was after; but she always seemed to be saying, “Don’t you wish you may
get it?” On my side, I was just like a cat with his eyes half shut,
watching a mouse and ready to pounce at the right moment. “Wait till I
catch you, my lady!” I thought.

One afternoon in this very month of May,--our summers must have been
hotter in those days,--the air was like an oven, a furnace seven times
heated; for hours black threatening clouds had been coming up, big
with the storm which still held off, so that we melted under the heat,
and the very tools stuck to our fingers. Belette had been singing in
her garden, but after a while I could neither see nor hear her, till
at last I caught sight of her sitting on a stone under the shed roof,
asleep; her lips parted, her head leaning back against the door-post,
one arm resting on the big water-can, as if she were overcome by sudden
lassitude. There she lay, half exposed, defenseless like Danaë, and
I her Jupiter!--I dropped over the wall, crushing the cabbages and
lettuce in my haste, and took her in my arms, putting my mouth to hers.
How sweet she was! all warm and half asleep! She seemed to yield, and
returned my kisses, but without opening her blue eyes.--My blood burned
in my veins, and I strained her to my breast with delight; at last, the
ripe fruit had dropped into my longing mouth!--but in spite of my joy,
some strange scruple now restrained me; I don’t know what queer notions
held me back,--great fool that I was!--but I felt that I loved her too
much,--I could not take advantage of her so,--half asleep, not knowing
what she did. My proud beauty! I would not have her unconsenting, and
so,--I tore myself away from my happiness, untwining our linked arms
and our lips, not without trouble, for man is fire, and woman tow: but
I left her trembling, like that other simpleton you have heard of, who
conquered Antiope. I too conquered, that is, I took to my heels:--I
fairly blush when I think of it, at thirty-five years’ distance.
Foolish boy! yes, but what would I not give to be capable now of such
folly?

From that time Belette treated me as if she were possessed of the
devil, never twice was she in the same mind; one day she would launch
some insult at me, or ignore my very existence, and the next she would
meet me with languishing sheep’s eyes, and cajoling laughter. When
my back was turned, she would hide behind a tree, and hurl lumps of
sod at my neck, or hit me on the nose with a plum; and worse than all
were her goings on with any man that she could pick up, when we were
out on Sundays. She took it into her head,--chiefly to annoy me, I do
believe,--to flirt with Quiriace Pinon, a great chum of mine. He and I
were like Orestes and Pylades, you never saw one without the other, and
wherever there was anything going on, a fair, a fight, or a wedding,
there we were in the midst of it. He was short and thickset, as sturdy
as an oak, a good straightforward worker, and as for friendship! it
would have gone hard with any one who interfered with me when he was by.

Belette singled him out from all the rest of her admirers, knowing well
enough what it would mean to me; and she had no trouble at all with
him, you may be sure.--A few smiles and glances out of those eyes of
hers were quite enough to do his business. What son of Adam can resist
the wiles of these serpents? She would put on her innocent unconscious
air, turn her long neck and glance at him under her fringed eyelashes,
flash her white teeth, lick her red lips with her little pointed
tongue, then walk away, her whole supple body swaying as she moved.

Pinon lost his head completely, and so Belette soon had the two of us
stuck up on the wall, watching her every step. She drew us both on, so
it was not long before we were ready to fly at each other’s throats;
but when she thought the thing had gone far enough, she would throw a
little cold water on the pair of us. Much as this last trick angered
me, I could not help laughing at her, clever little cat! but it drove
Pinon half out of his wits;--(a joke was always a sealed book to him,
but he would roar at one that no one else could make head or tail
of.)--When she was cold to him, he would lose his temper, stamp and
swear at her like a madman, and she rather liked this rough sort of
wooing, so different from my way with her.

She and I were really of the same Gallic breed--there was much more
affinity between us than there was between her and Pinon, who was
simply a ramping, stamping sort of a brute; but from pure caprice, or
perhaps to vex me, she showed him the greatest favor, smiling at him
with lips and eyes full of the sweetest promises; but when it came to
keeping them, and he was ready to burst with pride in his conquest,
then she would turn and march off, leaving him in the lurch.

All this was droll enough to me, but Pinon could not see the joke, and
would turn on me like a tiger, because, forsooth! I was taking his girl
away from him! It came to such a pass, that he actually told me to take
myself out of the way; I replied that the very same words had been on
the tip of my tongue.

“Well then, I shall have to punch your head for you!”

“It may come to that,” said I, “but I should hate to do it.”

“Me too,” said he. “Now, Breugnon, one cock is enough in a farmyard; do
you get out of this, like a sensible fellow.”

“By all means,” said I, “only you are the one to quit the premises, she
was mine before you ever saw her.”

This made him furious, and he called me a low-down liar, and swore that
Belette was his, and that I should never touch a hair of her head.

“Do you ever look at yourself in the glass, my poor friend?” said I.
“She is meat for your masters, in other words for me, so go back where
you came from and dig turnips.”

“Listen to me, Breugnon,” said he. “She loves me best.”--I shook my
head. “Will you leave it to her?” he persisted, “and promise to get
out if she takes me?”

“Agreed!” said I, and held out my hand.

It is one thing to tell a girl to choose, but it is quite another to
make her do it; there is much more fun for her in keeping two suitors
on the string; so she merely laughed in our faces, and went off, when
we told her of our bargain. We were really fond of one another, but
now, there was nothing else for it, we had to fight. Back we went to
the shop, and pulled our coats off.

“Hold on a second,” said Pinon, and gave me a great kiss on both
cheeks. Then we went at it in earnest, for when it comes to real
fighting, friendship has to go to the wall, and in five minutes Pinon
had nearly knocked my head off, while I battered at his stomach, till
the blood literally poured off both of us. How it would have ended, no
one knows, for by this time we were as savage as a couple of bulldogs;
but my Master Lagneau and some of the neighbors heard the row and
rushed in. A hard time they had to pull us apart, and at last Lagneau
had even to take his horsewhip to us, but they finally made us let go,
and a sight we were to behold when it was over! At this crisis the
third party made his appearance; he was a miller named Jean Mifflard,
short and red in the face, with little eyes like a wild boar’s, and
fat puffy cheeks. He laughed at the pair of us; and told us we were
fools to knock each other about for a little hussy like that, who was
only amusing herself at our expense, just for the fun of trailing a
pack of lovers at her heels.

“I will tell you what,” said he; “she is only making game of you; so
now, just shake hands and go off somewhere together, that will turn the
laugh on her, and when she finds that you are gone out of her reach,
she will be forced to choose, one way or the other, and let the best
man win! Now then! get out with you! and the sooner the better. You
may rely on me while you are gone, to keep an eye on the lady, and if
anything new turns up, you shall know it. Come on and have a drink, and
forget all about it!”

We did drink, I can tell you,--my word, but we were thirsty!--and that
very night we started off together for nowhere in particular; proud
enough of ourselves, God knows why! and with hearts full of gratitude
towards our friend the miller, who laughed when he took leave of us
till his little eyes almost disappeared under his fat eyelids.

The next morning, though we did not like to admit it, we felt a little
less cocky--and we sat and thought of this precious plan of attacking
a place by running away from it, and as the sun rose higher in the
heavens, our respect for ourselves sank lower, till by nightfall we
were watching each other like two cats, though we still kept up a show
of indifference. In the back of our minds was the notion of stealing
off alone to the village, but neither of us dared to take his eye off
the other for a second. Each tried all sorts of unsuccessful dodges
to get rid of the other man, but finally we lay down on our straw
mattresses, pretending to fall asleep and snore loudly, though love and
fleas chased rest from our eyelids.

At last Pinon could bear it no longer, and jumped up, declaring that he
was going back. “All right then,” said I, “I’m with you!”

It took us a whole day to walk home; but we got there about sunset, and
hid in the woods till dark, as we were not particularly anxious for any
one to see us,--it would have been rather awkward, and then we wanted
to surprise Belette;--we pictured her in tears, reproaching herself,
sighing for her lost lover;--which one?--but you can guess what answer
each of us gave to that question.

Our hearts beat fast as we stole down to the end of her garden; the
moonlight shone full on the cottage, and what do you think I saw
hanging on an apple-tree just outside of her open window? Not an
apple, no, it was a hat belonging to Giffard, the miller!

There is no need to dwell on what followed, though of course every one
but ourselves would have thought it killingly funny. I stayed where I
was, but Quiriace made one jump, swung himself up the tree, ran along
the branch, and leaped in at the window.

In a moment the air was rent with screams, curses, yells, and
vituperations, noise of breaking furniture, smashed china and glass,
groans, blows, shrieks, and growls, as if a cage full of wild beasts
were fighting. As you may imagine, the row soon woke up the entire
neighborhood; I did not wait to see the end of it, but made off as fast
as I could, half laughing,--for it was funny when you came to think of
it,--but with the tears running down my cheeks all the same.

“You are well out of that, Colas my boy,” said I to myself, but in my
heart I was not so sure of it. I tried to laugh at all the row-de-dow,
and mimic the girl, Quiriace, and the miller. “But oh! Belette,” cried
I, “this will break my heart!”

I didn’t really know if I was glad or sorry, but on the whole I came
near to regretting my escape; for if I had married her, and she had
betrayed me? At least she would have been mine, and love is well worth
any price you must pay for it.

For at least a month I was drawn to and fro between rage and relief;
while the whole village split its sides laughing at me, and sometimes,
when the thought of Belette came over me I could have dashed my head
against the wall. Fortunately such feelings do not last; we are not
meant to die for love, but to live by it; and then you do not often
find a hero of romance in Burgundy; life is too sweet to us for that;
and since our permission was not asked before we were born, we feel
that we may as well make the best of it now that we are here. We need
the world, or the world needs us, I was never quite sure which; but at
all events we always hold on till the last gasp, draining every drop
of the cup, and when it is empty, we can fill it up again from our
bounteous hillsides. No native of Burgundy is in a hurry to die; but
when it comes to suffering, we can bear it as well as the best.

Well, for as much as six months, I was deucedly unhappy; but time flows
along, and sweeps our sorrows away with it. Now that it is all over,
I can find consolation, but oh, my Belette! if only I had not missed
you!--and that pig-faced miller, with his flour bags! to think that
all these years she has belonged to him!--thirty years ago he married
her! They tell me that he began to neglect her almost from the first
day, (he was just the kind of animal that bolts his food, and so gets
no flavor out of it); and they say too that he would not have married
her at all, if Pinon had not caught him that night, and forced him, so
to speak, into a wedding ring, which was too tight for him and her too;
for when things were not to his liking, he naturally took it out of his
wife. So there was an end of one, two and three, Pinon, Belette, and
poor old Breugnon, who has been trying, ever since, to make a joke of
it.... I could scarcely believe my eyes when at a turn in the path, I
saw her house not twenty yards away; was it possible that I had been
walking for hours among those old memories? There was the red roof,
and the white walls of the cottage, half covered with the rich foliage
of a grapevine, its thick stem winding upwards like a serpent. The
door stood open; before it in the shade of a walnut tree was a stone
trough running over with clear water. A woman was stooping over it and
my knees gave way under me when I saw her again after all these years.
My first impulse was to run, but she had seen me, and as she dipped
her pail in the trough she still kept her eyes on me, and I felt that
she knew who I was, though she was far too proud to show it. The next
moment the bucket slipped from her fingers as she straightened herself
up, and then she called out, “Better late than never!”

“That sounds as if you had been waiting for me!”

“What an idea! I don’t believe that I have given you one thought in
twenty years.”

“Nor I either,” said I, “but all the same, it does me good to see you.”

“And me too,” she answered, crossing her wet arms, and looking at me as
I stood there in my shirt-sleeves. Our eyes met and yet we could not
seem to look each other in the face; between us the water filled and
ran over the rim of the bucket, and at last she spoke again, “Come in
and sit down a minute.”

“I must be getting on, thank you,” I said, “as I am rather in a hurry.”

“Slow to come, and quick to go,” said she. “I don’t see why you came at
all, then?”

“I was only taking a stroll about here,” said I calmly.

“Money and time must be cheap where you come from.”

“Oh! when I get an idea in my head I never count the cost.”

“The same old looney still I see!” said she, laughing, and “Once a
fool, always a fool!” was my answer. We walked slowly in, and she
closed the yard gate behind us, shutting us in alone, among the hens
which clucked about our feet. She crossed over and shut,--or maybe
opened,--the big doors of the barn, and spoke a word to the watch-dog,
but I saw that it was to cover her embarrassment, and that all the men
were off in the fields. I talked as fast as I could, about farming,
chicken raising, pigeons, ducks, pigs, and all the creatures that ever
came out of the ark; but all at once she stopped me.

“Breugnon!” My breath came short as I looked at her. “Breugnon,” she
said again, and then, “Kiss me!” My lips were on hers, before the words
were well off them, and though at our age there is not much to be got
out of kissing, it is always a pleasure, and it fairly brought the
tears to my eyes to feel her soft wrinkled cheeks against mine.

“Old silly!” said I to myself; “what is there to cry for?”

“You are as bristly as a hedgehog!” she said, laughing.

“Excuse me! I would have given myself an extra shave this morning if I
had known the pleasure that was in store for me, but it is a fact that
my beard was softer thirty years ago when I would, and you wouldn’t,
you little minx of a shepherdess!”

“Do you ever think now of those old times?”

“No, I have forgotten all about them.” We laughed, but neither could
look at the other.

“You are something like me,” she said. “As proud as a peacock, as
stubborn as a mule, and what is more, I can see you are the kind that
will never grow old. You were no beauty in your best days, my friend,
and when a man has nothing, you can’t take it away from him; perhaps
your nose may be rather thicker, and you have plenty of wrinkles, but
on the whole you are not much the worse for wear. I always say that the
main thing is to keep the hair on one’s head, and yours is not white
yet, and as thick as ever.”

“Numskull keeps the thatch full,” said I.

“You men are so aggravating, you never let anything bother you, but we
poor creatures grow old, because we have all the weight thrown on our
shoulders; see what a wreck I am! once I was like a fresh peach to look
at, and to touch too, if you remember? Such hair as I had! such skin,
such a figure, and where has it all gone now? Own up now, you would not
have known me if you had met me in the street?”

“I would have known you anywhere out of all the women in the world,
with my eyes shut.”

“Perhaps so, but if they were open? I have lost teeth, my cheeks have
fallen in, I have red eyes, and a sharp nose; while as for my throat
and all the rest of it, I am nothing but an old meal sack, and that’s
the truth!”

“In my eyes you are always young.”

“You must be blind, then.”

“No, Belette, my sight at least is as keen as ever. Do you remember?
You were called that because you were like a little weasel, and here
you are, run to earth, after all your doublings and turnings, and you
still have your little sharp nose, and bright eyes like your namesake,
shining up at me out of your burrow.”

“It’s safe enough now, at any rate, for the old fox to come near me.
Well, love has not made you any thinner.”

“Why should it?” said I, laughing. “The creature has to be fed!”

“Perhaps it would do as well to give him something to drink,” said she,
so we went into the farmhouse, and sat down at the table. The Lord
knows what it was that she placed before me! I was too much taken up
with other things to notice, but all the time I plied a good knife and
fork as usual, while she sat opposite with her elbows on the table, and
when our eyes met, she gave me a smile.

“Are you feeling a little better?”

“Stomach empty, heart heavy, belly full, heart light! that’s what the
old song tells us,” said I. She was silent, but her big clever mouth
twitched at the corners, and I kept on talking of the first thing that
came into my head, while we looked at one another, and thought of all
that had passed between us.

“Breugnon,” said she, at last, “I can tell you, now that it does not
matter, it was you I was in love with.”

“I knew it all the time,” said I calmly.

“And if you knew so much, why did you say nothing about it?”

“Because, of course, you would have been just perverse enough to
contradict me.”

“What difference would that have made, if you had been sure of the
contrary? You kiss people’s lips, not the words that come out of them!”

“Something more than words used to come out of your lips, on
occasion.--Do you remember that night we caught you with the miller?”

“It was all your fault,” she said, “or mine, if you like to say so,
but, Colas, you that have so much penetration, did you know one
thing? I took him out of pure spite, because you went off that time
with Pinon? I had been angry with you for a long time, ever since that
evening,--I don’t know if you recollect it,--when you despised me.”

“I? Never in the world!”

“Yes, you, surely you remember one evening when I fell asleep in the
garden, and you came and picked me up, but dropped me like a hot
potato?”

“Belette,” said I earnestly, “let me tell you all about it.”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” said she, “but how if it were to do over
again?”

“I think that I should do just the same.”

“What a mutton-head it is!” cried she. “But on my soul! I believe that
is the reason why I loved you,--still I thought I would have some fun
with you, after that; you deserved to suffer a little, and who could
have thought that you would be fool enough to go away from the hook,
instead of swallowing it?”

“Much obliged!” said I; “but hooks have sharp points to them.”

She laughed, and looked at me in the old way under her lashes. “Well,
when I heard of your fight with that other blockhead, whose name I have
forgotten, (I was down by the river washing my clothes, when I heard
some one say that he was tearing you to pieces), I dropped the basket
and let everything float away in the water, and ran off just as I was
in my bare feet, trampling on everybody in my way. I was all out of
breath, but I wanted to call out that I loved you, that I could not
bear to have that great brute bite you to pieces, that I wanted a whole
husband not the remains of one;--but when I got there the fight was
over, and my fine gentlemen were guzzling in the tavern, on the best of
terms. Then the lamb and the wolf ran away together, leaving me in such
a fury! It seems ridiculous now when I look at you, but at that moment
I should have liked to tear the skin off your back; and since I could
not get at you to punish you, I punished myself. In my rage I took up
with the first man who came along;--the miller. Revenge is sweet, but I
swear that it was you that I thought of all the time when----”

“I know what you mean,” said I.

“Well,” she continued, “I kept thinking that I hoped Breugnon’s ears
would burn when he heard it, that it served him right, that I wished
that he would come back now; and you did come back, rather sooner than
I intended and,--you know what happened, so there I was, tied for life
to my donkey, and here we are both of us.”

After a pause I said, “I hope at least that you get on pretty well with
him?”

“About as well as he does with me,” she answered, with a shrug of her
shoulders.

I could not help saying, “Your home must be Paradise.”

“You’ve hit the mark,” said she, laughing.

After that we changed the conversation, and talked of everything on
earth; farms, cattle, and children, but try as we would, we could
not keep away from the old subject. I thought perhaps that it would
interest her to hear all about me and mine; but I soon found that she
was too much of a woman not to have known long ago all that I could
tell her; so we went on from one thing to another, up and down, in and
out, just for the sake of talking. We were both great at puns, and
jokes of that kind; and it would have taken your breath away to hear
the cross fire of wit between us; and quick!--we fairly snatched the
words out of each other’s mouths, and laughed till the tears ran down
our cheeks.

All at once six strokes sounded from the clock in the corner. “Six
already!” said I; “it is time that I was going.”

“Plenty of time,” said she.

“I suppose your husband will be here in a few moments,” said I, “and
to tell the truth, I am not so very anxious to meet him.”

“That’s just the way I feel,” she answered.

I looked out of the kitchen window at the meadows, all golden now with
the rays of the setting sun which shone between the long grass blades.
Down by the stream two cows were standing in the water, and a little
bird hopped about on the shining pebbles. A black horse, with a star
on his forehead, and a dapple gray were standing there; the black with
his head resting on the back of the other. The fresh scent of hay and
lilacs blew through the open door; the room was dark and the least
bit musty; and I could just sniff the good cherry brandy from the mug
before me. “You have a nice place of it here,” I could not help saying.

“How much nicer if you had been in it all this time!” she said, putting
her hand over mine as it lay on the table. It made me almost sorry that
I had come, for of course I did not want her to be unhappy.

“Belette,” said I, “perhaps on the whole things are better as they
are; we get along well enough like this for an hour or two, but if we
had had to spend our lives together, you know that there would have
been trouble. Surely you must have heard that I have turned out rather
badly: a dreamer, a talker, always dawdling about, backbiting and
quarreling, and sticking my nose into other folk’s business. I am an
idler too, and drink more than is good for me; all this would have
made you unhappy, and then you would have taken up with some one else;
it makes my hair stand on end only to think of it! So you see all is
really for the best.”

She heard me to the end, and then said seriously: “Yes, I know you
are a perfect good-for-nothing, (she did not believe a word of it);
probably you would have beaten me, and perhaps I should have taken a
lover, but if that was our destiny, it might as well have come to us
through each other.” I nodded my head. “You don’t seem to be of my
mind?”

“I am, of course,” said I, “but, you see that kind of happiness was not
for us; so now, Belette, there is no use in self-reproaches, or regrets
either. It would have been all the same by this time, whatever we had
done; we are at the end of our string now, you know, and love or no
love, it is all past like a tale that is told.”

“Liar!” said she, and I felt that she spoke the truth, even as I looked
at her.

I kissed her once more, and left her; she leaned against the door-post
looking after me, under the great spreading branches of the walnut
tree, but I did not turn my head till I got round the corner, where
I was sure that I could not see her; then I stopped to take breath a
minute, and enjoy the scent of the honeysuckle. Down in the meadows I
could see the white oxen still grazing as I left the path and took a
short cut up the hillside and through the vines, until I got into the
wood, where I turned aside for a moment. This was not the shortest
way to continue my journey, but, there I stood for as much as half an
hour, leaning against the trunk of a big oak tree, with my eyes fixed
on vacancy, thinking, thinking. I could see the last red reflections
of the western sky die out on the fresh vine leaves, which shone as if
varnished, and hear the first faint note of a nightingale singing. I
remembered an evening when my love and I were climbing side by side,
up the steep vineyard, laughing and talking as we went, vigorous as
the young life around us; but in the midst of our mirth, suddenly we
fell silent, my hand closed on hers and there we stood motionless.
Was it the sound of the Angelus, the evening breeze sighing about us,
or the soft moonlight? From the shadowy vine leaves all at once arose
the voice of a nightingale singing to keep himself awake, so that the
treacherous tendrils might not twine about his poor little feet, and
hold him prisoner, singing his eternal love-song; and I held Belette’s
hand, saying: “The tendrils are around us, and like them we cling to
each other.”

Then we went back down the hill again, still hand in hand, till we
reached her cottage.

That was the last time that our fingers clung thus together, but the
nightingale’s note still sounds, the vine puts forth its branches, and
love still twists young hearts in its supple tendrils. Night came on,
as I stood there, gazing up at the silvered treetops. I could not tear
myself away from that magic shadow which dimmed my homeward path, and
even destroyed the wish to find it. Three times I tried, but found
myself back where I started, so I gave it up, and took a lodging for
that night at the sign of the Moonbeam. It was not a very good inn to
sleep in: I lay there turning over the pages of my life, thinking of
what I had done and left undone, and of the dreams from which I had
awakened. In such dark hours what sadness rises from the depths of our
hearts, what vanished hopes!--How far off seem the bright visions of
early boyhood, and how poor and bare the reality looks. I thought of
all my expectations, and the small results of my labors; of my wife,
who certainly cannot be called either good-natured or good-looking,
of my sons who hardly seem to belong to me, with whom I have nothing
in common:--of the faithlessness and folly of those around us, of our
poor France torn by civil wars and religious persecutions; of my works
of art scattered, life itself a handful of ashes, soon to be blown
away by the breath of the Destroyer.--I put my face close up against
the oak tree, and lay there weeping quietly all among the big roots
which cradled me like a father’s arms; and I felt that he listened,
and consoled me, for when, many hours later, I awoke, I found myself
snoring with my nose in a tuft of moss, with nothing remaining of my
troubles but a sore feeling in my heart, and a slight cramp in the calf
of my leg.

The sun was just rising, and the tree above me was so full of birds
that it dripped with their singing like a ripe bunch of grapes. The
robin, the linnet, and my special favorite, the thrush, sang as if
to bursting.--I like Master Thrush because he does not care for any
weather, is the first to begin singing, and the last to stop, and like
me, is always in a good humor.--They had all passed safely through
the dangers of the night, which darkens their little lives every
twenty-four hours, but as soon as the curtain begins to rise, and the
first ray of dawn puts fresh color into life--Twee-ee, twee, twee,
twee, tweet! with what sweet cries and transports of joy they greet the
new day. In the glory of the morning all is forgotten, the dark night,
the cold and the terrors. If only the birds could teach us the secret
of their unalterable faith, through which they are born afresh with
every dawning day!

All this merry whistling cheered me up wonderfully, and lying there
on my back, I began to whistle too, the same tune; pretty soon from
the wood where he was hiding came the cry of the cuckoo. I could lie
still no longer, and jumped gaily to my feet; a hare near by followed
my example, seeming to laugh at me as he passed; (you know he once
split his lip open by too much laughter). Then at last I started off
towards home, singing at the top of my lungs. All is good, the sky, the
wood. Oh! my friends the world is round, if you can’t swim, you will be
drowned. Throw open all the windows of your five senses, and let the
great earth in. What is the use of sulking because everything does not
come your way? The more you sulk, the less you get. I do not suppose
that the Duke, the King, or even God Himself, has all the desire of
his heart; ought I to groan and struggle, because I cannot exceed the
limits set for me? Should I even be better off if I could get outside
of them? No, no, I have nothing to complain of in this world, and I
mean to stay here as long as I possibly can. Suppose that I had never
been born? I really cannot bear to think of a world without Breugnon,
or what is perhaps even worse, Breugnon without the world! A plague on
all such nonsense! things are well enough as they are, and you may be
sure that I shall hold tight to all that belongs to me.

When I got back to Clamecy, I was a whole day behind time, and you may
guess what sort of a welcome I had, and also how little I minded. I
just shut myself up in the garret, and put it all down on paper, as
you see. There was no one there to listen, so if the fancy took me I
could speak out loud, going over in retrospect all that happened, both
pleasures and pains, and the pleasure that we get out of pain, for--

  “That which breaks the heart to bear,
  Is sometimes sweet to tell and hear.”




VI

BIRDS OF PASSAGE

OR

THE SERENADE AT ASNOIS


We heard yesterday morning that Clamecy was to entertain two
distinguished guests, the Demoiselle de Termes and the Comte de
Maillebois; they were on their way to the Château of Asnois, where
they were to stay for a month or so. The Town Council, according to
usage, voted to send a delegation to our noble visitors in the name
of the city, in order to offer them our congratulations on their safe
arrival (as if it were a miracle to come from Paris to Nevers in a
warm easy carriage without upsetting or losing your way!) It being
also the custom to make a little present, the Council decided to add
some cakes with icing, made in Clamecy, of which we are not a little
proud. My son-in-law, Florimond Ravisé, is our principal pastry cook,
so he proposed to send three dozen, which was opposed by the Council,
who thought two dozen would be plenty; however, Florimond being an
alderman, his views prevailed, and the cakes were baked at the expense
of the town. Some one suggested that noble ears ought to be tickled at
the same time as the palate; so in order that the exalted strangers
should listen to a serenade while they were enjoying our cakes, and
have all their senses charmed at once, we chose also four of our best
musicians, two violas, two hautboys, a tambourine, and a flageolet
player--myself. In point of fact I was not invited, but I never miss
a chance to see a new face if I can help it, and I was particularly
anxious to behold these Court birds of paradise with their shining
plumage, and all their airs and graces; besides, I adore any novelty,
wherever it comes from,--like a true son of Pandora. If I had my way
I would soon take the lid off all the boxes, or souls, within my
reach, black or white, thick or thin, high or low; I like to poke my
nose into affairs that are none of my business, to find out secrets
of the heart, and generally know all that goes on; in a word, I am
devoured by curiosity, but as there is no reason, as far as I can see,
why one should not add profit to pleasure, I took with me two fine
carved panels, which the Seigneur of Asnois had ordered and which
were easily stowed away on one of the carts provided by the town to
carry the delegation, the musical instruments, and the iced cakes. My
little Glodie went too, because she was Florimond’s daughter, and it
cost nothing; and another alderman took his little boy, if I remember
rightly. Finally the apothecary stuck in a lot of sweetmeats, spirits,
and cordials of his own manufacture; also of course at the expense of
the city. Florimond was indignant, and protested with some reason; he
said if every butcher, baker, and candlestick maker were to do the
same, the town would be ruined; but there was no use in talking, as the
other man was equally a member of the Council with himself, and as we
all know, great men make laws and the rest obey them.

Our two carts were soon loaded with the Mayor, the panels, the
presents, the children, four musicians, and four Councilors. I went on
foot, however, for I am not yet so feeble as to be dragged about in a
cart, like a calf on its way to the butcher. The weather was not quite
to my liking, for the air was close and sultry, with a sun hot enough
to roast you beating down on our heads, and clouds of dust and flies
about us; we none of us minded, however, as we were out on a spree;
Florimond was peevish, but then he is always bothering, like a girl,
about his complexion.

Our worthy citizens sat up very stiff and proper as long as we could
see St. Martin’s tower, but when we got well outside the town,
all formality dropped off, and left us, as you may say, in our
shirt-sleeves. We cracked a few rather doubtful jokes, for that is the
way we generally begin, and then there was singing; his honor the Mayor
leading off, while I accompanied him on the flageolet, and the rest
joined in the chorus. In the midst of all the voices and instruments I
could hear my little Glodie’s shrill sweet pipe like a sparrow.

We did not get on very fast, because the nags would stop on top of
every hill to get their breath, and then when we came to Boychault, our
scrivener, Pierre Delavau, begged us to go out of our way a little, and
we could not very well say no, for he was the only Alderman who had so
far asked no favors, so we had to stop to let him draw up a will for
one of his clients, which was rather a long business; but no one really
objected except Florimond, who this time had the apothecary on his
side. All the same Master Delavau drew out the document at his leisure,
and the others had to put up with it as best they could.

We got to the château at last;--you always do, in the end, and there
were the fine Court birds just leaving the table, so the dessert we
brought came in at the right moment. Down they sat and began all
over again; you never saw such birds for eating; and now we made a
brilliant entrance, for our delegation had halted outside the gates to
put on their carefully folded robes, which they had been sitting on
all the way to keep them from fading. The Mayor’s was of bright green
silk, and the others woolen of a light yellow, so that they looked
like a cucumber and four pumpkins as we marched into the courtyard to
the sound of our instruments. Every window in the castle was filled
with heads at our approach, and our courtly guests deigned to show
themselves in the doorway, all curled and beribboned, as the green and
yellow Mayor and Council mounted the great staircase. We smaller fry,
musicians and others, stayed behind in the yard, so that I could not
hear very clearly the fine Latin discourse delivered by our notary;
which mattered the less, as I do believe Master Pierre himself was the
only one who did hear it. But the one thing I would not have missed
for a kingdom was the sight of my darling Glodie stepping carefully
upward with the basket piled high with cakes clasped tight in her
little arms. She was like pictures of the Presentation. Sweetheart! I
longed to hug her! Music is not the only thing which charms all heart;
childhood has a spell even stronger and more universal, which causes
the proudest to forget for the moment rank and dignity. Mademoiselle
de Termes could not help smiling at Glodie, then she took her up on her
knees and kissed her, and finally broke one of the famous cakes in two,
ate half herself, and as she said laughing, “Open your little beak,
birdie,” stuck the other half into the child’s rosy mouth. “Hurrah for
the Flower of Nevers!” I shouted, and then played a gay little phrase
on my flute, which sounded like the note of a swallow. This made every
one laugh, and as they all looked to see who was playing Glodie clapped
her hands and said, “That is my Grandad.” And so Monsieur d’Asnois
made a sign to me to come up, and said to those about him, “You really
ought to see Breugnon, he is just the least bit cracked.” (I am no more
cracked than he is, but I went up as I was bid, with a fine bow to the
company.)

All the time that I was bowing and scraping to right and left, I had
my eye on the noble lady, hung like a slender bell-clapper in the
midst of her spreading draperies; and I could not help wondering how
she would look if divested of her voluminous garments,--(a bold idea
for a man like me, but only an idea, of course, or you will wonder how
I dared to think of such a thing), for she was tall and thin, rather
dark-skinned under a thick coating of powder; her hair fell in ringlets
over her great brown eyes shining like carbuncles; she had full red
lips and a small pointed nose like a ferret; you should have seen the
condescending air with which she said to me, “This charming little girl
is your grandchild, they tell me.”

“Madam,” said I, in my best manner, “I must refer you to my son-in-law,
here present, for an answer to that question; but you may be sure that
as she is not made of money we do not quarrel over her,--the poor, you
know, find their wealth in their children.”

She was so kind as to smile at my pleasantry, and my Lord of Asnois
burst out laughing. Florimond laughed too, but not so heartily, and I
remained as grave as a judge. Then his Lordship and the lady deigned to
enter into conversation with me about my trade, and what I made by it,
for they took it for granted that I was a minstrel. I told them I made
little or nothing, which was true enough, but as they had not asked
me I did not say what I did for my living, but let them go on talking
while I laughed in my sleeve at the airs they gave themselves, the
haughty familiarity with which these fine gentlemen of rank and wealth
treat us poor devils. They speak to a poor man as if he were a child,
or half-witted. God has so ordered it that only the unworthy are at the
bottom of the ladder,--(that is what they think, if they would only
admit it), and therefore praise be to the Lord! who has exalted the
seats of the mighty!

The Lord of Maillebois spoke to his companion as if I were not within
hearing. “Madame,” said he, “we may as well fill up our time and have
a little talk with this fellow; he seems rather stupid, but as he goes
about from one tavern to another, playing on his flageolet, he probably
knows what people hereabouts are thinking.”

“Hush!”

“If indeed they can be said to think at all.”

So they said to me:

“Well, my man, tell us what ideas prevail in the province?”

“Ideas?” said I, as if I had never heard the word before, looking slyly
at our good Lord of Asnois, who laughed to himself under his big bushy
beard, but let me go on.

“Ideas do not seem to grow plentifully in this part of the country,”
said Maillebois with his heavy playfulness, “but I mean I want to know
what the people are thinking,--are they loyal to Church and King?”

“God is great, and so is His Majesty; we are devoted to both of them.”

“And how about the Princes?”

“They too are great gentlemen.”

“Do you mean that you are on their side?”

“Yes, indeed, my Lord, we are close beside them.”

“In that case you must be against Concini?”

“By no means, your Lordship, we are for him also.”

“But, man, you don’t seem to understand that they are enemies.”

“That may be--but we want both of them to succeed.”

“How absurd! You have to be on one side or the other, don’t you know
that? Stupid!”

“Must I really, my Lord? Can’t I get out of it? Well, if I must, I
must, only let me think it over; a man can’t make up his mind like that
all in a minute!”

“Why, what in the world are you waiting for?”

“Only to know which will come out on top!”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you rascal! Do you mean that you
have not sense enough to know light from darkness, or the King from his
enemies?”

I explained with an air of perfect simplicity that I was not so blinded
but that I could tell day from night, but that when it came to the King
or the Princes, if I was forced to choose between them, I could not
tell which party drank most, or did the greatest harm to the country.
“Far be it from me,” said I, “to speak evil of dignities. I wish them
all good health and prosperity. To you too, your noble Lordship! They
have fine appetites and I am something of a hearty eater myself, but to
make a clean breast of it, if they must eat, I had rather it should be
at some one’s else expense!”

“Do you respect nothing, fellow?”

“I respect and love my own belongings.”

“Don’t you know that it is your duty to make sacrifices for the King,
your master?”

I told him respectfully that I should be only too glad to do so if
there was no way of getting out of it, but I asked him to explain to me
how it happened that there were the people of France, who loved their
fields and their vineyards, and there also was the King who wanted only
to devour them;--I said I knew well enough that every one had his place
in the world, and some were made to eat and some to be eaten; politics
I had heard was the art of filling your own stomach, and that was an
art reserved for the noble, and the land for the peasant. But what was
a poor man to do, since he was not allowed to have an opinion? And
besides, as we are all as ignorant as our father Adam, (they say that
he was his Lordship’s father also, but I could not well believe it,
maybe he was only a cousin)--our business is to plow and enrich the
soil, to sow and reap, to plant vines and gather grapes, make wine and
bread, work in wood and stone, in cloth and leather; lay out canals and
highways, erect great cathedrals and cities adorned with gardens, and
embellish with carving and statues; catch sound and imprison it in the
flanks of a fiddle, make ourselves masters, in short, of France, the
earth and the air above us;--all to add to the pleasure of our lords.
How could the people be expected to go any farther and try to grasp
the high designs of kings, the quarrels of princes, with all their
politics and metaphysics? No, the stick is made for beasts of burden,
but which cudgel is the softest and who is to shake it over our backs,
is a question too hard for us to decide; if we had the stick in our own
hands for a little while it might be easier, but in the meantime there
is nothing for it but patience, and to bear the blows as long as we
are the anvil; some day our turn will come at the hammer! While I was
talking, the Seigneur of Maillebois stood looking at me, in two minds
whether to laugh or be angry; fortunately one of his equerries had seen
me one day when I was with the late Duke, and he explained who I was,
that I was no minstrel, but a fine sculptor and worker in wood, known
far and wide for my talk, and somewhat of a free thinker.

The noble Lord did not seem much impressed by this information, but he
showed a faint interest in my insignificant personality when his host
told him that my work had been admired by princes of his acquaintance,
and he soon fell into ecstasies when they showed him the fountain I had
made in the courtyard. It is a girl with her skirts tucked up, holding
two ducks in her apron with their wings extended; the water trickles
out of their beaks;--a pretty conceit as I think it. He saw also my
carved furniture and panels in the castle, which Asnois displayed with
as much pride as if he had been their creator instead of being merely
the man who paid for them. Maillebois expressed himself as astonished
that I should bury my talent so far from Paris, and he also wondered
that I should confine myself to work which showed chiefly observation
and fidelity to nature; no grandeur or symbolism, nothing allegorical,
both things which the critic considers essential to great sculpture. (A
lord, you know, admires nothing that is not lordly.)

To which I replied with due respect, as became a country booby, that I
knew my place, and was always careful to keep in it; that it would be
presumption for a poor man like me, without knowledge or education, to
attempt anything vast or sublime, and that he ought to be content with
a modest place on the lowest step of Mount Parnassus, aiming only at
such things as may be useful in everyday life. Utility in art should be
his motto.

“Utility in art!” exclaimed his Lordship; “that is a contradiction in
terms, true beauty is only found in what is useless.”

“A lofty sentiment,” said I, bowing, “and profoundly true; you see it
everywhere, in art as well as in life; a diamond is beautiful, and so
is a king, a prince, a great noble, or a flower.”

On this he turned away, much pleased with so much proper feeling; but
Asnois pinched me, and whispered in my ear, “Shut up, you old humbug! I
don’t mind if you do make a fool of this fop from Paris, but don’t try
anything of that sort on me, or it will be the worse for you!”

“Oh! your Lordship, how could you think me capable of such a thing?
As if I would be so ungrateful to my protector, my benefactor! and
not only ungrateful but foolish. Breugnon is not that kind of a fool,
he knows enough to take good care of his own skin, and your Lordship
is not only stronger,--that is as it should be,--but ever so much
cleverer than I am. What chance should I have against an old fox like
the Lord of Asnois, if I may venture to say so? You who get the better
of young and old, gentle and simple.”

Nothing is so agreeable as to be praised for talents which we do not
possess; so he fairly beamed as he answered, “Your tongue is long
enough in all conscience, but now I should like to know what brought
you here today? For I’ll be bound you were after something.”

“There now, what was I saying just this minute? You see through a
man as if he were a pane of glass; like God Almighty, the heart has
no secrets from your Lordship.” Then of course I unpacked my two
panels, and also something else I had brought, namely an Italian
piece picked up at Mantua, representing Fortune on her wheel, which,
through a mistake I am at a loss to account for, I claimed as my own.
It did not excite much admiration. Then I showed a medallion of a
girl’s head, done by me, as the product of an Italian chisel, and it
received a perfect ovation! you never heard such ohs! and ahs! The
Lord of Maillebois was particularly enthusiastic; he said he could
detect in this admirable work the influence of a land twice blessed by
Heaven,--by Jupiter and by Jesus Christ; and the Lord of Asnois ended
by giving me thirty-six ducats for it,--but I only got three for the
Fortune!

As we were coming home that evening I told my friends a little
anecdote which I thought would amuse them. The Duke of Bellegarde
came some years ago to Clamecy to shoot at the popinjay, but as he
was short-sighted, I was hidden behind the target, and instructed
to throw down the wooden bird as soon as he fired, and in its place
to substitute as quickly as possible a bird with a hole through the
middle. We all laughed at this story, and then each in his turn had
some such thing to tell of our noble masters. If they could only hear
some of the jokes we have at their expense, they would not be quite so
bored perhaps in the midst of their royal grandeur. Nothing was said,
you may be sure, about the medallion till we were safe at home, and
the door shut, and then Florimond was much vexed with me because I had
sold the Italian piece at such a low price as my own, seeing that they
had been willing to pay anything I asked for the other; but as I said,
I liked to laugh at people but not to skin them; that naturally made
him crosser than ever, and he wanted to know what fun I could find in
cheating myself? And if there was any sport in making a mock of people
unless there was something to be gained by it?

“Florimond,” said my daughter Martine gravely, “we were all like that
at home, always jolly and ready for a good story. You ought not to
complain of that sort of disposition, for it is much to your advantage,
and it is lucky for you that the idea that I could deceive you at any
moment is so amusing to me that I don’t care to do it. Now don’t put on
that gloomy air; you know the proverb, ‘No need to cry out before you
are hurt.’”




VII

THE PLAGUE


We have recently had reason to feel the full truth of the old saying:
“Evil comes on a swift horse, but is slow of foot to leave us.”
This time we had hardly any warning, for on Monday of last week we
heard of the first case of the plague at St. Fargeau, and the evil
seed sprang up so rapidly that by the end of the week there were ten
more cases and yesterday it broke out here in our neighborhood at
Coulanges-la-Vineuse. You can imagine what a clatter there was in
our duck-pond, and how the boldest took to their heels! Most of the
women and children were packed off to Montenoison to be out of danger;
leaving an unwonted calm behind them, at least in my household; it’s an
ill wind that blows no one good!

Florimond went in charge of the female detachment, on the pretext that
he could not leave Martine, as she was near her confinement, but he was
kept in countenance by many another gentleman, who, when his carriage
was at the door, thought it was a good time to go and see how the crops
were getting on at a distance. We who stayed behind put a good face
on it, and had no end of fun out of the people who were frightened,
and their precautions. The Provost stationed guards at the town gates,
and on the road to Auxerre, with strict orders to turn back any tramps
or beggars who might attempt to enter, and even the well-to-do, whose
purses at least were perfectly healthy, had to be examined by our three
physicians, Messrs. Etienne Loyseau, Martin Frotier, and Philibert des
Veaux, all fortified against the plague by means of masks, spectacles,
and long false noses filled with unguents. Everybody laughed so much
at them that Frotier could bear it no longer, and tore off his nose,
declaring that he for his part had no faith in such nonsense; all
the same, poor old chap, he died of it, but so did Loyseau also, who
kept his nose on, and shared a bed with him. The only survivor of the
three was des Veaux, who was better advised than his colleagues, and
abandoned his post instead of his precautions. But I have got ahead
of my story and must go back and begin again at the beginning. We all
whistled loudly to keep our courage up, declaring that our tanneries
would keep off the pestilence, as it is well known that there is
nothing so healthy as the smell of leather. The last visitation we
had had of the plague was about the year 1580 (I remember it well,
for I was nearly fourteen years old); she poked her nose then over
our threshold, but came no farther, to the astonishment of all our
neighbors, particularly those of Châtel-Censoir, who were so disgusted
with their patron, St. Potentian, who had not taken good care of them,
that they turned him out, and tried seven others in succession, until
in despair they fell back on a female of the same name, St. Potentiana.
We told this, and lots of other old stories, with shouts of laughter;
and to show that we were above such silly superstitions, and had no
faith in the Provost’s regulations either, we went boldly down to
the Chastelot gate and talked across the moat with all the vagrants
assembled there. Some of us even slipped out between the angels who
stood guard before our paradise,--(they did not take themselves
seriously either), and shared a bottle with some of these outcasts in a
nearby tavern. Need I say that I was one of the number? for naturally
I could not bear the thought that the others should go swaggering,
drinking and talking, and I not of the party. I met a friend out there,
a farmer from Mailly-le-Château, and we had a drink together. He was
a jolly old bird with a round red face fairly shining with health and
good cheer, and he was even more boastful about the plague than I
was, pooh-poohing the whole thing and declaring that it was all an
invention of the doctors and that people died of fear, and not of the
pestilence; said he, “I’ll tell you the best remedy I know for it, and
I won’t charge you anything either!”

  “Be sure and warm your feet;
  Be careful what you eat;
  Be shy of woman’s charm,
  And you are safe from harm.”

We sat there with our heads together for an hour or more; he had a
trick of poking you in the ribs, or slapping you on the back or the
leg, which I did not notice much at the time, but you may believe I
thought of it afterwards, when the next morning one of my apprentices
told me that old farmer Grattepain was dead! It made the cold shivers
go down my back, and in my heart I gave myself up for lost, but I
went back to the shop and fussed about a little, though I was hardly
conscious of what I was about, and kept saying to myself, “You have
done for yourself now, you old idiot.” Still, in our part of the world
we don’t waste time over what we ought to have done the day before
yesterday, we just take hold and do what we can at the present moment;
so I resolved to keep the enemy at bay as long as I was able, telling
myself that I still had a good fighting chance. The idea of consulting
a doctor occurred to me (going to St. Cosmo’s shop, as we call it), but
in spite of the trouble I was in, I had enough self-control not to do
it, for, as I said to myself, doctors really know no more than we do,
they will only take my fee, and send me to the pest-house, and there I
shall catch the plague and no mistake; no, so long as I have my wits
about me, I will ask help of no man; dying is, after all, a lonely
business, and as the saying goes, “In spite of every drug and leech, we
live until Death’s door we reach.”

All this time, in spite of my bravado, I began to have queer feelings
in my stomach, in my head, and all over my body; I cannot get over
it when I think of the delicious dish of mutton and beans, dressed
with wine sauce, which I actually refused at dinner time. I could not
swallow a mouthful; thought I, “This is final; if my appetite is gone,
I must be done for.” I had to decide quickly on what was best to do; as
I knew very well that if I died in my house the Councilors would burn
it down on the pretext that it was infected. Just think of being mean
and stupid enough to burn a new house for such a reason as that! But
sooner than that should happen I would rather go out and die on my own
dunghill. So, without losing a minute, I put on the worst old clothes
I could find, made a bundle of a few books which I tied up with a chunk
of bread and a candle, and told the apprentice to take a good holiday;
then I locked the door of my house behind me, collected a few of my
best books, and set off for a little place I had outside the town on
the road to Beaumont, where I had built a little sort of shed or hut
where I kept all sorts of rubbish, garden tools, a straw mattress, and
a broken chair or two, “if they burn that,” thinks I, “there will be no
great harm done!”

I had not been there five minutes before I was in a high fever, my
teeth chattered, I had a sharp stitch in my side, and my gizzard felt
as if it was upside down. Now don’t think for a moment, my friends,
that at this painful moment I was heroic and endured my sufferings in
the grand manner, like noble Romans in the history books. As I was all
by myself with nothing near but the stomach-ache, I just threw myself
down on my straw mattress and howled. You could have heard me as far as
the big tree of Sembert.

“Good Lord,” I groaned, “what pleasure can You take in tormenting a
poor creature who never did You any harm? Oh, how my head aches! and
my back feels as if it were broken. It is hard to be cut off in the
flower of one’s age and what difference can it make _when_ I go to
Heaven?--of course it would be a pleasure--an honor I mean, but why
this indecent haste, since we are sure to meet sooner or later? I am
perfectly willing to wait, for my part; a poor worm like me! Lord, if
it is Your will, I am, as You see, resigned and humble but--oh, I can’t
bear these pains another minute!”

All this weeping and praying did not seem to do much good to my body,
but it eased my mind a little, and as I became calmer I reflected that
God was either deaf to my cries, or else that He did not choose to
listen, which is much the same thing when you come to think of it. If
man is made in His likeness, I thought, He will act as seems good to
Him, so I may as well save my breath, for to all appearance what I have
will not last more than an hour or two, so I will try and make the most
of what is left in this dear old body, which I am reluctant to quit,
even if it is to better myself. Well, we can die but once, so I may as
well see how the thing is done, now that there is no help for it. When
I was a little boy, I used to make willow-whistles, and I found the
best way to loosen the bark was to tap it sharply with a knife-handle.

“Ah-h, I had a hard knock that time! The Lord no doubt is getting
my bark off by the same method, but it does seem a strange sort of
amusement for a Personage of His age, and there is nothing left for me
but to watch and see what happens, which is hard when such a horrible
commotion is going on inside one!”--[Here the author takes the liberty
of omitting some lines, as Breugnon enters, with somewhat too much
detail, into the disordered state of his machinery, which we fear would
not be of interest to the general reader.]--There I lay reflecting, and
sometimes stopping to howl a little, and at last I lighted my candle
and stuck it in the neck of an old bottle, which smelt still of the
spirit that once had filled it. “My body and soul will be like that by
this time tomorrow,” thought I, and then I turned over and tried to
read a little, but the Romans and their lofty sentiments rather bored
me, especially their self-satisfaction. “We are not all worthy to see
Rome!” and sayings of that kind fell flat at that moment, when I had no
pride left, and only wanted to complain of the cramp in my stomach.

When I had an interval of ease, however, I found such a good joke in
an old jest book, that in spite of my aches and pains, I fairly roared
with laughter, till it brought on the cramp again, and I had to stop
and groan. Oh, what a night that was! When day dawned at last, I was
really half dead, and could only drag myself on my hands and knees
to the little window, where I called out in a lamentable voice to the
first passerby I saw. One glance at me was enough. He made the sign of
the Cross and fled for his life, and in fifteen minutes two sentinels
were posted at my door with orders that on no account was I to cross
the threshold. I could not have gone out if they had allowed it, but
I begged them to go and fetch my old friend Paillard the notary, at
Dornecy, so that I could make my will before dying. My guards were so
afraid of the plague that they did not even dare to listen to the sound
of my voice, but at last I found a messenger, a little boy whom I had
caught one day stealing my cherries; he liked me because I told him he
might as well pick some for me too while he was about it, so now he ran
off on my errand.

I couldn’t tell you what happened for a long time after that, I just
lay all humped up on my mattress, burning with fever, but after a while
I heard wheels on the road, and a familiar gruff voice, so I knew
Paillard was there, and tried to raise myself and call to him. I wanted
to tell him to draw up a codicil to my will leaving a larger share of
my money to Martine and little Glodie, and in the long night I had
thought out a way to do this so that my sons could not contest it. The
great bell of St. Martin’s seemed to be weighing on my forehead, but
I managed to drag myself to the window, and out on the road I saw two
round red faces staring at me with horror-stricken eyes. Paillard and
Chamaille had rushed in hot haste to get a sight of their friend before
he expired, but when they did see him, their ardor cooled a little, and
they fell back so as to put the width of the road between us.

“Heavens!” cried Chamaille; “my poor friend, your color is something
awful.” But the mere sight of them seemed to restore me, so I called
out, “You look hot, won’t you come in and sit down a minute?”

“No, thank you, no!” they both said hastily; “we are all right out
here,” and they kept backing away towards the cart, where Paillard
pretended to fumble with the bit of his old nag, to cover his
embarrassment. Chamaille soon pulled himself together, for with him it
was an everyday experience to talk with the dying; he first inquired
how I was feeling, and when I said but poorly, he shook his head.

“Ah, my dear Colas!” said he sadly, “I have told you more times than I
could count that this is what we must all come to; all flesh is grass,
here today and gone tomorrow, but in the heyday of your youth you
would never listen to me. Now alas! your cup is nearly empty, only the
dregs remain to you, but all the same you ought not to be afflicted,
since God does you the honor to summon you before Him, and I am here to
prepare and wash your soul if perchance it is not perfectly clean and
ready. Come, sinner, the time is short!”

“Vicar,” said I, “I will attend to you in a few moments.”

“The Chariot of Death will not wait for you.”

“In that case I shall have to go on my two feet.”

“Breugnon, my brother,” said he solemnly, “relinquish your hold on
the things of this world; why should you cling to them since they are
naught but vanity and vexation of spirit?”

“Too true,” said I, “and it breaks my heart to think of leaving old
friends like you behind me in the midst of such desolation.”

“We shall meet again!” said he, rolling up his eyes.

“Let it be soon then! You remember the motto of the Duke of Guise,
‘Where I lead you follow!’”

“Come, come, Breugnon, time is passing, and so are you; do you want the
father of lies to snap up your sinful soul for his dinner? He will, if
you do not make your confession quickly, Colas! I entreat you for my
sake!”

“For yours, for God’s, and for my own sake,” said I, “but first I have
a word or two to say to the notary.”

“Is it possible, Breugnon, that you will make the Eternal wait for the
scrivener?”

“The Eternal has all eternity, so He will not mind waiting, besides it
is more polite for me to take leave of this world which I am quitting,
before I greet the next world where I am--perhaps--expected.”

As I insisted in spite of all he could say to the contrary, Master
Paillard took out his writing-case and sat down on a stone by the
roadside, surrounded by a circle of spectators, and all the dogs in
the neighborhood, while I dictated to him my last will and testament.
Having disposed of my money, I turned my attention to my soul under the
direction of Chamaille, till at last, feeling that my strength failed
me, “Baptiste,” said I, “your words are heavenly, but what avails the
sky to a man whose throat is dry! Get me a stirrup-cup, for my soul is
just about to spring to the saddle, so one bottle, if you love me!”

My last words fell on the willing ears of good neighbors and Christians
who brought me not only one bottle but three, Chablis, Pouilly, and
Irancy, and I, like a sailor setting out on a voyage, let down a rope
out of my window; they put the wine in an old basket, tied the rope to
its handle, and I pulled it up gently, my last best friend! After this,
though the others had gone, I was not quite so lonely, but I kept no
count of time, and could not tell now how the hours passed or rather
how they seemed to be stolen from me, perhaps it was by the spirits
in my trio of bottles, from which came voices and replies, but Colas
Breugnon was not there to hear them.

Towards midnight I appeared to be seated in a strawberry bed looking up
at the sky through the branches of a tree. How dark the earth was, and
how the stars twinkled, the moon too was smiling at me, and all around
were twisted distorted old stems and roots, like a nest of serpents
grinning horribly.--What was I doing there? My head was spinning, but I
seemed to say to myself, “Up with you, Colas! and lie no longer on that
old mattress; the bottles are empty, out with you to the garden!” I
wanted also to pick some cloves of garlic, because they are said to be
a cure for the plague, but scarcely had I set foot on the ground when
everything seemed to be enchanted; the sky arched over me like a huge
tree, and from its drooping branches hung the stars like glittering
fruit, and they all had eyes to look at me; they laughed, and so did
the strawberries; high up among the leaves was a golden pear all ripe
and juicy, and she sang in a sweet little voice:

  “Grow like me
  From the tree,
  Little man below.
  Reach your hand to mine,
  Cling like stems of vine;
  Shake off all your woe,
  Grow with me
  As we upward go!”

And the heavens and earth seemed like one big orchard full of fruits
all singing, “Grow with me!”

Then I stuck my arms into the soft warm earth up to the elbows, and
sank down till I was all enfolded from head to heel, as if on my
mother’s breast. From the July night rose the Song of Songs, the bright
bunches of stars swung before my eyes, and the deep voice of St.
Martin’s struck the hour; twelve o’clock, fourteen, sixteen o’clock?
Surely there was something strange in the old time-piece! And the star
fruit above and below began to strike too, or was it chiming? with such
celestial sounds that they pierced my heart, and vibrated in my ears
like distant thunder. Then it seemed as I lay that a tree of Jesse
was growing from me and I mounted with it, up, up among the chiming
branches towards a bright planet dancing on the highest tree-top, and
that I stretched out my arms to reach it, singing:

  “You are mine,
  Star wine,
  Spirit of the living vine,
  Halleluia!”

I must have kept on climbing for the greater part of the night, and
from what they tell me I sang for hours, all sorts of songs, sacred and
profane, some edifying and some very much the reverse; I also played
on the dulcimer as well as on the drum and trumpet, till at last all
the neighborhood came out to listen and to say, “Poor old Colas, he is
dying, and mad as mad can be.”

The next morning the sun was out of his bed long before I was, for I
never opened my eyes till near midday, and my first thought was, “Good,
here I am still living!”--not but what my couch was hard enough, and I
still had those horrible pains in the gizzard, but I was glad enough
that my body was there to put a pain in. “Breugnon, old man,” said I,
“it is a pleasure to see you; if you had died last night, I should
never have got over it. Good-morning, dear garden, and everything in
you!”

And while I was gloating on my beautiful melons, I heard some one
hailing me from the other side of the wall. “Breugnon, are you dead
yet?” And there were Paillard and Chamaille weeping and wailing, and
prepared already to proclaim the virtues of the dear departed.

I crawled slowly from my bed, for my back was still confoundedly
painful, and put my head gently out of the window. “Here he is,” said
I. “Cuckoo!”

“Colas!” they cried, laughing, while the tears ran down their faces,
and I stuck out my tongue at them, telling them that I was not dead yet
by a long sight, but if you will believe me those friends actually kept
me shut up for ten days longer, till they were perfectly certain that I
was entirely recovered. It is only fair to say that they kept me well
supplied with bread and water,--I mean the kind that Noah drank,--and
they came every day and sat under my window and told me all the news
of town and country. When at last I was set free, Chamaille wanted me
to go at once and return thanks to St. Roch, who according to him had
delivered me from my mortal sickness. I told him I thought the saints
that saved me had come out of three quart bottles.

“Well, Colas,” said he, “we will split the difference, you come first
with me to St. Roch and I will help you afterwards to render due
thanks to St. Vineyard.” So we made both these pious pilgrimages, all
three together, for Paillard insisted on joining us.

“Friends,” said I, “you were not so anxious to go with me the other
day.”

“You know I love you,” said Paillard, “but I love my own self better,
and as the proverb says, ‘My skin fits tighter than my waistcoat.’”

“I am an old coward,” said Chamaille, thumping himself on the chest,
and looking very shamefaced.

“Well then,” said I, “of what use are all the precepts of religion and
of Cato?”

We all looked at each other and laughed. “Life is sweet,” we cried,
“and good men are scarce; if God thought fit to put us into this world,
it is our duty to stay here as long as we can.”




VIII

MY OLD WOMAN’S DEATH


Life tasted good to me after my illness, better than ever before; the
flavor of everything was enhanced, and I sat down to the world’s table
as Lazarus must have done, with a sharpened appetite. One day after
hours, my foreman and I were in the shop amusing ourselves with a
wrestling bout, when a neighbor looked in on his way from Morvan and
told me that he had seen my wife there. I asked him how she was getting
along. He said, “She was leaving when I saw her, making for a better
world as fast as she was able.”

“It won’t be the better for her coming,” said one would-be wit, and
another cried, “Good luck never comes single; you stay with us, Colas,
and she goes!” And he drank to my health.

I felt somewhat shaky, but not wishing to show it, I too held up my
glass and answered, “When the gods love a man they take his wife away!”
But I could not swallow the wine, it seemed tasteless, and suddenly
starting up, I seized my stick and went out without saying another
word. They called after me, but my heart was in my throat, and I could
not answer. It was all very well to say that I did not love her, and
that we had been constantly rubbing one another up the wrong way for
the last thirty years; she had lain by my side in the narrow bed, and
from her had sprung the seed I planted; and now that the pale shadow
was near her, I felt a cold hand laid on my heart; it was as if a part
of my flesh was torn from me, and though I had often wished to be rid
of her, now I pitied her and myself, and--Heaven forgive me!--I almost
loved her!

I arrived the next day at nightfall, and as soon as I came near my wife
I could see on her face the hand of the great sculptor, and under the
wrinkled skin the tragic mask of Death. There was a yet more certain
sign, for she smiled as I came in, and said:

“Why, poor old man, I hope the walk has not tired you!”

Fancy her speaking to me like that! My heart sank, and I said to myself
that there was no chance for her as I sat down by the bedside and took
her hand in mine. Her eyes rested on me with affection, but she was
too weak to talk, so I tried to cheer her up by telling all about my
illness, and how I had got out of the clutches of the plague after
all; but as it was the first she had heard of it the news proved almost
too much for her, and she turned so faint that I was ready to beat
myself on the head for my stupidity. However, she came to in a little
while, and to my great relief began to scold me in her trembling voice;
she was so weak that she could not get the words out fast enough, and
it really did me good, and seemed like old times to be told that I
ought to be ashamed of myself, that a man of any decency would have
let his wife know when he caught the plague, and that I deserved to
die of it all alone on my dunghill. The others were frightened at her
violence, and wanted to send me out of the room, but I laughed and said
that it would do her good to lose her temper, she was used to it; then
I took her face in my two hands and kissed her on both cheeks, and will
you believe it? the poor old thing began to cry.

For a long time after that I sat with her alone in silence, listening
to the tick-tack of the death-watch in the wainscot; at last she tried
to speak, but could only make a feeble murmur.

“Don’t try to talk, old girl,” said I. “I understand; we have not lived
together thirty years for nothing.”

“I have something I must say to you, Colas, or I should not rest easy
in Paradise,--I have been very hard to you, my husband.”

“No, no,” said I, “only a bit sharp, and that was good for me.”

“Yes, I was hard, jealous, quarrelsome; I know I often made the house
too hot for you, but,--Colas, it was because I loved you!”

“You don’t say so!” said I, patting her hand. “Well, there are all
sorts of ways of loving, but yours was rather a queer one.”

“I did love you,” she went on, “and you never returned it, that was why
I was cross, and you were always good-natured. Oh! that laugh of yours,
Colas! You don’t know how it made me suffer, till sometimes I really
thought it would kill me. You covered yourself with it like a hood, and
storm as I might, I could never get at you.”

“My poor old dear!” said I; “that was because I do not like water!”

“There you go again laughing! But I don’t mind it now that the chill
of the grave is upon me; your laughter seems something warm and
comforting, it does not anger me now,--and, Colas, say that you forgive
me.”

“You were an honest, hard-working, faithful wife to me,” said I
earnestly; “perhaps you were not always as sweet as sugar, but in this
world, you know, one does not expect perfection, God keeps that for
Himself up yonder; but when it came to hard times, you always backed me
up. I used to think you really good-looking when I saw how you threw
yourself into your work, whatever happened. Now I don’t want you to
torment yourself about the past, it’s bad enough to have lived through
it, but since it is all over, we might as well let the burden slip from
our shoulders and cast all our cares on the Master. We have come to the
end, and can take breath and look about us for a nice soft hole where
we can sleep the sleep of the just which means, I suppose, of the good
workers.”

While I was talking, she lay with folded arms, and her eyes shut, and
when I stopped she held out her hand. “Wake me tomorrow morning,” she
said. “And now good-night, my dear!”

Then she stretched herself out in the bed, and, neat as ever, she drew
the sheet smoothly up to her chin, with the crucifix resting on her
breast;--poor little woman, how thin she was! And there she lay, all
ready, staring straight in front of her, waiting for the summons. It
seemed that after so many years of effort her poor old body deserved
some repose, but alas! there was one more trial in store for her. The
landlady suddenly rushed into the room calling to me to come quickly,
and when I did not at once understand, and told her to speak lower, it
seemed as if the dying woman from her funeral couch could see beyond
and above me, for she raised herself stiffly like him whom Jesus
awakened, stretched out her arms, and cried, “Glodie!”

Her cry went through my heart, and as I heard a hoarse choking cough
from the next room, I understood only too well, and ran in to find my
poor little lark struggling with the croup, her cheeks all flushed and
burning, as she put her hands up to her throat, and with wild eyes
implored us to help her.

Oh, what a dreadful night that was! Even now a week later my knees
give way under me when I think of it. Can it be that the Omnipotent
causes the pain of such poor little creatures? How can He bear to see
their eyes full of wondering reproach when it is in His power to save
them? I can understand that since we are made in the image of our
Creator, He may sometimes be cruel, as we are, or at least not always
compassionate,--perhaps even capricious,--but grown-up men and women
must set their teeth and take whatever comes to them, and they can
always resist when things go too far, but that He should torment these
helpless lamblings is more than we can tolerate, and if this goes on,
Lord, some day or other we shall withdraw our allegiance. If such
crimes are possible it must be because You are blind, or else there
is no Father up there!--Pardon, I must take that back, it is a little
more than I intended. If You did not exist, I could not speak to You
as I am doing, and we have had many a discussion, which always ended
in my having the last word.--During the whole of that terrible night,
I called to You, threatened, cursed, denied, implored You; clasped my
hands in prayer, or shook my fist at You, but no voice came from above
in answer, in spite of all I could do nothing seemed to touch You, till
at last I cried out in desperation, “Lord, if You will not hear me, I
will turn to some one less hard-hearted!”

Martine, the child’s mother, had been taken with the pains of labor on
her journey, and had been obliged to stop at Dornecy, leaving Glodie to
the care of her grandmother; so now I had to watch alone with the old
landlady. It seemed as if our little martyr would pass away with the
night, and when dawn came I felt that there was but one thing left to
do. Looking out I saw that it rained and a high wind blew through the
doorway, but none the less, I made the sign of the Cross and lifted
my darling from her pillow where she lay so exhausted that she had no
further strength to struggle, but only panted a little like a bird in
one’s hand. She weighed no more than a feather as I carried her out,
where a rose brushed against her in passing,--that’s a sign of Death,
they say,--but I crossed myself and went out sheltering her as best I
could against the tempest. The landlady went first carrying presents,
and so we came to the wood, where we found what we sought; a tall aspen
standing high above the reeds on the edge of the swamp. Once, twice,
three times we circled round the tree; the child lay quiet in my arms,
only her teeth shook together like the leaves about us. We tied one end
of a ribbon to her wrist, and fastened the other end to the aspen, and
then the woman and I repeated this incantation:

  “Shake, shake,
  My sickness take.
  By the sweet Trinity,
  Thus do I order thee;
  But if thou reject my suit
  Ax shall soon destroy thy root.”

Then the old woman dug a hole between the roots of the tree, in which
she poured a pint of wine, and put in two cloves of garlic, a slice of
bacon, and a copper penny; then we filled my hat with rushes, laid it
on the ground, and again marched three times round it; the third time
we spat in it and said, “Catch croup, cursèd toads.” Then we turned
toward home, but near the edge of the wood we laid Glodie at the foot
of a thorn tree, and put up a prayer to God’s Son in the name of the
Holy Thorn.

The little one was unconscious when we got back to the house, but we
felt that we had done all we could; and it seemed too that my wife
would not quit this world as long as Glodie remained in it. “Jesus,
Mary,” cried she, “I cannot go until I know that our child will
recover, surely she must be cured, I swear it!”

Poor old dear, she was not as sure as she said, for she kept on
praying, with a strength that astonished me when I remembered that I
had thought her at her last breath the night before. “If that is the
last, it is a good long one,” said I, and was ashamed of myself for
laughing at such a moment, but I could not help it. You cannot, of
course, keep off suffering by laughter, but a Frenchman will always
meet pain with a smile, and sad or merry you will find he has his eyes
wide open; so, though I put a good face on it, my anxiety was as great
as that of the poor old woman who was twisting and groaning in her bed.
I tried to soothe her as we do children, tucking up the bedclothes
which she had disordered; but she pushed me away, and told me that if
I was worth my salt, I would do _something_ for Glodie. “You cured
yourself of the plague,” said she, crying, “and yet you can do nothing
for our darling! You are the one that ought to have died!”

“True enough, my dear, and I would give my skin to save her, but it is
too old and cracked to be of use to anybody; all we are good for now is
to suffer, the pair of us, and be as brave as we can, it may be some
help to our little girl.”

My wife leaned her head against mine, and our tears dropped together as
we felt in the room the sweeping wings of the Archangel of Death.

All at once the sound of those great wings grew fainter, and as if by
miracle hope dawned again. God had compassion on us, or the tender
Jesus to whom I had prayed so fervently;--or else those elder gods of
the earth and forest perhaps had heard our cries? Even our offering to
the aspen may have helped us? But no matter what the reason, all we
knew certainly was that from this moment the child’s fever left her,
once more she could draw her breath easily. Death had released her
throat from the clutch of his pale fingers, she was given back to us!
We did not know to whom we owed our thanks for this great mercy, but
our hearts were filled with gratitude, and with tears of joy we sang
“Nunc Dimittis,” and then my poor old woman said, “Now I can go.”
She fell back on her pillow quite exhausted, the light in her eyes
faded, her features grew sharp and hollow, and she sank down into the
dark river, through which I could still seem to see the outline of her
body;--until life was gone. I stooped and closed her eyelids, kissed
her brow, and folded her workworn hands together for the rest they had
never known till now, and turning from the extinguished lamp, I went to
watch by the little flickering flame which was to be henceforward the
light of my dwelling.

Glodie slept, and as I sat by her side I could not help the thoughts
that rushed over me:--Why is this little creature so unutterably dear
that nothing seems worth while without her, and with her the worst that
could happen would be bearable? Hers is the only life that matters; in
comparison my own seems valueless, and yet here am I active of body
and mind, with some talents, and what is even better, plenty of good
sense; loving life, and made to enjoy it, in short a good Burgundian
workman, and I would freely sacrifice all this for the sake of a little
creature I do not even know; who is nothing as yet but a sweet face,
a pretty plaything, but who will be something perhaps,--and for this
possibility I am willing to give up my own “I am.” Ah! it is because in
this “perhaps” lies enfolded the fine flower of my existence, the best
that is in me, and when I lie below the sod, and worms have destroyed
this body, then will arise another self better and happier than the
old one, yes, better, because I shall serve as a stepping-stone from
which to see more clearly than I did.--You who are born of me, and will
see the light when my eyes can no more behold it; through you I shall
taste the vintage of the long future years, through you I shall enjoy
the known and the unknown. All around me is passing as I shall pass,
but you will lead me, ever farther and upward. I am no longer bound to
my little holding here on earth; beyond my fields, beyond my life, the
lines of the future stretch out into the infinite; they cover the years
to come as the Milky Way covers the night sky. I have sown the seed of
future harvests, and in you who will live after me I put my desire and
my eternal hope.




IX

THE FIRE


                                                        15th of August.

I can hardly bear to tell of what happened today, and I feel as if I
could never really reconcile myself to it; but as I always say, “Cheer
up, Colas! a brave heart will carry you through everything.”

I have often heard it said that summer’s rain gives no pain; but you
would agree that it gives no gain, either, if you could see me after
a season when one storm after another has beat on my devoted head;
here I am without shoes or shirt to cover me,--but let me tell you all
about it.--I was just pulling myself together after a double trial, you
remember? Glodie had been cured of the croup and my poor wife of all
the troubles of this world; when a fresh blow fell on me at the hands,
I suppose, of the heavenly powers,--unless there is some woman up there
who has a grudge against me?--but this time I am stripped to the skin,
and glad enough to have that left on my bones. I had been in no hurry
to come home while Glodie was recovering from her illness; a child’s
convalescence is so charming! It is as if one saw a fresh creation,
everything looks smooth and white like a new-laid egg; and as I had
little to do, I went to market by way of amusement, and just to know
what was going on in the world. One day I heard something which made
me prick up my ears like an old mule. They said that a great fire was
raging at Clamecy, that it had spread to the suburb of Beuvron, and
that the whole place was burning up like a bundle of kindling wood.
Naturally I asked eagerly about my own house, but could hear nothing
further, and felt as if I was on hot coals,--probably from association
of ideas,--though all my friends tried to calm me by saying that my
house could be in no danger, or I should have heard of it by this time,
that ill news travels fast, and that I was certainly not the only fool
in Beuvron.

In spite of all this a voice told me that my house was on fire;--I
could almost smell it, and without further words I started off,
thinking as I went how careless I had been, to leave everything at
sixes and sevens. Other conflagrations had been caused by the enemy,
and I always had had warning enough to transport my most precious
possessions across the bridge, and get them behind walls, so that I
saved my money, my best pieces of work, furniture and tools, and all
those things that people accumulate, and which are dear to us because
they are like fragments of a happy past. This time, however, nothing
had been placed in safety, and I could almost hear my old woman’s voice
from the other world, berating me for my stupidity. As I trudged along,
I tried to find a good answer to these reproaches, but my only excuse
was that I had been in a hurry to get to her sick-bed. I endeavored
to persuade myself also, that there was no real cause for alarm, but
the thought kept coming back and back, like a fly that settles on your
nose, till I was all in a cold perspiration, in spite of the fact that
I was walking at a good round pace. As I climbed up the long wooded
hill just after you pass Villiers, I saw a chaise coming down; I could
not tell who was driving at first, but when it got nearer, I recognized
Jojot, the miller from Moulot.

He pulled up as soon as he caught sight of me.

“Poor old boy!” he cried, waving his whip, and though I expected it,
the wind was just knocked out of me, and I could not say a word, but
stood there like a stick, with my mouth open.

“There is no use in your keeping on, Colas; you might as well go back
where you came from. The whole thing is burned, flat as the palm of
your hand; it will only make you sick to see it.” Every word seemed to
wring my heartstrings, but I tried to put a good face on it, and said:

“I know, I know, but I must go on all the same.”

“What for, if the whole place is in ruins?”

“I want to pick up the pieces.”

“There aren’t any pieces,” said he, “not so much as you could put on
the end of your finger.”

“Jojot,” said I, “there is no use your trying to persuade me that there
is absolutely nothing left! My apprentices and the neighbors would
not stand by, and see all I have in the world burnt to ashes, without
trying to save a few sticks of furniture for me!”

“You don’t know anything about it,” cried he. “Why, your neighbors are
the very ones who set your house on fire!”

I was perfectly crushed at this news, and he, with the sort of perverse
satisfaction one has in making out anything as bad as possible, went on
to tell me the whole story from the beginning.

“You must know,” said he, “that the plague is at the bottom of the
trouble; our town Councilors, the Provost, and the whole crew of them,
fled away, and left us as sheep without a shepherd, and the people at
this lost their heads completely, so that when a fresh case of the
disease broke out in Beuvron, some one raised a cry to burn down the
infected houses. No sooner said than done, and naturally they began
with yours, Colas, because you were not on hand to stop them. The more
they burned, the better they seemed to like it; you know how a mob is
when it once gets going, men seem to be drunk with love of destruction,
so they went on from bad to worse, as if they were crazy; throwing
everything they could lay hands on into the flames, and dancing round
them like savages.

  ‘On the bridge of Clamecy town,
  See us dancing up and down.’

you know the children’s song. It was really awful to see such madness,
and yet it was a kind of contagion. I’ll bet you would have danced
yourself if you had been there, to see what a blaze your shop made with
all the dry wood you had in it.”

“I wish I had been there,” said I. “It must have been a grand sight.”

And the funny part of it was that I really did think so. I thought
something else too: that this time I was ruined; but wild horses would
not have dragged it out of me before Jojot. He was puzzled, and looked
as if he did not know what to make of me, half with that queer pleasure
we have in the misfortunes of our fellow-man, and half with pity, for
he is really a good sort, and a friend of mine. I turned to go.

“They ought to have kept a thing like that for the midsummer bonfire,”
said I.

“Are you really going on?”

“Yes, I’m going on, Jojot.”

“Well, you’re an odd fish--you do hate to be like other people.” And he
whipped up his horse and drove off down the hill, while I stepped out
bravely in the opposite direction as long as he was in sight; but as
soon as I got round the corner, my knees seemed to give way under me,
and I let myself fall like a lump by the roadside.

The next moments were among the worst that I have ever had to bear, and
as there was nobody to see me, I just let myself go, and bewailed my
misfortune.

“I have lost everything in the world,” thought I. My home,--the house
was full of dear memories,--and the hope of ever having another of my
own; all my savings, which it took me years to get together, bit by
bit, and which were so much the more valuable to me, and worst of all,
my independence is gone; for now of course, I shall have to live with
one of my children, and I don’t know which of us will hate it the most.
It is the one thing I have always been resolved against, as the worst
that could happen. There is no use telling me that I love them, and
they love me,--I know all that, but young people and old interfere with
each other, and it is natural and proper for a bird to sit on its own
nest, and hatch out its own eggs in its own way. Respect for the old
is all very well, or rather it makes a difficulty, for you are not on
an equality with people when you are obliged to show them respect. I
have tried to behave so that my five children should not have too much
respect for me, and I think I have succeeded pretty well, but there
must always be a distance between us. Parents come and go in their
children’s lives, like strangers from a far country; there can never
be perfect understanding from one generation to another, and too often
there is, on the contrary, interference and irritation.

It seems a dreadful thing to say, but it is not wise to tempt
Providence, and put too great a strain on the love, even of our best
and dearest. It is asking a great deal of human nature; not that I have
anything to complain of in my children, who have always been good to
me, but I don’t want to impose myself on them, for my own sake, as well
as theirs;--and then it goes against the grain with me to take back
the least part of what I have given them; it looks like asking for
repayment, and that is a sort of thing that sticks in the throat of a
man who has never owed anything to anybody but himself. I want to be
master in my own house, to come and go without question; and it would
kill me to think that some one was counting every mouthful I ate; I
should soon become a broken-down, good-for-nothing old man. Far rather
would I live on the charity of strangers than on that of my children,
never being sure that they kept me of their own free will. I would
rather die outright than be such a burden to them.... I sat there for
a long time, like an old tree that has been cut down at the roots; and
there was precious little of my boasted philosophy left. I suffered
in my pride, and in my affections; in what was best and worst in me;
accumulations from the past, and hopes for the future, had all gone up
in smoke, but I knew that I must walk in the path before me, however
thorny it might prove; there could be no escape.

Not far off above the tops of the trees, my sad eyes lighted on the
towers of the Château of Cuncy, and I felt that there they had found
something on which they might rest with pleasure. For many years I had
worked for the good lord Philibert de Cuncy; and the castle was full of
fine furniture, woodwork, and stairways, which I had executed at his
order. He was a queer man, and I sometimes got into hot water with him.
Would you believe it? once he wanted me to make portrait statues of his
mistresses and himself all in costumes dating from the days of Adam and
Eve! Another time he took it into his head to have the stag’s antlers
in his armory attached to busts representing all the unlucky husbands
in the vicinity. We had a good laugh over it, but it was not always so
easy to please him; as fast as I finished one thing, he wanted me to
begin another, and very seldom did I see the color of his money. Never
mind! he was a genuine lover of art, and of woman, and much in the same
way too. In this I was much of his mind, for I have always thought a
man should love a work of art, as he does his mistress, with the flesh
as well as the spirit.

It was a consolation to me to think that so much of my best work
survived, now that the rest had perished, even if it was not paid for;
and I felt a longing to go and see the fruit of my past labors, hoping
that it might make life seem less hard to me. At the castle I was well
known, and they let me go where I would. The Master was away, they
said, but I told them I had some measurements to take for new work, and
I knew where to find the children of my brains and my fingers, though
it was some time since I had seen them. As long as an artist feels
in himself the power of fresh creation, he does not care to dwell on
his former productions, and besides, the last time I was here, the
Master had made some excuse to prevent my coming in. I thought at the
time, that he looked rather queer, but suspected perhaps that he was
hiding some married woman, and as I was quite sure it was not my wife,
I thought no more about it; besides, no one at Cuncy ever pays much
attention to the Master’s vagaries; he is a little cracked, they say,
and let it go at that.

I had not mounted ten steps of the staircase before I was struck
motionless, like Lot’s wife, by the sight which met my eyes. The fine
carving which ran along the banisters, representing vines and flowering
branches, was all hacked and disfigured so that I could hardly believe
it, and had to touch and feel the rough edge to convince myself that
these injuries had been made deliberately with a knife or hatchet. My
breath came short, and I trembled to think of what yet might be in
store for me, but I took the rest of the stair four steps at a time,
and burst open the great doors on the landing. As I looked down the
long range of apartments, I saw that my worst fears were realized.
In the armory, the dining-hall, and the state bedroom, my beautiful
little figurines had all been mutilated, shorn of their noses, their
arms, or their legs. Silly inscriptions, names or dates, were cut deep
in the panels of the wardrobes, on the chimney breasts, or across the
fluted pilasters. At the head of the long gallery stood a charming
group,--a nymph of the Yonne, with her bare knee on the neck of a
shaggy lioness. This they had used as a target, so that it was all
battered by shots from an arquebus. Some of the faces were ornamented
with mustaches, or had low jokes scrawled upon them with wine stains or
ink. Everywhere were gashes, chips, or rubbish; all that loneliness,
idleness, or stupidity could suggest to the mind of a rich idiot, on
the lookout for some new amusement, destruction and disfigurement being
the only things that could come into the head of a creature too dull to
be of any use himself in the world. It is lucky that he was not there,
for in the first transport of rage I believe that I should have killed
him. I could not speak at first, but the veins of my neck swelled up,
and my eyes started from my head like a lobster’s. Another moment, and
I really should have burst! but fortunately I managed to let out an
oath or two, and then my rage came in a flood, and I screamed, stamped,
and swore like a man demented.

“Dog! beast! ruffian!” cried I. “I gave you these lovely children of
my art, to ornament your vile den, and look what you have done to them!
I thought that they would adorn your house and carry on my name for
generations, and here they are, spoiled, tortured, and violated! What
joy was mine when I evoked all these from the enduring wood, and worked
with loving care to make them beautiful, perfect in every limb,--and
now see them, thus soiled and mutilated from head to foot, defaced and
ruined. Poor dears! your own father scarcely knows you, one would think
that you had all been to the wars!”

And then I put up a fervent prayer to Heaven (which was perhaps
superfluous), entreating that I might not enter Paradise, but be sent
to the nethermost hell, where I might assist Lucifer in tormenting my
enemy. “Ah!--ha! when I think of this brutal destroyer, how I should
love to stick a spit through him and twirl him before a slow fire!”

The steward Andoche came in, while I was still foaming with rage; he
begged me as an old acquaintance to calm myself, and led me from the
room, saying what he could to console me.

“They are only bits of wood, after all,” he said. “It is not worth
while for you to excite yourself so for things like that; and what
would you do if you had to live here, like us, with this lunatic? If
he wants to knock anything about,--and after all a man must have some
pleasure,--why should he not kick these chunks of wood, for which you
got a fair price, instead of good Christians like you and me?”

“I don’t care how much he beats you,” said I. “I had rather have been
flogged myself than have had him injure this wood into which I had
breathed the breath of life. Do you think a man cares for his bones?
It is his thought that is sacred to him, and he who kills that is
thrice guilty!” Carried away by my own eloquence, I might have kept
on like this for hours, but I saw that Andoche did not grasp a word
of it, and indeed seemed to think that I was nearly as cracked as his
Master. I turned on the threshold and gave a last look, as one may say,
at the field of battle, where lay my poor noseless creations; there
was Andoche with his pitying smile, and here was I wasting my breath
in cursing at these dummies. It struck me all at once as so deucedly
funny, that I just laughed in Andoche’s face, and went off in a gust of
merriment which seemed to carry away my anger and my pain along with it.

I struck out towards Clamecy, musing as I went, “This time,” thought I,
“they may as well stick me under ground; for there is nothing left of
the old man but his skin. Hold on, though, there may be something worth
while inside of that,--I remember a story of a fellow who was besieged,
and they told him to yield, or they would kill all his children. He
answered that if they did, he knew how to make a lot of new ones. That
is my position exactly. In the dry places of the earth we artists have
sown grain which wild beasts and birds of the air come to devour,
because they do not know how to create, and can only feed on the works
of others; but let them trample and uproot as much as they will, I have
a store from which I can replenish the fruitful soil. Let the wheat
ripen or die, it does not matter, for my eyes are fixed, not on the
past, but on the future, and when the day comes, as it will, when none
are left to me of all my members, when the sight of my eyes is dimmed,
and my hands have lost their cunning, then when that time comes, Colas,
you will have ceased to be. Is it possible to imagine a Breugnon, who
cannot work or feel, who does not laugh or spring from the ground with
both feet at once? No, then he will be only a withered nut, you can
throw the old shell into the fire!”

I was so much comforted by these reflections that when I reached the
top of the last hill as you go towards Clamecy I went on gaily,
throwing my feet out, and twirling my stick with a jaunty air, when
I saw in the distance a boy running towards me, seemingly in much
distress. As he came nearer, I knew him for my youngest apprentice,
a lad about thirteen years old, Robinet, called Binet; certainly as
idle a youngster as ever stared out of a window at the girls, when he
should have been hard at work. Twenty times a day I had to cuff him for
his laziness, but he was a clever little monkey, and his agile fingers
could turn out astonishingly good things when he liked; and then his
funny face with its wide mouth and turned-up nose, was so attractive
that, for the life of me, I could not be really angry with him. He knew
it, the young rascal! and when I hit him a good clip, he would just
shake his ears like a donkey, and in ten minutes was as bad as ever.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that he was crying, the large drops
streaming in rivulets down his cheeks, and before I could say a word,
he flung his arms round my neck, blubbering, and bedewing me with his
tears, like a Triton in a fountain.

“Stand off!” cried I. “What on earth is the matter with you? And, for
goodness’ sake, blow your nose, first, if you want to kiss me!”

Then as I saw that, far from stopping, he let himself slip to the
ground and lay there, sobbing louder than ever, I became really
alarmed, and raised him, so that I saw that one hand was wrapped in a
bloody rag, that his eyebrows were singed, and his clothes torn and
dusty.

“Come, my boy, what is the matter? What mischief have you been up to
this time?”--I had really forgotten my disaster.

“Oh, Master!--the fire! I can’t bear to tell you,” said he, weeping,
and when I realized that the poor child was unhappy on my account,
because my house was burned down, I cannot tell you what a comfort it
was to me.

“My poor boy!” said I, “don’t cry any longer.”

He thought that I had not understood, and told me more calmly that my
workshop and my house were burned to the ground.

“That’s an old story by now,” said I, patting him on the back. “You
are the fourth or fifth person who has told me of it. Well! it’s hard
luck, that’s all I can say, but I never thought you cared so much about
the old shop. Honor bright, now, didn’t you dance around it, like the
others, while it was burning?”

The way I was taking it had made him feel much better, but at this he
shook off my hand indignantly. “You don’t believe a word of it, Master;
Cagnat and I did all we could to put it out, but there were only two
of us, and Cagnat was sick with the fever; he got out of his bed to
help, and we tried to hold the door of the house against the crowd, but
what was the use? They threw us down, and trampled us under foot like
a herd of wild cattle! We were swept off our feet as if a flood had
gone over us, and when Cagnat managed to pick himself up, and tried to
prevent them from setting fire to the house, they very nearly killed
him.

“I got into the workshop somehow, though it was already in a blaze,
flaming like a torch from top to bottom, with long red banners of fire
streaming from the roof and windows. The smoke nearly choked me, and I
thought I should be burnt to a crisp, but I made one bound into a heap
of shavings, which were so hot that they set my breeches on fire, and
it did not take me long to jump out of them again. I hit my head such a
crack on the corner of the workbench that it half stunned me, but not
for long; all around the fire was crackling and roaring, and outside I
could hear the cries of those mad devils.

“I crawled on my hands and knees towards your figure of St. Marie
Madeleine, which I saw near me; I could not bear to see the flames
licking up over her little rounded body, and her long beautiful
hair!--I just jumped at her, beat out the sparks with my fingers, and
caught her in my arms as if she had been alive. ‘Dear St. Madelon!
treasure of my heart,’ cried I, ‘don’t be afraid, I will save you,--and
myself too, if I have luck!’ There was not a minute to spare, for by
this time the roof was falling in, and I could not get out the way I
came. But I spied the round loophole in the wall towards the river,
struck the glass a blow with my fist, and jumped through it with my
saint, as if it had been a paper hoop! A tight fit, I can tell you! but
out we popped, splash, to the bottom of the Beuvron! Luckily the bottom
is not far from the top, and very soft and muddy, so Madeleine did not
so much as bump her pretty head, but as I had not the sense to let go
of her, she dragged me down face first, till I was so full of slime and
river water that it was a hard job to pull myself out with the lady. So
here we are, at last, Master, and I only wish that I could have saved
more for you!”

He had a bundle under his arm wrapped up in an old waistcoat, and when
he carefully unrolled it, I saw the sweet face of my little saint, not
much the worse, except for her scorched toes. Up to this time I had not
wept for all the misfortunes that had fallen on me, but at the sight I
was touched to the quick, and taking Madeleine and the boy in my arms,
I kissed them both, and cried, till the tears ran down my cheeks.

“What became of Cagnat?” I asked when I had recovered myself a little,
and reading the answer in the boy’s face, I knelt down, and put my lips
to the earth in honor of a brave spirit.

“God reward you both!” I cried, as I looked at the lad still clasping
the statue in his bandaged arms, and I thought, “These will last, the
souls of these children, on which I have wrought my impress;--wood and
stone may be destroyed, but this joy no man can take from me!”




X

THE RIOT


                                                            August 30.

When we were a little calmed down, I said to Robinet, “What is done is
done, let us see now what is before us.” For I always think that the
best way to act in the present is to look upon yesterday’s doings as
ancient history. I had been away from Clamecy about three weeks, and I
made him sit down and tell me all that had happened in the interval.
The town had been under a double curse, the plague and fear, and when
the pestilence abated, fear seemed the more dangerous. Bandits flocked
from all the surrounding country, to prey upon the unfortunate place;
the people were so terrified that they offered no resistance, and
those of the baser sort, driven out their wits by fright, even joined
themselves to the robbers.

The law had become a dead letter, for of our four Aldermen, one died,
two fled, and the Public Prosecutor had also bolted. The Commandant at
the Citadel was brave enough, but old, and crippled by gout, besides,
having no more brains than you could put in a thimble, he had allowed
himself to be torn in pieces.

The only official that remained in the town was the fourth Alderman,
a man named Racquin, who finding himself deserted by his colleagues,
and opposed by this raging mob, was weak, or cunning enough, to yield
to it, instead of trying to put a stop to its depredations. He even
allowed the mob to set fire to the houses of men against whom he had a
grudge for one reason or another, myself among the number.

“What are the citizens doing all this time?” I asked.

“Nothing, now that their leaders are gone; they are like lambs led to
the slaughter.”

“Well, how about me, Binet? This old ram has some fight left in him
still, so come along!”

“You are crazy, Master! What could you do, one man, against hundreds of
brigands?”

“Do?--the best I can, of course; why should I be afraid of robbers, now
that I have not a penny left in the world? Come on, I say.”

Now, would you believe it? that boy actually turned a handspring on
the road for joy, in spite of his burned hand, and bruises, and began
to dance about and shout that this was the greatest sport he had ever
heard of.

“Hooray!” he cried; “we’ll chase these beggars off the face of the
earth!”

“Stop! you young monkey,” said I. “You’ll be swinging soon, perhaps, by
your neck instead of by your tail, so keep still, and mind what I tell
you.... I’m off for Clamecy now by myself, and you must make the best
of your way to Dornecy. When you get there, find Magistrate Nicole, our
alderman. He thought it prudent to run, I know, but he is kind-hearted,
even if he does love himself better than his neighbor, and there are
things he prizes still more,--viz.: his goods and chattels, which are
in the greatest peril, as you will not fail to tell him.

“When you have seen him, push on to Sardy, to Master Courtignon, the
Procurator; you’ll find him in his house with a pigeon-cote there;
let him know that his mansion in Clamecy, with all it contains, will
be burnt to the ground this very night, unless he comes back;--that
will fetch him, I promise you! But I don’t need to give you lessons in
lying, you young rascal! I’ll be bound you know well enough what to say
to them.”

“Oh! I don’t mind a lie or two, but the fact is, Master, I would rather
not leave you alone.”

“As if a snip like you would be of any protection! Seriously, Binet,
the best thing you can do for me is to get help, so hurry off as fast
as you can, and when you have done my errand, join me at the town.”

“Old Courtignon and Nicole shall be brought back,” he cried, “if I have
to drag them here by the hair of their heads; but just tell me one
thing, Master,--what are we going to do with them when they get here?”

“You will see,” said I with an air of profound mystery, though I knew
myself no more than the babe unborn what was to be the outcome. The
sun had set in a bank of red clouds, and the lovely summer evening was
closing in when I got to the town about eight o’clock; but fine as it
was, there was not a soul about; no guards and no loungers outside the
market gate; so I walked boldly up the High Street, where the only
living thing I met was a half-starved cat, which fled when it saw me.
The houses, all tightly closed, turned blind eyes on the street, with
doors and windows barred; and the only sound I heard was the echo of my
own footsteps.

“I am too late,” I said to myself, “they are all dead.” Just then I
thought I heard a rustling behind the shutters, so I banged on the
nearest door and shouted, “Let me in!” Getting no answer I tried
another house and another, rattling the handles and knocking loudly
with my stick, but not a door was opened. I could hear faint noises
inside as if mice were stirring, and I understood that the miserable
cowards were all hiding. This made me so angry that I cried out, “Denis
Saulsoy, old man, if you don’t open the door, I’ll beat it down! It is
I, Breugnon.”

At my name all the shutters flew open as if by magic; and I saw a row
of frightened faces all along Market Street, like a lot of onions lying
on the window sills. They stared at me as if I were the most beautiful
thing in creation, and as the terror faded from their eyes, they
looked so pleased that I flattered myself that it was from affection
for me; but the fact was, the sight of any one there at that hour was
reassuring. Then ensued a very interesting dialogue between Breugnon
and the onions; they all talked at once, and I replied as best I was
able. They wanted to know where I came from, what I was doing, where
I was going, how I got in, and how I meant to get out? To which I
answered that I was glad to find that their tongues were still in
working order, though their courage seemed somewhat rusty.

“I want to talk to you,” I cried. “Come out! It is a charming evening,
what are you all sticking in the house for,--has somebody stolen your
breeches?”

“Breugnon,” they said in a frightened whisper, “did you see any one in
the streets?”

“Whom did you expect to see, idiots?”

“The brigands; they are burning everything in Béyant.”

“Why don’t you go and stop them then, you fools?”

“We have to stay here to protect our houses.”

“The best way to protect your own houses is to go out and fight for
other people’s; don’t you see that when the brigands have burnt down
the rest of the houses, they will take yours? Your time will come,
never fear!”

“Master Racquin told us that the best thing we could do was to keep
quiet till order was re-established by the Duke of Nevers.”

“A lot of water will run under the bridges before the Duke leaves his
own business to look after ours; we shall all be burned to a cinder by
that time. Come, come! We ought to fight for our skin, if it is worth
anything.”

They kept on for some time making objections, chirping like birds from
window to window, declaring that the enemy was numerous and powerful,
and that we were weak and had no one to lead us; till I lost all
patience, and swore that I would not stand there in the street any
longer gaping at them.

“Do you think I am here to serenade you?” I cried. “Let the women stay
up there, to take care of your houses, they are quite equal to that.
But if there are any men among you, come down and fight, or, by the God
that made me, I will set fire to you myself with my own hands!”

At last one braver than the rest stuck his nose out of the door, half
laughing, and then they all came out one after the other, and stood
round me in a circle.

“Are you quite cured of the plague?”

“As right as a trivet.”

“And has no one attacked you?”

“Only a lot of geese, but who cares for their hissing? Listen, my
friends, you see I am here all safe and sound; don’t you think that
there has been enough of all this nonsense? It is time to go to work,
and now, some of you tell me where we can go to plan for what must be
done.”

“You can come to my forge, if you like,” said Gangnot, and led the way;
soon we were all gathered there in the darkness, with the door tight
shut. The place smelt of burnt horn and horses, and a lantern standing
on the rough floor threw our monstrous shadows on the smoky beams of
the roof. At first no one dared to speak a word, and then they all
broke out and talked at once, until Gangnot seized his great hammer
and struck a resounding blow on the anvil, which shook the loud voices
again into silence; whereupon I managed to make myself heard.

“Friends,” said I, “don’t waste your breath in telling me what has
happened, for I know as much as you do about it;--you say the brigands
are here,--I say we must throw them out; you say the mob is on their
side,--well, what of that? Mobs are men, just like you and me, who want
to wet their throats when they see others drinking. We are told it is a
sin to tempt Providence, but it is still worse to dangle a lot of rich
booty before the eyes of poor devils, who have not one penny to rub
against another; they may not be thieves themselves, but they have no
objection to profit by the stealings of others. You know, there are all
sorts of people in the world, and as the Lord says, we must divide the
sheep from the goats.”

“Master Racquin is an Alderman, and he ordered us to do nothing,” said
some of the more timid. “The whole authority of the city rests in his
hands, you know, and now that the Lieutenant, the Procurator, and all
the others are absent, he is charged to keep order.”

“Well, does he do it?”

“He tries his best.”

“I ask you, has he kept the town in order? No! Well then, we will do it
ourselves!”

“Master Racquin has solemnly promised us that if we keep perfectly
quiet, all our property shall be protected, and the disturbances be
confined to the suburbs.”

“And how is he going to keep that promise?”

“He was forced to make some kind of a treaty with the brigands, but he
says that it was only to get them in his power.”

“To hoodwink us, you mean,--why, such a treaty is a positive crime!”

They all hung their heads, looking angry and shamefaced as well as
frightened, and Denis Saulsoy said quickly, timidly, that it was not
safe always to speak out what one thought. Gangnot was a man of few
words, but he gave the anvil another blow, and said, “Colas is right!”

“What are you afraid of, Denis?” said I. “You are among friends,--do
you think that walls have ears? Here, Gangnot, go and stand in front of
the door with that hammer of yours, and knock the head off the first
man that tries to enter; he may have ears to listen with, but I bet
that he won’t have a tongue to wag, after Gangnot has had a good lick
at him! Now is the time to decide; speak up, if you are true men, for
when we leave here it will be to act, not to talk.”

This brought them all to their feet in a perfect uproar; they broke out
in a storm of rage against Racquin, calling him a rascal, and Judas,
and swearing that he had sold us outright and all that we possessed;
but since he had the police behind him, they were afraid to move or
offer any resistance.

“Where is he to be found?” said I.

They told me, at the Town Hall, where he stayed night and day, guarded
by a troop of ragamuffins, who were more like jailers than defenders.

“He is a prisoner then, in a word,” cried I. “Gangnot, open that door!
We will go at once and set him free;--who is with me? It is too late to
hang back now!”

“Breugnon,” said Saulsoy, scratching his head, “I do not mind a few
hard knocks, but it is a different matter to go against a man who
represents the law; if you resist the law, you are taking a heavy----”

“Res-pon-si-bil-i-ty!” said I. “Well, why not? My shoulders are broad
enough to bear it, so none of the rest of you need worry. When I see a
scoundrel I kill him first, and find out afterwards if he is Pope or
Procurator. When order has turned to chaos, it is time to take the law
into our own hands.”

This ended the discussion, and we all filed out with Gangnot at our
head, his hammer in his huge four-fingered hand, (he had crushed one of
them on the anvil). He looked like a walking tower, tall and strong,
his face blackened by smoke, and one eye squinting horribly, but we all
crowded in behind his broad back, and each man ran to his house to get
his weapons. I should not like to swear that they all came back armed;
perhaps some of the poor fellows could not find their axes or their
arquebuses, for when we assembled in the market-place, our ranks were
rather thin, if the truth were told; but those who did come were true
as steel; men you could put your trust in.

When we got to the Town Hall, we found by great good luck that the main
door was wide open; perhaps because our kind shepherd was so sure that
his lambs would let themselves be shorn without so much as a baa-a,
that he and his watch-dogs, having partaken of a hearty dinner, were
all wrapped in slumber. Under these circumstances our assault was by no
means heroic; we just walked in, and caught, as they say, the bird on
her nest.

Racquin was dragged out of his bed, just as he was, like a skinned
rabbit; and he looked anything but pretty, with rolls of fat all
over his pink body, even on his forehead and round his eyes. We soon
found that he knew what we were after, and was equal to the situation.
He flashed an angry glare at us out of his sharp gray eyes, under
their puffy eyelids; but he controlled himself at once, and with an
authoritative air, inquired by what right we thus invaded the precincts
of the law. I answered that we only wanted to drag him out of bed. This
made him furiously angry, but Saulsoy said to him, “Master Racquin, you
are not the one to threaten us; the boot is on the other leg now. We
are here to accuse you, so defend yourself if you can.”

He changed his tune at once. “Fellow-citizens,” said he blandly, “what
would you have of me? What complaint do you bring? I have stayed in the
town to protect you at the risk of my own life, when all my brother
officials fled before the plague and the riots. I alone have remained
faithful at my post. The evils which have come upon you are surely none
of my causing, so what fault can any of you find with me?”

“You are the physician of the town, Racquin,” said I, “and as the
proverb says, ‘Clever doctors make bad sores.’--You have fattened on
the plague and the riots, you and your creatures; you are in league
with the robbers to burn down our houses, which you ought to protect;
and instead of resisting the mobs, you have made yourself a leader
among them. We do not know if you have thus betrayed us through fear
or greed, but you shall choose yourself what label we are to hang
about your neck: ‘This is one who sold his town for thirty pieces of
silver.’ Prices are higher than they were in Iscariot’s day, so I will
put instead, ‘An Alderman who saved his own skin at the expense of his
fellow-citizens.’”

“Breugnon,” said he, with an ugly look, “I have only done my duty in
burning infected dwellings according to law.”

“Yes, and when a man is not one of your adherents you mark his house
with a cross, and call it infected. And how about letting the mob in to
pillage? That is a good way to stop the spread of the plague, isn’t it?”

“I was unable to prevent it, in all cases, and besides, if these
ruffians catch the pest while they are looting the houses, so much the
better, we are rid of two nuisances at once.”

“A splendid idea. The robbers kill the plague, and the plague kills
the robbers, and the Alderman inherits what remains of the town! It
is as I said just now, the clever doctor survives both disease and
patient. Now I tell you what it is, Master Racquin, your treatment is
too high-priced for us. We will take care of ourselves from this time
onward, and by way of salary for former services, we will give you----”

“Six feet of ground in the nearest graveyard,” Gangnot finished the
sentence for me, and at the word our followers sprang forward like a
pack of wolves. I threw myself before their prey, while he took refuge
between the bed and the wall, staring wildly out at their furious
faces. He was such a miserable object, shivering there like a fat pig,
without a rag to cover him that, just out of pity, I told him to get
his clothes on.

“We have seen enough of your hide, for one while, my friend,” said
I. This made the others laugh, and seeing them in a better humor, I
began to try to make them hear reason. Racquin meanwhile hurried on
his clothes, his teeth chattering with cold, and an evil gleam in his
eye. He knew that the danger was over for the moment; that for a day
at least his life was reasonably safe, so when he was fully dressed,
he plucked up his courage and went so far as to call us all rebels;
threatening to punish us for insulting a magistrate.

“You are no longer Magistrate,” said I. “You are dismissed by my order!”

At this he turned on me; forgetting all prudence, and screaming with
rage, he cried out that he knew me for a rascally trouble-maker; that I
had stirred up the others to attack him, and that on me should fall the
most condign punishment.

“Shall I kill him?” said Gangnot, balancing his hammer. I held him back
as I answered:

“It is lucky for you, Racquin, that I have been ruined, for you know
well enough that, if I hanged you now, people would say it was out of
revenge for the fire. A halter would just suit your style of beauty,
and one of these days you will certainly wear one round that fat neck
of yours. But the thing is that we have got you now, and are going to
strip your Alderman’s gown from your back; we are the Government here
until further notice.”

“You are taking your life in your hand, Breugnon.”

“What if I am? I risk it for the good of the town, and if I lose,
Clamecy will be the winner!”

He was sent to prison forthwith, and to make room for him we released
an old sergeant whom he had shut up three days before, for disobedience
of orders. The sheriff and all of the staff at the Town Hall came round
to our side, now that the blow was struck, declaring that Racquin was
a traitor, and that they had always said so; (if they had, it was in a
very low whisper).

Our plan had run as smoothly as if on wheels, up to now; so much
so that I was really surprised, and asked, “Where on earth are the
brigands?” And just then a breathless messenger ran up to warn us
that the mob was outside the Lourdeaux gate-tower, and that they were
attacking Peter Poullard’s warehouse in Béyant, burning, sacking, and
carrying all before them.

“This time,” said I, “they will have to dance to our piping,” and we
rushed down to the Mirandole terrace, which overhangs the lower town.
We could see nothing but a dense cloud of smoke shot through with red
flames; above our heads sounded the frantic tocsin from the tower of
St. Martin’s, while from below rose a perfectly infernal clamor.

“Comrades,” said I, “let us get down there as quick as we can, for the
oven is heating, and no mistake,--but who is to lead us? You, Saulsoy?”

He hung back, however, saying that it was bad enough to be out of his
bed at midnight, with an old musket in his hand, but when it came
to making him Captain, that was a little too much! He did not mind
obeying, he said, but for a fellow who had never been able to decide
anything in his life, it was ridiculous to ask him to give orders.

“Who will be chief, then?”

No one stirred; I was ready to dance with impatience, but such people
are all alike, willing enough to follow, but when it comes to taking
the lead, no one at home! They were all cautious householders, and with
them the habit of hesitation is so inveterate that they will spend half
a day bargaining over the sheet they want to buy, and fingering the
linen until, perhaps, the chance is gone.

“If no one else offers, I will be captain!” cried I. “But first
understand one thing: for this night I give orders and you obey them;
no talking, no hanging back, for if we fail now we are all lost;
so remember I am to be master. It will be time enough to judge me
tomorrow. What do you say?”

“Agreed!” they shouted with one voice, and we started down the hill.
I went first, Gangnot at my left, and Bardet, the town crier, on my
right with his drum. Down by the gate leading to the suburbs, we found
a crowd of people, men, women, and children, streaming out toward the
place where looting was going on, as if it were a fair. They were all
in a very good humor, and some of the housewives were carrying baskets
as they do on a market day. They moved politely aside to let us pass,
not knowing who we were, and then fell into step, and marched on behind
us. Among them was a man I knew, Perruche, the barber. He was carrying
a paper lantern in his hand, and as I came near, he held it up to my
face, and as soon as he saw who it was he called out, “Hullo, Colas!
Glad to see you back! Come and have a drink.”

“Tomorrow if you like,” said I. “There is a time for everything.”

“You must be breaking up, Breugnon. Thirst is always in season, and if
we wait till tomorrow all the good wine may be gone. Is it possible
that you have actually lost your taste for a good September vintage?”

“Stolen drink has no flavor.”

“Stolen? You mean saved out of a burning house. I should be a pretty
fool to let it all run away into the gutter.”

“Thief!” said I, and pushed him out of my way, and as each man behind
came up, he too said, “Thief,” and frowned at the barber, who stood
completely dumfounded for a moment. Then we heard him shouting, and as
I looked over my shoulder I saw that he was running after us, shaking
his fist. But as nobody took any more notice of him, he fell silent
when he had caught up to us, and marched on behind.

The crowd was so dense when we came to the waterside, just by the first
Yonne bridge, that I halted and ordered the drum to beat; this made
them open a little, so that we pushed forward like a wedge; but after
a few yards we could go no further. I found myself rubbing elbows with
two boatmen whom I knew well; one Father Joachim, nicknamed “Calabre,”
and the other a man named Gadin, called Gueurlu.

“What are you doing here, Master Breugnon,” said one, “all harnessed up
like a prize donkey? Are you out for fun or a fight?”

“There’s many a true word spoken in jest, Calabre. I have just been
appointed Captain of Clamecy, and I am here to defend the town against
all its enemies.”

“There are no enemies that I know of,” said he. “You must be cracked.”

“What do you call that crowd down there, setting fire to houses?”

“We are all sorry that your house was burnt the first day, Master,”
said he, “but now that it is gone, I don’t see what difference it makes
to you if we do go for a fat old thief like Poullard, who grows rich on
the wool that he pulls off our backs, and then turns up his nose at us.
It is a good deed to rob the likes of him, and anyhow you are in the
same boat with us poor men now, all to gain and nothing to lose, so get
out of our way!”

I hated to get my hands on these poor devils, so I tried to make them
hear reason first.

“You have everything to lose, Calabre,” I said; “your honor to begin
with.”

“Honor!” cried he. “Is it good to eat? What’s the use of talking about
a thing like that, when you know we may soon be all dead men; dead and
blown away as if we had never existed?”

“Honor, indeed!” said Gueurlu; “that’s a word they put on rich men’s
tombstones, but when we die, they shovel us into the common ditch. Can
you tell by the smell if we had honor or not?”

“Joachim,” said I, turning away from Gueurlu, “it is true a man does
not amount to much all by himself, but get a lot of men together and
it’s a different story; many a little makes a mickle, you know, and
when the rich are all swept away and forgotten, with their lying
epitaphs, down to the very names they are so proud of, then the
hard-working people of Clamecy will be known as her real nobility. We
must not have it said that we too were rascals.”

“Much I care!” said Gueurlu, but Calabre cried, “You are a pig-face!
You care for nothing, but I am like Breugnon,--I do care what they say
of me, and by St. Nicholas! the rich shall not have all the honor to
themselves; high or low, there is not one of them worth our little
fingers!”

This brought on a great dispute. Gueurlu persisted that our betters
from the least to the greatest, from our own Duke up to the princes,
did nothing but grab, and stuff their bellies with other folks’
dinners; and even laid hands on the King’s treasures as soon as the
breath was out of his body;--that there was no use in talking about
“honor” after that;--we might as well take a leaf out of their book.

Calabre said they were indeed a set of hogs, and that some day our
Henry would come back from the tomb to make them disgorge, or else
we would all rise ourselves, and cut their throats for them. But
meanwhile, we were going to show them that there was more real honor in
us than in the heart of what they call a nobleman.

“Hooray!” cried I; “you are with us then?”

“Yes, by the Mother of God! And Gueurlu is coming too.”

“No, he isn’t!”

“I tell you he is, or I’ll pitch him neck and crop into the river! Here
we go, forward march! Out of my road, Wrigglers!”

He forced his way through the press, and we followed like a school of
herrings. Most of the men we came up against now were so far gone in
drink that there was no use in saying a word to them; anyhow, there is
a time for everything, and we had got past the talking stage; there was
nothing left to us but our fists; so as drunken men are safe all the
world over, we just sat them down on the stones as gently as we could
and went on.

By this time we had reached the warehouse gates, and could see the
looters swarming all over Master Pierre Poullard’s house like ants.
Some were ripping open chests and bales, bedizening themselves in
stolen finery; others, with shrieks of laughter, were throwing
everything breakable they could find out of the windows. The courtyard
was full of wine barrels and frantic drinkers. I saw one man with his
mouth to the bunghole, who having drunk till he could hold no more,
rolled over on his back, the red stream still spattering in his face,
and running away into little pools on the ground, where children were
lapping up the wine, and mud with it.

The rioters had heaped up a great pile of furniture in a corner of
the court, and had set it on fire so that they might see the better.
But the whole infernal orgy centered in the cellars, where from all
directions came the sound of mallets, as great barrels and tuns were
staved in, and the wine poured out in floods. Groans, screams, and
choking coughs echoed from the low arches, as if a herd of swine had
been let loose there, and already long tongues of flame and smoke came
licking out of the bars of the windows. They were all so busy, each
man intent on what he was doing, that no one seemed to see us as we
made our way into the yard. I signed to Bardet,--he beat a long roll on
his drum, and then in a voice of thunder announced my appointment as
Captain. The instant he ceased I took up the word, and ordered the mob
to disperse on pain of severe penalties.

At the first tap of the drum they had all drawn together like a swarm
of bees, buzzing angrily; then shrieking, and hurling stones, they
rushed upon us. After a fierce struggle we pushed them back, and
succeeded in forcing the doors of the cellar under a hail of tiles and
billets of wood from the upper windows, in spite of which we made our
entrance good, and then had time to breathe and count our wounded.

Poor old Gangnot had lost another finger, and Calabre’s right eye
was badly injured; for me, I had caught my thumb in the hinge of the
door-flap, as I banged it shut; and by my faith, it turned me sick and
faint like a woman. Fortunately there was an open keg of brandy close
at hand, and after I had swallowed a dram and bathed my thumb in some
of the same, my head ceased to go round; but as the fight went on, the
pain made me as mad as a tiger.

By this time we were inside, and all struggling together on the stairs
leading from the house to the cellar, and I felt that we could not
keep this up long, as these devils were discharging their muskets,
close into our very faces, so that they set Saulsoy’s beard on fire,
and Gueurlu had to squeeze it out between his hard hands. Luckily the
rioters were too drunk to shoot straight, or we none of us would have
come out of it alive. I could see also that we had an ally in the fire,
which was creeping round the court from wing to wing, toward the main
building where we were; so when we had retreated to the topmost step,
some of us stood firm, while the rest hastily raised a barrier of loose
stones and rubbish, reaching to the lintel of the doorway. Through the
chinks we stuck our pikes and lances, like the quills of a porcupine.
“Now,” cried I, “those who like fire, will soon have plenty of it!”

The cellars were full of men, for the most part too drunk to realize
their danger; but when the flames appeared through the cracks of the
walls and began to eat away the beams of the roof, it was a perfect
pandemonium of yells and curses, and like bubbling wine in a vat they
rose to the surface, and made a rush for our staircase. Some of the
foremost, with their clothes actually on fire, were crushed against our
barricade by the weight of those behind them, and their bodies filled
the doorway from side to side, like a cork in a bottle. It was horrible
to see; and also to hear the fire raging and roaring! If I had been
just then the simple Breugnon of everyday life, I should have tried to
save the poor screaming wretches, but when a man is in authority, he
must think of nothing outside of his duty; compassion at that crisis
would have been sheer weakness. I knew that the safety of the city hung
on the defeat of these brigands, for if they had escaped they would
have outnumbered our small forces, and with the fear of the gallows
before their eyes, would have fought to desperation. No, there was now
nothing for it but to smoke the wasps out of their nest.

Just at this moment whom should I see over the heads of the crowd but
my old schoolfellow, Gambi! He was a good-for-nothing soaker, it is
true, and had no business to be where he was, but we had been playmates
from childhood, had been confirmed on the same day together, and I
could not bear to leave an old chum to such a fate.

I crawled between our pikes over the barrier, and somehow forced apart
the tightly wedged mass of human beings, though it seemed as if there
was not room to move more than your eyelids. Gambi was tottering on the
edge of the lowest step, held up by those around him, and I reached him
literally walking on the bodies of the others, who snapped and tore at
me in passing, so that I thought that I should have to bring him away
in pieces. But there is a special Providence for drunkards,--for some
of them at least,--and at last I was able to seize him by the collar,
and fighting and kicking out right and left, I dragged him to the floor
where the air was clearer.

There was little time to spare! The fire was roaring through the
doorway, as if up a chimney, driving out men from the rampart we had
made, and I could smell the roasting flesh of the brigands on the
staircase. Stooping low and treading on I knew not what, I dragged
Gambi by his hair through a hole in the wall, and somehow managed to
reach the outside of the warehouse, leaving the fire to finish the
work of destruction. When my men rejoined me they were so glad to see
me safe that they could not do enough for Gambi; and after we had
revived and fed him, we found under his rags some beautiful colored
enamels, which he had stolen, God knows where! and contrived to hold
on to during all the struggle. He was of course completely sobered
by this time, and weeping with gratitude he pulled out his ill-gotten
treasures, and threw them away with all his strength, declaring that
stolen goods would never prosper and that he could not bear to keep
them!

At sunrise the next morning Robinet appeared, triumphantly leading
the Procurator, a force of thirty men at arms, and a large party of
peasants. Later came the Magistrate with more reinforcements, and the
next day our good Duke sent in some of his own followers. Order being
now restored, they set to work. First they raked among the hot cinders,
then they drew up a list of property destroyed, added their own pay and
expenses, and returned whence they came,--except, of course, our own
officials, who remained with us.

What then was the moral of all this experience? It is this,--help
yourself, and others will help you.




XI

A PRACTICAL JOKE


                                                        September 30th.

Order being re-established, and the ashes cooled, we heard no more talk
of the plague and the riots, but for all that the city seemed crushed,
and its inhabitants, still hardly recovered from their fright, appeared
to feel their way; as if they did not know who was to have the upper
hand in future.

For the most part men kept indoors, but if obliged to go out, they
crept close along by the house walls, like a dog with his tail between
his legs. The truth is, few had reason to be proud of their part in the
late troubles, and a man hardly liked to look at his own face in the
glass, for there he saw human nature, stripped of all disguises:--not
a pretty sight, and one that makes most of us feel shamefaced and
suspicious.

I too was uneasy and sad, but for different reasons: first, I was
haunted by the thought of the massacre in the burning cellars; and on
the other hand, when I looked in the familiar faces of my neighbors,
I could not help remembering their cruelty and cowardice: this made
bad feeling between us, for they knew, of course, how I felt. I longed
to wipe it all out, and behave as if nothing had happened, but as that
could not be, we all went about in the altered town, under the heat and
languor of late summer.

Racquin had been sent to Nevers for trial; but it was a question
whether he fell under the jurisdiction of the Duke or the King, so he
stood a fair chance of getting off scot free. Our county authorities
were kind enough to overlook my illegal conduct;--for it seems that in
saving Clamecy that night, I had committed half a dozen crimes, any
one of which would have been enough to bring me to the galleys;--but
as none of this could have happened if they themselves had remained at
the post of duty, they decided to pass it over in silence; a decision
in which I naturally acquiesced. The less I have to do with courts of
justice the better, I always think; for you never know how a trial
will turn out, and innocence itself is no real protection. If you
once get your little finger into the cursed machinery of the law,
you are like to lose the whole arm, and you may have to cut that off
to save your body: so between their lordships and myself there was a
tacit agreement that they had seen nothing out of the way while I was
Captain of Clamecy: because everything on that fateful night had been
accomplished by themselves alone.

It is much easier, however, to shut one’s eyes to the past than to rub
it off the slate: there is such a thing as memory, and, when we met
face to face, it was awkward for both parties. I could see that they
had a lurking dread of me, and to tell the truth I was rather afraid
myself of this absurd unknown Breugnon, who had suddenly sprung up and
performed such exploits. I had never supposed myself to be an Attila or
a Cæsar; my eloquence had hitherto been inspired by wine rather than by
war;--and in short on both sides we were shamefaced and out of sorts
in mind and body. There is no remedy like hard work, and as the riots
had provided plenty to do for every one in the town, we all went at it
with the utmost energy. The ruins had to be cleared away first; then by
good luck the harvest that year was unusually abundant, both in grain
and fruit; and as for the vintage, the oldest inhabitant could remember
nothing to equal it.

Our good Mother Earth seemed to have drunk so much of our blood, only
that she might restore it to us in generous wine: for nothing in this
world is really wasted or lost; everything has to go somewhere. If
the rain falls from the clouds and is drawn up to them again, then
why should not the blood in our veins go and come between us and the
earth? I have always loved to think that in some former existence I
was a vigorous vine-root, and shall be one again perhaps, during a
delightful immortality. How good it would be to grow and flourish,
to feel my dark velvety bunches of grapes swell and fill with sweet
juices, under the warm sunshine: and it must be best of all to be
eaten! Setting such speculations aside, the earth bled at every pore
during this wonderful season, so that we did not know what to do with
the juice of our vines. As there were not casks enough to go round,
masses of grapes were heaped up in vats, without even pressing them.
Father Coullemard, an old man who lived at Andries, could not dispose
of his crop, and so offered his grapes at the vineyard, for thirty sous
a barrel.

Imagine our feelings! In our part of the world we cannot bear to throw
anything away; so, as there was nothing for it but to drink the wine
on the spot, we all did our duty like men. The labors of Hercules were
nothing to it, but I am afraid that the hero himself, and not Antæus,
fell and touched Mother Earth!

Everybody felt cheerful and more like himself when this was over, but
still there was something unpleasant,--a sort of constraint among us,
and even in the midst of our carouses there was altogether too much
solitary drinking,--in my opinion an evil and unhealthy practice. How
long this sort of thing would have lasted, I cannot undertake to say,
but chance intervened, and once more brought us all together. Love can
unite _two_ hearts, but the only thing that can make a large number of
men act as one, is the fear of a common enemy; and in our case, this
enemy was our master. Duke Charles of Nevers took it into his head this
year to forbid our games and dances, and as a natural consequence,
every one who was not crippled with gout, and who could put foot to the
ground, was seized with a perfect passion for dancing.

No one exactly understood why, but the bone of contention between
the Duke and the town had always been the Count’s Meadows, which lie
outside the gates, at the foot of Picon Hill, watered by the Beuvron,
which winds through them like a silver serpent. For more years than any
one can remember, there had been a dispute about these meadows: pull
devil, pull baker, and it was a question which had got the best of it.
Of course the contest was conducted with the utmost politeness on both
sides;--“My friends of the good town of Clamecy,” and “Your Lordship’s
most obedient”;--but neither party would yield an inch, for all that.
When we had resort to the courts, we always got the worst of it; the
judgment rendered being invariably that our meadows did not belong to
us; but this did not bother us in the least, as we had reason to know
that justice can make black seem white--at a price.

Possession, however, is nine points of the law, so we just held on to
our playground, which had special advantages, because it was the only
bit of land which was not the private property of some one in the town,
and therefore might be said to belong to us all; or perhaps to the
Duke, which came to much the same thing. Being common property, we did
not mind spoiling it, and anything that was not convenient to do on our
own premises, we did on the Count’s Meadows. We washed clothes, carded
wool, and beat carpets; there was a large rubbish heap there, and many
goats led out to pasture. On fine days we played games, or danced to a
hurdy-gurdy; we shot at a target, and practised the drum and trumpet,
and at night there were any number of loving couples along the banks
of the Beuvron, which took it all as a matter of course, though he saw
enough to frighten most rivers.

All went well as long as our old Duke Louis lived, for he shut his eyes
to our goings on, being a man of sense who knew that you must not keep
too tight a hand on the reins; he let us prance about and play the fool
a little, knowing all the while that he was the master. His son, on the
contrary, has the kind of conceit that prefers the show of power to
the reality, and likes to mount his high horse on slight provocation.
He ought to have known that a Frenchman will always sing and make fun
of his rulers, and if that is not allowed, he rebels; for he cannot
bear people who insist on being taken seriously, and loves those he can
laugh at, or with, for laughter puts all men on a level.

The Duke, then, issued an order forbidding us to play, dance, dig,
walk on the grass, or trespass in any way on the Count’s Meadows: and
a good time he chose for this piece of foolishness, just after all our
misfortunes, when instead of annoying us, he ought at the very least
to have remitted some of our taxes. He soon found, however, that the
Clamecyans are not made of soft fiber, but are tough as old oaks, so
that if you drive in a wedge you have hard work to get it out again.
There was no need to call a meeting to protest against the edict; from
all sides arose a deafening clamor:--“What, take away our meadows?
The ground that he had given us! (or that we had taken, it is all the
same!)--land that we stole four hundred years ago, which has been
doubly sacred to us ever since?--all the dearer that we have been
obliged to struggle for it day by day, and inch by inch; holding on
to it by sheer tenacity! It was enough to discourage a man from ever
taking what did not belong to him; enough really to make him sick of
living! Our dead would turn in their graves if we were weak enough to
yield on a point thus involving the honor of the city. The fatal order
was proclaimed with beat of drum, by the town crier, who looked as if
he were going to execution; and that very evening, there was a meeting
held of all the men of importance in the city; the heads of guilds, the
chiefs of brotherhoods and corporations, and those who represented the
various districts, came together under the arches of the market. I was
there, for St. Anne’s, and, as you may suppose, there were different
opinions among the delegates as to what ought to be done.”

Gangnot, in the name of St. Eloi, and Calabre, for St. Nicholas,
advocated strong measures; they wanted to set fire to the fences
round the fields, break down the gates, knock the sergeants on the
head, and rip up the meadows from end to end. On the other side, were
Florimond, the baker, for St. Honoré, and Maclou, the gardener, for
St. Fiacre; they advised a more diplomatic course, a war of words,
and parchments, a petition to the Duchess, accompanied, perhaps, by
some cakes and some garden stuff. Fortunately three of us, Jean Bobin
for St. Crispin, Émond Poifu for St. Vincent, and I, were not disposed
either to grovel before the Duke, or to kick his head off. Keep in the
middle of the road, was our motto. In our part of the world we like
to get the better of people without too much fuss and expense: it is
all very well to revenge yourself, but why not have a little fun out
of it at the same time? We hit at last upon a splendid idea--but I am
not going to tell you now what it was, for that would spoil the joke.
I will only say to the credit of all of us, that for a whole fortnight
the great secret was kept perfectly, though it was known to the entire
town. The honor of first having thought of it belongs to me, but they
all added something, here a touch and there another, till there was
nothing lacking. The Mayor and Aldermen kept themselves informed of our
progress, in the discreetest manner; and Master Delavau, the notary,
would come slinking in every evening with his cloak drawn up around
his face, to show us how to creep through the meshes of the law, while
appearing to respect it; and would draw up long Latin addresses to
the Duke, expressed in the most submissive terms on the part of his
contumacious vassals. When the great day arrived, the town guilds and
companies with their masters assembled at St. Martin’s Place, all
dressed in their best, and drawn up around their banners.

As ten strokes sounded from the great tower, the bells began to ring,
and on both sides of the square the doors of St. Martin’s and of the
Town Hall were thrown open. From the church issued the long procession
of white-robed clergy, and on the steps of the Town Hall appeared the
green and yellow gowns of the Mayor and aldermen. These dignified
bodies exchanged profound bows over the heads of us, who stood below
them; and then they marched slowly down; first the beadles, with their
red cloaks and redder noses, and then the town bailiffs, adorned with
their gold chains of office, and striking their staves loudly on the
pavement as they advanced.

We formed a great ring around the square, with our backs to the houses;
and the authorities placed themselves just in the middle.

The whole town was there to the last man; the pettifoggers and
barristers were ranged under the banner of St. Ives, (the man
of business of Our Father,) while the apothecaries, leeches and
mediciners, men of St. Cosmo, formed a guard of honor around the Mayor
and the old Archdeacon. The only absentee was the Procurator: he was
indeed the Duke’s representative, but he had married an alderman’s
daughter, and his interests being thus divided, he did not want to be
forced to take part with one side or the other, and so found means to
keep out of the way.

We all waited there for a little while; the square seething with noise
and laughter, like a vat in ferment. Every one talked at once, fiddles
squeaked, and dogs barked: what were we waiting for? Something is
coming, a surprise! and before we could see anything we heard shouts
drawing nearer, and all heads turned at once, like weathercocks when
the wind changes. A procession now advanced from the end of Market
Street, and at its head, borne on the shoulders of eight stout porters,
was a pyramid-shaped structure, looking like three tables placed one
above the other. The legs were all wreathed with bright silks and
flowers, and from the highest hung long streamers of colored ribbon,
cords and tassels; on the top was an ornamented dais supporting a
veiled statue.

As we were all in the secret, no one expressed surprise, and though
bursting with laughter, we took off our hats and bowed deeply. When
the platform reached the center of the square, it made a stop between
the Mayor and the vicar, and then all the corporations and districts,
each preceded by its players, made one turn about the square, and
wheeling round the corner of the church, entered the little street
which goes down to the Beuvron gate. St. Nicholas came first, as of
right, with Calabre leading, strutting along dressed in a church
cope, and glittering like a beetle with gold embroidery. He carried
the device of the river saint, a boat in which were three little
children, and was escorted by four boatmen, bearing enormous yellow
candles as big as a man’s leg, and as hard as bricks; ready for any
emergency. Then came St. Eloi, with his copper-workers, locksmiths and
blacksmiths; poor Gangnot, with the fingers that were left to him,
holding a cross engraved with the badge of a hammer and anvil. Next,
barrel-makers, vintagers, and vinegrowers marched after their St.
Vincent, with a jug in one hand, and a bunch of grapes in the other.
St. Joseph and St. Anne followed, mother and son-in-law, with the
carpenters and wood-carvers, and then St. Honoré, covered with flour.
He bore a sort of Roman trophy in his hand, like a lance thrust through
a round loaf with a crown above it. After him were the cobblers and
leather-dressers, under St. Crispin;--last and best of all, came the
gardeners, men and women, carrying carnations and roses, their spades
and rakes all twined with flowers; their fine red silk banner streaming
in the wind showed St. Fiacre, bare-legged, digging up the ground.

After all these, the veiled platform moved on majestically. Before it
went girls in white, chanting and scattering flowers: the Mayor and
his staff marched solemnly on either side, holding the ends of the
long streamers which hung from the dais, while the guilds of St. Ives
and St. Cosmo formed an imposing escort. Then came the verger of St.
Martin’s, strutting like a game-cock, preceding two priests, one long
and thin, the other short and fat; and the vicar himself, his hands
folded over his portly stomach, singing litanies in his deep bass voice
as he walked; or rather giving out a booming note from time to time,
while the others did the work.

The general public brought up the rear in a miscellaneous mass, like
a flood held back, as it were, by our procession. In this order we
advanced through the city gate, straight towards the Count’s Meadows,
in the midst of a whirl of golden plane leaves, stripped from the trees
by the wind and sent fluttering before us into the sluggish river, on
which they drifted like flakes of gold. At the entrance to the Meadows
there was a guard of three policemen and a Captain, in command at the
château. The latter was a new broom, and being eager to magnify his
office, he rolled his eyes and frowned severely at us; but his own men
and the citizens understood one another, and they only opposed us for
form’s sake. We, on our side, made believe to be offended, and demanded
a passage with much noise and profanity, but we had hard work to keep
our faces straight, and besides it would have been risky to go on in
this way much longer, for Calabre and his men, getting out of hand,
began to brandish their big candles about the ears of the police. So
the Mayor stepped forward, raised his cap at arm’s length from his
head, and cried: “Hats off!” At the word, the veil which hid the statue
fell to the ground, and the town bailiffs with loud voices proclaimed:
“Place for his Lordship the Duke!” Instantly the tumult ceased, the
saints and their followers ranged themselves on both sides of the way,
and respectfully presented arms; while the Captain and his satellites,
hastily pulling off their hats, stood aside to make way for the
platform, on which was perched the Duke in effigy. He wobbled slightly,
as his porters bore him along, but by the plumed hat, sword, and wreath
of laurels, it was easy to recognize him; and to put the matter beyond
doubt, there was a pompous Latin inscription at the base of the dais,
proclaiming his dignity to all the world.

The features were perhaps not a perfect likeness, but as we had not
had the time to make a new statue we had just taken an old wooden
figure, which we found stuck away in the garret of the Town Hall.
We did not know who or what it represented, but on the pedestal was
the half-effaced name of Balthazar, which we afterward shortened to
Balduke. No one cared whether the statue resembled the Duke or not;
statues seldom do look like the people that they are supposed to
represent; witness those of the saints, or our Lord Himself; but to the
eye of faith they are perfectly satisfactory, and as a devout believer
sees his god in a log of wood, just so that day we saw our Duke before
us.

All obstacles being removed, his Lordship proudly entered his own
meadows, and we naturally followed; banners waving, drums beating,
trumpets sounding, and the Holy Sacrament as a fitting climax. No loyal
subject would have dared to offer any objection, so even the sulky
Captain was obliged to choose between stopping the Duke or following
him, and he decided to fall into step with us. And now, with victory
in sight, we very nearly came to grief at the eleventh hour; for a
dispute arose as to who should pass in first, and all considerations
due to age or sex were completely forgotten. St. Eloi and St. Nicholas
jostled one another, St. Joseph was rude to his mother-in-law: and as
we were all somewhat over-excited, the consequences might have been
serious. Fortunately I was able to intervene with success; having
a foot in every camp. My name is Nicholas, my trade is under the
protection of Sts. Joseph and Anne, and the patron of vineyards, St.
Vincent, may be called my foster brother, as he and I have sucked at
the same breast; so I belong to all the saints, if only they are on my
side.

Just then I happened to spy a country cart passing, and who should be
lurching along beside it but my friend Gambi? “Comrades!” I cried,
“we must not try to get ahead of each other on this glorious day; the
greatest among us is here;--after the Duke, of course! so give three
cheers for Bacchus!” Whereupon I caught Gambi by the slack of his
breeches and threw him up into the cart, where he alighted in a cask of
grapes; then seizing the reins, we drove in triumphantly; first Bacchus
sitting in his cask, kicking his legs and laughing fit to kill himself;
and then all the procession following arm in arm, dancing with joy.

It was delightful to be once more in our dear Meadows; and there we
stayed all day, and far into the night, cooking, eating, and playing
around the statue of the good Duke.

The place looked like a pigsty the next day; there was not a single
blade of grass left, and the print of our feet was stamped deep all
over the ground, as a proof of the devotion with which his loyal
subjects had feasted their suzerain. He must have been hard to please
if he was not satisfied, and we on our part were delighted with the
events of the day.

An inquiry was indeed started by the Procurator, who professed to be
indignant, and threatened us with dire consequences; but on second
thoughts he found it wiser to let the whole thing drop; since no one
really wanted to close the door so happily reopened.

This was the method we chose to show that we could be true subjects of
the Duke and King, and yet insist on having our own way--for there is
no denying that we are a stiff-necked generation--and this being done,
the town seemed to pick up its spirits after the trials it had passed
through, and we were once more all good friends together. We would
wink and slap each other on the back, when we met, and say that people
had better let us alone, as the good tricks were not yet all out of the
bag: and so in this way the memory of our misfortunes died away and was
forgotten.




XII

OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES


                                                               October.

After much delay I was finally obliged to settle down somewhere; I kept
putting it off on the pretense that I wanted to look carefully over the
ground, but I had to come to it at last, much against my will. At first
the whole town was open to me, and my friends were eager to offer me a
bed for a night or two; every one naturally pitied a man whose hearth
was a heap of cold cinders, and wanted to give him what help they
could; “at first” I say, but as the recollection of our disasters faded
away, people began once more to draw back into their shells,--except
poor victims like me who had no shells left to draw into.

My children would have been shocked at the bare idea of my living at
the inn; such a thing was never heard of among good Clamecyans of our
sort, and, though it was not exactly a matter of feeling with my sons,
there was the terrible question to be considered--“What would people
say?” There was no hurry, of course, on their part or on mine; we both
tried to put off the evil day, for I am altogether too outspoken to be
at my ease in bigoted households such as theirs, so we dodged around
the question in a most uncomfortable state of mutual embarrassment.

Martine got us out of our dilemma by insisting that I must come to her,
for she really does love and want me;--but there was my son-in-law.
Naturally there was no reason why he should wish to have me as a
permanent member of his household, and so there we all were! This made
me feel as if my poor old bones were being put up for sale, and I kept
out of their way as much as possible, while on their side they watched
me with a suspicious eye.

I took refuge for a short time on the slopes of Beaumont in that little
hut where I had been so sick with the plague in July; for the joke
of it was that though the mob had burned my healthy house they left
standing the worthless shed where Death and I had slept together, and
now that he had no more terrors for me it was really a pleasure to go
back to the poor little place with its trampled floor, still littered
with the empty bottles of my somewhat funereal orgy.

The place was uninhabitable in winter, as I knew well enough; the door
was half off its hinges, the window panes cracked, and the roof leaked
like a sieve; but tomorrow can take care of the things of itself,
and today, at least, there was no prospect of rain, so I put off all
thought of the future till the week after next. “It will be time enough
to cross the bridge when I come to it,” thought I, “and perhaps the
world will come to an end between now and then. I should be vexed
enough if I heard the Angel Gabriel blowing his horn just after I had
swallowed such a bitter pill; no, I like to drink my pleasure fresh out
of the barrel, but disagreeable things can always stand till they get
stale.”

Well, there I waited, holding my troubles at arm’s length, but I did
not give myself up exclusively to meditation. Behind my locked gates, I
dug in my garden, covered up all the roots snugly against the winter,
raked away the fallen leaves from the paths, and, generally, made the
place tidy; then there was a little tree on which still hung a few red
and yellow pears, and my delight was to lie on the sunny bank and let
the sweet juice slip gently down my throat.

I only went to town when it was absolutely necessary to replenish my
store of provisions and news, and when I was there I carefully avoided
my sons, having given out that I had gone on a journey. They may
not have thought this story literally true, but it would have been
disrespectful to contradict a report started by their father, so we
kept on playing our little game of hide-and-go-seek until Martine upset
it all.

We had not taken her sufficiently into our calculations, and, like
most of her sex, she had no idea of playing fair, and being besides
thoroughly up to all my tricks, she found me without much trouble. She
is anyhow a great stickler for duty, family feeling, and all that sort
of thing. One evening when I was working in the garden, I caught sight
of my daughter coming up the hill; I made one jump into the house, and,
locking the door, lay down against the wall. In a minute or two I heard
her steps, and then she tried the door, shook it, knocked, and called
out to me; I lay there like a dead leaf, holding my breath, though I
had a tickling in my throat and wanted dreadfully to cough. (I don’t
know why, but it always happens like that.) It was not so easy to get
rid of her, however; she kept battering at the door and window, and
calling, “Father, let me in! I know you are there; let me in!”

“What a minx it is!” I said to myself. “I should have no chance at all
if that door gave way.”

I had half a mind to open it myself and give her a good hug, but I
hate to yield about anything, so I lay still and after a little while
she got tired and stopped her pounding; then I could hear her walking
slowly down the path. I came out of my corner and began to laugh, and
cough and laugh again till I was nearly choking, and when I got over
the fit, and stopped to wipe my eyes, I heard a voice behind me saying,
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

It nearly knocked me flat, but I turned my head and there on top of the
wall was Martine looking at me.

“I’ve got you now, you old joker!” she cried.

“I’m caught, sure enough,” said I, and we both laughed to our hearts’
content.

As soon as I had let her in she stood sternly before me, then grabbed
me by the beard. “Say you’re sorry,” she cried.

You know how it is at confession; you repent, meaning to do it again
the next opportunity, so I replied meekly, “_Mea culpa!_”

But she kept pulling me to and fro, declaring that it was a disgrace
for an old white-beard like me to have no more sense than a baby;
finally she gave me a last pull and tap on the cheek, and threw her
arms round my neck saying, “Why didn’t you come to me, Father, when
you know how much I want you?”

“My dear little girl, I will explain all about it.”

“You can explain as we go along, you are coming home with me this
minute.”

“Martine, you must give me time to pack up my things.”

“I’ll do your packing,” cried she, and with that she threw an old cloak
over my shoulders, jammed my hat on my head, picked up my bundle, and
told me to come along. I sat down on the step and said there was no
hurry, which made her furiously angry.

“Why do you object to coming to my house?” said she.

“I don’t object, I know sooner or later I shall have to do it.”

“That’s a pretty way to talk,” said she. “I don’t believe you care
anything about me!”

“You know very well how much I love you, darling! but you are dearer to
me in my own house, than in an outsider’s!”

“Do you mean to say I am an outsider?”

“You are half one, you see!”

“Nothing of the sort! I am just myself, as you know perfectly well; his
wife, of course, just as he is my husband, and I go his way as long as
he goes mine, but you can set your mind at rest, he will be perfectly
charmed to have you in the house, or else I will know the reason why!”

“I’ve had plenty of lodgers of that sort,” said I, “when our Lord of
Nevers billeted them on us, but I had rather not be one my own self.”

“You will have to learn,” said she. “Come, I am waiting.”

“Agreed; but on condition that you will take me in on my own terms.”

“You are a perfect old tyrant! but there, I promise!”

“On your honor?”

“Yes, yes, now that’s enough talking, I won’t wait another minute,” and
she seized my arm in such a grip that I had to go willy-nilly.

When we got to her house, she showed me with pride the room she had
arranged for me behind the shop, all warm and comfortable and directly
under her eye, as if I were a child of a year old. I was touched to see
how the dear girl had made up the bed with her best linen sheets and
comforter, and had put a nosegay on the table; it made me laugh too
when I thought how furious she would be. “This won’t do at all,” said
I, so though vexed enough she showed me the other rooms downstairs, but
I would have none of them, and finally chose a little nook under the
mansarded roof.

In spite of everything she could say, I declared that she might take
it or leave it, that if she would not let me have the room I liked, I
would go back to my hut, so she had to give in, but every day and all
day long she kept at me about it.

“That’s not a fit place for you, Father, the other room is much more
comfortable,--why in the world don’t you like it?”

“Because I don’t,” I would say and then she would go into a rage, and
swear that I would drive her crazy, that she knew why I behaved so, it
was just because I was too stuffy and proud to be beholden to any of my
children, even to her.

“I should like to box your ears!” she would cry, and then I would tell
her that would be the only way to make me accept something from her
gratis.

“You don’t love me, Daddy.”

“Now, my little girl, my own sweet baby!”

“Let me alone! Don’t you dare to touch me! You can’t make up to me like
that, old fraud that you are! And all the time you are just laughing at
me. I can see your mouth twitching.”

“You’re laughing yourself, Martine,” and I put my finger on her cheek,
which broke into a smile.

“All the same, I am really angry,” said she, “even if you do make me
laugh with your nonsense, but in my heart I think you are a horrid old
thing! You have lost your house and you are too stuck-up to let your
daughter help you; it is nothing but wicked pride, and you have no
right to behave so!”

“It is the only right that is left to me,” said I.

But that did not end the matter and there was never any lack of sharp
words between two people like us, who both of us had a fine edge to our
tongues; but, luckily, a joke could always make us laugh in the midst
of our discussions and so the storm would blow over.

One evening when her tongue had been going like a clapper, and I had
long ceased to listen, I told her at last it was time to stop, and wait
for the rest till the next day.

“Very well then,” she said. “Good-night! But won’t you change your
mind, old Peacock?”

“Listen, dear, I am proud as a peacock, if you choose to say so, but,
frankly now, in my place what would you do?”

“Pretty much the same thing.”

“Well, then, you see! Now give me a kiss for good-night.”

She did kiss me but I could hear her muttering to herself that it was
hard luck for her to have two such wooden heads in one family.

“Well, pound the other one as much as you please, but leave me in
peace.”

“He will get his share, never fear, and you too,” she answered; and
then the next day it began all over again, so that I really thought on
the whole I had more than was due to me.

For the first few days I was in clover, and every one petted and
spoiled me; even Florimond, who overwhelmed me with attentions greater
than I desired or deserved, for I saw that Martine was keeping her
eye on him. Glodie was always twittering around me; I had the most
comfortable chair; I was helped first at table, and when I spoke every
one listened in respectful silence.

It was all perfectly delightful, but I felt that I could not stand much
more; it made me restless, and I kept going up and down stairs all day
long to and from my garret. This, naturally, got on everybody’s nerves,
and Martine, who is by no means the most patient of women, was nearly
beside herself when she heard the stairs creak for the hundredth time
under my feet. If it had been summer, I should have gone out and roamed
about the country, but as it was I had to do my roaming indoors. It was
a cold early autumn, the fields were damp and misty, and it rained
from morning till night; so I was shut up in the house, and not my
house, Heaven help me!

I hated all the furniture and ornaments, for Florimond’s taste in such
things is stupid and pretentious, and it made me so uncomfortable that
my fingers fairly itched to move things round, or alter them, but of
course, that would never do with the master of the house standing by,
and the slightest criticism was a mortal offense. In the dining-room
there was a ewer decorated with a simpering lady, her tiresome lover
and two cooing doves which made me ill whenever I looked at it. I told
Florimond it made the victuals stick in my throat, and begged him
to take it away at mealtimes; but his notion of art was ornamented
confectionery and he greatly admired this piece, so he refused, as, of
course, he had a perfect right to do; but the faces I made amused the
whole household.

What was to be done? Laugh at me for an old fool? By all means; but
at night, in my garret, when the rain was on the roof, I turned and
twisted in my bed, not daring to shake the house by walking up and
down with my heavy tread. One night as I sat up there, bare-legged,
meditating on these things, a thought came into my head that sooner or
later, by hook or by crook, I must rebuild my house, and after that I
felt happier; but I kept my little plan to myself and did not breathe a
word of it to my children, for I knew what they would say.

“Where was the money to come from?”

Alas! we are no longer in the times of Orpheus and Amphion, when stones
built themselves into walls as if to the sound of music; there is no
such charm to raise them now unless it be the chink of money bags, and
that was always faint with me and now completely inaudible.

I resolved to have recourse to my friend Paillard, though, if the truth
were told, he had never offered to lend me money; but since I took a
sincere pleasure in asking him, why should he not find equal delight in
giving me what I needed?

Arguing in this way, I took advantage of a comparatively fine day and
went to Dornecy. Everything spoke of sadness; the dark hovering clouds,
the muddy ground, the damp gusts of wind swooping like the wings of a
great bird, tearing the yellow leaves from the trees and scattering
them over the fields.

Paillard could hardly wait to let me get out my first sentence before
he interrupted me to complain of the hard times, the falling off of
his business, the bad debts he had, lack of money, et cetera, till I
pulled him up short by asking him if he would like me to lend him a
penny piece?

It would be hard to say which of us was the more irritated and hurt
by this little passage at arms, but we kept up the conversation for a
while longer, talking in a stiff unnatural way of the weather and the
crops. I could see that he was sorry for his meanness; the poor old
boy is good-hearted at bottom and genuinely attached to me, and I knew
that he would have been delighted to lend me money, if he had been
certain that he would lose nothing by it, and what is more he would
have yielded if I had pressed the point; but he was not to blame, after
all; he had centuries of miserly blood in his veins, and though there
may be small householders in his position who are also open-handed,--I
say there is a legend that such people do exist,--when you lay a finger
on the purse of a man like that, his first instinct is to say “No!”

At that very moment Paillard would have loved to reconsider his
refusal, but here my pride came in, and I would make no further
advances; my friend ought to have been glad to help me out of my
difficulties, and if he thought otherwise, so much the worse for him!

There we sat sulky and unhappy; he asked if I would not stay to lunch,
but I refused somewhat curtly, though I could see it nearly broke his
heart, and he followed me to the door with a hang-dog expression; but
as my foot was on the threshold, something came over me; I put my arm
around his old neck and embraced him; he did the same to me, and there
we stood without a word for a minute or two.

At last he said timidly, “Colas, I could let you have a little.”

“Say no more about it,” I answered, for I am an obstinate devil.

“Well,” he said, “you will at least stay to luncheon?”

So we sat down and ate heartily enough, but nothing would have induced
me to borrow of him now; I am made like that, and if I suffered for it
this time, why so of course did he.

The question for me now was how to rebuild my house without money or
workmen,--but when I get an idea in my head!

I ruminated over it as I walked back to Clamecy, and the first thing
I did was to go over the ruins of my house, carefully sorting out
everything that might be of use, from the half-burnt beams to the rusty
hinges and black tottering walls.

One day I stole off to Chevroches to see what I could find in the
quarries among the great stone blocks like the bones of our earth with
their red veins. On my way through the forest, I am afraid I helped
some old oaks to sink into their final repose; an illegal act perhaps,
but one would not get far in this world if one only did what the law
allows. The wood belonged to the town, and therefore to me, in part
at least, and of course I should not have dreamed of taking more than
my just share; but the thing was, how to get it home? And here the
neighbors came to my assistance. One lent me his cart, another his
oxen, and a third his tools, or rather his hands, which cost nothing.
A man will lend anything in these parts, except his wife or his money,
and I feel that way myself, for money means the future; it is hope, all
that we have, the rest is only the present, which scarcely belongs to
us.

At last Robinet and I began to put up the first scaffolding, but by
that time it was cold weather, and every one thought I was out of my
mind. I was urged to wait at least until spring, while my children made
such a pother that my life was a burden to me.

In spite of all this I persisted in going on with my work, partly
because I like to rub people up the wrong way, and then, though of
course I knew that I could not build a house all by myself in the
depths of winter, I really meant only to put up a mere shed, a sort
of rabbit hutch, where I could live alone. I am sociable enough, but
I like to choose my own time and place, and I am also a talker, but
sometimes Breugnon seems to me the best companion in the world, and I
would walk ten miles to get at him. It was, therefore, for the sake
of enjoying my own charming society that I was obstinately bent on
building, in spite of the opinion of the world and the remonstrances of
my children.

Unluckily, I was not to have the last word, for, one frosty morning at
the end of October, when the roofs of the town and the pavements were
all covered with a thin glare of ice, I slipped on one of the rungs of
my ladder and the next thing I knew I was lying on the ground.

“He has killed himself!” cried poor Binet, as he ran to pick me up.

“I did it on purpose,” said I and tried to rise, but I could not stand
as my ankle was broken.

They fetched a stretcher and carried me home, Martine and most of
her neighbors by my side, wringing their hands and bewailing my sad
fate. It was like an Entombment by an early master, with the Marys
surrounding the body and making noise enough to wake Him.

I pretended to be unconscious so as to escape the flood of pity and
reproaches, but though I lay still, with my head thrown back, and my
beard pointing to Heaven, within me I was in a proper rage, in spite of
this calm exterior.




XIII

PLUTARCH’S LIVES


                                                          October 30th.

I was much depressed by my accident, as may be imagined. If only the
Lord had been pleased to break any other bone in my body, I thought,
but here I was pinned by the leg! It is true that I should have
grumbled somewhat if I had broken an arm or a rib; but now, I was ready
to curse Him for His cruelty; (Praise be to His Holy Name!) and to
swear that He had picked out the very thing that would vex me the most.

He knows well that my hard-won liberty, child not of gods, but of
men, is to me as the breath of my nostrils; dearer than gold and
silver, food and drink; and that is why He must laugh to Himself when
He sees me lying here on my back like a beetle, staring at the beams
and spider’s webs of my garret ceiling. All the same, there is some
fight left in me, though I am tied and trussed up here like a fowl on
the spit. My body cannot stir an inch, it is true; but how about the
spirit? My free fancies fly away on strong wings, with not a broken
bone among them; and he had need to be swift who would catch and stop
them.

For the first day or two I was in an execrable humor, and made good use
of my tongue as the only weapon I had with which to hit out at every
one, right and left; so that it was hardly safe to come near me. The
worst of all was that in my heart I knew that my accident was entirely
my own fault; and what made it harder to bear was that every one I saw
dinned the same thing into my ears; telling me that a man of my age had
no business to be climbing up ladders, like a fly on a wall; reminding
me that I had had ample warning, and lamenting that I had such an
obstinate nature that good advice was thrown away on me. The moral
drawn, of course, was that I richly deserved my fate.

All this naturally was extremely consoling to me,--as if it was not bad
enough to be in my miserable condition, without being told that I was a
fool into the bargain. Martine and her husband, and all my friends and
neighbors seemed to have agreed among themselves to harp on the same
string whenever they came to see me, while I had to lie and listen to
it all, like a helpless wild creature caught in a trap; until I lost
all patience one day, when even my little Glodie began to sing the same
tune: “You were a naughty Grandad to climb up ladders!”

I tore my nightcap off my head and threw it at her. “Get out of this,
you little beast!” I yelled; and then I was alone, and found that,
after all, I did not like that much better.

After a while my daughter proposed, like the good girl that she is, to
carry my mattress down into the room behind the shop; but I was just
perverse enough to say no, again, because I had said it before; though
by this time I was dying to give in. On the other hand, I hated to have
strangers see me in such a state, and then Martine kept at me like a
fly, (or a woman,) and could not understand that she talked too much
about it, and so injured her own cause. I knew also that if I yielded
I should never hear the last of it; so I told her to let me alone, and
that is what it finally came to: they all went away and left me to
myself, as I had wished; so surely I had nothing to complain of.

I had not been willing to tell my real reason, which was, that being
a dependent in that house, I hated to give any more trouble than was
necessary; but for a man who wanted people to love him, the stupidest
thing I could have done was to drive them all away from me; for
they took me at my word and soon forgot me,--“Out of sight, out of
mind,”--and no one came to see me any more, not even Glodie, though I
could hear her laughing downstairs, and smiled at the sound of it; and
then sighed, because I could not go and join in the fun as I used to do.

“Ungrateful little puss,” I thought, but I knew that I should have
done the same in her place, so I blew a kiss towards the stairs. “Have
a good time, my pretty one!”--Job lay on his dunghill, you know, and
railed at his fate, and I was somewhat in the same position by this
time.

One day while I was thus agreeably occupied, old Paillard came in; he
had a package in his hand, and sat down awkwardly enough, on the foot
of my bed; while I received him in a rather crusty manner. He began
to talk of one thing and another, but I contradicted every word he
said; till at last he was completely put out of countenance, and sat
there, clearing his throat, and tapping on the footboard of the bed. I
begged him to stop, in an icy tone, and after that he simply did not
dare to move a finger. I could hardly help laughing, and thought: “He
reproaches himself because he knows that if he had lent me money, I
should not have tried to build the wall, and so break my leg. If it had
not been for his meanness, none of all this would have happened.” And
he did not know what to say, and I would not speak, we kept silence for
some time, till at last I broke out, “Why don’t you say something? Any
one would think that I was actually at the last gasp; but there’s no
use in sitting staring at me like a stuck pig! If you can’t talk, go
home! You do not go to see sick people just to hold your tongue; and
for goodness’ sake stop fiddling with that book, or whatever it is you
have got there!”

The poor old fellow stood up. “I am going, Colas,” he said gently.
“I can see that the sight of me puts you out, but I thought--I had
brought you this book,--_Lives of Celebrated Men_, by Plutarch; it
is translated by Jacques Amyot, Bishop of Auxerre;--would you like
it?--it might amuse you. It would perhaps be some consolation or
companionship!” I could see that his mind was not quite made up, for it
was like drawing teeth for him to lend his books, which he cherished
even more dearly than his ducats.

If any one dared touch one of the precious volumes in his library,
he was like a lover who sees rude hands laid on the lady of his
affections. I was touched and softened by the greatness of the
sacrifice, and held out my hand to my old comrade, telling him how
grateful I was for his kindness to such a brute as I had shown myself
to be; and I took the book from his reluctant fingers.

“Take good care of it,” said he.

“Make your mind easy, it shall lie under my pillow,” and with this
reassuring reply I let him depart.

Plutarch of Cheronæus was a stout little volume, as broad as it was
long, of about thirteen hundred closely printed pages; the words all
heaped one upon another, like corn in a bin. “There is three years’
provender there, for three donkeys,” thought I. At the head of each
chapter were round medallion portraits of the illustrious subjects
of the memoirs, surrounded by wreaths of laurel; these diverted me
extremely; they only lacked a bunch of parsley in their mouths to be
complete.

“What are all these Greeks and Romans to me?” I thought. “We are
living, and they are long since dead, and can teach me nothing but what
I knew before; that man is a wicked creature, but agreeable enough;
that age improves wine, and spoils women; that in all countries,
the big fishes swallow the little ones, and the weak jeer at their
oppressors.--These Romans are terrible fellows to make long speeches;
and I am not by any means opposed to eloquence; only I want to warn
these gentlemen that turn and turn about is fair play.”

Fluttering the leaves with a condescending air, I threw my eyes along
the pages, as an angler draws his line along a stream, and hang me
if I did not hook something at the very first cast. No one ever saw
better fishing; the cork went under as soon as it touched the water;
and such fish as I pulled up! Gold and silver, some with shining scales
like jewels, scattering a shower of sparks around them; jumping and
twisting, too, with quivering fins, and flapping tails. To think of my
saying that they were dead!

From that day, the world might have come to an end without my knowing
what had happened; my eye was fastened on my fishing line, waiting for
a bite. What monster am I now to draw from the deep? Ha! look at this
splendid fellow, with his white belly and his coat of mail, changeable
green and blue, all shining in the sun. Honestly, the best part of my
life, (days, weeks, or years,--I kept no count of them,) was spent
then: and God be thanked! who gave us eyes, through which the wonderful
visions in books can reach our brains. Give us only those closely
packed little black marks, between the borders of the white page, and
from their sight the magician conjures up long-dispersed armies, ruined
cities, great orators of Rome, fierce enemies, heroes and the beauties
that beguile them, the winds that blow, the sparkling sea, the hot
eastern sun, and the snows of winter.

Here I can see imperial Cæsar, pale and thin, reclining in his litter
surrounded by his grim old soldiers; or that guzzler, Antony, with
his dishes and cups, on his way to some green nook, where he and his
parasites can stuff and swill to their hearts’ content; devouring eight
roasted boars at one sitting. Then Pompey passes, stiff and formal,
with Flora whom he loves;--Poliorcites decked with a gold mantle,
embroidered with the sun, moon and stars; and Artaxerxes, like a great
bull among his herd of four hundred women.

Now comes Alexander, beautiful as the god Bacchus, whose dress he
wears, returning in his triumph from India. See him high in a great
car drawn by eight horses and covered with rich carpets and garlands
of green leaves; hear the strains of flutes and hautboys as he feasts
and drinks with his generals, all of them crowned with flowers: women
leaping about him in the dance, and his great army at his back. Wasn’t
it marvelous? Then there was Queen Cleopatra, Lamia the flute-player,
and Statira, who was so beautiful that it hurt your eyes to look
at her! In spite of Antony, Alexander, and Artaxerxes, all these
enchantresses are mine, now at my pleasure. I can enter their bowers,
drink with Thaïs, embrace Roxana, and carry Cleopatra away in my arms
wrapped in her carpet. It is possible for me even to imitate Antiochus,
who was in love with his mother-in-law, although that is a singular
idea to my notion.

I go out to exterminate the Gauls; I come, I see, I conquer; and the
best of it all is that it does not cost me one single drop of blood!
Then, too, my riches are beyond counting; each story is a caravel,
laden with the treasures of the East or Barbary; bringing precious
metals, old wines, strange beasts, and captured slaves of the rarest
beauty:--such breasts, such ivory limbs! All this is mine, these
empires rose, flourished and disappeared, only to give me pleasure.
I feel as if I were at a Carnival, where in turn I can wear every
man’s mask and disguise, even to putting on his skin, and with it his
thoughts and passions. Thus I am at once the music, and the dancer, the
book and old Plutarch, who was inspired to write it in a most fortunate
hour.

How good it is to let the rhythm of words and phrases carry you off,
dancing and laughing, into space, free from all trammels of the body.
This mind, this thought of ours is God Himself. Praise be to His Holy
Spirit!--Sometimes I pause in the midst of the story to imagine how
it will turn out, and then compare my own fancy with the image which
nature or art had created. In the case of art, I am so sharp that I
can generally guess right; and then how I laugh at my own cleverness!
But the old witch, life, is often too much for me!--her resources are
beyond our feeble comprehension. There is only one part of the tale
which she never troubles herself to vary; all her stories end in the
same way--wit, war, love--you know what happens to them--they disappear
into the darkness; and on this one point she certainly does repeat
herself.

She is like a naughty child, breaking her toys when she is tired of
them, till I am provoked to blame her for being so destructive, and
snatch the pieces out of her hands; but it is too late; they are broken
past repair; and all that I can do, is to cherish what is left, as
Glodie rocks the remains of her doll in her arms.

At each revolution of the dial this Death comes nearer and nearer, like
a beautiful refrain: “Strike hour! ring bells, ding dong ding.” Now, I
fancy myself Cyrus, Emperor of Persia, Conqueror of Asia; hear what I
say:--“Friend, envy me not the small space of earth, which covers my
poor body.”--I stand beside Alexander as he reads this epitaph and
trembles, for in it he seems to hear his own voice rising from the tomb.

Now that you are dead, great Cyrus and Alexander, how near you both
seem to me; do I dream? or are they really there? I pinch myself to
find out if I am awake, yes, there on the table by my side are two
coins which I dug up in my vineyard last year, with the profiles of
bearded Commodus dressed as Hercules, and Crispina Augusta, with her
heavy chin and her shrewish nose.--“This is no dream,” say I; “for here
is Rome between my thumb and forefinger.”

My greatest pleasure was to lose myself in reflections on moral issues;
to raise once more, questions long settled by force; should I cross the
Rubicon,--or not? I could never make up my mind! I fought Brutus and
Cæsar in turn; changed my opinion and argued on either side with so
much eloquence that I could not tell what I believed. In this way the
subject takes possession of you, as you give and take, strike out and
hit back, till at last you are transfixed by your own blade! Did you
ever hear of such an idea? But it all comes of reading Plutarch, with
his smooth tongue, and pleasant way of calling you “my friend”! He gets
you first on one side and then on the other; and has as many points of
view as he has stories to tell you; so that the hero I love best is
always the last one that I have read about.

We are all chained to Fortune’s car; her triumphs over history are
greater than Pompey’s, as her wheel turns, never resting for a moment.
She has as many phases as the moon, says Menelaus, in the words
Sophocles puts into his mouth; and for those who are still in her first
quarter, that is a comforting reflection.

I would sometimes say to myself: “What does all this matter, Breugnon?
What to you are the glories of Rome, and the crimes and follies of
these old rascals? You have your own faults and troubles to think of,
why go out of your way to worry over those of people who have been dead
and gone for eighteen hundred years? To a sober middle-class citizen
of Clamecy, Cæsar, Antony, and their light-o’-love, Cleopatra, these
Persian princes who murdered their sons and married their daughters,
were extremely depraved people; the most virtuous thing they ever did
was to die; so peace to their ashes!--but how can a respectable man
find pleasure in reading about such insanities? Think of Alexander,
who spent the treasures of a nation on the burial of his beautiful
favorite, Ephestion. Are you not shocked by such extravagance?--It is
bad enough to murder a lot of people, for men are savage beasts; but
when it comes to wasting so much good money, that these tyrants had
never earned, how can you smile at such wickedness? It is really absurd
to see you sitting up with your eyes wide open, as proud as if you
yourself had been fool enough to scatter these millions to the wind.
Surely the worst idiot of all is he who delights in the follies of
others!”

After a discourse of this kind, the other side of me would make answer:
“Colas, you talk like a printed book, but, none the less, I would give
my right hand for these things which you call nonsense; and I find more
life in the shadows of the men who died two thousand years ago, than in
those who move and breathe today. I feel that I know and love them, and
would consent to let Alexander kill me as he did Clytus, if afterward
he would come and weep over my body. It is all real to me; my heart is
in my throat when I see Cæsar in the Senate-house, his back against a
pillar like a stag at bay, the conspirators’ knives searching for his
life; and I am in ecstasy when Cleopatra floats by me in her gilded
barge, surrounded by Nereids and young pages, naked and beautiful as
the day. The perfumed breeze blows across my face, and I open my big
nostrils, the better to inhale the delicious fragrance.”

When at the end Antony is drawn up to the loophole in the tower,
bleeding, half dead; and his love, struggling with the heavy weight,
can hardly pull him in;--I really cannot bear it, and sob like a child!
What is it that moves me thus, and binds me to these men and women as
if to those of my own blood? except the fact that we are truly of one
family, we are Man, each and all of us.

I pity people from the bottom of my heart who know nothing of the
profound pleasure of books; they are like disinherited children, but
they do not know it, and boast that the present is enough for them.
Blind geese! who can see no farther than the end of their noses! Not
that I mean to deny the merits of the present; that would come with an
ill grace from one like me, who have always kept my hands and my mouth
open for anything good. No, those who find fault with the present are
ignorant, or else they have a poor digestion: I understand a man who
clasps all that he can reach to his heart, but there are those who
reach nothing worth while:--he who contents himself with little is of
small value; and I have always preferred to take the most that I could
get in life.

In Adam’s time the present was all very well; there were no clothes to
wear, and only one woman in the world; but life is fuller now, coming
as we do at the end of a long line of ancestors, heirs to all that they
have amassed, and we should be fools indeed to neglect the harvests of
the past, on the pretext that we can gather others.

I often dwell on the thought of Adam. He and I are really the same
person, only I am older and bigger; the same tree, but with more
branches. I feel every stroke of the woodman’s axe to my remotest leaf;
all the joys and sorrows of the world are mine; I laugh with them that
rejoice, and weep with them that weep; and this is especially true of
the world of books; there, more than in my own life, I feel the bond
that unites men, from prince to peasant.

Soon of us all there will remain only a few ashes, and the flame which
rises, one yet infinitely multiplied, from our inmost souls towards
Heaven. There with its thousand tongues it will sing forever the glory
of the Omnipotent Creator.

       *       *       *       *       *

So I lie dreaming in my garret, while outside the wind falls with the
fading light, and the chill wings of the snow brush across the window
panes. As the shadows darken my eyes can no longer distinguish the book
in my hand, but with my face on the page the human scent comes to my
nostrils; is it I, or the story that is dying away into the night,
that comes, that is here? I am in the forest, my prey eludes me in
the long vistas, as I seem to stop and listen with a beating heart to
the flight and the pursuit: my eyes slowly close, but they can pierce
through the darkness; I am not asleep, the planets are looking at me
through the window, I can almost touch the glass, and across the black
arch without flashes one shooting star, then another,--a rain of jewels
this November night; and I think of Cæsar and his comet,--perhaps that
is the trail of his blood up yonder!

At dawn I am still there dreaming. It is Sunday; I hear the church
bells, and their sound fills the whole house from cellar to garret
with its vibrations, giving new life to my vagrant fancies, which
spread themselves over poor old Paillard’s book. To my ear my dim
little chamber resounds to the feet of armies, the wheels of chariots,
and the tramp of war-steeds. The windows shake, my ears and my
heart thrill with the sound, and I open my mouth to cry: “Ave Cæsar
Imperator!”--when Florimond, who has come up and is looking out of the
window, says with a loud yawn: “There is not a single soul to be seen
in the street this morning,--it is as dull as ditch-water!”




XIV

HEALTH TO THE KING!


                                                       St. Martin’s Day,
                                                       November 11th.

The air was delightfully soft and warm when I woke this morning; it
seemed like a gentle touch on my cheek, or a kitten rubbing itself
against me. It flowed in a golden stream through the window; the sky
had raised her cloudy eyelids, and looked at me with her pale blue
eyes, while a faint ray of sunshine smiled from the opposite roof.

I felt dreamy and languid and like a boy again,--old fool that I am!
But I have stopped growing old and am now retracing my steps as fast
as I can; pretty soon I shall be an infant in arms once more. My
heart was filled with sweet visions,--like good Roger who yearned for
Alcine,--you remember? I was in such a tender humor that I could not
have been persuaded to harm a fly, and any child could have played with
me.

I thought I was alone, but all at once I caught sight of Martine in the
corner; I had not noticed when she came in, for she had said nothing,
contrary to her habit, but just sat down and took up her sewing without
even looking in my direction. I felt on such good terms with all the
world that I wanted to share my pleasure, so just for the sake of being
amiable, I said, “Why did they ring the great bell this morning?”

“It is St. Martin’s Day, Father,” said she, surprised at the question.

To think that I should have so lost myself in dreams as to forget the
god of our town and herself! Among all the new friends in Plutarch, I
could see in my mind’s eye this old one, as good as any of the rest of
them, dividing his long cloak with his sword, as his legend tells us.
“How could I forget St. Martin?” cried I.

“I don’t know indeed,” said Martine, “except that these days you don’t
seem to remember anything in earth or Heaven but that stupid book of
yours.”

This made me laugh, for I had often noticed that she cast a malevolent
eye on old Plutarch when she came in the morning and found him in my
bed; women seldom have a real love for books; they see in them either
lovers or rivals. When they themselves read they always have an uneasy
sense of infidelity, and that is why they cannot bear to see us
absorbed in books, which they feel to be a sort of treachery.

“It is St. Martin’s own fault,” said I, “he never comes to see me
nowadays, though he has half his cloak to wear, and so I forgot all
about him. Out of sight out of mind! You must keep yourself before
people’s eyes, you know, my daughter, if you want to be remembered.”

“There is no need to tell me that; I don’t let folks forget me.”

“True enough, you are easy to see and hear as a general thing, but this
morning you were as still as a mouse; I miss our usual quarrel, come
over here and begin.”

She would not even turn her head, but answered, “I have given up, there
is no use talking to you!”

I looked at her as she sat stitching away with her mouth obstinately
set; she really looked sad, so I began to be sorry that I had got the
better of her. “Come here, dear, and give me a kiss; I may forget
Martin, but never his namesake. Come, I have a present here for you.”

“You have some trick up your sleeve.”

“No, no, on my word, come and see what I have for you.”

“I am too busy.”

“Unnatural child, you are too busy to kiss your old father?”

She came reluctantly and stood near the bed, and I held out my arms to
her.

“I don’t see any present,” said she.

“You have it now, I meant myself.”

“A pretty present you would be!”

“Ugly or pretty, I am yours entirely now to do with as you please.”

“Will you sleep downstairs?”

“Anywhere you choose to put me.”

“Will you do as you are told and let me love you and scold you when you
need it?”

“I am your slave from this hour!”

“You dear bad old thing!” she cried. “I am going to get even with you
now, for all your obstinacy!”

Then she hugged and cuffed me, shaking me about like a doll, and,
without waiting a minute, called Florimond and his white-capped
assistants who carried me feet first down the narrow stair and put me
down in the big bed in the bright room, and there Martine and Glodie
tucked me up and fussed about me, telling me over and over again that
now that they had me downstairs I should see what good care they would
take of me.

Do you know I really enjoyed it? And, having given in to my daughter
completely, strangely enough I find that it is I who really direct and
manage the whole household.

Martine spends the greater part of the day in my room now and we
have long talks about one time in particular when _I_ sat by _her_
bedside, because it was she who was laid up with a sprained foot. The
naughty little cat had jumped out of the window one night to meet her
sweetheart; I caught her, and in spite of the sprain, I gave her a good
trouncing; she laughs at it now and says I did not hurt enough, but in
those days it was impossible to keep her in order no matter what you
did; she always managed to slip through my fingers, but she kept her
head nevertheless and some one else lost his, we must suppose, as he is
now her husband. She laughs and sighs over those old days, and says it
is all over now; that there are no more jokes for her; and then we talk
of Florimond. She does justice to his good qualities, like the sensible
woman that she is, but admits that he does not amuse her; marriage,
however, is not intended for an amusement.

“No one knows that better than you do, Father, but we must make the
best of what we have. You might as well try to draw water out of a
sieve as to look for love in a husband, but I am not one to cry my
eyes out for what I cannot have; I am not so badly off, and contented
enough on the whole; but I can’t help thinking how different things are
now from what I used to expect. How far our youthful dreams are from
the things we come to accept in later years! I don’t know if it is sad
or ridiculous, but when I remember all the hopes and fears, vows and
flames, and for what? To make some man’s pot boil. After all, it is as
much as most of us deserve, but if any one had told me so, once upon a
time!--Well, there is always some fun to be got out of it. Laughter is
a sauce that would make anything taste good, and that has never been
lacking to you and me, Daddy; we can always laugh when we have made
fools of ourselves.”

Such as it was, you can be sure we did not deny ourselves that
consolation, and had many a joke, too, at the expense of other people.
Sometimes we would fall silent; she occupied with her work and I with
my book; but we kept up a little murmur like a brook which flows
underground till it can leap out again into the sunshine; an idea would
come into Martine’s head which made her burst out laughing, and then
our tongues would run on again faster than ever.

I should have been glad to introduce Plutarch to Martine, and make
her appreciate all his beauties, and enjoy my interesting and pathetic
manner of reading aloud, but I had no sort of success; she did not like
Greece or Rome any more than a fish would like apples for his dinner.
Sometimes she would listen for a few moments, just from politeness,
but she could not keep her mind on it, or rather her thoughts were
elsewhere, flying up, down and all around, so that at the most exciting
part of the narrative when I was working up to my effect, with a
trembling voice, she would interrupt me, calling out to Glodie, or to
Florimond at the other end of the house. This vexed me, of course, but
I had to give it up, and resign myself to the fact that woman rarely
shares our visions with us. She is half of us, but which half? The
upper, of course, but suppose it should be the other? One thing is very
sure, whatever the sexes have in common, it is not their brain, for
each has its own, like a case full of baubles; or rather, they are like
two sprouts from the same stem with one root between them--the heart.

I have a great many visitors these days, old graybeard as I am, ruined
and lame into the bargain; all the pretty young housewives of the
neighborhood gather round my bed, ostensibly to bring me the news,
or to ask to have something mended. It does not matter what excuse
they make for coming, they forget all about it as soon as they are
inside the door; it is like the market, where each one has her place;
Guillemine the bright-eyed, Huguette with her straight nose, clever
Jacquotte, Margueron, Alizon, and all the rest of them, and the old man
in the middle, snug under his down comforter. Such gossiping and such a
clack of tongues, with their gay laughter ringing out like bells--mine
is the big deep one. I know a lot of good stories which hit the girls
in the right spot, and they laugh sometimes till they roll on the
floor, and you can hear them across the street.

Florimond was actually jealous of my popularity, and wanted me to tell
him the secret of my success. I said that it was an open secret; I was
young, that was all; but he said rather spitefully that he knew that it
was because I had such a bad reputation, as women always like a rake.

“True enough,” said I, “you know how boys admire an old soldier, when
he comes back from the field of glory, and in the same way the ladies
like Colas because they understand each other; they think he has fought
in the campaigns of Love, and may perhaps live to fight another day.”

“Did any one ever hear such an old wretch?” cried Martine, “to be
talking of making love at his time of life!”

“Why not? Now that you have put the idea into my head, I have a great
mind to marry again.”

“Much good may it do you! But, after all, boys will be boys!”


                                                       December 6th.
                                                    St. Nicholas Day,

I got out of bed this morning to do honor to the anniversary, and
they rolled my great armchair between the table and the window, set a
foot-warmer under my feet, and placed a little desk before me, with a
socket for the candle.

About ten o’clock appeared the brotherhood of sailors, boat-builders,
and workmen on the river. First came their players and the banner, and
then they all passed by our windows arm in arm, dancing and singing,
on their way to church, perhaps to the wineshop later. They saw me and
stopped to cheer, so I stood up, and my patron saint and I exchanged
salutations. Then I leaned down and shook as many of their black paws
as I could reach, and poured a drop or two into each of the big mouths,
though it was like trying to sprinkle a field.

My four sons came at twelve o’clock to offer me the compliments of the
season, for no matter on what terms one lives for the rest of the year,
a father’s name-day is sacred; the whole family life revolves around it
as on a pivot; it is a bond which draws us all together, and I attach
a great deal of importance to it. I don’t know that the four enjoyed
themselves much when they were all there together, for in fact I am the
only real tie between them, as they have but little love for each other.

It is a sign of our times, this relaxation of those ties between men,
the home, family, and religion; each trusts in his own wisdom now, and
wants to live for himself alone. I am not one of those old men who are
always grumbling and complaining of the present day, and predicting
disaster; I know that the world will outlast my time, and that the
young know their own business as well as ever their fathers did. Yes,
but the old have a hard part to play where all around them is change
and renewal; they must alter too or there is no room for them, and that
is precisely what I do not want to do. I prefer to sit here in my chair
just as I am; the only thing I am willing to change is my mind, and
only that when it is absolutely necessary. I can turn my ideas inside
out, but they are the same thing after all, and meanwhile I can look on
at the shifting scenes and the young people whom I admire, but none
the less I lie in wait for the chance to guide them in the way I would
have them go.

When we all gathered round the dinner table I had at my right hand John
Francis, who is a bigoted Catholic; on my left, my son Anthony from
Lyons, who is an equally bigoted Huguenot. They sat up stiffly on their
chairs, staring straight before them, so as not to be obliged to look
at one another.

John Francis is a smiling prosperous man with a hard shrewd eye;
he talked interminably of his business, boasted of his money and
of the fine linen that he sold by the special favor of Providence.
Anthony’s lips are shaved but he wears a little beard on his chin;
and is morose and cold in his manner. He also talked of his trade in
books, his journeys to Geneva, his affairs generally, and attributed
his prosperity to God, but it seemed to be a different Deity. Neither
listened, but kept on monotonously repeating the same refrain, until
at last they became annoyed and began to introduce topics of a
controversial nature, one dwelling on the progress of _The_ Religion,
the other on the stability of _The_ True Faith; all the time each
ignored his antagonist, sat as if nailed to his seat, and spoke with
the utmost contempt, and in a sharp rasping voice, of the enemies’ God.

In the middle of the table sat my son Michael, sergeant in the
Sacermore regiment; he is called a rascal, but is not a bad fellow on
the whole, and the behavior of his brothers diverted him extremely,
sending him into fits of laughter. He kept turning from one to the
other, like an animal in a cage, to stare into the angry faces of his
elders, and at last interrupted them without ceremony, telling them
that they were fat sheep of the same breed even if their fleece was
marked with a different brand, and that he had seen plenty of their
sort killed and eaten.

The youngest son Anisse sat and gazed at him with horror. His name was
certainly well chosen, for he never could have invented gunpowder;
discussions are his abhorrence, for he takes no real interest in
anything on earth; his only joy is to yawn and dawdle throughout the
livelong day. Politics and religion seem to him diabolical inventions
to disturb the sleep of sensible men. “Good or bad,” he would say,
“what I have is enough for me, so why change it? Why turn over the
mattress when I made the hole in the middle myself?” Poor fellow!
people will persist in shaking up his feather-bed whether he likes it
or not, which angers him so much that, mild as he is, he would like to
send his disturbers to instant execution. His brothers’ loud voices
positively scared him, making him duck his head as if to avoid a blow.

I was all eyes and ears as I sat there taking them in, and it amused
me to unravel the part of myself that was in each of my four sons, for
mine they are beyond a doubt. If something in them came out of me,
it must have gone into me at one time or another, but I do not find
anywhere in my skin a trace of the preacher, the priest, or the sheep.
(Perhaps I might discover the adventurer if I looked closely.) But the
germs must have been there, and Nature has betrayed me. Yes, I can
recognize my own gestures and ways of speaking, even of thinking. I
can see myself in these men, but disguised, and that is what is rather
confusing; but underneath it is the very same person, one and various.
We each contain many personalities, good, bad and indifferent, the
wolf, the lamb, the watch-dog, the honest man and the scamp, but one of
the number is sure to be the strongest, and dominates all the rest, who
escape as soon as they can by the first open door.

I am filled with self-reproach when I see these escaped sons of mine,
so remote, yet so near to me. My little boys they must always be too,
and even when they are most foolish, I feel that I ought to apologize
to them, for is it not all my fault? Luckily enough they are perfectly
contented and satisfied with themselves, and that is as it should be,
but their intolerance is what I cannot bear. Why cannot they live, and
let others live, in peace? There they were, all four, like so many
fighting-cocks, ready to peck and jump at each other, but by this
time I had had enough of it, and observed placidly, “Well, my lambs,
I see that it would not be easy to pull the wool from your backs, and
I am proud to see you show your good blood,--mine, I mean,--and make
yourselves heard, but now be still, all of you, and let me have a
chance to talk, for I have something I have been dying to say for the
last half hour.”

Far from obeying me on the instant, some chance word excited them so
that they broke into a perfect storm of rage; John Francis caught up a
chair, Michael drew his long sword, and Anthony a dagger, while Anisse
employed his only weapon by bleating, “Murder! Fire!” in a lamentable
voice.

Upon my honor I was afraid that they would cut each other’s throats,
but I seized the first thing that came to my hand (unluckily it was
the ewer with the doves, pride of Florimond’s heart), and dashed it in
fragments on the table. The noise checked the combatants, and at the
same moment, Martine ran in with a pot of boiling water and threatened
to sprinkle it over them if they did not stop fighting. They still
clamored and disputed, but when I raise my voice, other donkeys have to
cease braying.

“I am master here,” I cried, “and I tell you I will have no more of
this. Shut up! Are you all crazy, or do you take this for the Council
of Nicea? If you want subjects to discuss, pick out something of our
own day, for I am bored to death with your old quarrels. If the doctor
has ordered you to dispute by way of exercise, you can wrangle over the
merits of these wines, the food on the table, or anything you can see
or touch, and then there will be some way to decide the controversy;
but to differ about the Holy Ghost, or the mind of God, is as much as
to say that you have no minds of your own. I am not opposed to faith;
I believe, he believes, you believe, as much as you please, but don’t
let us talk so much about it. There are plenty of other interesting
topics in the world, and, since each of you is perfectly sure to go to
Heaven, with a place reserved for you, and all the people who differ
from you barred out, let us be happy meanwhile, and leave the good
Lord to arrange His household as seems good to Him. Surely He is able
to look after His own affairs without assistance from us; He reigns
in Heaven, and we on earth; our business is to make it as habitable
a place as possible, and to that end we must all do our share; not
one of us can be spared; even you four can be useful in your day and
generation. Your country needs your faith, John Francis, as much as
yours, Anthony; Michael’s adventurous spirit and Anisse’s stay-at-home
qualities are equally valuable; for you are the four pillars of the
house, and if one gives way, the whole building falls to the ground,
and will overwhelm you all in ruin. Surely you must be convinced by
such masterly reasoning, and will agree that you do not wish anything
so unnecessary. What would you think of sailors in a storm at sea if
they fell to disputing instead of taking in sail?

“I will tell you a story about King Henry and our late Duke. They were
lamenting the warlike disposition of the French nation which led to
perpetual civil wars. ‘Ventresaintgris!’ exclaimed the King, ‘but I
should like to take these furious monks and preachers of the Gospel,
sew them up in a sack like a litter of cats, and throw them into the
Loire!’ The Duke replied that he had heard there was an island where
the rulers of Berne sent quarrelsome husbands and wives; when a boat
returned for them a month later, it found the couple cooing like a pair
of turtle doves. ‘I should like to tie our rival religionists up in
bundles and pack them off to that isle, hoping for the same result,’
concluded his lordship, laughing.

“Now, my children,” said I, “you need the same kind of treatment. Why
do you grunt and turn your backs on each other? Each of you may think
himself of finer clay than his brothers, but the fact is you are all
Breugnons, chips of the old block, thorough-bred Burgundians. You all
have big crooked noses, and wide mouths like wine-funnels; your eyes
look out fiercely from under bushy eyebrows, but there is a twinkle in
them all the same. The artist’s signature is plain to see on the four
of you, so can’t you understand that if you hurt your brothers, you
are injuring yourself as well? That it is for your own interest to be
united? What if you don’t think alike on some questions? That is rather
an advantage than otherwise, for you cannot all plow the same field; on
the contrary, the more fields and opinions there are in the family, the
greater our strength and happiness. Reach out then into the world as
far as you possibly can, and increase your portion of land and thought.
Each for himself and all for each, and may the long Breugnon nose point
the way to the future glory of the family! Come, boys, shake hands and
be friends!”

For a moment they still looked sulkily at each other, but I could see
the clouds parting, and all at once Michael flung his arms round John
Francis, with a loud laugh, “Embrace me, Brother-Big-Nose!” cried he,
and the others followed his example.

“Come, Martine, let us drink to the Breugnon brothers ourselves!!”

A few moments before, when I broke the ewer in my anger, I had cut my
wrist a little, and left a little blood on the table. Anthony held his
glass under the scratch in his pompous manner, and caught a drop.

“Let this wine from our father’s veins be the seal of our
reconciliation.”

“What a disgusting idea!” I cried; “to think of spoiling good wine
with such a mixture! Throw it away, and if you want to drink my blood,
you’ll find it in a bottle of the best!” and thereupon we all drank and
all agreed as to the vintage.

When they had gone and Martine was binding up my wrist, she said slyly,
“You succeeded at last, you old scamp, didn’t you?”

“Succeeded in what? In stopping the quarrel?”

“You know well enough what I mean,” and she pointed to the broken
fragments of the ewer on the table.

I pretended not to understand, and, with the most innocent expression,
declared that I had not the least idea what she meant, but I could not
help laughing, and she boxed my ears for an old rascal.

“I couldn’t stand the sight of it another minute,” I said, “it was
really too hideous; either that ewer or I had to perish!”

“The one that remains is none too handsome.”

“That does not trouble me, you know, for I don’t have to look at him.”


                                                          Christmas Eve.

Now as the winter draws on the shortening days are like precious stuffs
folded away into the coffer of the nights, only to reappear, already
growing longer, on St. Lucy’s Day. The seasons have turned once more
on their well-oiled hinges, the door has shut and opened again, and
through the crack the new year begins to shine.

As I sit this Christmas Eve under the great chimney-hood, I am as it
were at the bottom of a well, and can look up and see the bright stars
winking in the sky, and from far off comes the sound of the bells
ringing for midnight mass. I love to think that the Child was born at
this dead hour when all the world was still. His voice speaks to us of
the coming day and of the New Year, and Hope, with her warm wings,
broods over the frozen night and softens it.

My children have all gone to church, but I have missed it for the
first time in my life, and I am here alone with my dog Citron, and the
household cat Patapon. A little while ago we were all gathered round
the hearth, and I was telling Glodie wonderful fairy tales. You should
see her open her round eyes at the story of Bout-de-Canard and the
little bald chicken, or of the boy who made a fortune out of his cock
by selling it to people who wanted to know when the day was coming, so
that they could carry it away in their carts. It was too amusing to see
her, and the others listening and laughing, every one putting in his
word.

Sometimes when we were silent for a minute we could hear the water
bubbling in the kettle, a log falling in the fire, the cricket’s shrill
voice, and, outside, the wind sweeping against the window. I love these
snug winter evenings, the silence, the sense of intimacy, when my
fancies can wander far afield and return safe to the home nest.

I have been making up my budget for the last year, and I find that
in six months I have lost all that I possessed; my wife, my house,
my money, and my legs; and yet, absurd as it sounds to say so, on
striking a balance, I find myself as rich as ever. How can that be,
when I have nothing?

No burdens, would be nearer the truth; for I find myself lightened
of care, happier, freer than the wind that blows; I would not have
believed it, if, last year, any one had predicted what would happen and
that I should take it in this spirit. I had always sworn that whatever
came, to the day of my death, I would be master in my own house,
independent, owing nothing to any one but myself. Well, we do not know
what a day will bring forth. Things turn out so differently from what
we intended, and we are nevertheless content.

Man is a wonderful creature and all is grist that comes to his mill.
Happiness, suffering, feast or famine, he can adjust himself to any
of them. He can go on four legs or on one; he may be deaf, dumb or
blind, he will still manage to get along, and see, hear and speak in
the depths of his own soul. Everything is shaped and formed by that
soul of his, and how delightful it is to have such a mind and body!
To feel that if need be one can swim like a fish, fly like a bird,
bathe in fire like a salamander, or wrestle successfully with all four
elements as man does on the ground. In this way we gain through our
losses, for our minds can supply what has been taken away, so that the
less we have the more we are, as a pruned tree grows stronger and more
beautiful.

The clock strikes midnight.

Hark to the Christmas hymn, “Unto us a Child is born.”


                                                              Epiphany.

It really is a joke how I keep on adding to my possessions now that I
have nothing at all, and the secret is that I have learned to enjoy the
riches of others, and so have none of the drawbacks.

I have read horrid stories of poor old fathers who stripped themselves
of all their goods for their children’s sake, and then found themselves
neglected and forlorn, conscious that their wicked offspring already
wished them dead and buried. I can only say that these unfortunate old
men must have mismanaged the whole thing, and, for my part, I have
never been so well looked after, so much loved and petted as I am now
in my poverty.

I kept some things from my prosperous days which are better than gold
and silver. I have my good spirits still, and lots more treasures that
I picked up in the course of my life; gaiety and sharpness, wisdom and
folly. I have enough for all comers, so if my children give me a good
deal, they get something back, and if the account does not balance
evenly, we throw in affection for good measure.

If you would like to see an uncrowned King, a landless but happy man,
look at Breugnon as he sits throned tonight at the merry feast of the
Epiphany. There was a great procession in the afternoon which went
by our windows; the three Magi with their attendants, a chorus of
shepherds and shepherdesses, and all the dogs in the town; now in the
evening we are all gathered round the table, thirty of us, including
me, children, and grandchildren; and they all drank my health together,
crying, “Here’s to the King!” for they have crowned me with a splendid
paper crown, and Martine is my queen; (you see, like those old fellows
in Plutarch, I have married my daughter) so whenever I carry my glass
to my lips, every one applauds; and then I laugh and the wine goes down
the wrong way. My queen not only shares my drink herself, but there is
another person who shares too in his own way, and that is my youngest
grandson, who lies in his mother’s arms, red and squalling. Every one
is happy down to the dog and cat picking up bones under the table.

I hate to keep my thoughts to myself, so I say aloud:

“The only fault I have to find with this good life of ours, my
friends, is that it is too short. I don’t feel as if I had had my
money’s worth, and though I may be told that I ought to be satisfied
with what has fallen to my lot, I can only say that I should like to
have more, a second slice of cake, if I could get it without making
too much fuss. And then it makes me unhappy to think of all the good
fellows who are gone. Of what use is it to be here alone? Ah, how Time
flows on, and with it good men like King Henry and our Duke Louis!”

The thought of them was enough to set me off, on former times and
recollections, and I told old stories till, I am sorry to say, I grew
tired and began to repeat myself; but my children did not mind, and
when I became confused and forgot anything, they would fill up the gap;
and then I would pull myself together and find them all laughing.

“Well, Father, those were great days when you were young! What figures
the women must have had, and what splendid fellows the men were! As for
King Henry and his friend the Duke, they have not their equal nowadays!”

“All right,” I reply, “laugh and grow fat. I know there is still good
fish in the sea, and good men to catch it, and for one that goes, three
will come after. There will never be a lack of good stout sons of Gaul,
but my trouble is that they will not be the same ones that I knew and
loved, like King Henry who is gone; but never mind, Colas, there is
nothing to cry about. I should think not indeed! for you surely don’t
want to keep on chewing the same cud for ever. The wine is just as good
even if it is not out of the old casks, and here’s to the King and his
people!

“Frankly, dear children, I love myself better than any King, so liberty
for us, my countrymen! and to the devil with our rulers! As long as we
are here, the land I love, and I, all is well; so what need have we of
a King on earth or in Heaven? Or of a throne for him to sit on? Let
each man have his share of the sun and shade, his bit of land, and his
arms to work with, no one could ask more; and if the King in person
came to my house I would say, ‘Come in and sit down, for we are all
equal together in France, each master in his own kingdom, and here’s to
your good health, my guest and cousin.’”

       *       *       *       *       *

“How is this?” said Brother John, “art thou also a poet?--By the help
of God, I can string rhymes together as well as another; I am sure of
it; have but patience with me if my verses should prove of the wrong
color----”

                                                  --PANTAGRUEL, v. 46.




FOOTNOTES:


[1] Bethléem, a suburb of Clamecy.

[2] “Judæa” is the nickname given to the suburb of Bethléem, or Béyant,
where the raftsmen and boatmen of Clamecy live. “Rome” is the upper
town, which gets its name on account of the stairs, called “Old Rome,”
which go down from the church of Saint Martin to the suburb of Beuvron.




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

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