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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12909 ***
+
+ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT
+
+By
+
+FRANCIS JAMMES
+
+Authorized Translation from the French by Gladys Edgerton
+
+1920
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The simple and bucolic art of Francis Jammes has grown to maturity in
+the solitude of the little town of Orthez at the foot of the Pyrenees,
+far from the clamor and complexities of literary Paris. In the preface
+to an early work of his he has given the key of his artistic faith:
+"My God, You have called me among men. Behold I am here. I suffer and
+I love. I have spoken with the voice which you have given me. I have
+written with the words which You have taught my mother and my father
+and which they transmitted to me. I am passing along the road like a
+laden ass of which the children make mock and which lowers the head. I
+shall go where You wish, when You wish."
+
+And this is the way he has gone without faltering or ever turning
+aside to become identified with this school or that. It is this simple
+faith which has given to Francis Jammes his distinction and uniqueness
+among the poets of contemporary France, and won for him the admiration
+of all classes. There is probably no other French poet who can evoke
+so perfectly the spirit of the landscape of rural France. He delights
+to commune with the wild flowers, the crystal spring, and the friendly
+fire. Through his eyes we see the country of the singing harvest where
+the poplars sway beside the ditches and the fall of the looms of the
+weavers fills the silence. The poet apprehends in things a soul which
+others cannot perceive.
+
+His gift of sympathy with the poor and the simple is infinite. He
+is full of pity and tenderness and enfolds in his heart and in his
+poetry, saint and sinner, man and beast, all that which is animate
+and inanimate. He is passionately religious with a profound and humble
+faith, but it has nothing in common with the sumptuous and decorative
+neo-catholicism of men like Huysmans or Paul Claudel. Rather one must
+seek his origins in the child-like faith of Saint Francis of Assisi
+and the lyrical metaphysics of Pascal.
+
+Those of a higher sophistication and a greater worldliness may smile
+at the artlessness, and, if one will, naivété of a man like Jammes. It
+is true that his art is limited, and that if one reads too much at one
+time there is a note of monotony and a certain paucity of phrase, but
+who is the writer of whom this is not equally true? The quality of
+beauty, sincerity, and a large serenity are in his work, and how
+grateful are these permanencies amid the shrilling noises of the
+countless conflicting creeds and dogmas, and amid the poses and
+vanities which so fill the world of contemporary literature and art!
+
+As far as the record goes the outward life of Francis Jammes has been
+uneventful. In a remarkable poem, "A Francis Jammes," his friend and
+fellow-poet, Charles Guérin, has drawn an unforgetable picture of this
+Christian Virgil in his village home. The ivy clings about his house
+like a beard, and before it is a shadowy fire, ever young and fresh,
+like the poet's heart, in spite of wind and winters and sorrows. The
+low walls of the court are gilded with moss. From the window one sees
+the cottages and fields, the horizon and the snows.
+
+Jammes was born at Tournay in the department of Hautes Pyrénées on
+December 2, 1863, and spent most of his life in this region. He was
+educated at Pau and Bordeaux, and later spent a short time in a law
+office. Early in the nineties he wrote his first volumes, slender
+_plaquettes_ with the brief title "Vers." It is interesting that
+one of these was dedicated to that strange English genius, Hubert
+Crackanthorpe, the author of "Wreckage" and "Sentimental Studies."
+This dedication, and the curious orthography (the book was set up in a
+provincial printery) led a reviewer in the _Mercure de France_ into an
+amusing error, in that he suggested that the book had been written by
+an Englishman whose name, correctly spelled, should perhaps be Francis
+James.
+
+Since then his life has been wholly devoted to literature and he has
+published a considerable number of volumes of poetry and prose which
+by their very titles give a clue to the spirit pervading the author's
+work. Among the more important of these are: _De l'Angelus de
+l'Aube à l'Angelus du Soir, Le Deuil des Primevères, Pomme d'Anis
+ou l'Histoire d'une Jeune Fille Infirme, Clairières dans le Ciel_, a
+number of series of _Géorgiques Chrétienne_, etc.
+
+The present volume consists of a translation of _Le Roman du Lièvre_,
+one of the most delightful of Francis Jammes' earlier books. In it he
+tells of Rabbit's joys and fears, of his life on this earth, of the
+pilgrimage to paradise with St. Francis and his animal companions,
+and of his death. This book was published in 1903, and has run through
+many editions in France. A number of characteristic short tales and
+impressions of Jammes' same creative period have been added.
+
+To turn a work so delicate and full of elusiveness as Jammes' from one
+language into another is not an easy task, but it has been a labor of
+love. The translator hopes that she has accomplished this without too
+great a loss to the spirit of the original.
+
+G.E.
+
+
+
+
+ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+
+Amid the thyme and dew of Jean de la Fontaine Rabbit heard the hunt
+and clambered up the path of soft clay. He was afraid of his shadow,
+and the heather fled behind his swift course. Blue steeples rose from
+valley to valley as he descended and mounted again. His bounds curved
+the grass where hung the drops of dew, and he became brother to
+the larks in this swift flight. He flew over the county roads, and
+hesitated at a sign-board before he followed the country-road, which
+led from the blinding sunlight and the noise of the cross-roads and
+then lost itself in the dark, silent moss.
+
+That day he had almost run into the twelfth milestone between Castétis
+and Balansun, because his eyes in which fear dwells are set on the
+side of his head. Abruptly he stopped. His cleft upper lip trembled
+imperceptibly, and disclosed his long incisor teeth. Then his
+stubble-colored legs which were his traveling boots with their worn
+and broken claws extended. And he bounded over the hedge, rolled up
+like a ball, with his ears flat on his back.
+
+And again he climbed uphill for a considerable time, while the dogs,
+having lost his scent, were filled with disappointment, and then, he
+again ran downhill until he reached the road to Sauvejunte, where he
+saw a horse and a covered cart approaching. In the distance, on this
+road, there were clouds of dust as in Blue Beard when Sister Anne is
+asked: "Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anything coming?" This
+pale dryness, how magnificent it was, and how filled it was with the
+bitter fragrance of mint! It was not long before the horse stood in
+front of Rabbit.
+
+It was a sorry nag and dragged a two wheeled cart and was unable to
+move except in a jerky sort of gallop. Every leap made its disjointed
+skeleton quiver and jolted its harness and made its earth-colored
+mane fly in the air, shiny and greenish, like the beard of an ancient
+mariner. Wearily as though they were paving-stones the animal lifted
+its hoofs which were swollen like tumors. Rabbit was frightened by
+this great animated machine which moved with so loud a noise. He
+bounded away and continued his flight over the meadows, with his
+nose toward the Pyrenees, his tail toward the lowlands, his right eye
+toward the rising sun, his left toward the village of Mesplède.
+
+Finally he crouched down in the stubble, quite near a quail which
+was sleeping in the manner of chickens half-buried in the dust, and
+overcome by the heat was sweating off its fat through its feathers.
+
+The morning was sparkling in the south. The blue sky grew pale under
+the heat, and became pearl-gray. A hawk in seemingly effortless flight
+was soaring, and describing larger and larger circles as it rose. At
+a distance of several hundred yards lay the peacock-blue, shimmering
+surface of a river, and lazily carried onward the mirrored reflection
+of the alders; from their viscous leaves exuded a bitter perfume,
+and their intense blackness cut sharply the pale luminousness of
+the water. Near the dam fish glided past in swarms. An angelus beat
+against the torrid whiteness of a church-steeple with its blue wing,
+and Rabbit's noonday rest began.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stayed in this stubble until evening, motionless, only troubled
+somewhat by a cloud of mosquitoes quivering like a road in the sun.
+Then at dusk he made two bounds forward softly and two more to the
+left and to the right.
+
+It was the beginning of the night. He went forward toward the river
+where on the spindles of the reeds hung in the moonlight a weave of
+silver mists.
+
+Rabbit sat down in the midst of the blossoming grass. He was happy
+that at that hour all sounds were harmonious, and that one hardly knew
+whether the calls were those of quails or of crystal springs.
+
+Were all human beings dead? There was one watching at some distance;
+he was making movements above the water, and noiselessly withdrawing
+his dripping and shimmering net. But only the heart of the waters was
+troubled, Rabbit's remained calm.
+
+And, lo, between the angelicas something that looked like a ball bit
+by bit came into view. It was his best-beloved approaching. Rabbit ran
+toward her until they met deep in the blue aftercrop of grass. Their
+little noses touched. And for a moment in the midst of the wild
+sorrel, they exchanged kisses. They played. Then slowly, side by
+side, guided by hunger, they set out for a small farm lying low in the
+shadow. In the poor vegetable garden into which they penetrated there
+were crisp cabbages and spicy thyme. Nearby the stable was breathing;
+the pig protruded its mobile snout, sniffing, under the door of its
+sty.
+
+Thus the night passed in eating and amatory sport. Little by little
+the darkness stirred beneath the dawn. Shining spots appeared in the
+distance. Everything began to quiver. An absurd cock, perched on
+the chicken-house, rent the silence. He crowed as if possessed, and
+clapped applause for himself with the stumps of his wings.
+
+Rabbit and his wife went their separate ways at the threshold of the
+hedge of thorns and roses. Crystal-like, as it were, a village emerged
+from the mist, and in a field dogs with their tails as stiff as cables
+were busy trying to disentangle the loops so skillfully described by
+the charming couple amid the mint and blades of grass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rabbit took refuge in a marl-pit over which mulberries arched, and
+there he stayed crouching with his eyes wide-open until evening. Here
+he sat like a king beneath the ogive of the branches; a shower of rain
+had adorned them with pale-blue pearls. There he finally fell asleep.
+But his dream was unquiet, not like that which should come from the
+calm sleep of the sultry summer's afternoon. His was not the profound
+sleep of the lizard which hardly stirs when dreaming the dream of
+ancient walls; his was not the comfortable noonday sleep of the badger
+who sits in his dark earthen burrow and enjoys the coolness.
+
+The slightest sound spoke to him of danger, the danger that lies
+in all things whether they move or fall or strike. A shadow moved
+unexpectedly. Was it an enemy approaching? He knew that happiness can
+be found in a place of refuge only when everything remains exactly the
+same this moment, as it was the moment before. Hence came his love of
+order, that is to say his immobility.
+
+Why should a leaf stir on the eglantine in the blue calm of an idle
+day? When the shadows of a copse move so slowly, that it seems they
+are trying to stop the passage of the hours, why should they suddenly
+stir? Why was there this crowd of men who, not far from his retreat,
+were gathering the ears of maize in which the sun threaded pale
+beads of light? His eyelids had no lashes, and so could not bear
+the palpitating and dazzling light of noondays. And this alone was
+sufficient reason why he knew that danger lurked if he should approach
+those who unblinded could look into the white flames of husbandry.
+
+There was nothing outside to lure him before the time came when he
+would go out of his own accord. His wisdom was in harmony with things.
+His life was a work of music to him, and each discordant note warned
+him to be cautious. He did not confuse the voice of the pack of hounds
+with the distant sound of bells, or the gesture of a man with that of
+a waving tree, or the detonation of a gun with a clap of thunder, or
+the latter with the rumbling of carts, or the cry of the hawk with
+the steam-whistle of threshing-machines. Thus there was an entire
+language, whose words he knew to be his enemies.
+
+Who can say from what source Rabbit obtained this prudence and this
+wisdom? No one can explain these things, or tell whence or how they
+have come to him. Their origin is lost in the night of time where
+everything is all confused and one.
+
+Did he, perhaps, come out of Noah's ark on Mount Ararat at the time
+when the dove, which retains the sound of great waters in its cooing,
+brought the olive-branch, the sign that the great wave was subsiding?
+Or had he been created, such as he is, with his short tail, his
+stubbly hide, his cleft lip, his floppy ear, and his trodden-down
+heel? Did God, the Eternal, set him all ready-made beneath the laurels
+of Paradise?
+
+Lying crouched beneath a rosebush he had, perhaps, seen Eve, and
+watched her when she had wandered amid the irises, displaying the
+grace of her brown legs like a prancing young horse, and extending
+her golden breasts before the mystic pomegranates. Or was he at first
+nothing but an incandescent mist? Had he already lived in the heart
+of the porphyries? Had he, incombustible, escaped from their boiling
+lava, in order to inhabit each in turn the cell of granite and of
+the alga before he dared show his nose to the world? Did he owe his
+pitch-black eyes to the molten jet, his fur to the clayey ooze, his
+soft ears to the sea-wrack, his ardent blood to the liquid fire?
+
+...His origins mattered little to him at this moment; he was resting
+peacefully in his marl-pit. It was in a sultry August toward the end
+of a heavy afternoon. The sky was of the deep-blue color of a plum,
+puffed out here and there, as if ready to burst upon the plain.
+
+Soon the rain began to patter on the leaves of the brake. Faster and
+faster came the drumming of the long rods of rain. But Rabbit was not
+afraid, because the rain fell in accordance with a rhythm which was
+very familiar to him. And besides the rain did not strike him for it
+had not yet been able to pierce the thick vault of green above him. A
+single drop only fell to the bottom of the marl-pit, and splashed and
+always fell again at the same place.
+
+So there was nothing in this concert to trouble the heart of Rabbit.
+He was quite familiar with the song in which the tears of the rain
+form the strophes, and he knew that neither dog, nor man, nor fox, nor
+hawk had any part in it. The sky was like a harp on which the silver
+strings of the streaming rain were strung from above down to the
+earth. And down here below every single thing made this harp resound
+in its own peculiar fashion, and in turn it again took up its own
+melody. Under the green fingers of the leaves the crystal strings
+sounded faint and hollow. It was as though it were the voice of the
+soul of the mists.
+
+The clay under their touch sobbed like an adolescent girl into whom
+the south wind has long blown inquietude. There where the clay was
+thirstiest and driest was heard a continual sound as of drinking, the
+panting of burning lips which yielded to the fullness of the storm.
+
+The night which followed the storm was serene. The downfall of rain
+had almost evaporated. On the green meadow where Rabbit was in the
+habit of meeting his beloved, nothing was left of the storm, except
+ball-like masses of mist. It looked as though they were paradisiacal
+cotton-plants whose downy whiteness was bursting beneath the flood of
+moonlight. Along the steep banks of the river the thickets, heavy with
+rain, stood in rows like pilgrims bowed down under the weight of their
+wallets and leather-bottles. Peace reigned. It was as though an
+angel had rested his forehead in a hand. Dawn shivering with cold was
+awaiting her sister the day, and the bowed-down leaves of grass prayed
+to the dawn.
+
+And suddenly Rabbit crouching in the midst of his meadow saw a man
+approaching, and he wasn't in the least afraid of him. For the first
+time since the beginning of things, since man had set traps and
+snares the instinct of flight became extinguished in the timid soul of
+Rabbit.
+
+The man, who approached, was dressed like the trunk of a tree in
+winter when it is clothed in the rough fustian of moss. He wore a cowl
+on his head and sandals on his feet. He carried no stick. His hands
+were clasped inside the sleeves of his robe, and a cord served as
+girdle. He kept his bony face turned toward the moon, and the moon was
+less pale than it. One could clearly distinguish his eagle's nose and
+his deep eyes, which were like those of asses, and his black beard on
+which tufts of lamb's wool had been left by the thickets.
+
+Two doves accompanied him. They flitted from branch to branch in the
+sweetness of the night. The tender beat of their wings was like the
+fallen petals of a flower, and as if these were striving to re-unite
+again and expand once more into a blossom.
+
+Three poor dogs that wore spiked collars and wagged their tails
+preceded the man, and an ancient wolf was licking the hem of his
+garment. A ewe and her lamb, bleating, uncertain, and enraptured,
+pressed forward amid the crocuses and trod upon their emerald, while
+three hawks began to play with the two doves. A timid night-bird
+whistled with joy amid the acorns. Then it spread its wings and
+overtook the hawks and the doves, the lamb and the ewe, the dogs, the
+wolf, and the man.
+
+And the man approached Rabbit and said to him:
+
+"I am Francis. I love thee and I greet thee, Oh thou, my brother. I
+greet thee in the name of the sky which mirrors the waters and the
+sparkling stones, in the name of the wild sorrel, the bark of the
+trees and the seeds which are thy sustenance. Come with these sinless
+ones who accompany me and cling to my foot-steps with the faith of the
+ivy which clasps the tree without considering that soon, perhaps, the
+woodcutter will come. Oh Rabbit, I bring to thee the Faith which we
+share one in another, the Faith which is life itself, all that of
+which we are ignorant, but in which we nevertheless believe. Oh dear
+and kindly Rabbit, thou gentle wanderer, wilt thou follow our Faith?"
+
+And while Francis was speaking the beasts remained quite silent; they
+lay flat on the ground or perched in the twigs, and had complete faith
+in these words which they did not understand.
+
+Rabbit alone, his eyes wide-open, now seemed uneasy because of the
+sound of this voice. He stood with one ear forward and the other back
+as if uncertain whether to take flight or whether to stay.
+
+When Francis saw this he gathered a handful of grass from the meadow,
+and held it out to Rabbit, and now he followed him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From that night they remained together.
+
+No one could harm them, because their Faith protected them. Whenever
+Francis and his friends stopped in a village square where people were
+dancing to the drone of a bagpipe at the evening hour when the young
+elms were softly shading into the night and the girls were gaily
+raising their glasses to the evening wind at the dark tables before
+the inns, a circle formed about them. And the young men with their
+bows or cross-bows never dreamed of killing Rabbit. His tranquil
+manner so astounded them, that they would have deemed it a barbarous
+deed had they abused the faith of this poor creature, which he so
+trustfully placed beneath their very feet. They thought Francis was a
+man skilled in the taming of animals, and sometimes they opened their
+barns to him for the night, and gave him alms with which he bought
+food for his creatures, for each one that which it liked best.
+
+And besides they easily found enough to live on, for the autumn
+through which they were wending was generous and the granaries were
+bulging. They were allowed to glean in the fields of maize and to have
+a share in the vintage and the songs which rose in the setting sun.
+Fair-haired girls held the grapes against their luminous breasts.
+Their raised elbows gleamed. Above the blue shadows of the chestnut
+trees shooting stars glided peacefully. The velvet of the heather was
+growing thicker. The sighing of dresses could be heard in the depth of
+the avenues.
+
+They saw the sea before them, hung in space, and the sloping sails,
+and white sands flecked by the shadows of tamarisks, strawberry-trees,
+and pines. They passed through laughing meadows, where the mountain
+torrent, born of the pure whiteness of the snows, had become a brook,
+but still glistened, filled with memories of the shimmering antimony
+and glaciers.
+
+Even when the hunting-horn sounded Rabbit remained quite without fear
+among his companions. They watched over him and he watched over them.
+One day a pack of hounds drew near to him, but fled again when they
+saw the wolf. Another time a cat crept close to the doves, but took
+flight before the three dogs with their spiked collars, and a ferret
+who lay in wait for the lamb had to seek a hiding-place from the birds
+of prey. Rabbit, himself, frightened away the swallows who attacked
+the owl.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rabbit became specially attached to one of the three dogs with spiked
+collars. She was a spaniel, of kind disposition, and compact build.
+She had a stubby tail, pendant ears, and twisted paws. She was easy to
+get on with and polite. She had been born in a pig-pen at a cobbler's
+who went hunting on Sundays. When her master died, and no one wanted
+to give her shelter, she ran about in the fields where she met
+Francis.
+
+Rabbit always walked by her side, and when she slept her muzzle lay
+upon him and he too fell asleep. All of them always had their noonday
+sleep, and under the dull fire of the sun it was filled with dreams.
+
+Then Francis saw again the Paradise from which he had come. It seemed
+to him as if he were passing through the great open gate into the
+wonderful street on which stood the houses of the Elect. They were low
+huts, each like the other, in a luminous shadow which caused tears
+of joy to rise in the eyes. From the interior of these huts might be
+caught the gleam of a carpenter's plane, a hammer, or a file. The work
+that is sublime continues here; for, when God asked those who had come
+to him what reward they desired for their work on earth, they always
+wished to go on with that which had helped them to gain Heaven.
+And then suddenly their humble crafts became filled with a sort of
+mystery. Artisans appeared at their thresholds where tables were set
+for the evening meal. One heard the cheery burble of celestial wells.
+And in the open squares angels that had a semblance to fishing-boats,
+bowed down in the blessedness of the twilight.
+
+But the animals in their dreams saw neither the earth nor Paradise as
+we know them and see them. They dreamed of endless plains where their
+senses became confused. It was like a dense fog in them. To Rabbit the
+baying of the hounds became all blended into one thing with the heat
+of the sun, sharp detonations, the feeling of wet paws, the vertigo
+of flight, with fright, with the smell of the clay, and the sparkle
+of the brook, with the waving to and fro of wild carrots and the
+crackling of maize, with the moonshine and the joyous emotion of
+seeing his mate appearing amid the fragrant meadow-sweet.
+
+Behind their closed eyelids they all saw moving like mirrored
+reflections the courses of their lives. The doves, however, protected
+their nimble and restless, little heads from the sun; they sought for
+their Paradise beneath the shadow of their wings.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+
+When winter came Francis said to his friends:
+
+"Blessings upon you for you are of God. But in my heart I am uneasy
+for the cry of the geese that are flying southward tells that a famine
+is near at hand, and that it is not in the purposes of Heaven to make
+the earth kind for you. Praised be the hidden designs of the Lord!"
+
+The country around them, in fact, became a barren waste. The sky let
+drip a yellow light from its sack-like clouds bulging with snow. All
+the fruits of the hedges had withered, and all those of the orchards
+were dead. And the seeds had left their husks to enter into the bosom
+of the earth.
+
+..."Praised be the hidden designs of the Lord," said Francis.
+"Perhaps it is His wish that you leave me, and each of you go your own
+way in quest of nourishment. Therefore separate from me since I cannot
+go with each one of you, if your instincts lead you to different
+lands. For you are living and have need of nourishment, while I am
+risen from the dead and am here by the grace of God, free from all
+corporeal needs, a spirit as it were who had the privilege of guiding
+you to this day. But whatever knowledge I have is growing less, and
+I no longer know how to provide for you. If you wish to leave me, let
+the tongue of each be loosed, and freely let each speak."
+
+The first to speak was the Wolf.
+
+He raised his muzzle toward Francis. His shaggy tail was swept by the
+wind. He coughed. Misery had long been his garb. His wretched fur made
+him seem like a dethroned king. He hesitated, and cast his eye upon
+each one of his companions in turn. At last his voice came from his
+throat, hoarse like that of the eternal snow. And when he opened his
+jaws one could measure his endless privations by the length of his
+teeth. And his expression was so wild that one could not tell whether
+he was about to bite his master or to caress him.
+
+He said:
+
+"Oh honey without sting! Oh brother of the poor! Oh Son of God! How
+could even I leave you? My life was evil, and you have filled it with
+joy. During the nights it was my fate to lie in wait listening to
+the breath of the dogs, the herdsmen, and the fires, until the right
+moment came to bury my fangs in the throat of sleeping lambs. You
+taught me, Oh Blessed One, the sweetness of orchards. And even at this
+moment when my belly was hollow with hunger for flesh, it was your
+love for me that nourished me. Often, indeed, my hunger has been a
+joy to me when I could place my head on your sandal for I suffer this
+hunger that I may follow you, and gladly I would die for your love."
+
+And the doves cooed.
+
+They stopped in their shivering flight together among the branches
+of a barren tree. They could not make up their minds to speak. Each
+moment it seemed as though they were about to begin, when in sudden
+fright they again filled the listening forest with their sobbing white
+caresses. They trembled like young girls who mingle their tears and
+their arms. They spoke together as if they had but a single voice:
+
+"Oh Francis, you are more lovely than the light of the glow-worm
+gleaming in the moss, gentler than the brook which sings to us while
+we hang our warm nest in the fragrant shade of the young poplars. What
+matter that the hoarfrost and famine would banish us from your side
+and drive us far away to more fruitful lands? For your sake we will
+love hoarfrost and famine. For the sake of your love we will give up
+the things we crave. And if we must die of the cold, Oh our Master, it
+will be with heart against heart."
+
+And one of the dogs with the spiked collars advanced. It was the
+spaniel, Rabbit's friend. Like the wolf she had already suffered
+bitterly with hunger and her teeth chattered. Her ears were wrinkled
+even when she raised them, and her straggly tail which looked like
+tufts of cotton she held out rigid and motionless. Her eyes of the
+color of yellow raspberries were fixed on Francis with the ardor of
+absolute Faith. And her two companions, who trustfully were getting
+ready to listen to her, lowered their heads in sign of their ignorance
+and goodwill. They were shepherd dogs, who had never heard anything
+but the sob of the sheep-bells, the bleating of the flocks and the
+lash-like crack of the lightning on the summits, and, proud and happy,
+they waited while the little spaniel bore witness.
+
+She took a step forward. But not a sound came from her throat. She
+licked the hand of Francis, and then lay down at his feet.
+
+And the ewe bleated.
+
+Her bleats were so full of sadness that it seemed as if she were
+already exhaling her soul toward death at the very thought of leaving
+Francis. As she stood there in silence, her lamb, seized by some
+strange melancholy, was suddenly heard, crying like a child.
+
+And the ewe spoke:
+
+"Neither the placidity of grassy meadows toned down by the mists of
+the dawn, nor the sweet woods of the mountains dotted by the fog
+with the pearls of its silvery sweat, nor the beds of straw of the
+smoke-filled cabins, are in any way comparable to the pasture-grounds
+of your heart. Rather than leave you we should prefer the bloody and
+loathful slaughter-house, and the rocking of the cart on which we are
+carried thither with our legs tied and our flanks and cheeks on the
+boards. Oh Francis, it would be like unto death to us to lose you, for
+we love you."
+
+And while the sheep spoke the owl and the hawks, perched near one
+another, remained motionless, their eyes full of anguish and their
+wings pressed close to their sides lest they fly away.
+
+The last one to speak was Rabbit.
+
+Clothed in his fur of the color of stubble and earth he seemed like a
+god of the fields. In the midst of the wintry waste he was like a clod
+of earth of the summer time. He made one think of a road-mender or
+a rural postman. Tucked up in the windings of his flapping ears he
+carried with himself the agitation of all sounds. One of the ears,
+extended toward the ground, listened to the crackling of the frost,
+while the other, open to the distance, gathered in the blows of an axe
+with which the dead forest resounded.
+
+"Surely, Oh Francis," he said, "I can be satisfied with the mossgrown
+bark which has grown tender beneath the caress of the snows and which
+wintry dawns have made fragrant. More than once have I satisfied
+my hunger with it during these disastrous days when the briars have
+turned into rose-colored crystals, and when the agile wagtail utters
+its shrill cry toward the larvae which its beak can no longer reach
+beneath the ice along the banks. I shall continue to gnaw these barks.
+For, Oh Francis, I do not wish to die with these gentle friends who
+are in their agony, but rather I wish to live beside you and obtain my
+sustenance from the bitter fiber of the trees."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Therefore because the country of each of them was a different land
+where each could dwell only by himself, Rabbit's companions chose not
+to separate, but to die together in this land harrowed by winter.
+
+One evening the doves which had become like dead leaves fell from the
+branch on which they were perched, and the wolf closed his eyes on
+life, his muzzle resting on the sandal of Francis. For two days his
+neck had been so weak that it could no longer support his head, and
+his spine had become like the branch of a bramble bespattered with
+mud, shivering in the wind. His master kissed him on the forehead.
+
+Then the lamb, the sheep-dogs, the hawks, the owl, and the ewe gave up
+their souls, and finally also the little spaniel whom Rabbit in vain
+had sought to keep warm. She passed away wagging her tail, and
+it grieved stubble-colored Rabbit so much that it took until the
+following day before he could touch the bark of the oaks again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And in the midst of the world's desolation Francis prayed, his
+forehead on his clenched hand, just as in an excess of sorrow a poet
+feels his soul escaping him once more.
+
+Then he addressed him of the cleft lip.
+
+"Oh Rabbit, I hear a voice which tells me that you must lead these
+(and he pointed to the bodies of the animals) to Eternal Blessedness.
+Oh Rabbit, there is a Paradise for beasts, but I know it not. No man
+will ever enter it. Oh Rabbit, you must guide thither these friends,
+whom God has given me and whom he has taken away. You are wise among
+all, and to your prudence I commit these friends."
+
+The words of Francis rose toward the brightening sky. The hard azure
+of winter gradually became limpid. And under this returning gladness,
+it seemed as if the graceful spaniel were about to raise her supple,
+silken ears again. "Oh my friends who are dead," said Francis, "are
+you really dead, since I alone am conscious of your death? What proof
+can you give to sleep that you are not merely slumbering? Is the fruit
+of the clematis asleep or is it dead when the wind no longer ruffles
+the lightness of its tendrils? Perhaps, Oh wolf, it is merely that
+there is no longer sufficient breath from on high for you to raise
+your flanks; and for you, doves, to make you expand like a sigh;
+and for you, sheep, to cause your lamentations by their sweetness to
+augment even the sweetness of flooded pastures; and for you, owl, to
+reawaken your sobbing, the plaint of the amorous night itself; and for
+you, hawks, to rise soaring from the earth; and for you, sheep-dogs,
+to have your barking mingle once more with the sound of the sluices;
+and for you, spaniel, to have exquisite understanding born again, that
+you may play with Rabbit again?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly Rabbit made a leap into the azure from the molehill where
+he had lain down, and did not drop back. And lightly as if he were
+passing over a meadow of blue clover he made a second bound into
+space, into the realm of the angels.
+
+He had hardly completed this second leap when he saw the little
+spaniel by his side, and joyously he asked her:
+
+"Aren't you really dead, then?"
+
+And skipping toward him she replied:
+
+"I do not understand what you are saying to me. My noonday sleep
+to-day was peaceful and bright."
+
+Then Rabbit saw that the other animals were following him into the
+void, while Francis was journeying along another heavenly pathway,
+indicating to the wolf by means of signs with his hand to put his
+trust in Rabbit. And the wolf with docility and peace in his heart
+felt Faith come over him again. He continued on his way with his
+friends, after a long look toward his master, and knowing that for
+those who are chosen there is something divine even in the final
+adieu.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They left winter behind them. They were astonished at passing through
+these meadows which formerly were so inaccessible and so far above
+their heads. But the need of gaining Paradise gave them a firm footing
+in the sky.
+
+By the paths of the seraphim, along the trellises of light, over the
+milky ways where the comet is like a sheaf of grain, Rabbit guided his
+companions. Francis had entrusted them to him, and had given him to
+them as guide because he knew Rabbit's prudence. And had he not on
+many occasions given his master proofs of this quality of discretion
+which is the beginning of wisdom? When Francis met him and begged
+him to follow, had he not waited until Francis held out a handful of
+flowering grass and let him nibble at it? And when all his companions
+let themselves die of hunger for love of one another, had not he with
+his down-trodden heels continued to gnaw the bitter bark of the trees?
+
+Therefore it seemed that this prudence would not fail him even in
+heaven. If they lost their way he would find the right road again. He
+would know how not to get lost, and how not to collide with either the
+sun or the moon. He would have the skill to avoid the shooting-stars
+which are as dangerous as stones thrown from a sling. He would find
+the way by the heavenly sign-posts on which were marked the number of
+miles that had been left behind, as well as the names of the celestial
+hamlets.
+
+The regions traversed by Rabbit and his companions were ravishing
+and filled them with ecstasy. This was all the more the case because
+contrary to man, they had never suspected the beauties of the sky;
+they had been able to look only sidewise and not upward, this being
+the exclusive right of the king of animals.
+
+So it came that Short-tail, the Wolf, the Ewe, the Lamb, the Birds,
+the Sheep-Dogs, the Spaniel, discovered that the sky was as beautiful
+as the earth. And all except Rabbit, who was sometimes troubled by
+the problems of direction, enjoyed an unalloyed pleasure in this
+pilgrimage toward God. In place of the heavenly fields, which only a
+short while ago seemed inaccessible above their heads, the earth now
+became in its turn slowly inaccessible beneath their feet. And as
+they moved further and further away from it, this earth became a new
+heavenly canopy for them. The blue of the oceans formed their clouds
+of foam, and the candles of the shops sprinkled like stars the expanse
+of the night.
+
+Gradually they approached the regions which Francis had promised them.
+Already the rose-red clovers of the setting suns and the luminous
+fruits of the darkness which were their food grew larger and fuller
+and melted in their souls into the sweets of paradise.
+
+The leaves and ardent pulp of the fruits filled their blood with some
+strange summer-like power, a palpitating joy which made their hearts
+beat faster as they came nearer and nearer the marvels that were to be
+theirs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At last they came to the abode of the beasts, who had attained eternal
+bliss. It was the first Paradise, that of the dogs.
+
+For some time already they had heard barking. Bending down toward the
+trunk of a decayed oak they saw a mastiff sitting in a hollow as in
+a niche. His disdainful and yet placid glance told them that his mind
+was disordered. It was the dog of Diogenes, to whom God had accorded
+solitude in this tub, hollowed out of a very tree itself. With
+indifference he watched the dogs with the spiked collars pass by.
+Then to their great astonishment he left his moss-grown kennel for
+a moment, and, since his leash had become undone, tied himself fast
+again using his mouth as aid. He reëntered his den of wood, and said:
+
+"_Here each one takes his pleasure where he finds it_."
+
+And, in fact, Rabbit and his companions saw dogs in quest of imaginary
+travelers who had lost their way. They dared descent into deep abysses
+to find those who had met with accident, bearing to them the bouillon,
+meat, and brandy contained in the small casks hanging from their
+collars.
+
+Others flung themselves into icy waters, always hoping, but always in
+vain, that they might rescue a shipwrecked sailor. When they regained
+the shore they were shivering, stunned, yet happy in their futile
+devotion, and ready to fling themselves in again.
+
+Others persistently begged for a couple of old bones at the thresholds
+of deserted cottages along the road, waiting for kicks, and their eyes
+were filled with an inexpressible melancholy.
+
+There was also a scissors-grinder's dog, who with tongue hanging out,
+was joyfully turning the wheel-work which made the stone revolve, even
+though no knife was held against it in the process of sharpening. But
+his eyes shone with the unquestioning faith in a duty fulfilled; he
+ceased not to labor except to catch his breath, and then he labored
+again.
+
+Then there was a sheep-dog, who, ever faithful, sought to bring back
+to a fold ewes that were evermore straying. He was pursuing them on
+the bank of a brook which gleamed on the edge of a grassy hill.
+
+From this green hill and from out of the under-woods a pack of hounds
+broke forth. They had hunted the hinds and gazelles of their dreams
+all the day long. Their baying which lingered about the ancient scents
+sounded like the happy bells on a flowery Easter morning.
+
+Not far from here the sheep-dogs and the little spaniel established
+their home. But when the latter wished to bid Rabbit a tender farewell
+she saw that Long-Ear had slipped away on hearing the dogs of the
+chase.
+
+And it was without him that the hawks, the owl, the doves, the wolf,
+and the ewes had to continue their flight or their progress. They
+understood very well that he, a rabbit of little faith, would not know
+how to die like them. Instead of being saved by God, he preferred to
+save himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The second Paradise was that of the birds. It lay in a fresh grove,
+and their songs flooded the leaves of the alders and made them
+tremble. And from the alders the songs flowed onward into the river
+which became so imbued with music that it played on the rushes.
+
+At a distance a hill stretched out; it was all covered with springtime
+and shade. Its sides were of incomparable softness. It was fragrant
+with solitude. The odor of nocturnal lilacs mingled with that which
+came from the heart of dark roses whence the hot white sun quenches
+its thirst.
+
+Now, suddenly, at intervals, the song of the nightingale was heard
+expanding; it was as if stars of crystal had fallen upon the waves
+and broken there. There was no other sound but the song of the
+nightingale. Over the whole expanse of the silent hill nothing was
+heard but the song of the nightingale. Night was merely the sobbing of
+the nightingale.
+
+Then in the groves dawn appeared, all rose-red because it was naked
+amid the choirs of birds who still sang from a full throat for their
+wings were heavy with love and morning dew. The quails in the grain
+were not yet calling. The tom-tits with their black heads made a noise
+in the thicket of fig-trees like the sound of pebbles moved by water.
+A wood-pecker rent the azure with its cry, and then flew toward the
+old, white-flowered apple-trees. It had almost the appearance of a
+handful of grass torn from the golden meadows with a clover-flower as
+its head.
+
+The three hawks and the owl entered into these places abounding in
+flowers, and not a single redbreast and not a single gold-finch and
+not a single linnet was frightened by them. The birds of prey sat on
+their perches with an arrogant and sad air, and kept their eyes fixed
+on the sun; now and then they beat their steely wings against their
+mottled, keel-like breasts.
+
+The owl sought out the shadows of the hill, so that hidden in some
+solitary cavern and happy in its darkness and wisdom, it might listen
+to the plaint of the nightingale.
+
+But the most wonderful shelter of all was that chosen by the doves.
+They sat among the olive-trees, that were stirred by the evening
+breeze. In this garden young girls dwelled, who were permitted to
+enter here because of their animal-like grace. They included all the
+young girls who sighed and were like to honey-suckle; all the young
+girls who languish with all the doves that weep. And all the doves
+were included here, those from Venice, whose wings were like cooling
+fans to the boredom of the wives of the doges, as well as those
+of Iberia whose lips had the orange and tobacco-yellow color of
+fisherwomen and their provocative allurement. Here were all the doves
+of dreams, and all the dreaming doves: the dove that drew Beatrice
+heavenward and to which Dante gave a grain of corn; and the one which
+the disenchanted Quitteria heard in the night. Here was the dove which
+sobbed on Virginia's shoulder, when during the night she sought
+in vain to calm the fires of her love in the spring underneath a
+cocoanut-palm. And here too was the dove to which the heavy-hearted
+maiden at the waning of summer, in the orchard among the ripening
+peaches, confides passionate messages that it may bear them along in
+its flight into the unknown.
+
+And there were the doves of old parsonages shrouded in roses, and
+those which Jocelyn with his incense-fragrant hand fed as he dreamed
+of Laurence. And there was the dove which is given to the dying little
+girl, and that which in certain regions is placed upon the burning
+brow of the sick, and the blinded dove whose voice is so filled
+with pain that it lures the flight of its passing sisters toward
+the huntsman's ambush, and the dove, the gentlest of all, who brings
+comfort to the forgotten old poet in his garret.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The third paradise was that of the sheep.
+
+It lay in the heart of an emerald valley watered by streams, and
+beneath their sun-bathed crystal the grass was of a marvelous green.
+And nearby was a lake, iridescent like mother-of-pearl and the
+feathers of a peacock; it was azure and glistened like mica, and
+seemed to be the breast of humming-birds and the wing of butterflies.
+Here after they had licked the pure white salt from the golden-grained
+granite, the sheep dreamed their long dream, and their tufts of thick
+wool overlapped like the leaves of great branches covered with snow.
+
+This landscape was so pure and of such dreamlike clarity that it had
+whitened the eye-lashes of the lambs, and had entered into their eyes
+of gold. And the atmosphere was so transparent that it seemed one
+could see in the depth of the water clearly revealed the outlines of
+the yellow-striped summits of limestone. Flowers of frost, of sky, and
+of blood were woven into the carpets of the forests of beech and fir.
+After having passed over them the breeze went forth again even more
+softly, more fragrant, more ice-like in its purity.
+
+Like a blue flood the marvelous cone-like trees, interwoven with
+silvery lichens, stretched upward. Waterfalls as if suspended from
+the rocky crags, scattered in a smoke-like spray. And suddenly the
+heavenly flocks sent forth their bleating toward God, and the ecstatic
+bells wept for the shadow of the ferns. And the dark water of the
+grottoes broke in the light.
+
+Lying amid the wild laurel the lamb of the Gospel became visible
+again. Its paw rested under its nose, and was still bleeding. The
+roads over which it had passed had been hard, but soon it would be
+fully restored by the slightly acid sweetness of the myrtles. Even now
+it was quivering as it listened to its scattered companions.
+
+On entering this Paradise to dwell therein the sheep of Francis saw
+the lamb of Jean de la Fontaine amid the forget-me-nots which were
+of the mirror-like color of the waves. It no longer disputed with
+the wolf of the fable. It drank, and the water did not become turbid
+thereat. The untamed spring over which the two hundred year old ivy
+seemed to have thrown a shadow of bitterness, streamed on amid
+the grass with its broken waves in which were mirrored the snowy
+tremblings of the lamb.
+
+And high on the slopes of the _happy valleys_ they saw the sheep of
+those heroes that Cervantes tells about, all of whom were sick at
+heart for the love of one and the same girl and left their city to
+lead the life of shepherds in a far-away country. These sheep had
+the gentlest of voices, like hearts that secretly love their own
+sufferings. They drank from the wild thyme the always new, burning
+tears which their bucolic poets had let fall like dew from the cups of
+their eyes.
+
+At the horizon of this Paradise there rose a confused murmur like
+that of the Ocean. It consisted of the broken sobbing of flutes
+or clarinets, of cries reechoed from the abysses, of the baying of
+restless dogs, and of the fall of a moss-covered stone into the
+void. It was the tumult of the waterfalls high above the noise of the
+torrents. It was like the voice of a people on the march toward the
+promised land, toward the grapes without name, toward the fiery spikes
+of grain; and mingled with this sound was the braying of pregnant
+she-asses, that were laden with heavy containers of milk and the
+mantles of the herdsmen and salt and cheeses which were brittle like
+chalk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fourth Paradise in its almost indescribable barrenness was that of
+the wolves.
+
+At the summit of a treeless mountain, in the desolation of the wind,
+beneath a penetrating fog, they felt the voluptuous joy of martyrdom.
+They sustained themselves with their hunger. They experienced a bitter
+joy in feeling that they were abandoned, that never for more than an
+instant--and then only under the greatest suffering--had they been
+able to renounce their lust for blood. They were the disinherited,
+possessed of the dream that could never be realized. For a long time
+they had not been able to approach the heavenly lambs whose white
+eyelashes winked in the green light. And as none of these animals ever
+died, they could no longer lie in wait for the body which the shepherd
+threw to the eternal laughter of the torrent.
+
+And the wolves were resigned. Their fur, bald as the rock, was
+pitiable. A sort of miserable grandeur reigned in this strange abode.
+One felt that this destitution was so tragic and so inexorable that
+one would have tenderly kissed the forehead of these poor flesh-eating
+beasts even had one surprised them in slaying the lambs. The beauty
+of this Paradise in which the friend of Francis now found his home was
+that of desolation and hopeless despair.
+
+And beyond this region the heaven of the beasts stretched on to
+infinity.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+
+As for Rabbit, he had prudently taken flight at sight of the heavenly
+pack of hounds. While Francis had remained near him he had trusted in
+Francis. But now, even though he was in the abode of the Blessed,
+his distrust which was as natural to him as to the suspicious peasant
+gained the upper hand again. And since he did not yet feel himself
+entirely at home in this Paradise, tasting neither perfect security,
+nor the thrill of familiar danger against which he could battle,
+Long-Ear became bewildered.
+
+Accordingly he strayed hither and thither, ill at ease, not knowing
+where he was, nor finding his way. He sought in vain for that from
+which he fled and that which fled from him. But what was the reason
+for this? Was not Heaven happiness? Was there any stillness that
+could be more still? In what other resting-place could Cleft-Lip have
+dreamed a sleep more undisturbed than on these beds of wool that the
+breeze spread beneath the flower-covered bushes of the stars?
+
+But he did not sleep here, because he missed his constant uneasiness
+and other things. Crouching in the ditches of Heaven he no longer
+had the feeling beneath the whiteness of his short tail of the chilly
+dampness penetrating through and through him. The mosquitoes, who had
+withdrawn to their own Paradise of shallow pools, no longer filled
+his always open eyelids with the sharp burning sensation of summer.
+He longed regretfully for this fever. His heart no longer beat as
+powerfully as it had beaten when on knolls in the flame-colored heath
+a shot scattered the earth like rain about him. Under the smooth
+caress of the lawn-like grass hair grew again on the callous parts
+of his paws where it had been so sparse. And he began to deplore the
+over-abundance of heaven. He was like the gardener who, having become
+king, was forced to put on sandals of purple, and longed regretfully
+for his wooden shoes heavy with clay and with poverty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And Francis in his Paradise heard of Rabbit's troubles and of his
+bewilderment. And the heart of Francis was grieved that one of his
+old companions was not happy. From that moment the streets of the
+celestial hamlet where he dwelled seemed less peaceful to him, the
+shadows of the evening less soft, less white the breath of the lilies,
+less hallowed the gleams of the carpenter's plane within the sheds,
+less bright the singing pitchers whose water radiated like fresh
+sheaves and fell cooling upon the flesh of the angels seated on the
+curb-stones of the wells.
+
+Therefore Francis set out on his way to find God, and He received him
+in His Garden at the close of day. This garden of God was the most
+humble but also the most beautiful. No one knew whence came the
+miracle of its beauty. Perhaps because there was nothing in it but
+love. Over the walls which the ages had filled with chinks dark lilacs
+spread. The stones were joyous to support the smiling mosses whose
+golden mouths were drinking at the shadowy heart of the violets.
+
+In a diffused light which was neither like that of the dawn nor
+like that of the twilight, for it was softer than either of these, a
+blue-flowered leek blossomed in the center of a garden-bed. A sort of
+mystery enveloped the blue globe of its inflorescence which remained
+motionless and closed on its tall stalk. One felt that this plant was
+dreaming. Of what? Perhaps of its soul's labor which sings on winter
+evenings in the pot where boils the soup of the poor. Oh divine
+destiny! Not far from the hedges of boxwood the lips of the lettuce
+radiated mute words while a low light clung about the shadow of the
+sleeping watering-pots. Their task was over.
+
+And full of trust and serenity, without pride or humility, a
+sage-plant let its insignificant odor rise toward God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Francis sat down beside God on a bench sheltered by an oak round which
+an ivy twined. And God said unto Francis:
+
+"I know what brings thee hither. It shall never be said that there was
+any one, whether maggot or rabbit, who was unable to find his Paradise
+here. Go therefore to thy fleet-footed friend, and ask him what it is
+that he desires. And as soon as he has told thee, I shall grant him
+his wish. If he did not understand how to die and to renounce the
+world like the others, it was surely because his heart clove too much
+to my Earth which, indeed, I love well. Because, Oh Francis, like this
+creature of the long ears I love the earth with a profound love.
+I love the earth of men, of beasts, of plants, and of stones. Oh
+Francis, go and find Rabbit, and tell him that I am his friend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And Francis set out toward the Paradise of beasts where none of the
+children of man except young girls had ever set their foot. There he
+met Rabbit who was disconsolately wandering about. But when Rabbit saw
+his old master approaching he experienced such joy that he crouched
+down with more fright in his eye than ever and with his nostrils
+quivering almost imperceptibly.
+
+"Greeting, my brother," said Francis, "I heard the sufferings of your
+heart, and I have come here to learn the reason for your sadness. Have
+you eaten too many bitter kernels of grain? Why have you not found
+the peace of the doves, and of the lambs which are also white...?
+Oh harvester of the second crop, for what do you search so restlessly
+here where there is no more restlessness, and where never more will
+you feel the hunting-dogs' breath on your poor skin?"
+
+"Oh my friend," answered he, "what am I seeking? I am seeking my
+God. As long as you were my God on earth I felt at peace. But in this
+Paradise where I have lost my way, because your presence is no longer
+with me, Oh divine brother of the beast, my soul feels suffocated for
+I do not find my God."
+
+"Do you think, then," said Francis, "that God abandons rabbits, and
+that they alone of the whole world have no title to Paradise?"
+
+"No," Rabbit replied, "I have given no thought to such things. I would
+have followed you because I came to know you as intimately as the
+earthly hedge on which the lambs hung the warm flakes of snow with
+which I used to line and keep warm my nest. Vainly I have sought
+throughout these heavenly meadows this God of whom you are speaking.
+But while my companions discovered Him at once and found their
+Paradise, I lost my way. From the day when you left us and from the
+instant that I gained Heaven, my childish and untamed heart has beaten
+with homesickness for the earth.
+
+"Oh Francis, Oh my friend, Oh you in whom alone I have faith, give
+back to me my earth. I feel that I am not at home here. Give back to
+me my furrows full of mud, give back to me my clayey paths. Give back
+to me my native valley where the horns of the hunters make the mists
+stir. Give back to me the wagon-track on the roadway from which I
+heard sound the packs of hounds with their hanging ears, like an
+angelus. Give back to me my timidity. Give back to me my fright. Give
+back to me the agitation that I felt when suddenly a shot swept the
+fragrant mint beneath my bounds, or when amid the bushes of wild
+quince my nose touched the cold copper of a snare. Give back to me the
+dawn upon the waters from which the skillful fisherman withdraws his
+lines heavy with eels. Give back to me the blue gleaning under the
+moon, and my timid and clandestine loves amid the wild sorrel, where
+I could no longer distinguish the rosy tongue of my beloved from the
+dew-laden petal of the eglantine which had fallen upon the grass. Give
+back to me my weakness, oh thou, my dear heart. And go, and say unto
+God, that I can no longer live with Him."
+
+"Oh Rabbit," Francis answered, "my friend, gentle and suspicious like
+a peasant, Oh Rabbit of little faith, you blaspheme. If you have not
+known how to find your God it is because in order to find this God,
+you would have had to die like your companions."
+
+"But if I die, what will become of me?" cried he with the hide of the
+color of stubble.
+
+And Francis said:
+
+"If you die you will become your Paradise."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus talking they reached the edge of the Paradise of beasts. There
+the Paradise of men began. Rabbit turned his head, and read at the top
+of a sign-post on a plate of blue cast-iron where an arrow indicated
+the direction
+
+Castétis to Balansun--5 M.
+
+The day was so hot that the letters of the inscription seemed to
+quiver in the dull light of summer. In the distance, on the road,
+there were clouds of dust, as in Blue Beard when Sister Anne is asked:
+"Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anything coming?" This pale
+dryness, how magnificent it was, and how filled it was with the bitter
+fragrance of mint.
+
+And Rabbit saw a horse and a covered cart approaching.
+
+It was a sorry nag and dragged a two-wheeled cart and was unable to
+move except in a jerky sort of gallop. Every leap made its disjointed
+skeleton quiver and jolted its harness and made its earth-colored
+mane fly in the air, shiny and greenish, like the beard of an ancient
+mariner. Wearily as though they were paving-stones the animal lifted
+its hoofs which were swollen like tumors....
+
+Then a doubt, stronger than all the doubts which hitherto had assailed
+the soul of Rabbit, pierced him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This doubt was a leaden grain of shot which had just passed through
+the nape of his neck behind his long ears into his brain. A veil of
+blood more beautiful than the glowing autumn floated before his eyes
+in which the shadows of eternity rose. He cried out. The fingers of
+a huntsman pinioned his throat, strangled him, suffocated him. His
+heart-beat grew weaker and weaker; this heart which used to flutter
+like the pale wild rose in the wind dissolving at the morning hour
+when the hedge softly caresses the lambs. An instant he remained
+motionless, hollow-flanked and drawn-out like Death itself in the
+grasp of his murderer. Then poor old Rabbit leaped up. He clawed in
+vain for the ground which he could no longer reach because the man did
+not let go of him. Rabbit passed away drop by drop.
+
+Suddenly his hair stood erect, and he became like unto the stubble of
+summer where he formerly dwelled beside his sister, the quail, and the
+poppy, his brother; and like unto the clayey earth which had wetted
+his beggar's paws; and like unto the gray-brown color with which
+September days clothe the hill whose shape he had assumed; like unto
+the rough cloth of Francis; like unto the wagon-track on the roadway
+from which he heard the packs of hounds with hanging ears, singing
+like the angelus; like unto the barren rock which the wild thyme
+loves. In his look where now floated a mist of bluish night there was
+something like unto the blessed meadow where the heart of his beloved
+awaited him at the heart of the wild sorrel. The tears which he shed
+were like unto the fountain of the seraphs at which sat the old fisher
+of eels repairing his lines. He was like unto life, like unto death,
+like unto himself, like unto his Paradise.
+
+
+END OF THE ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT
+
+
+
+
+
+TALES
+
+
+
+
+PARADISE
+
+
+The poet looked at his friends, his relatives, the priest, the doctor,
+and the little dog, who were in the room. Then he died. Some one wrote
+his name and age on a piece of paper. He was twenty-eight years.
+
+As they kissed his forehead his friends and relatives found that he
+was cold, but he could not feel their lips because he was in heaven.
+And he did not ask as he had done when he was on earth, whether heaven
+was like this or like that. Since he was there, he had no need of
+anything else.
+
+His mother and father, whether or not they had died before him, came
+to meet him. They did not weep any more than he, for the three had
+really never been separated.
+
+His mother said to him:
+
+"Put out the wine to cool, we are about to dine with the _Bon Dieu_
+under the green arbor of the Garden of Paradise."
+
+His father said to him:
+
+"Go down and cull of the fruits. There is none that is poisonous. The
+trees will offer them to you of their own accord, without sufferance
+either to their leaves or their branches, for they are inexhaustible."
+
+The poet was filled with joy in being able to obey his parents. When
+he had returned from the orchard and submerged the bottles of wine in
+the water, he saw his old dog. It too had died before him, and it came
+gently running toward him, wagging its tail. It licked his hands, and
+he patted it. Beside it were all the animals he had loved best while
+on earth: a little red cat, two little gray cats, two little white
+cats, a bullfinch, and two goldfish.
+
+Then he saw that the table was set and about it were seated the _Bon
+Dieu_, his father and mother, and a lovely young girl whom he had
+loved here-below on earth. She had followed him to heaven even though
+she was not dead.
+
+He saw that the Garden of Paradise was none other than that of his
+own birthplace here on earth, in the high reaches of the Pyrenees, all
+filled with lilies and pomegranates and cabbages.
+
+The _Bon Dieu_ had laid his hat and stick on the ground. He was garbed
+like the poor on the great highways, those who have only a morsel of
+bread in their wallet, and whom the magistrates arrest at the town
+gates, and throw into prison, since they know not how to write their
+name. His beard and hair were white like the great light of day, and
+his eyes profound and black like the night. He spoke, and his voice
+was very soft:
+
+"Let the angels come and minister unto us, for to serve is their
+happiness."
+
+Then from all corners of the heavenly orchard legions were seen to
+hasten. They were the faithful servitors who here on earth had loved
+the poet and his family. Old Jean was there, he who was drowned while
+saving a little boy, old Marie who had fallen dead under a sunstroke,
+and lame Pierre was there and Jeanne and still another Jeanne.
+
+Then the poet rose to do them honor, and said unto them:
+
+"Sit down in my place, it is meet that you should be near God."
+
+And God smiled because he knew in advance what their answer would be.
+
+"Our happiness is service. This puts us close to God. Do you not serve
+your father and mother? Do they not serve Him who serves us?"
+
+And suddenly he saw that the table had grown larger and that new
+guests were seated about it. They were the father and mother of his
+mother and father, and the generations that had gone before them.
+
+Evening fell. The older of the people slumbered. Love held the poet
+and his sweetheart. But God to whom they had done honor, took up his
+way again like the poor on the great highways, those who have only a
+morsel of bread in their wallet, and whom the magistrates arrest at
+the town gates, and throw into prison, since they know not how to
+write their name.
+
+
+
+
+CHARITY CHILDREN
+
+
+One day the souls of the charity children cried out to God. It was on
+a stormy evening when their fevers and wounds made them suffer more
+than ever. They lay white with grief in their rows of beds, above
+which ignoble science had hung the placards of their maladies.
+
+They were sad, very sad, for it was a day of festival. Their tiny arms
+were stretched out on the coverlets, and with their transparent hands
+they touched the meager toys that pious grand ladies had brought them.
+They did not even know what to do with these playthings. A President
+of the Republic had visited them, but they had not understood what it
+meant.
+
+Their souls cried out toward God. They said:
+
+"We are the daughters of misery, of scrofula, and of syphilis. We are
+the daughters of daughters of shame."
+
+"I," said one, "was dragged out of a cesspool where in her distraction
+my mother, the servant of an inn, had thrown me." Another said: "I
+was born of a child with an enormous head that had a red gap in the
+forehead. My father killed my mother, and he killed himself."
+
+Still others said:
+
+"We are the survivors of abortions and infanticides. Our mothers are
+on the lists. Our fathers, cigar in mouth, saunter smiling amid the
+tumult of business and the markets. We are born like kings with a
+crown on our heads, a crown of red rash."
+
+And God, hearing their cry, came down toward these souls. He entered
+the hospital of more than human sorrows. At his approach the fumes
+rose from the medicaments which the good sisters had prepared, as
+though from censers by the side of the child martyrs, who sat up in
+their narrow cots like white, weary flowers.
+
+The sovereign Master said to them:
+
+"Here I am. I heard your call, and am waiting to condemn those that
+caused you to be born. What torment do you implore for them?"
+
+Then the souls of the children sang like the bindweed of the hedges.
+
+They sang:
+
+"Glory to God! Glory to God! Pardon those who gave us birth. Lead us
+some day to Heaven by their side."
+
+
+
+
+THE PIPE
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a young man who had a new pipe. He was
+smoking peacefully in the shade of an arbor hung with blue grapes. His
+wife was young and pretty; she had rolled up her sleeves as far as her
+elbows and was drawing water from the well. The wooden bucket bounded
+against the edge, and shed tears like a rainbow. The young man was
+happy smoking his pipe, because he saw the birds flying hither and
+thither, because his dear old mother was still among the living,
+because his old father was hale, and because he loved with all his
+heart his young wife, and was proud of her lithesomeness and her firm
+and smooth breasts that were like two ripe apples.
+
+The young man, as I have said, was smoking a new pipe.
+
+His mother fell very ill. They had to operate, and it made her cry out
+aloud, until after thirty-four days of horrible suffering she died.
+His father, who was always so hale, was talking one day with a workman
+at the door of the little village church, which was undergoing repair,
+when a stone became detached from the arch and crushed his head.
+The devoted son wept for these, his best and oldest friends, and, at
+night, he sobbed in the arms of his pretty wife.
+
+The young man, as I have said, was smoking a new pipe.
+
+But I have forgotten to say that he had an old spaniel of whom he was
+very fond and whose name was Thomas.
+
+A very great illness had fallen on Thomas, since the good mother's
+and the good father's deaths. When he was called he could barely drag
+himself along by the paws of his fore-legs.
+
+One day a man of the world took residence in the little village where
+the young man was smoking a new pipe. He wore decorations and
+was distinguished and spoke with an agreeable accent. They became
+acquainted, and once, when the young man still smoking his new pipe
+entered his house unexpectedly, he found this fine fellow abed with
+his pretty wife whose firm and smooth breasts were like two ripe
+apples.
+
+The young man said nothing. He placed a poor old collar around the
+neck of Thomas, and with a line which his mother had once used to
+hang clothes upon, he dragged him along to a huge town, where the two
+dwelled together in sorrow and want.
+
+The young man had now become an old man, but he was still smoking his
+new pipe which too had become old.
+
+One evening Thomas died. People came from the police department, and
+carried off his carcass somewhere.
+
+The old man was now all alone with his old pipe. A great cold fell
+upon him and a terrible trembling. And he knew that his time had come,
+and that he never would be able to smoke again. So from the wretched
+bag which he once had brought with him from his home, he took a sad
+old hat, and in this he wrapped his pipe.
+
+Then he threw a cape, greenish with age, about his feverish shoulders,
+and dragged himself painfully to a little square near by, taking care
+that no policeman should see him. He knelt down, and dug in the earth
+with his finger nails, and devoutly buried his old pipe underneath a
+tuft of flowers. Then he returned to his dwelling-place and died.
+
+
+
+
+MAL DE VIVRE
+
+
+A poet, Laurent Laurini by name, was sick unto death with the illness,
+called weariness of life. It is a terrible malady, and those who have
+fallen prey to it are unable to look upon men, animals, and things
+without frightful suffering. Great scruples poison his heart.
+
+The poet went away from the town where he dwelled. He sought out the
+fields to gaze at the trees and the corn and the waters, to listen to
+the quails that sing like fountains and to the falling of the weavers'
+looms and the hum of the telegraph wires. These things and these
+sounds saddened him.
+
+The gentlest thoughts were bitterness to him. And when he picked a
+little flower in order to escape his terrible malady, he wept because
+he had plucked it.
+
+He entered a village on an evening sweet with the perfume of pears.
+It was a beautiful village like those he had often described in his
+books. There was a town square, a church, a cemetery, gardens, a
+smithy, and a dark inn. Blue smoke rose from it, and within was the
+sheen of glasses. There was also a stream which wound in and out under
+the wild nut-trees.
+
+The poet with his sick heart sat down mournfully on a stone. He was
+thinking of the torment he was enduring, of his old mother crying
+because of his absence, of the women who had deceived him, and he had
+homesickness for the time of his first communion.
+
+"My heart," he thought, "my sad heart cannot change."
+
+Suddenly he saw a young peasant-girl near by gathering her geese under
+the stars. She said to him:
+
+"Why do you weep?"
+
+He answered:
+
+"My soul was hurt in falling upon the earth. I cannot be cured because
+my heart is too heavy."
+
+"Will you have mine?" she said. "It is light. I will take yours and
+carry it easily. Am I not accustomed to burdens?"
+
+He gave her his heart and took hers. Immediately they smiled at each
+other and hand in hand they followed the pathway.
+
+The geese went in front of them like bits of the moon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She said to him:
+
+"I know that you are wise, and that I cannot know what you know. But
+I know that I love you. You are from elsewhere, and you must have been
+born in a wonderful cradle like that I once saw in a cart. It belonged
+to rich people. Your mother must speak beautifully. I love you. You
+must have loved women with very white faces, and I must seem ugly and
+black to you. I was not born in a wonderful cradle. I was born in the
+wheat of the fields at harvest time. They have told me this, and also
+that my mother and I and a little lamb to which a ewe had given
+birth on that same day were carried home on an ass. Rich people have
+horses."
+
+He said to her:
+
+"I know that you are simple, and that I cannot be like you. But I know
+that I love you. You are from here, and you must have been rocked in
+a basket placed on a black chair like that which I have seen in a
+picture. I love you. Your mother must spin linen. You must have danced
+under the trees with strong handsome laughing boys. I must seem sick
+and sad to you. I was not born in the fields at harvest time. We
+were born in a beautiful room, I and a little twin sister who died at
+birth. My mother was sick. Poor people are strong."
+
+Then they embraced more closely on the bed where they lay together.
+
+She said to him:
+
+"I have your heart."
+
+He said to her:
+
+"I have your heart."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They had a sweet little boy.
+
+And the poet, feeling that the illness which had so weighed upon him
+had fled, said to his wife:
+
+"My mother does not know what has become of me. My heart is wrung with
+that thought. Let me go to the town, my beloved, and tell her that I
+am happy and that I have a son."
+
+She smiled at him, knowing that his heart was hers, and said:
+
+"Go."
+
+And he went back by the way he had come.
+
+He was soon at the gates of the town in front of a magnificent
+residence. There was laughter and chatter within for they were giving
+a feast, one to which the poor were not invited. The poet recognized
+the house, as that of an old friend of his, a rich and celebrated
+artist. He stopped to listen to the conversation before the latticed
+gate of the park through which fountains and statues could be seen.
+He recognized the voice of a woman. She was beautiful, and once had
+broken his boyish heart. She was saying:
+
+"Do you remember the great poet, Laurent Laurini?...They say he has
+made a mésalliance, and has married a cowherd...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tears rose to his eyes, and he continued his way through the streets
+of the town until he came to the house where he was born. The
+paving-stones replied softly to the words of his tired steps. He
+pushed open his door and entered. And his old dog, faithful and gentle
+as ever, ran limpingly to meet him; it barked with joy, and licked his
+hand. He saw that since his departure the poor beast had had some sort
+of stroke or paralysis, for time and trouble afflict the bodies of
+animals as well.
+
+Laurent Laurini mounted the stairs, keeping close to the bannisters,
+and he was deeply moved, when he saw the old cat turn around, arch her
+back, raise her tail, and rub against the steps. On the landing the
+clock struck, as if in gratitude.
+
+He entered her room gently. He saw his mother on her knees praying.
+She was saying:
+
+"Dear God, I pray unto Thee, that my son may still be among the
+living. Oh my God, he has suffered much...Where is he? Forgive me
+for this that I have given him birth. Forgive him for this that he is
+causing me to die."
+
+Then he knelt down beside her, laying his young lips on her poor gray
+hair, and said:
+
+"Come with me. I am healed. I know a land where there are trees and
+corn and waters, where quails sing, where the looms of the weavers
+fall, where the telegraph wires hum, where a poor woman dwells who
+holds my heart, and where your grandson is playing."
+
+
+
+
+THE TRAMWAY
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a very industrious workman who had a good
+wife and a charming little daughter. They lived in a great city.
+
+It was the father's birthday and to celebrate it they bought beautiful
+white salad and a chicken made for roasting. Every one was happy that
+Sunday morning, even the little cat that looked slyly at the fowl,
+saying to herself: "I shall have good bones to pick."
+
+After they had eaten breakfast, the father said:
+
+"We are going to be extravagant for once, and ride in a tram to the
+suburbs."
+
+They went out.
+
+They had many times seen well-dressed men and beautiful ladies give a
+signal to the driver of the tram, who immediately stopped his horses
+to permit them to get on.
+
+The honest workman was carrying his little girl. His wife and he
+stopped at a street-corner.
+
+A tram, shiny with paint, came toward them, almost empty. And they
+felt a great joy when they thought of how they were going to enter it
+for four sous apiece. And the honest workman signaled to the conductor
+to stop the horses. But he seeing they were poor simple people looked
+at them disdainfully, and would not halt his vehicle.
+
+
+
+
+ABSENCE
+
+
+At eighteen Pierre left the home in the country where he had been
+born.
+
+At the very moment when he left, his old mother was ill in bed in
+the blue room, where there were the daguerreotype of his father and
+peacock-feathers in a vase and a clock representing Paul and Virginia.
+Its hands pointed to the hour of three.
+
+In the courtyard under the fig-tree his grandfather was resting.
+
+In the garden his fiancée stood among roses and gleaming pear-trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pierre went to earn his living in a country where there were negroes
+and parrots and india-rubber trees and molasses and fevers and snakes.
+
+He dwelled there thirty years.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the very moment when he returned to the home in the country where
+he had been born, the blue room had faded to white, his mother was
+reposing in the bosom of heaven, the picture of his father was no
+longer there, the peacock-feathers and the vase had disappeared. Some
+sort of object stood in the clock's place.
+
+In the courtyard under the fig-tree where his grandfather, who had
+long since died, had been accustomed to rest, there were broken plates
+and a poor sick chicken.
+
+In the garden of roses and gleaming pear-trees where his fiancée had
+stood, there was an old woman.
+
+The story does not tell who she was.
+
+
+
+
+THE HIGHWAY OF LIFE
+
+
+One day a poet sat down at a table to write a story. Not a single
+idea would come to him, but nevertheless he was happy, because the sun
+shone on a geranium on the window-sill, and because a gnat flew about
+in the blue of the open window.
+
+Suddenly his life appeared before him like a great white road. It
+began in a dark grove where there were laughing waters, and ended at a
+quiet grave overgrown with brambles, nettles, and soapwort.
+
+In the dark grove he found the guardian-angel of his childhood. He had
+the golden wings of a wasp, fair hair, and a face as calm as the water
+of a well on a summer's day.
+
+The guardian-angel said to the poet:
+
+"Do you remember when you were a child? You came here with your father
+and mother who were going fishing. The field near by was warm and
+covered with flowers and grasshoppers. The grasshoppers looked like
+broken blades of moving grass. Do you wish to see this place again, my
+friend?"
+
+The poet answered: "Yes."
+
+So they went together as far as the blue river over which there were
+the blue sky and the dark nut-trees.
+
+"Behold your childhood," said the angel.
+
+The poet looked at the water and wept and said:
+
+"I no longer see the reflection of the beloved faces of my mother and
+father. They used to sit on the bank. They were calm, good, and happy.
+I had on a white pinafore which was always getting dirty, and mamma
+cleaned it with her handkerchief. Dear angel, tell me what has become
+of the reflections of their beloved faces? I no longer see them. I no
+longer see them."
+
+At that moment a cluster of wild nuts dropped from a hazel-tree and
+floated down the stream of water.
+
+And the angel said to the poet:
+
+"The reflection of your father and mother went on with the stream of
+water like those nuts. For everything obeys the current, substance
+as well as shadow. The image of your beloved parents is merged in the
+water and what remains is called memory. Recollect and pray. And you
+will find the dearly loved images again."
+
+And as an azure kingfisher darted above the reeds, the poet cried:
+
+"Dear angel! Do I not see the color of my mother's eyes in the wings
+of that bird?"
+
+And the divine spirit answered:
+
+"It is as you have said. But look again."
+
+From the top of a tree where a turtle-dove had built her nest a downy
+white feather fell soaring and eddying to the water.
+
+And the poet cried:
+
+"Dear angel! Is not this white down, my mother's gentle purity?"
+
+And the divine spirit answered:
+
+"It is as you have said."
+
+A light breeze ruffled the water and made the leaves rustle.
+
+The poet asked:
+
+"Is not that the grave sweet voice of my father?"
+
+And the spirit answered:
+
+"It is as you have said."
+
+Then they walked along the road which left the grove and followed the
+river. And soon under the glare of the sun the road became white, very
+white. It was like the linen at Holy Communion. To the right and left
+hidden springs tinkled like pious bells. And the angel said:
+
+"Do you recognize this part of your life?"
+
+"This is the day of my first communion," answered the poet. "I
+remember the church and the happy faces of my mother and grandmother.
+I was happy and sad at the same time. With what fervor I knelt!
+Thrills ran through my hair. That evening at family supper they kissed
+me and said: 'He was the most beautiful.'"
+
+And in recalling this the poet burst into sobs. And as he wept he
+became as beautiful as on the day of the blessed ceremony. His tears
+flowed through his hands like holy water.
+
+And they went on along the road.
+
+The day waned a little. The supple poplars swayed gently along the
+ditches. At a distance one of them in the center of a field looked
+like a tall young girl. The sky tinted it so delicately that it was
+pale and blue like the temple of a virgin.
+
+And the poet dreamed of the first woman he had loved.
+
+And his guardian-angel said to him:
+
+"This love was so pure and so sad that it did not offend me."
+
+And as they walked along, the shade was sweet. Lambs passed by. And
+seeing the sadness of the poet the divine spirit had on his lips a
+smile, grave and gentle like that of a dying mother. And the trembling
+of his golden wings pursued the whispers of the evening.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soon the stars were lighted in the silence.
+
+And the sky resembled a father's bed surrounded by wax tapers and dumb
+sorrows. And the night seemed like a great widow kneeling upon the
+earth.
+
+"Do you recognize this?" asked the angel.
+
+The poet made no answer but knelt down.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Finally they reached the end of the road near the small quiet grave
+overgrown with brambles, nettles, and soapwort.
+
+And the angel said to the poet:
+
+"I wished to show you your way. Here you will sleep, not far from the
+waters. Every day they will bring you the image of your memories:
+the azure of the kingfisher like your mother's eyes, the down of the
+turtle-dove like her sweetness, the echo of the leaves like the grave
+calm voice of your father, the reflected brightness of the road white
+as your first communion, and the form of your beloved supple as a
+poplar.
+
+"At last the waters will bring you the great luminous Night."
+
+
+
+
+INTELLIGENCE
+
+
+One day the books which contained the wisdom of men disappeared by
+enchantment.
+
+Then the great scholars assembled: those who were engaged in
+mathematics, in physics, in chemistry, in astronomy, in poetry, in
+history, and in other arts and letters.
+
+They held counsel and said:
+
+"We are the custodians of human genius. We will recall the noblest
+inventions of the wisest of men and the greatest of poets and have
+them graven in immortal marble. They will represent only the supreme
+summits of achievement since the beginning of the world. Pascal shall
+be entitled to but one thought, Newton to but one star, Darwin to
+but one insect, Galileo to but one grain of dust, Tolstoi to but one
+charity, Heinrich Heine to but one verse, Shakespeare to but one cry,
+Wagner to but one note...."
+
+Then as the scholars summoned their thoughts to recall the
+masterpieces indispensable to the salvation of man, they realized with
+terror that their brains were void.
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO GREAT ACTRESSES
+
+
+I wish I could find new words to depict the gentleness of a little
+prostitute whom we met one evening in the center of a large, almost
+deserted square. The little prostitute was wearing wretched boots that
+were too large and soaked up the water. She had a parasol covered like
+an umbrella, and a little straw hat, the lining of which surely bore
+the words: _Dernière mode_.
+
+She had a weak little voice, and she was intelligent. She was
+recovering, as the expression goes, from pleurisy. Moreover, she had
+the air of being as frail morally as physically.
+
+I encountered her many times, after ten o'clock, when she was weary
+with seeking, often in vain, for any first-comer who would go with
+her.
+
+She sat down on a bench in the shadows, beside me, and rested her poor
+pale head against me.
+
+I knew that when she did this it was somewhat with the feeling of
+slight consolation, like that of a poor animal when it no longer feels
+itself abused. I was held by an infinite pity for this friend. I knew
+that she looked at her trade as an important task, however ungrateful
+it was. For a long time she waited thus for the train to the suburb
+where she lived.
+
+One evening she asked if she might go with me to the end of the
+street.
+
+We came to a great lighted square where there was a large theater. On
+one of the pillars of this edifice was a brilliant, gilded poster. It
+represented Sarah Bernhardt in the costume of Tosca, I believe. She
+wore a stiff rich robe and held a palm in her hand. And I called to
+mind the things I had been told of this famous woman: her caprices
+that were immediately obeyed, her extravagances, her coffin, her
+pride.
+
+I felt the poor little sufferer trembling at my side. She saw
+this barbarous idol rise up and throw unconsciously upon her the
+splattering flood of her golden ornaments.
+
+And I had a desire to cry out with grief at this meeting face to face
+of the two. And I said to myself:
+
+"They are both born of woman. One holds a palm, and the other an old
+umbrella so shabby that she does not dare to open it before me.
+
+"The one trails an admiring throng at her feet, and the other tatters
+of leather. The one sells her sorrow for the weight of gold and not
+a sob comes from her mouth that does not have the clinking sound of
+gold. Not a single sob of the other is heard."
+
+And something cried aloud within me:
+
+"The one is a human actress. She is applauded because she is of the
+same clay as those who listen to her. And they have need of the lie on
+which the most beautiful roles are builded.
+
+"But the other, she is an actress of God. She plays a part so great
+and so sorrowful that she has not found one man who understands her
+and who is rich enough to pay her.
+
+"And the great actress has never attained, even in her most beautiful
+roles, the true genius of sorrow which makes the little prostitute
+rest her forehead upon me."
+
+
+
+
+THE GOODNESS OF GOD
+
+
+She was a dainty and delicate little creature who worked in a shop.
+She was, perhaps, not very intelligent, but she had soft, black eyes.
+They looked at you a little sadly, and then drooped. You felt that
+she was affectionate and commonplace with that tender commonplaceness,
+which real poets understand, and which is the absence of hate.
+
+You knew that she was as simple as the modest room in which she lived
+alone with her little cat that some one had given her. Every morning
+before she went to the shop, she left for her a little bit of milk in
+a bowl.
+
+And like her gentle mistress the little cat had sad, kind eyes. She
+warmed herself on the window-sill in the sun beside a pot of basil.
+Sometimes she licked her little paw, and used it as a brush on the
+short fur of her head. Sometimes she played with a mouse.
+
+One day the cat and the mistress both found themselves pregnant,
+the one by a handsome fellow who deserted her, and the other by a
+beautiful tom-cat who also went his way.
+
+But there was this difference. The poor girl became ill, very ill,
+and passed her days sobbing. The little cat made for herself a kind of
+joyous cradling-place in the sun where it shone upon her white, drolly
+inflated abdomen.
+
+The cat's lover had come later than the girl's. So things happened
+that they were both confined at the same time.
+
+One day the little working-girl received a letter from the handsome
+fellow who had deserted her. He sent her twenty-five francs, and spoke
+of his generosity to her. She bought charcoal, a burner, and a sou's
+worth of matches. Then she killed herself.
+
+When she had entered heaven, which a young priest had at first tried
+to prevent, the dainty and delicate creature trembled because that she
+was pregnant and that the _Bon Dieu_ would condemn her.
+
+But the _Bon Dieu_ said to her:
+
+"My dear young friend, I have made ready for you a charming room. Go
+there for your confinement. Everything ends happily in heaven and you
+will not die. I love little children and suffer them to come unto me."
+
+And when she entered the little room which had been made ready for her
+in the great Hospital of Divine Mercy, she saw that God had arranged a
+surprise for her. There in a box lay the cat she loved, and there was
+also a pot of basil on the window-sill. She lay down.
+
+She had a pretty, little, golden-haired daughter, and the cat had four
+sweet, delightfully black kittens.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE NEGRESS
+
+
+Sometimes my imagination is fascinated by the yellowing of old ocean
+charts, and in my feverish brain I hear the roaring of monsoons.
+What then? Must I, in order to have an interest in this present life,
+exhume that which, perhaps, I led before my birth, between two black
+suns?
+
+It was a vague region, abounding in stars and in the diffused sobbing
+of an ocean. There was a scratching at my door, and I said, "Come in."
+
+A young negress in a loose blue loincloth, reaching halfway down her
+thighs, entered. She crouched down on the ground, and held out her
+thin clasped hands toward me. And I saw that her bare arms were
+covered with the blows of a lash.
+
+"Who did this to you, Assumption?" I asked.
+
+She did not answer, but all her limbs trembled, for she did not
+understand, and wondered, perhaps, whether I too was about to inflict
+some brutality upon her.
+
+Gently I removed her garment, and saw that her back also was wounded.
+I washed it. But she, frightened by such kindness, fled for refuge
+under the table of my cabin. My eyes filled with tears. I tried to
+call her back. But her glance, like that of a beaten dog, shrank from
+me. I had a few potatoes, and a little butter. I mashed them to a pulp
+with a wooden spoon, and placed it in a bowl at some distance from the
+crouching Assumption. Then I lighted my pipe.
+
+At the end of an hour the poor creature began to move. She put one arm
+forward, then the other, and then a knee. I thought she was directing
+her attention toward the food in order to eat. But to my astonishment,
+I saw her crawl on hands and knees toward a corner of the room, where
+I had left a few flowers lying. She rose up quickly, and with a sudden
+movement seized them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was perhaps a hundred and fifty years after this adventure
+occurred, that I met Assumption again. At least I was convinced that
+it was she. It was in Bordeaux at the _Restaurant du Pérou_. She
+was drying the glass of a gloomy student who had not found it clean
+enough.
+
+
+
+
+THE PARADISE OF BEASTS
+
+
+Once on a rainy midnight a poor old horse, harnessed to a cab, was
+drowsing in front of a dingy restaurant from whence came the laughter
+of women and young people.
+
+And the poor spiritless animal with drooping head and shaking limbs
+made a sorry spectacle, as he stood there waiting the pleasure of the
+roisterers, that would at last permit him to go home to his reeking
+stable.
+
+Half asleep, the horse heard the coarse jokes of these men and women.
+He had long since grown painfully accustomed to it. His poor brain
+understood that there was no difference between the monotonous
+unchanging screech of a turning wheel and the shrill voice of a
+prostitute.
+
+And this evening he dreamed vaguely of the time when he had been a
+little colt that had gamboled on a smooth field, quite pink amid the
+green grass, and how his mother had given him to suck.
+
+Suddenly he fell stone dead on the slippery pavement.
+
+He reached the gate of heaven. A great scholar, who was waiting for
+St. Peter to come and open the gate, said to the horse:
+
+"What are you doing here? You have no right to enter heaven. I have
+the right because I was born of a woman."
+
+And the poor horse answered:
+
+"My mother was a gentle mare. She died in her old age with her blood
+sucked out by leeches. I have come to ask the _Bon Dieu_ if she is
+here."
+
+Then the gate of Heaven was opened to the two who knocked upon it, and
+the Paradise of animals appeared.
+
+And the old horse recognized his mother, and she recognized him.
+
+She greeted him by neighing. And when they were both in the great
+heavenly meadow the horse was filled with joy in finding again his old
+companions in misery and in seeing them happy forever.
+
+There were some who had drawn stones along the slippery pavements of
+cities, and they had been beaten with whips, and had finally fallen
+under the weight of the wagons. There were some who with bandaged
+eyes had turned the merry-go-rounds ten hours a day. There were mares
+killed in bullfights before the eyes of young girls, who, rosy with
+joy, watched the intestines of these unhappy beasts sweep the hot sand
+of the arena. There were many more, and then still more.
+
+And they all grazed eternally in the great plain of divine
+tranquillity.
+
+Moreover, the other animals were happy here also.
+
+The cats, mysterious and delicate, did not even obey the _Bon Dieu_
+who smiled upon them. They played with the end of a string patting
+it lightly with an important air, out of which they made a sort of
+mystery.
+
+The good mother-dogs spent their time nursing their little ones. The
+fish swam about without fear of the fisherman. The birds flew without
+dread of the hunter. And everything was like this.
+
+There were no men in this Paradise.
+
+
+
+
+OF CHARITY TOWARD BEASTS
+
+
+There is in the look of beasts a profound light and gentle sorrow,
+which fills me with such understanding that my soul opens like a
+hospice to all the sorrows of animals.
+
+They are forever in my heart, as when I see a tired horse, his nose
+drooping to the ground, asleep in the nocturnal rain, before a café;
+or the agony of a cat crushed beneath a carriage; or a wounded sparrow
+who has found refuge in a hole in a wall. Were it not for the feeling
+that it is undignified for a man, I would kneel before such patience
+and such torments, for I seem to see a halo around the heads of these
+mournful creatures, a real halo, as large as the universe, placed
+there by God Himself.
+
+Yesterday I was at a fair, and watched the merry-go-round. There was
+an ass among the wooden animals. The sight of it almost made me weep,
+because I was reminded of those living martyrs, its brothers.
+
+I wanted to pray, and to say to it: "Little ass, you are my brother.
+They say that you are stupid, because you are incapable of doing evil.
+You go your slow pace, and seem to think as you walk: 'See! I cannot
+go any faster...The poor make use of me, because they need not give
+me much to eat.' Little ass, the goad pricks you. Then you go a little
+faster, but not a great deal. You cannot go very fast...Sometimes
+you fall. Then they beat you, and pull at the rein fastened to the bit
+in your mouth. They pull so hard that your lips are drawn back showing
+your poor, yellow teeth which browse on miseries."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the same fair I heard the shrilling of a bagpipe. F. asked me:
+"Doesn't it remind you of African music?"--"Yes," I answered, "at
+Touggart the bagpipes have the same nasal note. It must be an Arab
+who is playing."--"Let us go into the booth," he said...Dromedaries
+were on exhibition there.
+
+A dozen little camels, crowded like sardines in a can, were stupidly
+going round and round in a sort of trench. These creatures which I
+have seen in the Sahara undulant like waves with only God and Death
+surrounding them, I now saw here, Oh sorrow of my heart! They went
+round and round again in that narrow space. The anguish which passed
+from them to me filled me as with nausea toward man. They went on
+and on, always on, proud as poor swans, hallowed as it were by their
+desolation. They were covered with grotesque trappings, and the butt
+of dancing women. They raised their poor verminous necks toward God,
+and toward the miraculous leaves of some imaginary oasis.
+
+Ah! what a prostitution of God's creatures. Farther along there were
+rabbits in a cage. Then came goldfish, that were offered as prizes of
+a lottery. They swam about in blown glass bowls, the necks of which
+were so narrow that F. said to me: "How did they get in?"--"By
+squeezing them a little," I answered. Still farther on were living
+chickens, also lottery prizes, spun around in a whirligig. In the
+center a Tittle milk-fed pig, mad with fear, was crouching flat on his
+stomach.
+
+Hens and pullets, overcome by vertigo, squawked and pecked frantically
+at one another. My companion called my attention to dead, plucked
+chickens hanging beside their living sisters.
+
+My heart swells at these memories. An infinite pity overcomes me.
+
+Oh poet, receive these poor suffering beasts into your soul. Let them
+warm themselves, and live there in eternal joy.
+
+Preach the simple word which bestows kindness on the ignorant.
+
+
+
+
+OF THINGS*
+
+*Some of the instances here are purely imaginary. I invented them so
+that I might more deeply penetrate into the heart of these things.
+
+
+I enter a great square of stirring shadow. Here close beside a red and
+black candle a man is driving nails into a shoe. Two children stretch
+their hands toward the hearth. A blackbird sleeps in its wicker cage.
+Water is boiling in the smoky earthenware pot from which rises a
+disagreeable soupy smell which mingles with that of tanner's bark and
+leather. A crouching dog gazes fixedly into the coals.
+
+There is such an air of gentle peace about these souls and these
+obscure things that I do not ask whether they have any reason for
+being other than this very peace, nor whether I read a special charm
+into their humility.
+
+The God of the poor watches over them, the simple God in whom I
+believe. It is He who makes an ear of grain grow from a seed; it is
+He who separates water from earth, earth from air, air from fire, fire
+from night; it is He who blows the breath of life into the body; it
+is He who fashions the leaves one by one. We do not know how this is
+done, but we have faith in it as in the work of a perfect workman.
+
+I contemplate without desiring to understand, and thus God reveals
+Himself to me. In the house of this cobbler my eyes open as simply
+as those of his dog. Then _I see_, I see in truth that which few can
+see--the essence of things, as, for example, the devotion of the
+smoky flame without which the hammer of the workman could not be a
+bread-winner.
+
+Most of the time we regard things in a heedless fashion. But they are
+like us, sorrowful or happy. When I notice a diseased ear of wheat
+among healthy ears, and see the livid stain on its grains I have a
+quick intuitive understanding of the suffering of this particular
+thing. Within myself I feel the pain of those plant-cells; I realize
+their agony in growing in this infected spot without crushing one
+another. I am filled with a desire to tear up my handkerchief, and
+bandage this ear of wheat. But I feel that there is no remedy for a
+single ear of wheat, and that humanly it would be an act of folly
+to attempt this cure. Such things are not done, yet no one pays
+any special attention if I take care of a bird or a grasshopper.
+Nevertheless I am certain that these grains suffer, because I feel
+their suffering.
+
+A beautiful rose on the other hand imparts to me its joy in life. One
+feels that it is perfectly happy swaying on its stem, for does not
+everybody say simply, "It is a pity to cut it," and thus affirm and
+preserve the happiness of this flower?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I recall very distinctly the time when it was first revealed to me
+that things suffered. It happened when I was three years old. In my
+native hamlet a little boy, while playing, fell on a piece of broken
+glass, and died of the wound.
+
+A few days later I went to the child's home. His mother was crying
+in the kitchen. On the mantelpiece stood a poor little toy. I recall
+perfectly that it was a small tin or leaden horse, attached to a
+little tin barrel on wheels.
+
+His mother said to me: "That is my poor little Louis's wagon. He is
+dead. Would you like to have it?"
+
+Then a flood of tenderness filled my heart. I felt that this _thing_
+had lost its friend, its master, and that it was suffering. I accepted
+the plaything, and overcome with pity I sobbed as I carried it home.
+I recall very well that I was too young to realize either the death of
+the little boy or the sorrow of his mother. I pitied only that leaden
+animal which seemed heart-broken to me as it stood on the mantelpiece
+forever idle and bereaved of the master it loved. I remember all this
+as if it had happened yesterday, and I am sure that I had no desire
+to possess this toy for my own amusement. This is absolutely true, for
+when I came home, with my eyes full of tears, I confided the little
+horse and barrel to my mother. She has forgotten the whole incident.
+
+The belief that things are endowed with life exists among children,
+animals, and simple people.
+
+I have seen children attribute the characteristics of a living being
+to a piece of rough wood or to a stone. They brought it handfuls of
+grass, and were absolutely sure that the wood or stone had eaten it
+when, as a matter of fact, I had carried it off without their noticing
+it.
+
+Animals do not differentiate the quality of an action. I have seen
+cats scratch at something too hot for them for a long time. In this
+act on the part of the animal there is an idea of fighting something
+which can yield or perhaps die.
+
+I think it is only an education, born of false vanity, that has robbed
+man of such beliefs. I myself see no essential difference between the
+thought of a child who gives food to a piece of wood and the meaning
+of some of the libations in primitive religions. Do we not attribute
+to trees an attachment to us stronger than life itself when we believe
+that one planted on the birthday of a child that sickens and dies will
+wither and dry up at the same time?
+
+I have known things in pain. I have known some which are dead. The sad
+clothes of our departed wear out quickly. They are often impregnated
+with the same disease as those who wore them. They are one with them.
+
+I have often considered objects which were wasting away. Their
+disintegration is identical with our own. They have their decay, their
+ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses. A piece of furniture gnawed
+by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of
+a violin suddenly out of tune, such are the ills which move me.
+
+When we become attached to things why do we believe that love is in us
+alone, and afterwards regard it as something external to us? Who can
+prove that things are incapable of affection, or who can demonstrate
+their unconsciousness? Was not that sculptor right who was buried
+holding in his hand a lump of the same clay that had obeyed his dream?
+Did it not have the devotion of a faithful servant; did it not have a
+quality which we should admire all the more, because it had the virtue
+of devoting itself in silence, without selfish interest, and with the
+passiveness of faith?
+
+Is there not something sublime and radiant in the thing that acts
+toward man, even as man acts toward God? Does the poet know any more
+what impulse he obeys, than does the clay? From the moment when
+they have both proved their inspiration, I believe equally in their
+consciousness, and I love both with the same love.
+
+The sadness which disengages from things that have fallen into disuse
+is infinite. In the attic of this house whose inhabitants I did not
+know, a little girl's dress and her doll lie desolate. And here is an
+iron-pointed staff which once bit into the earth of the green
+hills, and a sunbonnet now barely visible in the dim light from the
+garret-window. They have been abandoned since many years, and I am
+wholly certain that they would be happy again to enjoy, the one the
+freshness of the moss, and the other the summer sky.
+
+Things tenderly cared for show their gratitude to us, and are ever
+ready to offer us their soul when once we have refreshed it. They are
+like those roses of the desert which expand infinitely when a little
+water brings back to their memory the azure of lost wells.
+
+In my modest drawing-room there is a child's chair. My father played
+with it during his passage from Guadeloupe to France when he was
+_seven_ years old. He remembered distinctly that he sat on it in the
+ship's saloon, and looked at pictures which the captain lent him. The
+island wood of which it was made must have been stout for it withstood
+the games of a little boy. The piece of furniture had drifted into my
+home, and slept there almost forgotten. Its soul too had been asleep
+for many long years, because the child who had cherished it was no
+more, and no other children had come to perch upon it like birds.
+
+But recently the house was made merry by my little niece who was just
+_seven_. On my work-table she had found an old book with plates of
+flowers. When I entered the room I found her sitting on the little
+chair in the lamplight, looking at the charming pictures, just as once
+a long time ago her grandfather had done. And I was deeply touched.
+And I said to myself that this little girl alone had been able to
+make live again the soul of the chair, and that the gentle soul of the
+chair had bewitched the candor of the child. There was between her and
+this object a mysterious affinity. The one could not help but go to
+the other, and it could be awakened by her alone.
+
+Things are gentle. They never do harm voluntarily. They are the
+sisters of the spirits. They protect us, and we let our thoughts rest
+upon them. Our thoughts need them for resting-places as perfumes need
+the flowers.
+
+The prisoner, whom no human soul can any longer console, must feel
+tenderly toward his pallet and his earthen jug. When everything has
+been refused him by his fellows his obscure bed gives him sleep and
+his jug quenches his thirst. And even if it separates him from all the
+world without, the very barrenness of his walls stands between him and
+his executioners. The child who has been punished loves the pillow on
+which he cries; for when every one of an evening has hurt and scolded
+him, he finds consolation in the soul of the silent down. It is like a
+friend who remains silent in order to calm a friend.
+
+But it is not only out of the silence of things that is born their
+sympathy for us. They have secret harmonies. Sometimes they weep in
+the forest which René fills with his tempestuous soul; and sometimes
+they sing on the lake where another poet dreams.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are hours and seasons when certain of these accords are most to
+the fore, when one hears best the thousand voices of things. Two or
+three times in my life I have been present at the awakening of this
+mysterious world. At the end of August toward midnight, when the day
+has been hot, an indistinct murmur rises about the kneeling villages.
+It is neither the sound of rivers, nor of springs, nor of the wind,
+nor of animals cropping the grass, nor of cattle rubbing their chains
+against the cribs, nor of uneasy watchdogs, nor of birds, nor of the
+falling of the looms of the weavers. The chords are as sweet to the
+ear, as the glow of dawn is sweet to the eye. There is stirring a
+boundless and peaceful world in which the blades of grass lean toward
+one another till morning, and the dew rustles imperceptibly, and the
+seeds at each moment's beat raise the whole surface of the plain.
+It is the soul alone which can apprehend these other souls, this
+flower-dust joy of the corollas, these calls, and these silences that
+create the divine Unknown. It is as if one were suddenly transported
+to a strange country where one is enchanted by langorous words, even
+though one does not understand very clearly their meaning.
+
+Nevertheless I penetrate more deeply into the meaning whispered
+by these things than into that hidden in an idiom with which I am
+unfamiliar. I feel that I understand and that it would not require a
+very great effort to translate the thought of these obscure souls, and
+to note in a concrete fashion some of their manifestations. Perhaps
+poetry sometimes actually does this. It has happened that mentally I
+have answered this indistinct murmur, just as I have succeeded by my
+silence in answering distinctly a sweetheart's questions.
+
+But this language of things is not wholly auditory. It is made up
+of other symbols also, which are faintly traced on our souls. The
+impression is still too faint, but, perhaps, it will be stronger when
+we are better prepared to receive God.
+
+It is objects which have been my consolation in the grievous events of
+my life. At such moments some thing will catch my eye particularly.
+I who know not how to make my soul bow before men have prostrated it
+before things. A radiance emanates from them which may be outside the
+memories that I attach to them, and it is like a thrill of love. I
+have felt them. I feel them now living around me. They are part of
+my obscure realm. I feel a responsibility toward them like that of an
+elder brother. At this instant while I am writing I feel the souls of
+these divine sisters leaning upon me with love and trust. This chair,
+this chest of drawers, this pen _exist_ as I do. They touch me, and
+I feel prostrated before them. I have their faith ... I have their
+faith, which is beyond all systems, beyond all explanations, beyond
+all intelligence. They give me a conviction such as no genius could
+give me. Every system is vain, every explanation erroneous, the moment
+I feel living in my heart the knowledge of these souls.
+
+When I entered this cobbler's home I knew at once that I was welcome.
+Without a word I sat down before the hearth near the children and the
+dog and I opened my soul to the thousand shadowy voices of things.
+
+In this communion the falling of a half charred twig, the grating of
+the poker with which the fire was stirred, the blow of the hammer,
+the flickering of the candle, the creak of the dog's collar, the
+round bulging spot of blackness which was the sleeping blackbird,
+the singing of the cover of the pot, all combined to form a sacred
+language easier for me to understand than the speech of most men.
+These noises and these colors are only the gestures and expressions
+of objects, just as the voice or the glance are among our means of
+expression and gesture.
+
+I felt that a brotherhood united me to these humble things, and I knew
+it was childish to classify the kingdoms of nature when there is but
+one kingdom of God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Can we say that things never exhibit to us manifestations of their
+sympathy? The tool grows rusty when it no longer serves the hand of
+the workman, even as the workman when he abandons the tool.
+
+I knew an old smith. He was gay in the time of his strength, and the
+sky entered his dark smithy through the radiant noondays. The joyous
+anvil answered the hammer. And the hammer was the heart of the anvil
+beating with the heart of the craftsman. When night fell the smithy
+was lighted by its single light, the glance of the eyes of the burning
+coal which flamed under the leather bellows. A divine love united the
+soul of this man to the soul of these things. And when on the Lord's
+days the smith retired into pious contemplation, the forge which had
+been cleaned the night before prayed also in silence.
+
+The smith was my friend. At his dim threshold I often questioned him,
+and the whole smithy always answered me. The sparks laughed in the
+coal, and syllables of metal fashioned a mysterious and profound
+language which moved me like the words of duty. And I experienced
+there almost the same feelings as in the home of the humble cobbler.
+
+One day the smith fell ill. His breath grew short, and I noticed that
+now when he pulled the chain of the bellows, formerly so powerful, it
+also gasped and gradually caught the sickness of its master. The man's
+heart beat with sudden jumps, and I heard plainly that the hammer
+struck the iron irregularly as he brandished it above the anvil. And
+in the same degree as the light in the eyes of the man faded, the
+flame of the hearth grew dim. In the evenings it wavered more and
+more, and there were long intervals when the light vanished on the
+walls and ceiling.
+
+One day while at work the man felt his extremities turn to ice. In the
+evening he died. I entered the smithy. It was cold as a body deprived
+of life. One small ember glowed alone under the chimney, humble
+and watching, like the praying women that I found later beside the
+death-bed.
+
+Three months later I went into the abandoned workshop to help evaluate
+his small amount of property. Everything was damp and black as in a
+vault. The leather of the bellows was filled with holes where it had
+rotted. When we tried to pull the chain it came loose from the wood.
+And the simple people who were making the appraisal with me declared:
+
+"This forge and these hammers are worn out. They ended their life with
+the master."
+
+Then I was _moved_, because I _understood_ the mysterious meaning of
+these words.
+
+
+
+
+TO STONES
+
+
+Brilliant sisters of the torrents that I find on the shore of the
+Alpine lake: you are the stones loved by the rainbow and the azure
+cold, on you falls the white salt which is licked up by the lambs, you
+are mirrors whose light is iridescent as the pigeon's breast, you
+have more eyes than the peacock, you are crystallized by fire and your
+veins of snow have become eternal, you have been the companions of
+primordial cataclysms, you were washed by the sea and then rocked by
+it until the dove from the ark cooed with love at sight of you....
+
+The gleaming grain of your flesh at times has the blue-veined
+whiteness of a child's wrist, at times it has the golden coppery hue
+of the thigh of a heavy and beautiful woman, sometimes it is silvered
+with mica like a cheek in the sunlight, sometimes it is brown like the
+complexion of those in whom the dead blondness of tobacco is blended
+with the gold of the mandarin orange.
+
+You are stones that have been broken by the heart of the torrent, you
+have been dashed against each other and have been tossed about amid
+the daphnes of the ravine, you have been whipped by hailstorms and
+tempest, buried under the avalanche, uncovered by the sun, loosened by
+the feet of the chamois, you are cold and beautiful but above all else
+you are pure.
+
+I know little of your sisters of the Indies: either of her whose
+transparency rivals water gushing from marble, or of her who makes
+me dream of the clear meadows of my native valley, or of her who is a
+drop of frozen blood, or of her who resembles the solid sun.
+
+I prefer you to them, even though you are less precious. Sometimes you
+support the beams of thatched roofs while you gaze at the star-dotted
+sky, sometimes it is on you that the sheep-dog stretches himself as he
+mournfully guards his flock.
+
+At the heart of the ether where you rest upon the summits may you
+continue to receive the nourishment with which your peaceful
+kingdom is endowed, may the light bathe your cells which are still
+unrecognized, may buoyant flakes and curves steep them, may they
+resound to the vibration of the winds, may they receive at last that
+harmonious manna which stilled the hunger of Mary Magdalene in the
+grotto.
+
+Around you will bloom your sweethearts, the purest flowers of the
+world, but they are already less chaste than you for they have a
+perfume of snow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Poor gray sisters of the brook that I find on the plain, you are
+tarnished stones, on you falls the shower of rain that the sparrow
+may drink, you are struck by the foot of the she-ass, you are the
+guardians that form the inclosures of miserable gardens, it is you who
+are the concave threshold and the stone at the edge of the well worn
+smooth by the chain of the bucket, you are servants, poor things
+become shiny like the blades of implements of husbandry, you are
+heated in the hearth of the poor to warm the feet of old women, you
+are hollowed out for mean needs and become the humble table for the
+dog and the sow, you are pierced so that the singing harvest may be
+ground beneath the millstone, you are cut, you are taken, you are
+tossed aside, on you the wanderer will sleep, Oh, you under whom I
+shall sleep....
+
+You have not guarded your independence like your alpine companions.
+But, Oh my friends, I do not despise you for that. You are beautiful
+like the things which are in the shadow.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+Then, behold me on my return to this old parlor where I look upon
+the least object with tenderness. This shawl belonged to my paternal
+grandmother whom I never knew and who rests amid flowers in a humble
+cemetery of the Antilles. May the humming-birds glitter and cry above
+her deserted grave, and the tobacco-plants with their rosy bells
+delight her memory ... I have never seen the portrait which represents
+her. But I know she had a reputation for goodness and beauty. I have
+read admirable letters that she wrote from there to my father when he
+was a child. He had been brought back to France to be educated here,
+and had remained here.
+
+How often have I dreamed of reviving this past. How beautiful it
+would be if God gave us, once a year, the festival of seeing our dear
+departed return. I love to imagine it as occurring on Twelfth Night
+during a season of snow. The modest dining-room would be opened at
+the stroke of eight, and seated about the enlarged table, adorned
+with Christmas roses, I would find all those for whom my soul mourns
+beneath the cheery light of the lamps.
+
+It seems to me that this meeting would be entirely natural with
+little of the uncanny, and not at all like a fairy tale. My paternal
+grandfather, the doctor of medicine who died at Guadeloupe, would
+occupy the place of honor, and about his shoulders would be a little
+traveling cloak on which grains of frost were shining. His steely blue
+eyes behind the enormous gold-rimmed spectacles, which he wore and
+which my mother uses to-day, would make him appear as he was, at the
+same time severe and good. In a grave and melodious voice he would
+speak of the Great Crossing, of the wind of the Eternal Ocean, of
+earthquakes in unexplored countries, of shipwrecked men whom he had
+saved.
+
+And all would listen; and, death being eternal, it would be wonderful
+to see each one again at the particular age which we with singular
+obstinacy always attribute to our dear departed.
+
+The cousins from Saint-Pierre-de-la-Martinique, there were four of
+them I believe, would not be more than eighteen years old, and would
+be dressed in white muslin gowns. They would laugh at some cake that
+had not come out right. And my great aunts who were Huguenots, rigid
+but happy, with long chains of gold about their necks, would interpret
+the revelations of the Prophets to one another. And five and seventy
+years would quaver in each of their cracked voices. And my maternal
+grandsire at nineteen, with the green coat of a romantic student, all....
+
+But the dream fades and the wind weeps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In moss full of sunshine and transparent as an alga or an emerald, I
+have covered the roots of these first daisies of January. They and the
+rare periwinkles and the furze are the only flowers of this season.
+It is too much love doubtless which fills them. They must be born in
+spite of the ice. The white little bands of their flower-heads are
+tinged with violet at the ends, and surround the flowers which are
+greenish yellow like the under side of an old mushroom. The muddy
+roots feel the plowed fields. I have been so cruel as to pluck these
+flowers and now they are wretched; they are as wounded as animals
+could be; and see how, slowly as if they were moved by a terrible
+fear, the petals of the flowers curve in to cover and protect the
+sheathes of the minute corollas that I can no longer see. Tenderly I
+try to raise these petals, but they resist me and I only succeed in
+murdering the plant. Fool! Why could I not let these flowers live
+on the edge of their ditch? There they would have felt the fresh
+shrivelling of drinking in the sun, a bird would have touched them
+lightly, the proboscis of the mosquitoes would have sucked up their
+pollen, and they would have died gently by the side of their friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The stars of winter are beautiful when they are dusted on the
+slate-colored sky, and when in the hazy blue depth they light up the
+shreds of clouds. I passed through the little town at six o'clock,
+when the candles behind the window-panes make square shadows move
+within the shops and shine upon the reddish mud of the pavements.
+A dog trots by sniffing under the doorways. A wagon whose oxen have
+slipped makes a grating noise. A lantern flickers, a voice is heard.
+The angles of the roofs are clear-cut. The rest is consumed by the
+darkness. Here and there, still, at great distances, a window of smoky
+rose, and I am at the top of the slope.
+
+At the left an enormous star trembles. It seems to breathe and its
+rays alternately elongate and withdraw again. Its white fire appears
+to flow. I look upon the constellations, behind which there are other
+spaces of constellations, which hide still more constellations, until
+the glance is lost in luminous embers like those of a hearth.
+
+I am in no wise troubled by these stars. I do not see in them worlds
+infinitely great or small according to the one with which we compare
+them. They are in my thoughts, such as I see them: the largest like
+hummingbirds the smallest like wasps. The space which separates them
+one from another does not seem any greater than the pace with which I
+measure the road. It is simply the sky of January above a little town.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A peasant-woman has sold me some mushrooms. They are very rare
+nowadays. Their odor captures me, and I dream of the edges of
+the meadows, of the elves who, according to Shakespeare, make the
+mushrooms grow beneath the spell of the moon. They have been moistened
+by the melting frost, and fine and long grasses have become attached
+to their humidity. They bear within them the quivering mist of the
+nights. The first, they came forth from the earth under their
+umbels of ivory to find out whether the feet of the hedge were still
+surrounded by moss. They must have been deceived. They could not have
+seen the periwinkles or the violets, but only the irritating and fine
+gray rain in the gray sky.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Often I have visualized Heaven for myself. That of my childhood was
+the hut an old man had built at the top of a climbing road. This hut
+was called _Paradise_. My father brought me there at the hour when the
+dark mist of the hills became gilded like a church. I expected, at the
+end of each walk, to find God seated in the sun which seemed to sleep
+at the summit of the stony pathway. Was I mistaken?
+
+It is less easy for me to imagine the Catholic Paradise: the harps of
+azure, the rosy snow of legions in the pure rainbows. I still cling
+to my first vision, but since I have known love I have added to the
+divine kingdom a warm, sloping lawn in front of the old man's hut. On
+it a young girl gathers herbs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have simultaneously the soul of a faun and the soul of an
+adolescent. And the emotion which I feel on looking upon a woman is
+quite contrary to that which I feel on gazing at a young girl. If one
+could make one's self understood by the aid of fruits and flowers,
+I would offer to the first burning peaches, the rosy blossoms of the
+belladonna, heavy roses; to the second, cherries, raspberries, the
+blossoms of the wild quince, eglantine, and honeysuckle. I find it
+difficult to have any feeling which is not accompanied by the image of
+a flower or a fruit. When I think of Martha, I dream of gentians.
+With Lucy I associate the white anemones of Japan, and with Marie the
+lilies of Solomon; with another a citron which should be transparent.
+
+To the first meeting that a sweetheart has granted me, I have brought
+a spray of gladiolus whose throats have the rosy hue of an apricot.
+We placed them on the window during the night when I forgot them to
+remember only my love. To-day I would forget my loved one, to recall
+only the gladiolus.
+
+My memory is therefore, if I may so express it, vegetal. Trees as well
+as flowers and fruits symbolize for me beings and emotions. Plants
+as well as animals and stones filled my childhood with a mysterious
+_charm_. When I was four years old I remained rapt in contemplation
+of the broken stones of the mountain, lying in heaps along the roads.
+When struck they gave forth fire in the twilight. When rubbed against
+one another they felt the burning heat. I gathered pieces of marble
+from among them which seemed heavy with a water they had concealed
+within themselves. The mica of the granite held my curiosity in a way
+which nothing could satisfy. I felt that there was something that no
+one could tell me--the life of the stones.
+
+At the same age I was scolded because I carried away the artificial
+beetles from a hat of my mother. I had the passion of collecting
+animals, I felt toward them so great a love that I wept if I thought
+them unhappy. And I still endure a deep anguish when I remember the
+little nightingales which some one gave me and which pined away in the
+dining-room. Still at the same age, in order to make me go to sleep,
+they had to place not far from me a bottle containing a tree-frog.
+I knew that here was a faithful friend who would protect me against
+robbers. The first time that I saw a stag-beetle, I was so overcome
+by the beauty of its horns that the longing to possess one became an
+actual torment.
+
+The passion for plants did not develop until later, about the age of
+nine years, and I did not really begin to understand their life until
+about the age of fifteen. I remember the circumstances under which it
+happened. It was in summer, one Thursday, on a scorching afternoon.
+I was passing through the botanical garden of a great city with my
+mother. A white sun, dense blue shadows, and perfumes so heavy that
+one could almost feel them cling, made of this half desert spot a
+kingdom whose portal I crossed at last.
+
+In the tepid and reddish-brown water of the ponds plants vegetated;
+some were leathery and gray, and others long, soft, and transparent.
+But from the very heart of these poor and sad algae there rose into
+the very blue of the sky itself, green lance-like stalks whose
+rose and white umbels challenged the ardent day with their grace;
+water-lilies slept on their leaves as in a trustful afternoon sleep.
+
+To the plants of the water, the plants of the earth answered. I recall
+an alley where students, a handkerchief about the neck, were as if
+buried beneath the beauty of the leaves. It was the alley of the
+_umbelliferae_. The fennel and the ferula raised their crowns upon
+their stems with glistening sheaths. The perfumes spoke to each other
+in the silence. And one felt that a silent understanding went from
+plant to plant, and that over this isolated realm there hovered
+something like resignation.
+
+Since then I have understood the flowers and that their _families_
+belonged together and have a natural affinity, and are not merely
+divided into classes as an aid to our slow memories. Toward what
+solution do these geometries in action, which are plants, progress?
+I do not know. But there is a fascinating mystery in considering that
+even as species correspond to certain geological periods and thus
+group their sympathies, even so to-day they group themselves according
+to the seasons. What correspondence is there between the character
+of the shivering and snowy liliaceous plants of winter and the
+purple solanaceous plants of autumn? And then there are still other
+delightful dispositions which are due far less to the artifice of
+man than to the consent of certain species to regard others as their
+friends and not to pine away beside them. How sweet is the village
+garden where the gleaming lily, like those gods who often visit the
+humble, lives amid the cabbages, the blue leek, and the scallions,
+which boil in the black pot of the poor! How I love the peasant
+gardens at noonday when the mournful blue shadow of the vegetables
+sleeps in the white squares of granular earth, when the cock calls
+the silence, and when the buzzard, slanting and wheeling, makes
+the scuttling hen cluck! There are the flowers of simple loves, the
+flowers of the young wife who will dry the blue lavender to scent
+her coarse sheets. And in this garden grows also the flower of the
+rondel--the humble gilliflower with its simple perfume. There is also
+the faithful box, each leaf of which is a small mirror of azure, and
+the hollyhock in which the sweet and pure flame of melancholy
+corollas burns; they are the flowers of religion vowed to silence and
+austerity.
+
+And I love also the flora of the meadows: the meadow-sweet swayed by
+the breezes, rocked by the murmur of the brook. Its perfumed crown is
+adorned like the water-beetles, more iridescent than the throats of
+humming-birds.
+
+It is the beloved of the greensward, the bride of the grassy borders.
+
+But it is in the deep recesses of old deserted parks that the plants
+are most mysterious. There dwell those which we call _old
+flowers_, such as the ground-lilac, the belladonna-amaryllis, the
+crown-imperial. Elsewhere they would die. Here they persist, guarded
+by the favor of the age-old trees, strange trees, the names of which
+have disappeared. And these affected and distinguished blossoms raise
+their swaying heads only when, murmuring across the liquadambars and
+the maples, the wind moans like Chateaubriand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The very mournfulness of the little town is pleasing to me; I love its
+streets of dark shops, the worn thresholds, and the gardens. In the
+fine season they seem to float against a background of blue mist which
+is a confusion of hollyhocks, glycins, trellises; or again they seem
+patchy as the skin of asses, with drying rags above the hedges
+of battered boxwood. The tanner's brook drifts by with the pale
+mother-of-pearl of the sky, and reflects sharply the rooftops amid the
+slimy plants; the mountain torrent, which hollows the rocks, gleams,
+twines and flows away.
+
+The little place is charming when the grasshopper shrills in the
+summer's elms and the autumn wind scours it, or when the rains streak
+it. There is a little public garden that Bernardin de Saint Pierre
+would have loved; in May the night there is dense, blue, and soft in
+the chestnut-trees.
+
+For years I have lived here, whence my grandfather and a great uncle
+departed toward the flower-covered Antilles. They listened to the
+roaring of the sea; robes of muslin glided upon the verandas, and they
+died perhaps looking back with regret on these streets, these shops,
+these thresholds, these gardens, this brook, and this mountain
+torrent.
+
+When I go to my little farm I say to myself that this is where they
+once were. They brought their luncheon in a little basket, and one of
+them carried a guitar. And young girls surely followed swiftly. Song
+stirred among the damp hedgerows. An unutterable love frightened the
+birds, the mulberries were green. They kept time as they walked. A
+young girl's cry stirred the air, a big hat turned the corner of the
+road, a clear laugh rose from the rain-torn eglantines; then hearts
+beat when, in the bright dog-days, the black barns softened the
+clucking of the hens under the scarlet sky of the south.
+
+...This guitar or another I heard in the courtyard of my Huguenot
+great-aunts, one summer's evening when I was four years old. The
+courtyard slept in the white twilight, the roofs shed an unimaginable
+tenderness upon the climbing rosebushes and the bright paving-stones.
+Some one sitting on a beam was making merry at the expense of my
+childhood and my white apron. My great uncle sang some melody from the
+capital. I can see him again, standing upright with his head thrown
+back. The air trembled softly. At the end of a roulade he made an
+exaggerated and charming bow.
+
+I bless you, oh humble town where I am not understood, where I shelter
+my pride, my suffering, and my joy, where I have hardly any other
+distraction than that of listening to the barking of my old dog and
+watching the faces of the poor. But I reach the hillside where the
+prickly furze is spread, and in musing upon my difficulties I am
+filled with a beneficent gentleness. To-day it is no longer the
+coarse and disdainful laugh of the public, nor the terrible doubt of
+everything, which disturbs me. The laugh of my detractors has grown
+wearied, and I have become indifferent to what I am. Yet I have become
+grave toward myself and others. It is with an apprehensive joy that I
+regard the heedlessness of the happy. I have learned what misery
+may spring from love, what blindness is born of a glance. And it is
+because of what I have suffered that I would bestow a sad and slow
+caress on those who have not yet known anything but happiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The open door, the blue sky, the watering of the grass and the
+gilliflowers, and the hyacinths, and a single bird which chirps, and
+my dogs stretched on the ground and the rosebushes with their thick
+stems, the verdure of the lilacs, and a clock that is striking, a wasp
+which flies straight and marks the meadow with the lines of its golden
+vibration, and stops, hesitates, sets off again, is silent and buzzes....
+
+Hearts and choirs of primroses in the moist, shadowy mosses of the
+woods; long threads of rose and blue dew floating and swinging and
+suspended--from what?--in the immaterial morning; tree-frogs with
+golden eye-lids and white throbbing throats; furze whose perfume of
+faded peach and rose follows along the roads, already torrid....
+
+Iris, cries of jays, turtledoves, mountains of blue snow which are
+rocks of azure, green fields laid out in squares, brook rolling
+a golden pebble in the silence; first foliage of the waters, icy
+trembling of the body beside the springs when the sun lies burning on
+your hands....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Slender alders; fiery marshes where toward noonday puffing out their
+throat, the hoarse gray frogs climb up on the coriaceous plants,
+while slowly from the deep of the shady and gilded mire rises a bubble....
+
+Dry and twisted vines; swarms of insects from the blossoms of rosy
+peach-trees, in slanting flight into the azure; pear-trees and roses
+of Bengal....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Setting of the cherry sun; nocturnal snow of a fruit-tree; green and
+transparent shadowing of the lanes; summit of little hills at seven
+o'clock where the trees are like sponges which little by little blend
+into the severity of the uniform curve which swells and rises sharply.
+
+Starless night; violet night in which the white sandals of a beloved
+pagan can hardly be distinguished, and dense bristling of slender, dry
+trees; pallor of a limestone slope, and water in which something casts
+two long and deep shadows....
+
+Night; fire; lines of shadow blended with shadows of lines; fire;
+humid thickness of fields; fire; crimsoning and reddening of clouds;
+poplars; whiteness which must be a village. Water again, water, and
+shadows of water....
+
+A wagon passes. The lantern lights up only the rear of the horse,
+all else is night. When I was a child it was this which astonished
+me--this light which was quenched again. Another wagon...One sees
+only the rosy bust of a girl. It slips into the night....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I return from a journey. The recollection of a maroon reflection of a
+boat in the canal, the color of gray fish, makes my memory quiver. I
+dream of white tulips.
+
+I have returned at night. The croaking of frogs has greeted me from
+the depths of the damp meadow. My heart, do not burst!... Do not burst
+like the lilacs of the flower-garden whose fragrance I alone have
+touched....
+
+Will hope be born again? I am afraid. Is this one more disillusion?
+
+The wasp has hummed. I love none but the violet lilacs, I love none
+but the blue violets. It is Sunday, and I hear in the depths of my
+soul the droning of the harmoniums of poor churches.
+
+My life, behold my life, ardent and sad like a flame which
+burns through too warm a summer night beside the open window. An
+imperceptible breeze has suddenly swelled out the curtain of muslin
+like my heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the garden the perfume of the lilacs suddenly make me feel ill
+because I am horribly sad.
+
+Nevertheless, lilacs, you are dear to me since childhood. Then I
+thought your clusters were the beautiful polished images of a box of
+toys.
+
+And you, oh lilacs, have also haunted an orchard which I knew well in
+my youth. In this orchard there were hedge-hogs. They glided along old
+beams. How innocent and gentle the hedge-hogs are in spite of their
+quills! I remember my emotion one winter's evening, when I found one
+of them at the threshold of the kitchen; it had taken flight from the
+snow, and was poking its little nose into the refuse left there....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I love the creatures of the night, the screech-owls with their
+graceful flight, the bats, the badgers, all the timid beasts which
+glide through the air or in the grass and of which we know so little.
+What festivals do they hold amid the plants, their sisters?
+
+At the hour when man is at rest, the rabbits, silvered by the dew,
+bound over the mint of the furrow and hold their conventicles; the
+frogs croak in the marsh and make it ripple; the glowworms filter
+their soft and humid yellow light; the mole bores the meadow; the
+nightingale sobs like a fountain; the owl utters sad laughter as if it
+too, however timidly, were trying to have a share in the joy of God.
+
+How I would like to be a creature of the night, a hare trembling in
+a hedge of hawthorn, a badger grazed by the leaves of the juicy green
+corn. My only care would have been to safeguard my physical being. I
+would not have loved. I would not have hoped.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12909 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #12909 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12909)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Romance of the Rabbit, by Francis Jammes,
+Edited by Gladys Edgerton, Translated by Gladys Edgerton
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Romance of the Rabbit
+
+Author: Francis Jammes
+
+Release Date: July 14, 2004  [eBook #12909]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Carla Kruger and Project Gutenberg Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT
+
+By
+
+FRANCIS JAMMES
+
+Authorized Translation from the French by Gladys Edgerton
+
+1920
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The simple and bucolic art of Francis Jammes has grown to maturity in
+the solitude of the little town of Orthez at the foot of the Pyrenees,
+far from the clamor and complexities of literary Paris. In the preface
+to an early work of his he has given the key of his artistic faith:
+"My God, You have called me among men. Behold I am here. I suffer and
+I love. I have spoken with the voice which you have given me. I have
+written with the words which You have taught my mother and my father
+and which they transmitted to me. I am passing along the road like a
+laden ass of which the children make mock and which lowers the head. I
+shall go where You wish, when You wish."
+
+And this is the way he has gone without faltering or ever turning
+aside to become identified with this school or that. It is this simple
+faith which has given to Francis Jammes his distinction and uniqueness
+among the poets of contemporary France, and won for him the admiration
+of all classes. There is probably no other French poet who can evoke
+so perfectly the spirit of the landscape of rural France. He delights
+to commune with the wild flowers, the crystal spring, and the friendly
+fire. Through his eyes we see the country of the singing harvest where
+the poplars sway beside the ditches and the fall of the looms of the
+weavers fills the silence. The poet apprehends in things a soul which
+others cannot perceive.
+
+His gift of sympathy with the poor and the simple is infinite. He
+is full of pity and tenderness and enfolds in his heart and in his
+poetry, saint and sinner, man and beast, all that which is animate
+and inanimate. He is passionately religious with a profound and humble
+faith, but it has nothing in common with the sumptuous and decorative
+neo-catholicism of men like Huysmans or Paul Claudel. Rather one must
+seek his origins in the child-like faith of Saint Francis of Assisi
+and the lyrical metaphysics of Pascal.
+
+Those of a higher sophistication and a greater worldliness may smile
+at the artlessness, and, if one will, naivété of a man like Jammes. It
+is true that his art is limited, and that if one reads too much at one
+time there is a note of monotony and a certain paucity of phrase, but
+who is the writer of whom this is not equally true? The quality of
+beauty, sincerity, and a large serenity are in his work, and how
+grateful are these permanencies amid the shrilling noises of the
+countless conflicting creeds and dogmas, and amid the poses and
+vanities which so fill the world of contemporary literature and art!
+
+As far as the record goes the outward life of Francis Jammes has been
+uneventful. In a remarkable poem, "A Francis Jammes," his friend and
+fellow-poet, Charles Guérin, has drawn an unforgetable picture of this
+Christian Virgil in his village home. The ivy clings about his house
+like a beard, and before it is a shadowy fire, ever young and fresh,
+like the poet's heart, in spite of wind and winters and sorrows. The
+low walls of the court are gilded with moss. From the window one sees
+the cottages and fields, the horizon and the snows.
+
+Jammes was born at Tournay in the department of Hautes Pyrénées on
+December 2, 1863, and spent most of his life in this region. He was
+educated at Pau and Bordeaux, and later spent a short time in a law
+office. Early in the nineties he wrote his first volumes, slender
+_plaquettes_ with the brief title "Vers." It is interesting that
+one of these was dedicated to that strange English genius, Hubert
+Crackanthorpe, the author of "Wreckage" and "Sentimental Studies."
+This dedication, and the curious orthography (the book was set up in a
+provincial printery) led a reviewer in the _Mercure de France_ into an
+amusing error, in that he suggested that the book had been written by
+an Englishman whose name, correctly spelled, should perhaps be Francis
+James.
+
+Since then his life has been wholly devoted to literature and he has
+published a considerable number of volumes of poetry and prose which
+by their very titles give a clue to the spirit pervading the author's
+work. Among the more important of these are: _De l'Angelus de
+l'Aube à l'Angelus du Soir, Le Deuil des Primevères, Pomme d'Anis
+ou l'Histoire d'une Jeune Fille Infirme, Clairières dans le Ciel_, a
+number of series of _Géorgiques Chrétienne_, etc.
+
+The present volume consists of a translation of _Le Roman du Lièvre_,
+one of the most delightful of Francis Jammes' earlier books. In it he
+tells of Rabbit's joys and fears, of his life on this earth, of the
+pilgrimage to paradise with St. Francis and his animal companions,
+and of his death. This book was published in 1903, and has run through
+many editions in France. A number of characteristic short tales and
+impressions of Jammes' same creative period have been added.
+
+To turn a work so delicate and full of elusiveness as Jammes' from one
+language into another is not an easy task, but it has been a labor of
+love. The translator hopes that she has accomplished this without too
+great a loss to the spirit of the original.
+
+G.E.
+
+
+
+
+ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+
+Amid the thyme and dew of Jean de la Fontaine Rabbit heard the hunt
+and clambered up the path of soft clay. He was afraid of his shadow,
+and the heather fled behind his swift course. Blue steeples rose from
+valley to valley as he descended and mounted again. His bounds curved
+the grass where hung the drops of dew, and he became brother to
+the larks in this swift flight. He flew over the county roads, and
+hesitated at a sign-board before he followed the country-road, which
+led from the blinding sunlight and the noise of the cross-roads and
+then lost itself in the dark, silent moss.
+
+That day he had almost run into the twelfth milestone between Castétis
+and Balansun, because his eyes in which fear dwells are set on the
+side of his head. Abruptly he stopped. His cleft upper lip trembled
+imperceptibly, and disclosed his long incisor teeth. Then his
+stubble-colored legs which were his traveling boots with their worn
+and broken claws extended. And he bounded over the hedge, rolled up
+like a ball, with his ears flat on his back.
+
+And again he climbed uphill for a considerable time, while the dogs,
+having lost his scent, were filled with disappointment, and then, he
+again ran downhill until he reached the road to Sauvejunte, where he
+saw a horse and a covered cart approaching. In the distance, on this
+road, there were clouds of dust as in Blue Beard when Sister Anne is
+asked: "Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anything coming?" This
+pale dryness, how magnificent it was, and how filled it was with the
+bitter fragrance of mint! It was not long before the horse stood in
+front of Rabbit.
+
+It was a sorry nag and dragged a two wheeled cart and was unable to
+move except in a jerky sort of gallop. Every leap made its disjointed
+skeleton quiver and jolted its harness and made its earth-colored
+mane fly in the air, shiny and greenish, like the beard of an ancient
+mariner. Wearily as though they were paving-stones the animal lifted
+its hoofs which were swollen like tumors. Rabbit was frightened by
+this great animated machine which moved with so loud a noise. He
+bounded away and continued his flight over the meadows, with his
+nose toward the Pyrenees, his tail toward the lowlands, his right eye
+toward the rising sun, his left toward the village of Mesplède.
+
+Finally he crouched down in the stubble, quite near a quail which
+was sleeping in the manner of chickens half-buried in the dust, and
+overcome by the heat was sweating off its fat through its feathers.
+
+The morning was sparkling in the south. The blue sky grew pale under
+the heat, and became pearl-gray. A hawk in seemingly effortless flight
+was soaring, and describing larger and larger circles as it rose. At
+a distance of several hundred yards lay the peacock-blue, shimmering
+surface of a river, and lazily carried onward the mirrored reflection
+of the alders; from their viscous leaves exuded a bitter perfume,
+and their intense blackness cut sharply the pale luminousness of
+the water. Near the dam fish glided past in swarms. An angelus beat
+against the torrid whiteness of a church-steeple with its blue wing,
+and Rabbit's noonday rest began.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stayed in this stubble until evening, motionless, only troubled
+somewhat by a cloud of mosquitoes quivering like a road in the sun.
+Then at dusk he made two bounds forward softly and two more to the
+left and to the right.
+
+It was the beginning of the night. He went forward toward the river
+where on the spindles of the reeds hung in the moonlight a weave of
+silver mists.
+
+Rabbit sat down in the midst of the blossoming grass. He was happy
+that at that hour all sounds were harmonious, and that one hardly knew
+whether the calls were those of quails or of crystal springs.
+
+Were all human beings dead? There was one watching at some distance;
+he was making movements above the water, and noiselessly withdrawing
+his dripping and shimmering net. But only the heart of the waters was
+troubled, Rabbit's remained calm.
+
+And, lo, between the angelicas something that looked like a ball bit
+by bit came into view. It was his best-beloved approaching. Rabbit ran
+toward her until they met deep in the blue aftercrop of grass. Their
+little noses touched. And for a moment in the midst of the wild
+sorrel, they exchanged kisses. They played. Then slowly, side by
+side, guided by hunger, they set out for a small farm lying low in the
+shadow. In the poor vegetable garden into which they penetrated there
+were crisp cabbages and spicy thyme. Nearby the stable was breathing;
+the pig protruded its mobile snout, sniffing, under the door of its
+sty.
+
+Thus the night passed in eating and amatory sport. Little by little
+the darkness stirred beneath the dawn. Shining spots appeared in the
+distance. Everything began to quiver. An absurd cock, perched on
+the chicken-house, rent the silence. He crowed as if possessed, and
+clapped applause for himself with the stumps of his wings.
+
+Rabbit and his wife went their separate ways at the threshold of the
+hedge of thorns and roses. Crystal-like, as it were, a village emerged
+from the mist, and in a field dogs with their tails as stiff as cables
+were busy trying to disentangle the loops so skillfully described by
+the charming couple amid the mint and blades of grass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rabbit took refuge in a marl-pit over which mulberries arched, and
+there he stayed crouching with his eyes wide-open until evening. Here
+he sat like a king beneath the ogive of the branches; a shower of rain
+had adorned them with pale-blue pearls. There he finally fell asleep.
+But his dream was unquiet, not like that which should come from the
+calm sleep of the sultry summer's afternoon. His was not the profound
+sleep of the lizard which hardly stirs when dreaming the dream of
+ancient walls; his was not the comfortable noonday sleep of the badger
+who sits in his dark earthen burrow and enjoys the coolness.
+
+The slightest sound spoke to him of danger, the danger that lies
+in all things whether they move or fall or strike. A shadow moved
+unexpectedly. Was it an enemy approaching? He knew that happiness can
+be found in a place of refuge only when everything remains exactly the
+same this moment, as it was the moment before. Hence came his love of
+order, that is to say his immobility.
+
+Why should a leaf stir on the eglantine in the blue calm of an idle
+day? When the shadows of a copse move so slowly, that it seems they
+are trying to stop the passage of the hours, why should they suddenly
+stir? Why was there this crowd of men who, not far from his retreat,
+were gathering the ears of maize in which the sun threaded pale
+beads of light? His eyelids had no lashes, and so could not bear
+the palpitating and dazzling light of noondays. And this alone was
+sufficient reason why he knew that danger lurked if he should approach
+those who unblinded could look into the white flames of husbandry.
+
+There was nothing outside to lure him before the time came when he
+would go out of his own accord. His wisdom was in harmony with things.
+His life was a work of music to him, and each discordant note warned
+him to be cautious. He did not confuse the voice of the pack of hounds
+with the distant sound of bells, or the gesture of a man with that of
+a waving tree, or the detonation of a gun with a clap of thunder, or
+the latter with the rumbling of carts, or the cry of the hawk with
+the steam-whistle of threshing-machines. Thus there was an entire
+language, whose words he knew to be his enemies.
+
+Who can say from what source Rabbit obtained this prudence and this
+wisdom? No one can explain these things, or tell whence or how they
+have come to him. Their origin is lost in the night of time where
+everything is all confused and one.
+
+Did he, perhaps, come out of Noah's ark on Mount Ararat at the time
+when the dove, which retains the sound of great waters in its cooing,
+brought the olive-branch, the sign that the great wave was subsiding?
+Or had he been created, such as he is, with his short tail, his
+stubbly hide, his cleft lip, his floppy ear, and his trodden-down
+heel? Did God, the Eternal, set him all ready-made beneath the laurels
+of Paradise?
+
+Lying crouched beneath a rosebush he had, perhaps, seen Eve, and
+watched her when she had wandered amid the irises, displaying the
+grace of her brown legs like a prancing young horse, and extending
+her golden breasts before the mystic pomegranates. Or was he at first
+nothing but an incandescent mist? Had he already lived in the heart
+of the porphyries? Had he, incombustible, escaped from their boiling
+lava, in order to inhabit each in turn the cell of granite and of
+the alga before he dared show his nose to the world? Did he owe his
+pitch-black eyes to the molten jet, his fur to the clayey ooze, his
+soft ears to the sea-wrack, his ardent blood to the liquid fire?
+
+...His origins mattered little to him at this moment; he was resting
+peacefully in his marl-pit. It was in a sultry August toward the end
+of a heavy afternoon. The sky was of the deep-blue color of a plum,
+puffed out here and there, as if ready to burst upon the plain.
+
+Soon the rain began to patter on the leaves of the brake. Faster and
+faster came the drumming of the long rods of rain. But Rabbit was not
+afraid, because the rain fell in accordance with a rhythm which was
+very familiar to him. And besides the rain did not strike him for it
+had not yet been able to pierce the thick vault of green above him. A
+single drop only fell to the bottom of the marl-pit, and splashed and
+always fell again at the same place.
+
+So there was nothing in this concert to trouble the heart of Rabbit.
+He was quite familiar with the song in which the tears of the rain
+form the strophes, and he knew that neither dog, nor man, nor fox, nor
+hawk had any part in it. The sky was like a harp on which the silver
+strings of the streaming rain were strung from above down to the
+earth. And down here below every single thing made this harp resound
+in its own peculiar fashion, and in turn it again took up its own
+melody. Under the green fingers of the leaves the crystal strings
+sounded faint and hollow. It was as though it were the voice of the
+soul of the mists.
+
+The clay under their touch sobbed like an adolescent girl into whom
+the south wind has long blown inquietude. There where the clay was
+thirstiest and driest was heard a continual sound as of drinking, the
+panting of burning lips which yielded to the fullness of the storm.
+
+The night which followed the storm was serene. The downfall of rain
+had almost evaporated. On the green meadow where Rabbit was in the
+habit of meeting his beloved, nothing was left of the storm, except
+ball-like masses of mist. It looked as though they were paradisiacal
+cotton-plants whose downy whiteness was bursting beneath the flood of
+moonlight. Along the steep banks of the river the thickets, heavy with
+rain, stood in rows like pilgrims bowed down under the weight of their
+wallets and leather-bottles. Peace reigned. It was as though an
+angel had rested his forehead in a hand. Dawn shivering with cold was
+awaiting her sister the day, and the bowed-down leaves of grass prayed
+to the dawn.
+
+And suddenly Rabbit crouching in the midst of his meadow saw a man
+approaching, and he wasn't in the least afraid of him. For the first
+time since the beginning of things, since man had set traps and
+snares the instinct of flight became extinguished in the timid soul of
+Rabbit.
+
+The man, who approached, was dressed like the trunk of a tree in
+winter when it is clothed in the rough fustian of moss. He wore a cowl
+on his head and sandals on his feet. He carried no stick. His hands
+were clasped inside the sleeves of his robe, and a cord served as
+girdle. He kept his bony face turned toward the moon, and the moon was
+less pale than it. One could clearly distinguish his eagle's nose and
+his deep eyes, which were like those of asses, and his black beard on
+which tufts of lamb's wool had been left by the thickets.
+
+Two doves accompanied him. They flitted from branch to branch in the
+sweetness of the night. The tender beat of their wings was like the
+fallen petals of a flower, and as if these were striving to re-unite
+again and expand once more into a blossom.
+
+Three poor dogs that wore spiked collars and wagged their tails
+preceded the man, and an ancient wolf was licking the hem of his
+garment. A ewe and her lamb, bleating, uncertain, and enraptured,
+pressed forward amid the crocuses and trod upon their emerald, while
+three hawks began to play with the two doves. A timid night-bird
+whistled with joy amid the acorns. Then it spread its wings and
+overtook the hawks and the doves, the lamb and the ewe, the dogs, the
+wolf, and the man.
+
+And the man approached Rabbit and said to him:
+
+"I am Francis. I love thee and I greet thee, Oh thou, my brother. I
+greet thee in the name of the sky which mirrors the waters and the
+sparkling stones, in the name of the wild sorrel, the bark of the
+trees and the seeds which are thy sustenance. Come with these sinless
+ones who accompany me and cling to my foot-steps with the faith of the
+ivy which clasps the tree without considering that soon, perhaps, the
+woodcutter will come. Oh Rabbit, I bring to thee the Faith which we
+share one in another, the Faith which is life itself, all that of
+which we are ignorant, but in which we nevertheless believe. Oh dear
+and kindly Rabbit, thou gentle wanderer, wilt thou follow our Faith?"
+
+And while Francis was speaking the beasts remained quite silent; they
+lay flat on the ground or perched in the twigs, and had complete faith
+in these words which they did not understand.
+
+Rabbit alone, his eyes wide-open, now seemed uneasy because of the
+sound of this voice. He stood with one ear forward and the other back
+as if uncertain whether to take flight or whether to stay.
+
+When Francis saw this he gathered a handful of grass from the meadow,
+and held it out to Rabbit, and now he followed him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From that night they remained together.
+
+No one could harm them, because their Faith protected them. Whenever
+Francis and his friends stopped in a village square where people were
+dancing to the drone of a bagpipe at the evening hour when the young
+elms were softly shading into the night and the girls were gaily
+raising their glasses to the evening wind at the dark tables before
+the inns, a circle formed about them. And the young men with their
+bows or cross-bows never dreamed of killing Rabbit. His tranquil
+manner so astounded them, that they would have deemed it a barbarous
+deed had they abused the faith of this poor creature, which he so
+trustfully placed beneath their very feet. They thought Francis was a
+man skilled in the taming of animals, and sometimes they opened their
+barns to him for the night, and gave him alms with which he bought
+food for his creatures, for each one that which it liked best.
+
+And besides they easily found enough to live on, for the autumn
+through which they were wending was generous and the granaries were
+bulging. They were allowed to glean in the fields of maize and to have
+a share in the vintage and the songs which rose in the setting sun.
+Fair-haired girls held the grapes against their luminous breasts.
+Their raised elbows gleamed. Above the blue shadows of the chestnut
+trees shooting stars glided peacefully. The velvet of the heather was
+growing thicker. The sighing of dresses could be heard in the depth of
+the avenues.
+
+They saw the sea before them, hung in space, and the sloping sails,
+and white sands flecked by the shadows of tamarisks, strawberry-trees,
+and pines. They passed through laughing meadows, where the mountain
+torrent, born of the pure whiteness of the snows, had become a brook,
+but still glistened, filled with memories of the shimmering antimony
+and glaciers.
+
+Even when the hunting-horn sounded Rabbit remained quite without fear
+among his companions. They watched over him and he watched over them.
+One day a pack of hounds drew near to him, but fled again when they
+saw the wolf. Another time a cat crept close to the doves, but took
+flight before the three dogs with their spiked collars, and a ferret
+who lay in wait for the lamb had to seek a hiding-place from the birds
+of prey. Rabbit, himself, frightened away the swallows who attacked
+the owl.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rabbit became specially attached to one of the three dogs with spiked
+collars. She was a spaniel, of kind disposition, and compact build.
+She had a stubby tail, pendant ears, and twisted paws. She was easy to
+get on with and polite. She had been born in a pig-pen at a cobbler's
+who went hunting on Sundays. When her master died, and no one wanted
+to give her shelter, she ran about in the fields where she met
+Francis.
+
+Rabbit always walked by her side, and when she slept her muzzle lay
+upon him and he too fell asleep. All of them always had their noonday
+sleep, and under the dull fire of the sun it was filled with dreams.
+
+Then Francis saw again the Paradise from which he had come. It seemed
+to him as if he were passing through the great open gate into the
+wonderful street on which stood the houses of the Elect. They were low
+huts, each like the other, in a luminous shadow which caused tears
+of joy to rise in the eyes. From the interior of these huts might be
+caught the gleam of a carpenter's plane, a hammer, or a file. The work
+that is sublime continues here; for, when God asked those who had come
+to him what reward they desired for their work on earth, they always
+wished to go on with that which had helped them to gain Heaven.
+And then suddenly their humble crafts became filled with a sort of
+mystery. Artisans appeared at their thresholds where tables were set
+for the evening meal. One heard the cheery burble of celestial wells.
+And in the open squares angels that had a semblance to fishing-boats,
+bowed down in the blessedness of the twilight.
+
+But the animals in their dreams saw neither the earth nor Paradise as
+we know them and see them. They dreamed of endless plains where their
+senses became confused. It was like a dense fog in them. To Rabbit the
+baying of the hounds became all blended into one thing with the heat
+of the sun, sharp detonations, the feeling of wet paws, the vertigo
+of flight, with fright, with the smell of the clay, and the sparkle
+of the brook, with the waving to and fro of wild carrots and the
+crackling of maize, with the moonshine and the joyous emotion of
+seeing his mate appearing amid the fragrant meadow-sweet.
+
+Behind their closed eyelids they all saw moving like mirrored
+reflections the courses of their lives. The doves, however, protected
+their nimble and restless, little heads from the sun; they sought for
+their Paradise beneath the shadow of their wings.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+
+When winter came Francis said to his friends:
+
+"Blessings upon you for you are of God. But in my heart I am uneasy
+for the cry of the geese that are flying southward tells that a famine
+is near at hand, and that it is not in the purposes of Heaven to make
+the earth kind for you. Praised be the hidden designs of the Lord!"
+
+The country around them, in fact, became a barren waste. The sky let
+drip a yellow light from its sack-like clouds bulging with snow. All
+the fruits of the hedges had withered, and all those of the orchards
+were dead. And the seeds had left their husks to enter into the bosom
+of the earth.
+
+..."Praised be the hidden designs of the Lord," said Francis.
+"Perhaps it is His wish that you leave me, and each of you go your own
+way in quest of nourishment. Therefore separate from me since I cannot
+go with each one of you, if your instincts lead you to different
+lands. For you are living and have need of nourishment, while I am
+risen from the dead and am here by the grace of God, free from all
+corporeal needs, a spirit as it were who had the privilege of guiding
+you to this day. But whatever knowledge I have is growing less, and
+I no longer know how to provide for you. If you wish to leave me, let
+the tongue of each be loosed, and freely let each speak."
+
+The first to speak was the Wolf.
+
+He raised his muzzle toward Francis. His shaggy tail was swept by the
+wind. He coughed. Misery had long been his garb. His wretched fur made
+him seem like a dethroned king. He hesitated, and cast his eye upon
+each one of his companions in turn. At last his voice came from his
+throat, hoarse like that of the eternal snow. And when he opened his
+jaws one could measure his endless privations by the length of his
+teeth. And his expression was so wild that one could not tell whether
+he was about to bite his master or to caress him.
+
+He said:
+
+"Oh honey without sting! Oh brother of the poor! Oh Son of God! How
+could even I leave you? My life was evil, and you have filled it with
+joy. During the nights it was my fate to lie in wait listening to
+the breath of the dogs, the herdsmen, and the fires, until the right
+moment came to bury my fangs in the throat of sleeping lambs. You
+taught me, Oh Blessed One, the sweetness of orchards. And even at this
+moment when my belly was hollow with hunger for flesh, it was your
+love for me that nourished me. Often, indeed, my hunger has been a
+joy to me when I could place my head on your sandal for I suffer this
+hunger that I may follow you, and gladly I would die for your love."
+
+And the doves cooed.
+
+They stopped in their shivering flight together among the branches
+of a barren tree. They could not make up their minds to speak. Each
+moment it seemed as though they were about to begin, when in sudden
+fright they again filled the listening forest with their sobbing white
+caresses. They trembled like young girls who mingle their tears and
+their arms. They spoke together as if they had but a single voice:
+
+"Oh Francis, you are more lovely than the light of the glow-worm
+gleaming in the moss, gentler than the brook which sings to us while
+we hang our warm nest in the fragrant shade of the young poplars. What
+matter that the hoarfrost and famine would banish us from your side
+and drive us far away to more fruitful lands? For your sake we will
+love hoarfrost and famine. For the sake of your love we will give up
+the things we crave. And if we must die of the cold, Oh our Master, it
+will be with heart against heart."
+
+And one of the dogs with the spiked collars advanced. It was the
+spaniel, Rabbit's friend. Like the wolf she had already suffered
+bitterly with hunger and her teeth chattered. Her ears were wrinkled
+even when she raised them, and her straggly tail which looked like
+tufts of cotton she held out rigid and motionless. Her eyes of the
+color of yellow raspberries were fixed on Francis with the ardor of
+absolute Faith. And her two companions, who trustfully were getting
+ready to listen to her, lowered their heads in sign of their ignorance
+and goodwill. They were shepherd dogs, who had never heard anything
+but the sob of the sheep-bells, the bleating of the flocks and the
+lash-like crack of the lightning on the summits, and, proud and happy,
+they waited while the little spaniel bore witness.
+
+She took a step forward. But not a sound came from her throat. She
+licked the hand of Francis, and then lay down at his feet.
+
+And the ewe bleated.
+
+Her bleats were so full of sadness that it seemed as if she were
+already exhaling her soul toward death at the very thought of leaving
+Francis. As she stood there in silence, her lamb, seized by some
+strange melancholy, was suddenly heard, crying like a child.
+
+And the ewe spoke:
+
+"Neither the placidity of grassy meadows toned down by the mists of
+the dawn, nor the sweet woods of the mountains dotted by the fog
+with the pearls of its silvery sweat, nor the beds of straw of the
+smoke-filled cabins, are in any way comparable to the pasture-grounds
+of your heart. Rather than leave you we should prefer the bloody and
+loathful slaughter-house, and the rocking of the cart on which we are
+carried thither with our legs tied and our flanks and cheeks on the
+boards. Oh Francis, it would be like unto death to us to lose you, for
+we love you."
+
+And while the sheep spoke the owl and the hawks, perched near one
+another, remained motionless, their eyes full of anguish and their
+wings pressed close to their sides lest they fly away.
+
+The last one to speak was Rabbit.
+
+Clothed in his fur of the color of stubble and earth he seemed like a
+god of the fields. In the midst of the wintry waste he was like a clod
+of earth of the summer time. He made one think of a road-mender or
+a rural postman. Tucked up in the windings of his flapping ears he
+carried with himself the agitation of all sounds. One of the ears,
+extended toward the ground, listened to the crackling of the frost,
+while the other, open to the distance, gathered in the blows of an axe
+with which the dead forest resounded.
+
+"Surely, Oh Francis," he said, "I can be satisfied with the mossgrown
+bark which has grown tender beneath the caress of the snows and which
+wintry dawns have made fragrant. More than once have I satisfied
+my hunger with it during these disastrous days when the briars have
+turned into rose-colored crystals, and when the agile wagtail utters
+its shrill cry toward the larvae which its beak can no longer reach
+beneath the ice along the banks. I shall continue to gnaw these barks.
+For, Oh Francis, I do not wish to die with these gentle friends who
+are in their agony, but rather I wish to live beside you and obtain my
+sustenance from the bitter fiber of the trees."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Therefore because the country of each of them was a different land
+where each could dwell only by himself, Rabbit's companions chose not
+to separate, but to die together in this land harrowed by winter.
+
+One evening the doves which had become like dead leaves fell from the
+branch on which they were perched, and the wolf closed his eyes on
+life, his muzzle resting on the sandal of Francis. For two days his
+neck had been so weak that it could no longer support his head, and
+his spine had become like the branch of a bramble bespattered with
+mud, shivering in the wind. His master kissed him on the forehead.
+
+Then the lamb, the sheep-dogs, the hawks, the owl, and the ewe gave up
+their souls, and finally also the little spaniel whom Rabbit in vain
+had sought to keep warm. She passed away wagging her tail, and
+it grieved stubble-colored Rabbit so much that it took until the
+following day before he could touch the bark of the oaks again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And in the midst of the world's desolation Francis prayed, his
+forehead on his clenched hand, just as in an excess of sorrow a poet
+feels his soul escaping him once more.
+
+Then he addressed him of the cleft lip.
+
+"Oh Rabbit, I hear a voice which tells me that you must lead these
+(and he pointed to the bodies of the animals) to Eternal Blessedness.
+Oh Rabbit, there is a Paradise for beasts, but I know it not. No man
+will ever enter it. Oh Rabbit, you must guide thither these friends,
+whom God has given me and whom he has taken away. You are wise among
+all, and to your prudence I commit these friends."
+
+The words of Francis rose toward the brightening sky. The hard azure
+of winter gradually became limpid. And under this returning gladness,
+it seemed as if the graceful spaniel were about to raise her supple,
+silken ears again. "Oh my friends who are dead," said Francis, "are
+you really dead, since I alone am conscious of your death? What proof
+can you give to sleep that you are not merely slumbering? Is the fruit
+of the clematis asleep or is it dead when the wind no longer ruffles
+the lightness of its tendrils? Perhaps, Oh wolf, it is merely that
+there is no longer sufficient breath from on high for you to raise
+your flanks; and for you, doves, to make you expand like a sigh;
+and for you, sheep, to cause your lamentations by their sweetness to
+augment even the sweetness of flooded pastures; and for you, owl, to
+reawaken your sobbing, the plaint of the amorous night itself; and for
+you, hawks, to rise soaring from the earth; and for you, sheep-dogs,
+to have your barking mingle once more with the sound of the sluices;
+and for you, spaniel, to have exquisite understanding born again, that
+you may play with Rabbit again?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly Rabbit made a leap into the azure from the molehill where
+he had lain down, and did not drop back. And lightly as if he were
+passing over a meadow of blue clover he made a second bound into
+space, into the realm of the angels.
+
+He had hardly completed this second leap when he saw the little
+spaniel by his side, and joyously he asked her:
+
+"Aren't you really dead, then?"
+
+And skipping toward him she replied:
+
+"I do not understand what you are saying to me. My noonday sleep
+to-day was peaceful and bright."
+
+Then Rabbit saw that the other animals were following him into the
+void, while Francis was journeying along another heavenly pathway,
+indicating to the wolf by means of signs with his hand to put his
+trust in Rabbit. And the wolf with docility and peace in his heart
+felt Faith come over him again. He continued on his way with his
+friends, after a long look toward his master, and knowing that for
+those who are chosen there is something divine even in the final
+adieu.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They left winter behind them. They were astonished at passing through
+these meadows which formerly were so inaccessible and so far above
+their heads. But the need of gaining Paradise gave them a firm footing
+in the sky.
+
+By the paths of the seraphim, along the trellises of light, over the
+milky ways where the comet is like a sheaf of grain, Rabbit guided his
+companions. Francis had entrusted them to him, and had given him to
+them as guide because he knew Rabbit's prudence. And had he not on
+many occasions given his master proofs of this quality of discretion
+which is the beginning of wisdom? When Francis met him and begged
+him to follow, had he not waited until Francis held out a handful of
+flowering grass and let him nibble at it? And when all his companions
+let themselves die of hunger for love of one another, had not he with
+his down-trodden heels continued to gnaw the bitter bark of the trees?
+
+Therefore it seemed that this prudence would not fail him even in
+heaven. If they lost their way he would find the right road again. He
+would know how not to get lost, and how not to collide with either the
+sun or the moon. He would have the skill to avoid the shooting-stars
+which are as dangerous as stones thrown from a sling. He would find
+the way by the heavenly sign-posts on which were marked the number of
+miles that had been left behind, as well as the names of the celestial
+hamlets.
+
+The regions traversed by Rabbit and his companions were ravishing
+and filled them with ecstasy. This was all the more the case because
+contrary to man, they had never suspected the beauties of the sky;
+they had been able to look only sidewise and not upward, this being
+the exclusive right of the king of animals.
+
+So it came that Short-tail, the Wolf, the Ewe, the Lamb, the Birds,
+the Sheep-Dogs, the Spaniel, discovered that the sky was as beautiful
+as the earth. And all except Rabbit, who was sometimes troubled by
+the problems of direction, enjoyed an unalloyed pleasure in this
+pilgrimage toward God. In place of the heavenly fields, which only a
+short while ago seemed inaccessible above their heads, the earth now
+became in its turn slowly inaccessible beneath their feet. And as
+they moved further and further away from it, this earth became a new
+heavenly canopy for them. The blue of the oceans formed their clouds
+of foam, and the candles of the shops sprinkled like stars the expanse
+of the night.
+
+Gradually they approached the regions which Francis had promised them.
+Already the rose-red clovers of the setting suns and the luminous
+fruits of the darkness which were their food grew larger and fuller
+and melted in their souls into the sweets of paradise.
+
+The leaves and ardent pulp of the fruits filled their blood with some
+strange summer-like power, a palpitating joy which made their hearts
+beat faster as they came nearer and nearer the marvels that were to be
+theirs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At last they came to the abode of the beasts, who had attained eternal
+bliss. It was the first Paradise, that of the dogs.
+
+For some time already they had heard barking. Bending down toward the
+trunk of a decayed oak they saw a mastiff sitting in a hollow as in
+a niche. His disdainful and yet placid glance told them that his mind
+was disordered. It was the dog of Diogenes, to whom God had accorded
+solitude in this tub, hollowed out of a very tree itself. With
+indifference he watched the dogs with the spiked collars pass by.
+Then to their great astonishment he left his moss-grown kennel for
+a moment, and, since his leash had become undone, tied himself fast
+again using his mouth as aid. He reëntered his den of wood, and said:
+
+"_Here each one takes his pleasure where he finds it_."
+
+And, in fact, Rabbit and his companions saw dogs in quest of imaginary
+travelers who had lost their way. They dared descent into deep abysses
+to find those who had met with accident, bearing to them the bouillon,
+meat, and brandy contained in the small casks hanging from their
+collars.
+
+Others flung themselves into icy waters, always hoping, but always in
+vain, that they might rescue a shipwrecked sailor. When they regained
+the shore they were shivering, stunned, yet happy in their futile
+devotion, and ready to fling themselves in again.
+
+Others persistently begged for a couple of old bones at the thresholds
+of deserted cottages along the road, waiting for kicks, and their eyes
+were filled with an inexpressible melancholy.
+
+There was also a scissors-grinder's dog, who with tongue hanging out,
+was joyfully turning the wheel-work which made the stone revolve, even
+though no knife was held against it in the process of sharpening. But
+his eyes shone with the unquestioning faith in a duty fulfilled; he
+ceased not to labor except to catch his breath, and then he labored
+again.
+
+Then there was a sheep-dog, who, ever faithful, sought to bring back
+to a fold ewes that were evermore straying. He was pursuing them on
+the bank of a brook which gleamed on the edge of a grassy hill.
+
+From this green hill and from out of the under-woods a pack of hounds
+broke forth. They had hunted the hinds and gazelles of their dreams
+all the day long. Their baying which lingered about the ancient scents
+sounded like the happy bells on a flowery Easter morning.
+
+Not far from here the sheep-dogs and the little spaniel established
+their home. But when the latter wished to bid Rabbit a tender farewell
+she saw that Long-Ear had slipped away on hearing the dogs of the
+chase.
+
+And it was without him that the hawks, the owl, the doves, the wolf,
+and the ewes had to continue their flight or their progress. They
+understood very well that he, a rabbit of little faith, would not know
+how to die like them. Instead of being saved by God, he preferred to
+save himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The second Paradise was that of the birds. It lay in a fresh grove,
+and their songs flooded the leaves of the alders and made them
+tremble. And from the alders the songs flowed onward into the river
+which became so imbued with music that it played on the rushes.
+
+At a distance a hill stretched out; it was all covered with springtime
+and shade. Its sides were of incomparable softness. It was fragrant
+with solitude. The odor of nocturnal lilacs mingled with that which
+came from the heart of dark roses whence the hot white sun quenches
+its thirst.
+
+Now, suddenly, at intervals, the song of the nightingale was heard
+expanding; it was as if stars of crystal had fallen upon the waves
+and broken there. There was no other sound but the song of the
+nightingale. Over the whole expanse of the silent hill nothing was
+heard but the song of the nightingale. Night was merely the sobbing of
+the nightingale.
+
+Then in the groves dawn appeared, all rose-red because it was naked
+amid the choirs of birds who still sang from a full throat for their
+wings were heavy with love and morning dew. The quails in the grain
+were not yet calling. The tom-tits with their black heads made a noise
+in the thicket of fig-trees like the sound of pebbles moved by water.
+A wood-pecker rent the azure with its cry, and then flew toward the
+old, white-flowered apple-trees. It had almost the appearance of a
+handful of grass torn from the golden meadows with a clover-flower as
+its head.
+
+The three hawks and the owl entered into these places abounding in
+flowers, and not a single redbreast and not a single gold-finch and
+not a single linnet was frightened by them. The birds of prey sat on
+their perches with an arrogant and sad air, and kept their eyes fixed
+on the sun; now and then they beat their steely wings against their
+mottled, keel-like breasts.
+
+The owl sought out the shadows of the hill, so that hidden in some
+solitary cavern and happy in its darkness and wisdom, it might listen
+to the plaint of the nightingale.
+
+But the most wonderful shelter of all was that chosen by the doves.
+They sat among the olive-trees, that were stirred by the evening
+breeze. In this garden young girls dwelled, who were permitted to
+enter here because of their animal-like grace. They included all the
+young girls who sighed and were like to honey-suckle; all the young
+girls who languish with all the doves that weep. And all the doves
+were included here, those from Venice, whose wings were like cooling
+fans to the boredom of the wives of the doges, as well as those
+of Iberia whose lips had the orange and tobacco-yellow color of
+fisherwomen and their provocative allurement. Here were all the doves
+of dreams, and all the dreaming doves: the dove that drew Beatrice
+heavenward and to which Dante gave a grain of corn; and the one which
+the disenchanted Quitteria heard in the night. Here was the dove which
+sobbed on Virginia's shoulder, when during the night she sought
+in vain to calm the fires of her love in the spring underneath a
+cocoanut-palm. And here too was the dove to which the heavy-hearted
+maiden at the waning of summer, in the orchard among the ripening
+peaches, confides passionate messages that it may bear them along in
+its flight into the unknown.
+
+And there were the doves of old parsonages shrouded in roses, and
+those which Jocelyn with his incense-fragrant hand fed as he dreamed
+of Laurence. And there was the dove which is given to the dying little
+girl, and that which in certain regions is placed upon the burning
+brow of the sick, and the blinded dove whose voice is so filled
+with pain that it lures the flight of its passing sisters toward
+the huntsman's ambush, and the dove, the gentlest of all, who brings
+comfort to the forgotten old poet in his garret.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The third paradise was that of the sheep.
+
+It lay in the heart of an emerald valley watered by streams, and
+beneath their sun-bathed crystal the grass was of a marvelous green.
+And nearby was a lake, iridescent like mother-of-pearl and the
+feathers of a peacock; it was azure and glistened like mica, and
+seemed to be the breast of humming-birds and the wing of butterflies.
+Here after they had licked the pure white salt from the golden-grained
+granite, the sheep dreamed their long dream, and their tufts of thick
+wool overlapped like the leaves of great branches covered with snow.
+
+This landscape was so pure and of such dreamlike clarity that it had
+whitened the eye-lashes of the lambs, and had entered into their eyes
+of gold. And the atmosphere was so transparent that it seemed one
+could see in the depth of the water clearly revealed the outlines of
+the yellow-striped summits of limestone. Flowers of frost, of sky, and
+of blood were woven into the carpets of the forests of beech and fir.
+After having passed over them the breeze went forth again even more
+softly, more fragrant, more ice-like in its purity.
+
+Like a blue flood the marvelous cone-like trees, interwoven with
+silvery lichens, stretched upward. Waterfalls as if suspended from
+the rocky crags, scattered in a smoke-like spray. And suddenly the
+heavenly flocks sent forth their bleating toward God, and the ecstatic
+bells wept for the shadow of the ferns. And the dark water of the
+grottoes broke in the light.
+
+Lying amid the wild laurel the lamb of the Gospel became visible
+again. Its paw rested under its nose, and was still bleeding. The
+roads over which it had passed had been hard, but soon it would be
+fully restored by the slightly acid sweetness of the myrtles. Even now
+it was quivering as it listened to its scattered companions.
+
+On entering this Paradise to dwell therein the sheep of Francis saw
+the lamb of Jean de la Fontaine amid the forget-me-nots which were
+of the mirror-like color of the waves. It no longer disputed with
+the wolf of the fable. It drank, and the water did not become turbid
+thereat. The untamed spring over which the two hundred year old ivy
+seemed to have thrown a shadow of bitterness, streamed on amid
+the grass with its broken waves in which were mirrored the snowy
+tremblings of the lamb.
+
+And high on the slopes of the _happy valleys_ they saw the sheep of
+those heroes that Cervantes tells about, all of whom were sick at
+heart for the love of one and the same girl and left their city to
+lead the life of shepherds in a far-away country. These sheep had
+the gentlest of voices, like hearts that secretly love their own
+sufferings. They drank from the wild thyme the always new, burning
+tears which their bucolic poets had let fall like dew from the cups of
+their eyes.
+
+At the horizon of this Paradise there rose a confused murmur like
+that of the Ocean. It consisted of the broken sobbing of flutes
+or clarinets, of cries reechoed from the abysses, of the baying of
+restless dogs, and of the fall of a moss-covered stone into the
+void. It was the tumult of the waterfalls high above the noise of the
+torrents. It was like the voice of a people on the march toward the
+promised land, toward the grapes without name, toward the fiery spikes
+of grain; and mingled with this sound was the braying of pregnant
+she-asses, that were laden with heavy containers of milk and the
+mantles of the herdsmen and salt and cheeses which were brittle like
+chalk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fourth Paradise in its almost indescribable barrenness was that of
+the wolves.
+
+At the summit of a treeless mountain, in the desolation of the wind,
+beneath a penetrating fog, they felt the voluptuous joy of martyrdom.
+They sustained themselves with their hunger. They experienced a bitter
+joy in feeling that they were abandoned, that never for more than an
+instant--and then only under the greatest suffering--had they been
+able to renounce their lust for blood. They were the disinherited,
+possessed of the dream that could never be realized. For a long time
+they had not been able to approach the heavenly lambs whose white
+eyelashes winked in the green light. And as none of these animals ever
+died, they could no longer lie in wait for the body which the shepherd
+threw to the eternal laughter of the torrent.
+
+And the wolves were resigned. Their fur, bald as the rock, was
+pitiable. A sort of miserable grandeur reigned in this strange abode.
+One felt that this destitution was so tragic and so inexorable that
+one would have tenderly kissed the forehead of these poor flesh-eating
+beasts even had one surprised them in slaying the lambs. The beauty
+of this Paradise in which the friend of Francis now found his home was
+that of desolation and hopeless despair.
+
+And beyond this region the heaven of the beasts stretched on to
+infinity.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+
+As for Rabbit, he had prudently taken flight at sight of the heavenly
+pack of hounds. While Francis had remained near him he had trusted in
+Francis. But now, even though he was in the abode of the Blessed,
+his distrust which was as natural to him as to the suspicious peasant
+gained the upper hand again. And since he did not yet feel himself
+entirely at home in this Paradise, tasting neither perfect security,
+nor the thrill of familiar danger against which he could battle,
+Long-Ear became bewildered.
+
+Accordingly he strayed hither and thither, ill at ease, not knowing
+where he was, nor finding his way. He sought in vain for that from
+which he fled and that which fled from him. But what was the reason
+for this? Was not Heaven happiness? Was there any stillness that
+could be more still? In what other resting-place could Cleft-Lip have
+dreamed a sleep more undisturbed than on these beds of wool that the
+breeze spread beneath the flower-covered bushes of the stars?
+
+But he did not sleep here, because he missed his constant uneasiness
+and other things. Crouching in the ditches of Heaven he no longer
+had the feeling beneath the whiteness of his short tail of the chilly
+dampness penetrating through and through him. The mosquitoes, who had
+withdrawn to their own Paradise of shallow pools, no longer filled
+his always open eyelids with the sharp burning sensation of summer.
+He longed regretfully for this fever. His heart no longer beat as
+powerfully as it had beaten when on knolls in the flame-colored heath
+a shot scattered the earth like rain about him. Under the smooth
+caress of the lawn-like grass hair grew again on the callous parts
+of his paws where it had been so sparse. And he began to deplore the
+over-abundance of heaven. He was like the gardener who, having become
+king, was forced to put on sandals of purple, and longed regretfully
+for his wooden shoes heavy with clay and with poverty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And Francis in his Paradise heard of Rabbit's troubles and of his
+bewilderment. And the heart of Francis was grieved that one of his
+old companions was not happy. From that moment the streets of the
+celestial hamlet where he dwelled seemed less peaceful to him, the
+shadows of the evening less soft, less white the breath of the lilies,
+less hallowed the gleams of the carpenter's plane within the sheds,
+less bright the singing pitchers whose water radiated like fresh
+sheaves and fell cooling upon the flesh of the angels seated on the
+curb-stones of the wells.
+
+Therefore Francis set out on his way to find God, and He received him
+in His Garden at the close of day. This garden of God was the most
+humble but also the most beautiful. No one knew whence came the
+miracle of its beauty. Perhaps because there was nothing in it but
+love. Over the walls which the ages had filled with chinks dark lilacs
+spread. The stones were joyous to support the smiling mosses whose
+golden mouths were drinking at the shadowy heart of the violets.
+
+In a diffused light which was neither like that of the dawn nor
+like that of the twilight, for it was softer than either of these, a
+blue-flowered leek blossomed in the center of a garden-bed. A sort of
+mystery enveloped the blue globe of its inflorescence which remained
+motionless and closed on its tall stalk. One felt that this plant was
+dreaming. Of what? Perhaps of its soul's labor which sings on winter
+evenings in the pot where boils the soup of the poor. Oh divine
+destiny! Not far from the hedges of boxwood the lips of the lettuce
+radiated mute words while a low light clung about the shadow of the
+sleeping watering-pots. Their task was over.
+
+And full of trust and serenity, without pride or humility, a
+sage-plant let its insignificant odor rise toward God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Francis sat down beside God on a bench sheltered by an oak round which
+an ivy twined. And God said unto Francis:
+
+"I know what brings thee hither. It shall never be said that there was
+any one, whether maggot or rabbit, who was unable to find his Paradise
+here. Go therefore to thy fleet-footed friend, and ask him what it is
+that he desires. And as soon as he has told thee, I shall grant him
+his wish. If he did not understand how to die and to renounce the
+world like the others, it was surely because his heart clove too much
+to my Earth which, indeed, I love well. Because, Oh Francis, like this
+creature of the long ears I love the earth with a profound love.
+I love the earth of men, of beasts, of plants, and of stones. Oh
+Francis, go and find Rabbit, and tell him that I am his friend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And Francis set out toward the Paradise of beasts where none of the
+children of man except young girls had ever set their foot. There he
+met Rabbit who was disconsolately wandering about. But when Rabbit saw
+his old master approaching he experienced such joy that he crouched
+down with more fright in his eye than ever and with his nostrils
+quivering almost imperceptibly.
+
+"Greeting, my brother," said Francis, "I heard the sufferings of your
+heart, and I have come here to learn the reason for your sadness. Have
+you eaten too many bitter kernels of grain? Why have you not found
+the peace of the doves, and of the lambs which are also white...?
+Oh harvester of the second crop, for what do you search so restlessly
+here where there is no more restlessness, and where never more will
+you feel the hunting-dogs' breath on your poor skin?"
+
+"Oh my friend," answered he, "what am I seeking? I am seeking my
+God. As long as you were my God on earth I felt at peace. But in this
+Paradise where I have lost my way, because your presence is no longer
+with me, Oh divine brother of the beast, my soul feels suffocated for
+I do not find my God."
+
+"Do you think, then," said Francis, "that God abandons rabbits, and
+that they alone of the whole world have no title to Paradise?"
+
+"No," Rabbit replied, "I have given no thought to such things. I would
+have followed you because I came to know you as intimately as the
+earthly hedge on which the lambs hung the warm flakes of snow with
+which I used to line and keep warm my nest. Vainly I have sought
+throughout these heavenly meadows this God of whom you are speaking.
+But while my companions discovered Him at once and found their
+Paradise, I lost my way. From the day when you left us and from the
+instant that I gained Heaven, my childish and untamed heart has beaten
+with homesickness for the earth.
+
+"Oh Francis, Oh my friend, Oh you in whom alone I have faith, give
+back to me my earth. I feel that I am not at home here. Give back to
+me my furrows full of mud, give back to me my clayey paths. Give back
+to me my native valley where the horns of the hunters make the mists
+stir. Give back to me the wagon-track on the roadway from which I
+heard sound the packs of hounds with their hanging ears, like an
+angelus. Give back to me my timidity. Give back to me my fright. Give
+back to me the agitation that I felt when suddenly a shot swept the
+fragrant mint beneath my bounds, or when amid the bushes of wild
+quince my nose touched the cold copper of a snare. Give back to me the
+dawn upon the waters from which the skillful fisherman withdraws his
+lines heavy with eels. Give back to me the blue gleaning under the
+moon, and my timid and clandestine loves amid the wild sorrel, where
+I could no longer distinguish the rosy tongue of my beloved from the
+dew-laden petal of the eglantine which had fallen upon the grass. Give
+back to me my weakness, oh thou, my dear heart. And go, and say unto
+God, that I can no longer live with Him."
+
+"Oh Rabbit," Francis answered, "my friend, gentle and suspicious like
+a peasant, Oh Rabbit of little faith, you blaspheme. If you have not
+known how to find your God it is because in order to find this God,
+you would have had to die like your companions."
+
+"But if I die, what will become of me?" cried he with the hide of the
+color of stubble.
+
+And Francis said:
+
+"If you die you will become your Paradise."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus talking they reached the edge of the Paradise of beasts. There
+the Paradise of men began. Rabbit turned his head, and read at the top
+of a sign-post on a plate of blue cast-iron where an arrow indicated
+the direction
+
+Castétis to Balansun--5 M.
+
+The day was so hot that the letters of the inscription seemed to
+quiver in the dull light of summer. In the distance, on the road,
+there were clouds of dust, as in Blue Beard when Sister Anne is asked:
+"Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anything coming?" This pale
+dryness, how magnificent it was, and how filled it was with the bitter
+fragrance of mint.
+
+And Rabbit saw a horse and a covered cart approaching.
+
+It was a sorry nag and dragged a two-wheeled cart and was unable to
+move except in a jerky sort of gallop. Every leap made its disjointed
+skeleton quiver and jolted its harness and made its earth-colored
+mane fly in the air, shiny and greenish, like the beard of an ancient
+mariner. Wearily as though they were paving-stones the animal lifted
+its hoofs which were swollen like tumors....
+
+Then a doubt, stronger than all the doubts which hitherto had assailed
+the soul of Rabbit, pierced him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This doubt was a leaden grain of shot which had just passed through
+the nape of his neck behind his long ears into his brain. A veil of
+blood more beautiful than the glowing autumn floated before his eyes
+in which the shadows of eternity rose. He cried out. The fingers of
+a huntsman pinioned his throat, strangled him, suffocated him. His
+heart-beat grew weaker and weaker; this heart which used to flutter
+like the pale wild rose in the wind dissolving at the morning hour
+when the hedge softly caresses the lambs. An instant he remained
+motionless, hollow-flanked and drawn-out like Death itself in the
+grasp of his murderer. Then poor old Rabbit leaped up. He clawed in
+vain for the ground which he could no longer reach because the man did
+not let go of him. Rabbit passed away drop by drop.
+
+Suddenly his hair stood erect, and he became like unto the stubble of
+summer where he formerly dwelled beside his sister, the quail, and the
+poppy, his brother; and like unto the clayey earth which had wetted
+his beggar's paws; and like unto the gray-brown color with which
+September days clothe the hill whose shape he had assumed; like unto
+the rough cloth of Francis; like unto the wagon-track on the roadway
+from which he heard the packs of hounds with hanging ears, singing
+like the angelus; like unto the barren rock which the wild thyme
+loves. In his look where now floated a mist of bluish night there was
+something like unto the blessed meadow where the heart of his beloved
+awaited him at the heart of the wild sorrel. The tears which he shed
+were like unto the fountain of the seraphs at which sat the old fisher
+of eels repairing his lines. He was like unto life, like unto death,
+like unto himself, like unto his Paradise.
+
+
+END OF THE ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT
+
+
+
+
+
+TALES
+
+
+
+
+PARADISE
+
+
+The poet looked at his friends, his relatives, the priest, the doctor,
+and the little dog, who were in the room. Then he died. Some one wrote
+his name and age on a piece of paper. He was twenty-eight years.
+
+As they kissed his forehead his friends and relatives found that he
+was cold, but he could not feel their lips because he was in heaven.
+And he did not ask as he had done when he was on earth, whether heaven
+was like this or like that. Since he was there, he had no need of
+anything else.
+
+His mother and father, whether or not they had died before him, came
+to meet him. They did not weep any more than he, for the three had
+really never been separated.
+
+His mother said to him:
+
+"Put out the wine to cool, we are about to dine with the _Bon Dieu_
+under the green arbor of the Garden of Paradise."
+
+His father said to him:
+
+"Go down and cull of the fruits. There is none that is poisonous. The
+trees will offer them to you of their own accord, without sufferance
+either to their leaves or their branches, for they are inexhaustible."
+
+The poet was filled with joy in being able to obey his parents. When
+he had returned from the orchard and submerged the bottles of wine in
+the water, he saw his old dog. It too had died before him, and it came
+gently running toward him, wagging its tail. It licked his hands, and
+he patted it. Beside it were all the animals he had loved best while
+on earth: a little red cat, two little gray cats, two little white
+cats, a bullfinch, and two goldfish.
+
+Then he saw that the table was set and about it were seated the _Bon
+Dieu_, his father and mother, and a lovely young girl whom he had
+loved here-below on earth. She had followed him to heaven even though
+she was not dead.
+
+He saw that the Garden of Paradise was none other than that of his
+own birthplace here on earth, in the high reaches of the Pyrenees, all
+filled with lilies and pomegranates and cabbages.
+
+The _Bon Dieu_ had laid his hat and stick on the ground. He was garbed
+like the poor on the great highways, those who have only a morsel of
+bread in their wallet, and whom the magistrates arrest at the town
+gates, and throw into prison, since they know not how to write their
+name. His beard and hair were white like the great light of day, and
+his eyes profound and black like the night. He spoke, and his voice
+was very soft:
+
+"Let the angels come and minister unto us, for to serve is their
+happiness."
+
+Then from all corners of the heavenly orchard legions were seen to
+hasten. They were the faithful servitors who here on earth had loved
+the poet and his family. Old Jean was there, he who was drowned while
+saving a little boy, old Marie who had fallen dead under a sunstroke,
+and lame Pierre was there and Jeanne and still another Jeanne.
+
+Then the poet rose to do them honor, and said unto them:
+
+"Sit down in my place, it is meet that you should be near God."
+
+And God smiled because he knew in advance what their answer would be.
+
+"Our happiness is service. This puts us close to God. Do you not serve
+your father and mother? Do they not serve Him who serves us?"
+
+And suddenly he saw that the table had grown larger and that new
+guests were seated about it. They were the father and mother of his
+mother and father, and the generations that had gone before them.
+
+Evening fell. The older of the people slumbered. Love held the poet
+and his sweetheart. But God to whom they had done honor, took up his
+way again like the poor on the great highways, those who have only a
+morsel of bread in their wallet, and whom the magistrates arrest at
+the town gates, and throw into prison, since they know not how to
+write their name.
+
+
+
+
+CHARITY CHILDREN
+
+
+One day the souls of the charity children cried out to God. It was on
+a stormy evening when their fevers and wounds made them suffer more
+than ever. They lay white with grief in their rows of beds, above
+which ignoble science had hung the placards of their maladies.
+
+They were sad, very sad, for it was a day of festival. Their tiny arms
+were stretched out on the coverlets, and with their transparent hands
+they touched the meager toys that pious grand ladies had brought them.
+They did not even know what to do with these playthings. A President
+of the Republic had visited them, but they had not understood what it
+meant.
+
+Their souls cried out toward God. They said:
+
+"We are the daughters of misery, of scrofula, and of syphilis. We are
+the daughters of daughters of shame."
+
+"I," said one, "was dragged out of a cesspool where in her distraction
+my mother, the servant of an inn, had thrown me." Another said: "I
+was born of a child with an enormous head that had a red gap in the
+forehead. My father killed my mother, and he killed himself."
+
+Still others said:
+
+"We are the survivors of abortions and infanticides. Our mothers are
+on the lists. Our fathers, cigar in mouth, saunter smiling amid the
+tumult of business and the markets. We are born like kings with a
+crown on our heads, a crown of red rash."
+
+And God, hearing their cry, came down toward these souls. He entered
+the hospital of more than human sorrows. At his approach the fumes
+rose from the medicaments which the good sisters had prepared, as
+though from censers by the side of the child martyrs, who sat up in
+their narrow cots like white, weary flowers.
+
+The sovereign Master said to them:
+
+"Here I am. I heard your call, and am waiting to condemn those that
+caused you to be born. What torment do you implore for them?"
+
+Then the souls of the children sang like the bindweed of the hedges.
+
+They sang:
+
+"Glory to God! Glory to God! Pardon those who gave us birth. Lead us
+some day to Heaven by their side."
+
+
+
+
+THE PIPE
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a young man who had a new pipe. He was
+smoking peacefully in the shade of an arbor hung with blue grapes. His
+wife was young and pretty; she had rolled up her sleeves as far as her
+elbows and was drawing water from the well. The wooden bucket bounded
+against the edge, and shed tears like a rainbow. The young man was
+happy smoking his pipe, because he saw the birds flying hither and
+thither, because his dear old mother was still among the living,
+because his old father was hale, and because he loved with all his
+heart his young wife, and was proud of her lithesomeness and her firm
+and smooth breasts that were like two ripe apples.
+
+The young man, as I have said, was smoking a new pipe.
+
+His mother fell very ill. They had to operate, and it made her cry out
+aloud, until after thirty-four days of horrible suffering she died.
+His father, who was always so hale, was talking one day with a workman
+at the door of the little village church, which was undergoing repair,
+when a stone became detached from the arch and crushed his head.
+The devoted son wept for these, his best and oldest friends, and, at
+night, he sobbed in the arms of his pretty wife.
+
+The young man, as I have said, was smoking a new pipe.
+
+But I have forgotten to say that he had an old spaniel of whom he was
+very fond and whose name was Thomas.
+
+A very great illness had fallen on Thomas, since the good mother's
+and the good father's deaths. When he was called he could barely drag
+himself along by the paws of his fore-legs.
+
+One day a man of the world took residence in the little village where
+the young man was smoking a new pipe. He wore decorations and
+was distinguished and spoke with an agreeable accent. They became
+acquainted, and once, when the young man still smoking his new pipe
+entered his house unexpectedly, he found this fine fellow abed with
+his pretty wife whose firm and smooth breasts were like two ripe
+apples.
+
+The young man said nothing. He placed a poor old collar around the
+neck of Thomas, and with a line which his mother had once used to
+hang clothes upon, he dragged him along to a huge town, where the two
+dwelled together in sorrow and want.
+
+The young man had now become an old man, but he was still smoking his
+new pipe which too had become old.
+
+One evening Thomas died. People came from the police department, and
+carried off his carcass somewhere.
+
+The old man was now all alone with his old pipe. A great cold fell
+upon him and a terrible trembling. And he knew that his time had come,
+and that he never would be able to smoke again. So from the wretched
+bag which he once had brought with him from his home, he took a sad
+old hat, and in this he wrapped his pipe.
+
+Then he threw a cape, greenish with age, about his feverish shoulders,
+and dragged himself painfully to a little square near by, taking care
+that no policeman should see him. He knelt down, and dug in the earth
+with his finger nails, and devoutly buried his old pipe underneath a
+tuft of flowers. Then he returned to his dwelling-place and died.
+
+
+
+
+MAL DE VIVRE
+
+
+A poet, Laurent Laurini by name, was sick unto death with the illness,
+called weariness of life. It is a terrible malady, and those who have
+fallen prey to it are unable to look upon men, animals, and things
+without frightful suffering. Great scruples poison his heart.
+
+The poet went away from the town where he dwelled. He sought out the
+fields to gaze at the trees and the corn and the waters, to listen to
+the quails that sing like fountains and to the falling of the weavers'
+looms and the hum of the telegraph wires. These things and these
+sounds saddened him.
+
+The gentlest thoughts were bitterness to him. And when he picked a
+little flower in order to escape his terrible malady, he wept because
+he had plucked it.
+
+He entered a village on an evening sweet with the perfume of pears.
+It was a beautiful village like those he had often described in his
+books. There was a town square, a church, a cemetery, gardens, a
+smithy, and a dark inn. Blue smoke rose from it, and within was the
+sheen of glasses. There was also a stream which wound in and out under
+the wild nut-trees.
+
+The poet with his sick heart sat down mournfully on a stone. He was
+thinking of the torment he was enduring, of his old mother crying
+because of his absence, of the women who had deceived him, and he had
+homesickness for the time of his first communion.
+
+"My heart," he thought, "my sad heart cannot change."
+
+Suddenly he saw a young peasant-girl near by gathering her geese under
+the stars. She said to him:
+
+"Why do you weep?"
+
+He answered:
+
+"My soul was hurt in falling upon the earth. I cannot be cured because
+my heart is too heavy."
+
+"Will you have mine?" she said. "It is light. I will take yours and
+carry it easily. Am I not accustomed to burdens?"
+
+He gave her his heart and took hers. Immediately they smiled at each
+other and hand in hand they followed the pathway.
+
+The geese went in front of them like bits of the moon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She said to him:
+
+"I know that you are wise, and that I cannot know what you know. But
+I know that I love you. You are from elsewhere, and you must have been
+born in a wonderful cradle like that I once saw in a cart. It belonged
+to rich people. Your mother must speak beautifully. I love you. You
+must have loved women with very white faces, and I must seem ugly and
+black to you. I was not born in a wonderful cradle. I was born in the
+wheat of the fields at harvest time. They have told me this, and also
+that my mother and I and a little lamb to which a ewe had given
+birth on that same day were carried home on an ass. Rich people have
+horses."
+
+He said to her:
+
+"I know that you are simple, and that I cannot be like you. But I know
+that I love you. You are from here, and you must have been rocked in
+a basket placed on a black chair like that which I have seen in a
+picture. I love you. Your mother must spin linen. You must have danced
+under the trees with strong handsome laughing boys. I must seem sick
+and sad to you. I was not born in the fields at harvest time. We
+were born in a beautiful room, I and a little twin sister who died at
+birth. My mother was sick. Poor people are strong."
+
+Then they embraced more closely on the bed where they lay together.
+
+She said to him:
+
+"I have your heart."
+
+He said to her:
+
+"I have your heart."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They had a sweet little boy.
+
+And the poet, feeling that the illness which had so weighed upon him
+had fled, said to his wife:
+
+"My mother does not know what has become of me. My heart is wrung with
+that thought. Let me go to the town, my beloved, and tell her that I
+am happy and that I have a son."
+
+She smiled at him, knowing that his heart was hers, and said:
+
+"Go."
+
+And he went back by the way he had come.
+
+He was soon at the gates of the town in front of a magnificent
+residence. There was laughter and chatter within for they were giving
+a feast, one to which the poor were not invited. The poet recognized
+the house, as that of an old friend of his, a rich and celebrated
+artist. He stopped to listen to the conversation before the latticed
+gate of the park through which fountains and statues could be seen.
+He recognized the voice of a woman. She was beautiful, and once had
+broken his boyish heart. She was saying:
+
+"Do you remember the great poet, Laurent Laurini?...They say he has
+made a mésalliance, and has married a cowherd...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tears rose to his eyes, and he continued his way through the streets
+of the town until he came to the house where he was born. The
+paving-stones replied softly to the words of his tired steps. He
+pushed open his door and entered. And his old dog, faithful and gentle
+as ever, ran limpingly to meet him; it barked with joy, and licked his
+hand. He saw that since his departure the poor beast had had some sort
+of stroke or paralysis, for time and trouble afflict the bodies of
+animals as well.
+
+Laurent Laurini mounted the stairs, keeping close to the bannisters,
+and he was deeply moved, when he saw the old cat turn around, arch her
+back, raise her tail, and rub against the steps. On the landing the
+clock struck, as if in gratitude.
+
+He entered her room gently. He saw his mother on her knees praying.
+She was saying:
+
+"Dear God, I pray unto Thee, that my son may still be among the
+living. Oh my God, he has suffered much...Where is he? Forgive me
+for this that I have given him birth. Forgive him for this that he is
+causing me to die."
+
+Then he knelt down beside her, laying his young lips on her poor gray
+hair, and said:
+
+"Come with me. I am healed. I know a land where there are trees and
+corn and waters, where quails sing, where the looms of the weavers
+fall, where the telegraph wires hum, where a poor woman dwells who
+holds my heart, and where your grandson is playing."
+
+
+
+
+THE TRAMWAY
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a very industrious workman who had a good
+wife and a charming little daughter. They lived in a great city.
+
+It was the father's birthday and to celebrate it they bought beautiful
+white salad and a chicken made for roasting. Every one was happy that
+Sunday morning, even the little cat that looked slyly at the fowl,
+saying to herself: "I shall have good bones to pick."
+
+After they had eaten breakfast, the father said:
+
+"We are going to be extravagant for once, and ride in a tram to the
+suburbs."
+
+They went out.
+
+They had many times seen well-dressed men and beautiful ladies give a
+signal to the driver of the tram, who immediately stopped his horses
+to permit them to get on.
+
+The honest workman was carrying his little girl. His wife and he
+stopped at a street-corner.
+
+A tram, shiny with paint, came toward them, almost empty. And they
+felt a great joy when they thought of how they were going to enter it
+for four sous apiece. And the honest workman signaled to the conductor
+to stop the horses. But he seeing they were poor simple people looked
+at them disdainfully, and would not halt his vehicle.
+
+
+
+
+ABSENCE
+
+
+At eighteen Pierre left the home in the country where he had been
+born.
+
+At the very moment when he left, his old mother was ill in bed in
+the blue room, where there were the daguerreotype of his father and
+peacock-feathers in a vase and a clock representing Paul and Virginia.
+Its hands pointed to the hour of three.
+
+In the courtyard under the fig-tree his grandfather was resting.
+
+In the garden his fiancée stood among roses and gleaming pear-trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pierre went to earn his living in a country where there were negroes
+and parrots and india-rubber trees and molasses and fevers and snakes.
+
+He dwelled there thirty years.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the very moment when he returned to the home in the country where
+he had been born, the blue room had faded to white, his mother was
+reposing in the bosom of heaven, the picture of his father was no
+longer there, the peacock-feathers and the vase had disappeared. Some
+sort of object stood in the clock's place.
+
+In the courtyard under the fig-tree where his grandfather, who had
+long since died, had been accustomed to rest, there were broken plates
+and a poor sick chicken.
+
+In the garden of roses and gleaming pear-trees where his fiancée had
+stood, there was an old woman.
+
+The story does not tell who she was.
+
+
+
+
+THE HIGHWAY OF LIFE
+
+
+One day a poet sat down at a table to write a story. Not a single
+idea would come to him, but nevertheless he was happy, because the sun
+shone on a geranium on the window-sill, and because a gnat flew about
+in the blue of the open window.
+
+Suddenly his life appeared before him like a great white road. It
+began in a dark grove where there were laughing waters, and ended at a
+quiet grave overgrown with brambles, nettles, and soapwort.
+
+In the dark grove he found the guardian-angel of his childhood. He had
+the golden wings of a wasp, fair hair, and a face as calm as the water
+of a well on a summer's day.
+
+The guardian-angel said to the poet:
+
+"Do you remember when you were a child? You came here with your father
+and mother who were going fishing. The field near by was warm and
+covered with flowers and grasshoppers. The grasshoppers looked like
+broken blades of moving grass. Do you wish to see this place again, my
+friend?"
+
+The poet answered: "Yes."
+
+So they went together as far as the blue river over which there were
+the blue sky and the dark nut-trees.
+
+"Behold your childhood," said the angel.
+
+The poet looked at the water and wept and said:
+
+"I no longer see the reflection of the beloved faces of my mother and
+father. They used to sit on the bank. They were calm, good, and happy.
+I had on a white pinafore which was always getting dirty, and mamma
+cleaned it with her handkerchief. Dear angel, tell me what has become
+of the reflections of their beloved faces? I no longer see them. I no
+longer see them."
+
+At that moment a cluster of wild nuts dropped from a hazel-tree and
+floated down the stream of water.
+
+And the angel said to the poet:
+
+"The reflection of your father and mother went on with the stream of
+water like those nuts. For everything obeys the current, substance
+as well as shadow. The image of your beloved parents is merged in the
+water and what remains is called memory. Recollect and pray. And you
+will find the dearly loved images again."
+
+And as an azure kingfisher darted above the reeds, the poet cried:
+
+"Dear angel! Do I not see the color of my mother's eyes in the wings
+of that bird?"
+
+And the divine spirit answered:
+
+"It is as you have said. But look again."
+
+From the top of a tree where a turtle-dove had built her nest a downy
+white feather fell soaring and eddying to the water.
+
+And the poet cried:
+
+"Dear angel! Is not this white down, my mother's gentle purity?"
+
+And the divine spirit answered:
+
+"It is as you have said."
+
+A light breeze ruffled the water and made the leaves rustle.
+
+The poet asked:
+
+"Is not that the grave sweet voice of my father?"
+
+And the spirit answered:
+
+"It is as you have said."
+
+Then they walked along the road which left the grove and followed the
+river. And soon under the glare of the sun the road became white, very
+white. It was like the linen at Holy Communion. To the right and left
+hidden springs tinkled like pious bells. And the angel said:
+
+"Do you recognize this part of your life?"
+
+"This is the day of my first communion," answered the poet. "I
+remember the church and the happy faces of my mother and grandmother.
+I was happy and sad at the same time. With what fervor I knelt!
+Thrills ran through my hair. That evening at family supper they kissed
+me and said: 'He was the most beautiful.'"
+
+And in recalling this the poet burst into sobs. And as he wept he
+became as beautiful as on the day of the blessed ceremony. His tears
+flowed through his hands like holy water.
+
+And they went on along the road.
+
+The day waned a little. The supple poplars swayed gently along the
+ditches. At a distance one of them in the center of a field looked
+like a tall young girl. The sky tinted it so delicately that it was
+pale and blue like the temple of a virgin.
+
+And the poet dreamed of the first woman he had loved.
+
+And his guardian-angel said to him:
+
+"This love was so pure and so sad that it did not offend me."
+
+And as they walked along, the shade was sweet. Lambs passed by. And
+seeing the sadness of the poet the divine spirit had on his lips a
+smile, grave and gentle like that of a dying mother. And the trembling
+of his golden wings pursued the whispers of the evening.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soon the stars were lighted in the silence.
+
+And the sky resembled a father's bed surrounded by wax tapers and dumb
+sorrows. And the night seemed like a great widow kneeling upon the
+earth.
+
+"Do you recognize this?" asked the angel.
+
+The poet made no answer but knelt down.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Finally they reached the end of the road near the small quiet grave
+overgrown with brambles, nettles, and soapwort.
+
+And the angel said to the poet:
+
+"I wished to show you your way. Here you will sleep, not far from the
+waters. Every day they will bring you the image of your memories:
+the azure of the kingfisher like your mother's eyes, the down of the
+turtle-dove like her sweetness, the echo of the leaves like the grave
+calm voice of your father, the reflected brightness of the road white
+as your first communion, and the form of your beloved supple as a
+poplar.
+
+"At last the waters will bring you the great luminous Night."
+
+
+
+
+INTELLIGENCE
+
+
+One day the books which contained the wisdom of men disappeared by
+enchantment.
+
+Then the great scholars assembled: those who were engaged in
+mathematics, in physics, in chemistry, in astronomy, in poetry, in
+history, and in other arts and letters.
+
+They held counsel and said:
+
+"We are the custodians of human genius. We will recall the noblest
+inventions of the wisest of men and the greatest of poets and have
+them graven in immortal marble. They will represent only the supreme
+summits of achievement since the beginning of the world. Pascal shall
+be entitled to but one thought, Newton to but one star, Darwin to
+but one insect, Galileo to but one grain of dust, Tolstoi to but one
+charity, Heinrich Heine to but one verse, Shakespeare to but one cry,
+Wagner to but one note...."
+
+Then as the scholars summoned their thoughts to recall the
+masterpieces indispensable to the salvation of man, they realized with
+terror that their brains were void.
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO GREAT ACTRESSES
+
+
+I wish I could find new words to depict the gentleness of a little
+prostitute whom we met one evening in the center of a large, almost
+deserted square. The little prostitute was wearing wretched boots that
+were too large and soaked up the water. She had a parasol covered like
+an umbrella, and a little straw hat, the lining of which surely bore
+the words: _Dernière mode_.
+
+She had a weak little voice, and she was intelligent. She was
+recovering, as the expression goes, from pleurisy. Moreover, she had
+the air of being as frail morally as physically.
+
+I encountered her many times, after ten o'clock, when she was weary
+with seeking, often in vain, for any first-comer who would go with
+her.
+
+She sat down on a bench in the shadows, beside me, and rested her poor
+pale head against me.
+
+I knew that when she did this it was somewhat with the feeling of
+slight consolation, like that of a poor animal when it no longer feels
+itself abused. I was held by an infinite pity for this friend. I knew
+that she looked at her trade as an important task, however ungrateful
+it was. For a long time she waited thus for the train to the suburb
+where she lived.
+
+One evening she asked if she might go with me to the end of the
+street.
+
+We came to a great lighted square where there was a large theater. On
+one of the pillars of this edifice was a brilliant, gilded poster. It
+represented Sarah Bernhardt in the costume of Tosca, I believe. She
+wore a stiff rich robe and held a palm in her hand. And I called to
+mind the things I had been told of this famous woman: her caprices
+that were immediately obeyed, her extravagances, her coffin, her
+pride.
+
+I felt the poor little sufferer trembling at my side. She saw
+this barbarous idol rise up and throw unconsciously upon her the
+splattering flood of her golden ornaments.
+
+And I had a desire to cry out with grief at this meeting face to face
+of the two. And I said to myself:
+
+"They are both born of woman. One holds a palm, and the other an old
+umbrella so shabby that she does not dare to open it before me.
+
+"The one trails an admiring throng at her feet, and the other tatters
+of leather. The one sells her sorrow for the weight of gold and not
+a sob comes from her mouth that does not have the clinking sound of
+gold. Not a single sob of the other is heard."
+
+And something cried aloud within me:
+
+"The one is a human actress. She is applauded because she is of the
+same clay as those who listen to her. And they have need of the lie on
+which the most beautiful roles are builded.
+
+"But the other, she is an actress of God. She plays a part so great
+and so sorrowful that she has not found one man who understands her
+and who is rich enough to pay her.
+
+"And the great actress has never attained, even in her most beautiful
+roles, the true genius of sorrow which makes the little prostitute
+rest her forehead upon me."
+
+
+
+
+THE GOODNESS OF GOD
+
+
+She was a dainty and delicate little creature who worked in a shop.
+She was, perhaps, not very intelligent, but she had soft, black eyes.
+They looked at you a little sadly, and then drooped. You felt that
+she was affectionate and commonplace with that tender commonplaceness,
+which real poets understand, and which is the absence of hate.
+
+You knew that she was as simple as the modest room in which she lived
+alone with her little cat that some one had given her. Every morning
+before she went to the shop, she left for her a little bit of milk in
+a bowl.
+
+And like her gentle mistress the little cat had sad, kind eyes. She
+warmed herself on the window-sill in the sun beside a pot of basil.
+Sometimes she licked her little paw, and used it as a brush on the
+short fur of her head. Sometimes she played with a mouse.
+
+One day the cat and the mistress both found themselves pregnant,
+the one by a handsome fellow who deserted her, and the other by a
+beautiful tom-cat who also went his way.
+
+But there was this difference. The poor girl became ill, very ill,
+and passed her days sobbing. The little cat made for herself a kind of
+joyous cradling-place in the sun where it shone upon her white, drolly
+inflated abdomen.
+
+The cat's lover had come later than the girl's. So things happened
+that they were both confined at the same time.
+
+One day the little working-girl received a letter from the handsome
+fellow who had deserted her. He sent her twenty-five francs, and spoke
+of his generosity to her. She bought charcoal, a burner, and a sou's
+worth of matches. Then she killed herself.
+
+When she had entered heaven, which a young priest had at first tried
+to prevent, the dainty and delicate creature trembled because that she
+was pregnant and that the _Bon Dieu_ would condemn her.
+
+But the _Bon Dieu_ said to her:
+
+"My dear young friend, I have made ready for you a charming room. Go
+there for your confinement. Everything ends happily in heaven and you
+will not die. I love little children and suffer them to come unto me."
+
+And when she entered the little room which had been made ready for her
+in the great Hospital of Divine Mercy, she saw that God had arranged a
+surprise for her. There in a box lay the cat she loved, and there was
+also a pot of basil on the window-sill. She lay down.
+
+She had a pretty, little, golden-haired daughter, and the cat had four
+sweet, delightfully black kittens.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE NEGRESS
+
+
+Sometimes my imagination is fascinated by the yellowing of old ocean
+charts, and in my feverish brain I hear the roaring of monsoons.
+What then? Must I, in order to have an interest in this present life,
+exhume that which, perhaps, I led before my birth, between two black
+suns?
+
+It was a vague region, abounding in stars and in the diffused sobbing
+of an ocean. There was a scratching at my door, and I said, "Come in."
+
+A young negress in a loose blue loincloth, reaching halfway down her
+thighs, entered. She crouched down on the ground, and held out her
+thin clasped hands toward me. And I saw that her bare arms were
+covered with the blows of a lash.
+
+"Who did this to you, Assumption?" I asked.
+
+She did not answer, but all her limbs trembled, for she did not
+understand, and wondered, perhaps, whether I too was about to inflict
+some brutality upon her.
+
+Gently I removed her garment, and saw that her back also was wounded.
+I washed it. But she, frightened by such kindness, fled for refuge
+under the table of my cabin. My eyes filled with tears. I tried to
+call her back. But her glance, like that of a beaten dog, shrank from
+me. I had a few potatoes, and a little butter. I mashed them to a pulp
+with a wooden spoon, and placed it in a bowl at some distance from the
+crouching Assumption. Then I lighted my pipe.
+
+At the end of an hour the poor creature began to move. She put one arm
+forward, then the other, and then a knee. I thought she was directing
+her attention toward the food in order to eat. But to my astonishment,
+I saw her crawl on hands and knees toward a corner of the room, where
+I had left a few flowers lying. She rose up quickly, and with a sudden
+movement seized them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was perhaps a hundred and fifty years after this adventure
+occurred, that I met Assumption again. At least I was convinced that
+it was she. It was in Bordeaux at the _Restaurant du Pérou_. She
+was drying the glass of a gloomy student who had not found it clean
+enough.
+
+
+
+
+THE PARADISE OF BEASTS
+
+
+Once on a rainy midnight a poor old horse, harnessed to a cab, was
+drowsing in front of a dingy restaurant from whence came the laughter
+of women and young people.
+
+And the poor spiritless animal with drooping head and shaking limbs
+made a sorry spectacle, as he stood there waiting the pleasure of the
+roisterers, that would at last permit him to go home to his reeking
+stable.
+
+Half asleep, the horse heard the coarse jokes of these men and women.
+He had long since grown painfully accustomed to it. His poor brain
+understood that there was no difference between the monotonous
+unchanging screech of a turning wheel and the shrill voice of a
+prostitute.
+
+And this evening he dreamed vaguely of the time when he had been a
+little colt that had gamboled on a smooth field, quite pink amid the
+green grass, and how his mother had given him to suck.
+
+Suddenly he fell stone dead on the slippery pavement.
+
+He reached the gate of heaven. A great scholar, who was waiting for
+St. Peter to come and open the gate, said to the horse:
+
+"What are you doing here? You have no right to enter heaven. I have
+the right because I was born of a woman."
+
+And the poor horse answered:
+
+"My mother was a gentle mare. She died in her old age with her blood
+sucked out by leeches. I have come to ask the _Bon Dieu_ if she is
+here."
+
+Then the gate of Heaven was opened to the two who knocked upon it, and
+the Paradise of animals appeared.
+
+And the old horse recognized his mother, and she recognized him.
+
+She greeted him by neighing. And when they were both in the great
+heavenly meadow the horse was filled with joy in finding again his old
+companions in misery and in seeing them happy forever.
+
+There were some who had drawn stones along the slippery pavements of
+cities, and they had been beaten with whips, and had finally fallen
+under the weight of the wagons. There were some who with bandaged
+eyes had turned the merry-go-rounds ten hours a day. There were mares
+killed in bullfights before the eyes of young girls, who, rosy with
+joy, watched the intestines of these unhappy beasts sweep the hot sand
+of the arena. There were many more, and then still more.
+
+And they all grazed eternally in the great plain of divine
+tranquillity.
+
+Moreover, the other animals were happy here also.
+
+The cats, mysterious and delicate, did not even obey the _Bon Dieu_
+who smiled upon them. They played with the end of a string patting
+it lightly with an important air, out of which they made a sort of
+mystery.
+
+The good mother-dogs spent their time nursing their little ones. The
+fish swam about without fear of the fisherman. The birds flew without
+dread of the hunter. And everything was like this.
+
+There were no men in this Paradise.
+
+
+
+
+OF CHARITY TOWARD BEASTS
+
+
+There is in the look of beasts a profound light and gentle sorrow,
+which fills me with such understanding that my soul opens like a
+hospice to all the sorrows of animals.
+
+They are forever in my heart, as when I see a tired horse, his nose
+drooping to the ground, asleep in the nocturnal rain, before a café;
+or the agony of a cat crushed beneath a carriage; or a wounded sparrow
+who has found refuge in a hole in a wall. Were it not for the feeling
+that it is undignified for a man, I would kneel before such patience
+and such torments, for I seem to see a halo around the heads of these
+mournful creatures, a real halo, as large as the universe, placed
+there by God Himself.
+
+Yesterday I was at a fair, and watched the merry-go-round. There was
+an ass among the wooden animals. The sight of it almost made me weep,
+because I was reminded of those living martyrs, its brothers.
+
+I wanted to pray, and to say to it: "Little ass, you are my brother.
+They say that you are stupid, because you are incapable of doing evil.
+You go your slow pace, and seem to think as you walk: 'See! I cannot
+go any faster...The poor make use of me, because they need not give
+me much to eat.' Little ass, the goad pricks you. Then you go a little
+faster, but not a great deal. You cannot go very fast...Sometimes
+you fall. Then they beat you, and pull at the rein fastened to the bit
+in your mouth. They pull so hard that your lips are drawn back showing
+your poor, yellow teeth which browse on miseries."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the same fair I heard the shrilling of a bagpipe. F. asked me:
+"Doesn't it remind you of African music?"--"Yes," I answered, "at
+Touggart the bagpipes have the same nasal note. It must be an Arab
+who is playing."--"Let us go into the booth," he said...Dromedaries
+were on exhibition there.
+
+A dozen little camels, crowded like sardines in a can, were stupidly
+going round and round in a sort of trench. These creatures which I
+have seen in the Sahara undulant like waves with only God and Death
+surrounding them, I now saw here, Oh sorrow of my heart! They went
+round and round again in that narrow space. The anguish which passed
+from them to me filled me as with nausea toward man. They went on
+and on, always on, proud as poor swans, hallowed as it were by their
+desolation. They were covered with grotesque trappings, and the butt
+of dancing women. They raised their poor verminous necks toward God,
+and toward the miraculous leaves of some imaginary oasis.
+
+Ah! what a prostitution of God's creatures. Farther along there were
+rabbits in a cage. Then came goldfish, that were offered as prizes of
+a lottery. They swam about in blown glass bowls, the necks of which
+were so narrow that F. said to me: "How did they get in?"--"By
+squeezing them a little," I answered. Still farther on were living
+chickens, also lottery prizes, spun around in a whirligig. In the
+center a Tittle milk-fed pig, mad with fear, was crouching flat on his
+stomach.
+
+Hens and pullets, overcome by vertigo, squawked and pecked frantically
+at one another. My companion called my attention to dead, plucked
+chickens hanging beside their living sisters.
+
+My heart swells at these memories. An infinite pity overcomes me.
+
+Oh poet, receive these poor suffering beasts into your soul. Let them
+warm themselves, and live there in eternal joy.
+
+Preach the simple word which bestows kindness on the ignorant.
+
+
+
+
+OF THINGS*
+
+*Some of the instances here are purely imaginary. I invented them so
+that I might more deeply penetrate into the heart of these things.
+
+
+I enter a great square of stirring shadow. Here close beside a red and
+black candle a man is driving nails into a shoe. Two children stretch
+their hands toward the hearth. A blackbird sleeps in its wicker cage.
+Water is boiling in the smoky earthenware pot from which rises a
+disagreeable soupy smell which mingles with that of tanner's bark and
+leather. A crouching dog gazes fixedly into the coals.
+
+There is such an air of gentle peace about these souls and these
+obscure things that I do not ask whether they have any reason for
+being other than this very peace, nor whether I read a special charm
+into their humility.
+
+The God of the poor watches over them, the simple God in whom I
+believe. It is He who makes an ear of grain grow from a seed; it is
+He who separates water from earth, earth from air, air from fire, fire
+from night; it is He who blows the breath of life into the body; it
+is He who fashions the leaves one by one. We do not know how this is
+done, but we have faith in it as in the work of a perfect workman.
+
+I contemplate without desiring to understand, and thus God reveals
+Himself to me. In the house of this cobbler my eyes open as simply
+as those of his dog. Then _I see_, I see in truth that which few can
+see--the essence of things, as, for example, the devotion of the
+smoky flame without which the hammer of the workman could not be a
+bread-winner.
+
+Most of the time we regard things in a heedless fashion. But they are
+like us, sorrowful or happy. When I notice a diseased ear of wheat
+among healthy ears, and see the livid stain on its grains I have a
+quick intuitive understanding of the suffering of this particular
+thing. Within myself I feel the pain of those plant-cells; I realize
+their agony in growing in this infected spot without crushing one
+another. I am filled with a desire to tear up my handkerchief, and
+bandage this ear of wheat. But I feel that there is no remedy for a
+single ear of wheat, and that humanly it would be an act of folly
+to attempt this cure. Such things are not done, yet no one pays
+any special attention if I take care of a bird or a grasshopper.
+Nevertheless I am certain that these grains suffer, because I feel
+their suffering.
+
+A beautiful rose on the other hand imparts to me its joy in life. One
+feels that it is perfectly happy swaying on its stem, for does not
+everybody say simply, "It is a pity to cut it," and thus affirm and
+preserve the happiness of this flower?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I recall very distinctly the time when it was first revealed to me
+that things suffered. It happened when I was three years old. In my
+native hamlet a little boy, while playing, fell on a piece of broken
+glass, and died of the wound.
+
+A few days later I went to the child's home. His mother was crying
+in the kitchen. On the mantelpiece stood a poor little toy. I recall
+perfectly that it was a small tin or leaden horse, attached to a
+little tin barrel on wheels.
+
+His mother said to me: "That is my poor little Louis's wagon. He is
+dead. Would you like to have it?"
+
+Then a flood of tenderness filled my heart. I felt that this _thing_
+had lost its friend, its master, and that it was suffering. I accepted
+the plaything, and overcome with pity I sobbed as I carried it home.
+I recall very well that I was too young to realize either the death of
+the little boy or the sorrow of his mother. I pitied only that leaden
+animal which seemed heart-broken to me as it stood on the mantelpiece
+forever idle and bereaved of the master it loved. I remember all this
+as if it had happened yesterday, and I am sure that I had no desire
+to possess this toy for my own amusement. This is absolutely true, for
+when I came home, with my eyes full of tears, I confided the little
+horse and barrel to my mother. She has forgotten the whole incident.
+
+The belief that things are endowed with life exists among children,
+animals, and simple people.
+
+I have seen children attribute the characteristics of a living being
+to a piece of rough wood or to a stone. They brought it handfuls of
+grass, and were absolutely sure that the wood or stone had eaten it
+when, as a matter of fact, I had carried it off without their noticing
+it.
+
+Animals do not differentiate the quality of an action. I have seen
+cats scratch at something too hot for them for a long time. In this
+act on the part of the animal there is an idea of fighting something
+which can yield or perhaps die.
+
+I think it is only an education, born of false vanity, that has robbed
+man of such beliefs. I myself see no essential difference between the
+thought of a child who gives food to a piece of wood and the meaning
+of some of the libations in primitive religions. Do we not attribute
+to trees an attachment to us stronger than life itself when we believe
+that one planted on the birthday of a child that sickens and dies will
+wither and dry up at the same time?
+
+I have known things in pain. I have known some which are dead. The sad
+clothes of our departed wear out quickly. They are often impregnated
+with the same disease as those who wore them. They are one with them.
+
+I have often considered objects which were wasting away. Their
+disintegration is identical with our own. They have their decay, their
+ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses. A piece of furniture gnawed
+by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of
+a violin suddenly out of tune, such are the ills which move me.
+
+When we become attached to things why do we believe that love is in us
+alone, and afterwards regard it as something external to us? Who can
+prove that things are incapable of affection, or who can demonstrate
+their unconsciousness? Was not that sculptor right who was buried
+holding in his hand a lump of the same clay that had obeyed his dream?
+Did it not have the devotion of a faithful servant; did it not have a
+quality which we should admire all the more, because it had the virtue
+of devoting itself in silence, without selfish interest, and with the
+passiveness of faith?
+
+Is there not something sublime and radiant in the thing that acts
+toward man, even as man acts toward God? Does the poet know any more
+what impulse he obeys, than does the clay? From the moment when
+they have both proved their inspiration, I believe equally in their
+consciousness, and I love both with the same love.
+
+The sadness which disengages from things that have fallen into disuse
+is infinite. In the attic of this house whose inhabitants I did not
+know, a little girl's dress and her doll lie desolate. And here is an
+iron-pointed staff which once bit into the earth of the green
+hills, and a sunbonnet now barely visible in the dim light from the
+garret-window. They have been abandoned since many years, and I am
+wholly certain that they would be happy again to enjoy, the one the
+freshness of the moss, and the other the summer sky.
+
+Things tenderly cared for show their gratitude to us, and are ever
+ready to offer us their soul when once we have refreshed it. They are
+like those roses of the desert which expand infinitely when a little
+water brings back to their memory the azure of lost wells.
+
+In my modest drawing-room there is a child's chair. My father played
+with it during his passage from Guadeloupe to France when he was
+_seven_ years old. He remembered distinctly that he sat on it in the
+ship's saloon, and looked at pictures which the captain lent him. The
+island wood of which it was made must have been stout for it withstood
+the games of a little boy. The piece of furniture had drifted into my
+home, and slept there almost forgotten. Its soul too had been asleep
+for many long years, because the child who had cherished it was no
+more, and no other children had come to perch upon it like birds.
+
+But recently the house was made merry by my little niece who was just
+_seven_. On my work-table she had found an old book with plates of
+flowers. When I entered the room I found her sitting on the little
+chair in the lamplight, looking at the charming pictures, just as once
+a long time ago her grandfather had done. And I was deeply touched.
+And I said to myself that this little girl alone had been able to
+make live again the soul of the chair, and that the gentle soul of the
+chair had bewitched the candor of the child. There was between her and
+this object a mysterious affinity. The one could not help but go to
+the other, and it could be awakened by her alone.
+
+Things are gentle. They never do harm voluntarily. They are the
+sisters of the spirits. They protect us, and we let our thoughts rest
+upon them. Our thoughts need them for resting-places as perfumes need
+the flowers.
+
+The prisoner, whom no human soul can any longer console, must feel
+tenderly toward his pallet and his earthen jug. When everything has
+been refused him by his fellows his obscure bed gives him sleep and
+his jug quenches his thirst. And even if it separates him from all the
+world without, the very barrenness of his walls stands between him and
+his executioners. The child who has been punished loves the pillow on
+which he cries; for when every one of an evening has hurt and scolded
+him, he finds consolation in the soul of the silent down. It is like a
+friend who remains silent in order to calm a friend.
+
+But it is not only out of the silence of things that is born their
+sympathy for us. They have secret harmonies. Sometimes they weep in
+the forest which René fills with his tempestuous soul; and sometimes
+they sing on the lake where another poet dreams.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are hours and seasons when certain of these accords are most to
+the fore, when one hears best the thousand voices of things. Two or
+three times in my life I have been present at the awakening of this
+mysterious world. At the end of August toward midnight, when the day
+has been hot, an indistinct murmur rises about the kneeling villages.
+It is neither the sound of rivers, nor of springs, nor of the wind,
+nor of animals cropping the grass, nor of cattle rubbing their chains
+against the cribs, nor of uneasy watchdogs, nor of birds, nor of the
+falling of the looms of the weavers. The chords are as sweet to the
+ear, as the glow of dawn is sweet to the eye. There is stirring a
+boundless and peaceful world in which the blades of grass lean toward
+one another till morning, and the dew rustles imperceptibly, and the
+seeds at each moment's beat raise the whole surface of the plain.
+It is the soul alone which can apprehend these other souls, this
+flower-dust joy of the corollas, these calls, and these silences that
+create the divine Unknown. It is as if one were suddenly transported
+to a strange country where one is enchanted by langorous words, even
+though one does not understand very clearly their meaning.
+
+Nevertheless I penetrate more deeply into the meaning whispered
+by these things than into that hidden in an idiom with which I am
+unfamiliar. I feel that I understand and that it would not require a
+very great effort to translate the thought of these obscure souls, and
+to note in a concrete fashion some of their manifestations. Perhaps
+poetry sometimes actually does this. It has happened that mentally I
+have answered this indistinct murmur, just as I have succeeded by my
+silence in answering distinctly a sweetheart's questions.
+
+But this language of things is not wholly auditory. It is made up
+of other symbols also, which are faintly traced on our souls. The
+impression is still too faint, but, perhaps, it will be stronger when
+we are better prepared to receive God.
+
+It is objects which have been my consolation in the grievous events of
+my life. At such moments some thing will catch my eye particularly.
+I who know not how to make my soul bow before men have prostrated it
+before things. A radiance emanates from them which may be outside the
+memories that I attach to them, and it is like a thrill of love. I
+have felt them. I feel them now living around me. They are part of
+my obscure realm. I feel a responsibility toward them like that of an
+elder brother. At this instant while I am writing I feel the souls of
+these divine sisters leaning upon me with love and trust. This chair,
+this chest of drawers, this pen _exist_ as I do. They touch me, and
+I feel prostrated before them. I have their faith ... I have their
+faith, which is beyond all systems, beyond all explanations, beyond
+all intelligence. They give me a conviction such as no genius could
+give me. Every system is vain, every explanation erroneous, the moment
+I feel living in my heart the knowledge of these souls.
+
+When I entered this cobbler's home I knew at once that I was welcome.
+Without a word I sat down before the hearth near the children and the
+dog and I opened my soul to the thousand shadowy voices of things.
+
+In this communion the falling of a half charred twig, the grating of
+the poker with which the fire was stirred, the blow of the hammer,
+the flickering of the candle, the creak of the dog's collar, the
+round bulging spot of blackness which was the sleeping blackbird,
+the singing of the cover of the pot, all combined to form a sacred
+language easier for me to understand than the speech of most men.
+These noises and these colors are only the gestures and expressions
+of objects, just as the voice or the glance are among our means of
+expression and gesture.
+
+I felt that a brotherhood united me to these humble things, and I knew
+it was childish to classify the kingdoms of nature when there is but
+one kingdom of God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Can we say that things never exhibit to us manifestations of their
+sympathy? The tool grows rusty when it no longer serves the hand of
+the workman, even as the workman when he abandons the tool.
+
+I knew an old smith. He was gay in the time of his strength, and the
+sky entered his dark smithy through the radiant noondays. The joyous
+anvil answered the hammer. And the hammer was the heart of the anvil
+beating with the heart of the craftsman. When night fell the smithy
+was lighted by its single light, the glance of the eyes of the burning
+coal which flamed under the leather bellows. A divine love united the
+soul of this man to the soul of these things. And when on the Lord's
+days the smith retired into pious contemplation, the forge which had
+been cleaned the night before prayed also in silence.
+
+The smith was my friend. At his dim threshold I often questioned him,
+and the whole smithy always answered me. The sparks laughed in the
+coal, and syllables of metal fashioned a mysterious and profound
+language which moved me like the words of duty. And I experienced
+there almost the same feelings as in the home of the humble cobbler.
+
+One day the smith fell ill. His breath grew short, and I noticed that
+now when he pulled the chain of the bellows, formerly so powerful, it
+also gasped and gradually caught the sickness of its master. The man's
+heart beat with sudden jumps, and I heard plainly that the hammer
+struck the iron irregularly as he brandished it above the anvil. And
+in the same degree as the light in the eyes of the man faded, the
+flame of the hearth grew dim. In the evenings it wavered more and
+more, and there were long intervals when the light vanished on the
+walls and ceiling.
+
+One day while at work the man felt his extremities turn to ice. In the
+evening he died. I entered the smithy. It was cold as a body deprived
+of life. One small ember glowed alone under the chimney, humble
+and watching, like the praying women that I found later beside the
+death-bed.
+
+Three months later I went into the abandoned workshop to help evaluate
+his small amount of property. Everything was damp and black as in a
+vault. The leather of the bellows was filled with holes where it had
+rotted. When we tried to pull the chain it came loose from the wood.
+And the simple people who were making the appraisal with me declared:
+
+"This forge and these hammers are worn out. They ended their life with
+the master."
+
+Then I was _moved_, because I _understood_ the mysterious meaning of
+these words.
+
+
+
+
+TO STONES
+
+
+Brilliant sisters of the torrents that I find on the shore of the
+Alpine lake: you are the stones loved by the rainbow and the azure
+cold, on you falls the white salt which is licked up by the lambs, you
+are mirrors whose light is iridescent as the pigeon's breast, you
+have more eyes than the peacock, you are crystallized by fire and your
+veins of snow have become eternal, you have been the companions of
+primordial cataclysms, you were washed by the sea and then rocked by
+it until the dove from the ark cooed with love at sight of you....
+
+The gleaming grain of your flesh at times has the blue-veined
+whiteness of a child's wrist, at times it has the golden coppery hue
+of the thigh of a heavy and beautiful woman, sometimes it is silvered
+with mica like a cheek in the sunlight, sometimes it is brown like the
+complexion of those in whom the dead blondness of tobacco is blended
+with the gold of the mandarin orange.
+
+You are stones that have been broken by the heart of the torrent, you
+have been dashed against each other and have been tossed about amid
+the daphnes of the ravine, you have been whipped by hailstorms and
+tempest, buried under the avalanche, uncovered by the sun, loosened by
+the feet of the chamois, you are cold and beautiful but above all else
+you are pure.
+
+I know little of your sisters of the Indies: either of her whose
+transparency rivals water gushing from marble, or of her who makes
+me dream of the clear meadows of my native valley, or of her who is a
+drop of frozen blood, or of her who resembles the solid sun.
+
+I prefer you to them, even though you are less precious. Sometimes you
+support the beams of thatched roofs while you gaze at the star-dotted
+sky, sometimes it is on you that the sheep-dog stretches himself as he
+mournfully guards his flock.
+
+At the heart of the ether where you rest upon the summits may you
+continue to receive the nourishment with which your peaceful
+kingdom is endowed, may the light bathe your cells which are still
+unrecognized, may buoyant flakes and curves steep them, may they
+resound to the vibration of the winds, may they receive at last that
+harmonious manna which stilled the hunger of Mary Magdalene in the
+grotto.
+
+Around you will bloom your sweethearts, the purest flowers of the
+world, but they are already less chaste than you for they have a
+perfume of snow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Poor gray sisters of the brook that I find on the plain, you are
+tarnished stones, on you falls the shower of rain that the sparrow
+may drink, you are struck by the foot of the she-ass, you are the
+guardians that form the inclosures of miserable gardens, it is you who
+are the concave threshold and the stone at the edge of the well worn
+smooth by the chain of the bucket, you are servants, poor things
+become shiny like the blades of implements of husbandry, you are
+heated in the hearth of the poor to warm the feet of old women, you
+are hollowed out for mean needs and become the humble table for the
+dog and the sow, you are pierced so that the singing harvest may be
+ground beneath the millstone, you are cut, you are taken, you are
+tossed aside, on you the wanderer will sleep, Oh, you under whom I
+shall sleep....
+
+You have not guarded your independence like your alpine companions.
+But, Oh my friends, I do not despise you for that. You are beautiful
+like the things which are in the shadow.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+Then, behold me on my return to this old parlor where I look upon
+the least object with tenderness. This shawl belonged to my paternal
+grandmother whom I never knew and who rests amid flowers in a humble
+cemetery of the Antilles. May the humming-birds glitter and cry above
+her deserted grave, and the tobacco-plants with their rosy bells
+delight her memory ... I have never seen the portrait which represents
+her. But I know she had a reputation for goodness and beauty. I have
+read admirable letters that she wrote from there to my father when he
+was a child. He had been brought back to France to be educated here,
+and had remained here.
+
+How often have I dreamed of reviving this past. How beautiful it
+would be if God gave us, once a year, the festival of seeing our dear
+departed return. I love to imagine it as occurring on Twelfth Night
+during a season of snow. The modest dining-room would be opened at
+the stroke of eight, and seated about the enlarged table, adorned
+with Christmas roses, I would find all those for whom my soul mourns
+beneath the cheery light of the lamps.
+
+It seems to me that this meeting would be entirely natural with
+little of the uncanny, and not at all like a fairy tale. My paternal
+grandfather, the doctor of medicine who died at Guadeloupe, would
+occupy the place of honor, and about his shoulders would be a little
+traveling cloak on which grains of frost were shining. His steely blue
+eyes behind the enormous gold-rimmed spectacles, which he wore and
+which my mother uses to-day, would make him appear as he was, at the
+same time severe and good. In a grave and melodious voice he would
+speak of the Great Crossing, of the wind of the Eternal Ocean, of
+earthquakes in unexplored countries, of shipwrecked men whom he had
+saved.
+
+And all would listen; and, death being eternal, it would be wonderful
+to see each one again at the particular age which we with singular
+obstinacy always attribute to our dear departed.
+
+The cousins from Saint-Pierre-de-la-Martinique, there were four of
+them I believe, would not be more than eighteen years old, and would
+be dressed in white muslin gowns. They would laugh at some cake that
+had not come out right. And my great aunts who were Huguenots, rigid
+but happy, with long chains of gold about their necks, would interpret
+the revelations of the Prophets to one another. And five and seventy
+years would quaver in each of their cracked voices. And my maternal
+grandsire at nineteen, with the green coat of a romantic student, all....
+
+But the dream fades and the wind weeps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In moss full of sunshine and transparent as an alga or an emerald, I
+have covered the roots of these first daisies of January. They and the
+rare periwinkles and the furze are the only flowers of this season.
+It is too much love doubtless which fills them. They must be born in
+spite of the ice. The white little bands of their flower-heads are
+tinged with violet at the ends, and surround the flowers which are
+greenish yellow like the under side of an old mushroom. The muddy
+roots feel the plowed fields. I have been so cruel as to pluck these
+flowers and now they are wretched; they are as wounded as animals
+could be; and see how, slowly as if they were moved by a terrible
+fear, the petals of the flowers curve in to cover and protect the
+sheathes of the minute corollas that I can no longer see. Tenderly I
+try to raise these petals, but they resist me and I only succeed in
+murdering the plant. Fool! Why could I not let these flowers live
+on the edge of their ditch? There they would have felt the fresh
+shrivelling of drinking in the sun, a bird would have touched them
+lightly, the proboscis of the mosquitoes would have sucked up their
+pollen, and they would have died gently by the side of their friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The stars of winter are beautiful when they are dusted on the
+slate-colored sky, and when in the hazy blue depth they light up the
+shreds of clouds. I passed through the little town at six o'clock,
+when the candles behind the window-panes make square shadows move
+within the shops and shine upon the reddish mud of the pavements.
+A dog trots by sniffing under the doorways. A wagon whose oxen have
+slipped makes a grating noise. A lantern flickers, a voice is heard.
+The angles of the roofs are clear-cut. The rest is consumed by the
+darkness. Here and there, still, at great distances, a window of smoky
+rose, and I am at the top of the slope.
+
+At the left an enormous star trembles. It seems to breathe and its
+rays alternately elongate and withdraw again. Its white fire appears
+to flow. I look upon the constellations, behind which there are other
+spaces of constellations, which hide still more constellations, until
+the glance is lost in luminous embers like those of a hearth.
+
+I am in no wise troubled by these stars. I do not see in them worlds
+infinitely great or small according to the one with which we compare
+them. They are in my thoughts, such as I see them: the largest like
+hummingbirds the smallest like wasps. The space which separates them
+one from another does not seem any greater than the pace with which I
+measure the road. It is simply the sky of January above a little town.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A peasant-woman has sold me some mushrooms. They are very rare
+nowadays. Their odor captures me, and I dream of the edges of
+the meadows, of the elves who, according to Shakespeare, make the
+mushrooms grow beneath the spell of the moon. They have been moistened
+by the melting frost, and fine and long grasses have become attached
+to their humidity. They bear within them the quivering mist of the
+nights. The first, they came forth from the earth under their
+umbels of ivory to find out whether the feet of the hedge were still
+surrounded by moss. They must have been deceived. They could not have
+seen the periwinkles or the violets, but only the irritating and fine
+gray rain in the gray sky.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Often I have visualized Heaven for myself. That of my childhood was
+the hut an old man had built at the top of a climbing road. This hut
+was called _Paradise_. My father brought me there at the hour when the
+dark mist of the hills became gilded like a church. I expected, at the
+end of each walk, to find God seated in the sun which seemed to sleep
+at the summit of the stony pathway. Was I mistaken?
+
+It is less easy for me to imagine the Catholic Paradise: the harps of
+azure, the rosy snow of legions in the pure rainbows. I still cling
+to my first vision, but since I have known love I have added to the
+divine kingdom a warm, sloping lawn in front of the old man's hut. On
+it a young girl gathers herbs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have simultaneously the soul of a faun and the soul of an
+adolescent. And the emotion which I feel on looking upon a woman is
+quite contrary to that which I feel on gazing at a young girl. If one
+could make one's self understood by the aid of fruits and flowers,
+I would offer to the first burning peaches, the rosy blossoms of the
+belladonna, heavy roses; to the second, cherries, raspberries, the
+blossoms of the wild quince, eglantine, and honeysuckle. I find it
+difficult to have any feeling which is not accompanied by the image of
+a flower or a fruit. When I think of Martha, I dream of gentians.
+With Lucy I associate the white anemones of Japan, and with Marie the
+lilies of Solomon; with another a citron which should be transparent.
+
+To the first meeting that a sweetheart has granted me, I have brought
+a spray of gladiolus whose throats have the rosy hue of an apricot.
+We placed them on the window during the night when I forgot them to
+remember only my love. To-day I would forget my loved one, to recall
+only the gladiolus.
+
+My memory is therefore, if I may so express it, vegetal. Trees as well
+as flowers and fruits symbolize for me beings and emotions. Plants
+as well as animals and stones filled my childhood with a mysterious
+_charm_. When I was four years old I remained rapt in contemplation
+of the broken stones of the mountain, lying in heaps along the roads.
+When struck they gave forth fire in the twilight. When rubbed against
+one another they felt the burning heat. I gathered pieces of marble
+from among them which seemed heavy with a water they had concealed
+within themselves. The mica of the granite held my curiosity in a way
+which nothing could satisfy. I felt that there was something that no
+one could tell me--the life of the stones.
+
+At the same age I was scolded because I carried away the artificial
+beetles from a hat of my mother. I had the passion of collecting
+animals, I felt toward them so great a love that I wept if I thought
+them unhappy. And I still endure a deep anguish when I remember the
+little nightingales which some one gave me and which pined away in the
+dining-room. Still at the same age, in order to make me go to sleep,
+they had to place not far from me a bottle containing a tree-frog.
+I knew that here was a faithful friend who would protect me against
+robbers. The first time that I saw a stag-beetle, I was so overcome
+by the beauty of its horns that the longing to possess one became an
+actual torment.
+
+The passion for plants did not develop until later, about the age of
+nine years, and I did not really begin to understand their life until
+about the age of fifteen. I remember the circumstances under which it
+happened. It was in summer, one Thursday, on a scorching afternoon.
+I was passing through the botanical garden of a great city with my
+mother. A white sun, dense blue shadows, and perfumes so heavy that
+one could almost feel them cling, made of this half desert spot a
+kingdom whose portal I crossed at last.
+
+In the tepid and reddish-brown water of the ponds plants vegetated;
+some were leathery and gray, and others long, soft, and transparent.
+But from the very heart of these poor and sad algae there rose into
+the very blue of the sky itself, green lance-like stalks whose
+rose and white umbels challenged the ardent day with their grace;
+water-lilies slept on their leaves as in a trustful afternoon sleep.
+
+To the plants of the water, the plants of the earth answered. I recall
+an alley where students, a handkerchief about the neck, were as if
+buried beneath the beauty of the leaves. It was the alley of the
+_umbelliferae_. The fennel and the ferula raised their crowns upon
+their stems with glistening sheaths. The perfumes spoke to each other
+in the silence. And one felt that a silent understanding went from
+plant to plant, and that over this isolated realm there hovered
+something like resignation.
+
+Since then I have understood the flowers and that their _families_
+belonged together and have a natural affinity, and are not merely
+divided into classes as an aid to our slow memories. Toward what
+solution do these geometries in action, which are plants, progress?
+I do not know. But there is a fascinating mystery in considering that
+even as species correspond to certain geological periods and thus
+group their sympathies, even so to-day they group themselves according
+to the seasons. What correspondence is there between the character
+of the shivering and snowy liliaceous plants of winter and the
+purple solanaceous plants of autumn? And then there are still other
+delightful dispositions which are due far less to the artifice of
+man than to the consent of certain species to regard others as their
+friends and not to pine away beside them. How sweet is the village
+garden where the gleaming lily, like those gods who often visit the
+humble, lives amid the cabbages, the blue leek, and the scallions,
+which boil in the black pot of the poor! How I love the peasant
+gardens at noonday when the mournful blue shadow of the vegetables
+sleeps in the white squares of granular earth, when the cock calls
+the silence, and when the buzzard, slanting and wheeling, makes
+the scuttling hen cluck! There are the flowers of simple loves, the
+flowers of the young wife who will dry the blue lavender to scent
+her coarse sheets. And in this garden grows also the flower of the
+rondel--the humble gilliflower with its simple perfume. There is also
+the faithful box, each leaf of which is a small mirror of azure, and
+the hollyhock in which the sweet and pure flame of melancholy
+corollas burns; they are the flowers of religion vowed to silence and
+austerity.
+
+And I love also the flora of the meadows: the meadow-sweet swayed by
+the breezes, rocked by the murmur of the brook. Its perfumed crown is
+adorned like the water-beetles, more iridescent than the throats of
+humming-birds.
+
+It is the beloved of the greensward, the bride of the grassy borders.
+
+But it is in the deep recesses of old deserted parks that the plants
+are most mysterious. There dwell those which we call _old
+flowers_, such as the ground-lilac, the belladonna-amaryllis, the
+crown-imperial. Elsewhere they would die. Here they persist, guarded
+by the favor of the age-old trees, strange trees, the names of which
+have disappeared. And these affected and distinguished blossoms raise
+their swaying heads only when, murmuring across the liquadambars and
+the maples, the wind moans like Chateaubriand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The very mournfulness of the little town is pleasing to me; I love its
+streets of dark shops, the worn thresholds, and the gardens. In the
+fine season they seem to float against a background of blue mist which
+is a confusion of hollyhocks, glycins, trellises; or again they seem
+patchy as the skin of asses, with drying rags above the hedges
+of battered boxwood. The tanner's brook drifts by with the pale
+mother-of-pearl of the sky, and reflects sharply the rooftops amid the
+slimy plants; the mountain torrent, which hollows the rocks, gleams,
+twines and flows away.
+
+The little place is charming when the grasshopper shrills in the
+summer's elms and the autumn wind scours it, or when the rains streak
+it. There is a little public garden that Bernardin de Saint Pierre
+would have loved; in May the night there is dense, blue, and soft in
+the chestnut-trees.
+
+For years I have lived here, whence my grandfather and a great uncle
+departed toward the flower-covered Antilles. They listened to the
+roaring of the sea; robes of muslin glided upon the verandas, and they
+died perhaps looking back with regret on these streets, these shops,
+these thresholds, these gardens, this brook, and this mountain
+torrent.
+
+When I go to my little farm I say to myself that this is where they
+once were. They brought their luncheon in a little basket, and one of
+them carried a guitar. And young girls surely followed swiftly. Song
+stirred among the damp hedgerows. An unutterable love frightened the
+birds, the mulberries were green. They kept time as they walked. A
+young girl's cry stirred the air, a big hat turned the corner of the
+road, a clear laugh rose from the rain-torn eglantines; then hearts
+beat when, in the bright dog-days, the black barns softened the
+clucking of the hens under the scarlet sky of the south.
+
+...This guitar or another I heard in the courtyard of my Huguenot
+great-aunts, one summer's evening when I was four years old. The
+courtyard slept in the white twilight, the roofs shed an unimaginable
+tenderness upon the climbing rosebushes and the bright paving-stones.
+Some one sitting on a beam was making merry at the expense of my
+childhood and my white apron. My great uncle sang some melody from the
+capital. I can see him again, standing upright with his head thrown
+back. The air trembled softly. At the end of a roulade he made an
+exaggerated and charming bow.
+
+I bless you, oh humble town where I am not understood, where I shelter
+my pride, my suffering, and my joy, where I have hardly any other
+distraction than that of listening to the barking of my old dog and
+watching the faces of the poor. But I reach the hillside where the
+prickly furze is spread, and in musing upon my difficulties I am
+filled with a beneficent gentleness. To-day it is no longer the
+coarse and disdainful laugh of the public, nor the terrible doubt of
+everything, which disturbs me. The laugh of my detractors has grown
+wearied, and I have become indifferent to what I am. Yet I have become
+grave toward myself and others. It is with an apprehensive joy that I
+regard the heedlessness of the happy. I have learned what misery
+may spring from love, what blindness is born of a glance. And it is
+because of what I have suffered that I would bestow a sad and slow
+caress on those who have not yet known anything but happiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The open door, the blue sky, the watering of the grass and the
+gilliflowers, and the hyacinths, and a single bird which chirps, and
+my dogs stretched on the ground and the rosebushes with their thick
+stems, the verdure of the lilacs, and a clock that is striking, a wasp
+which flies straight and marks the meadow with the lines of its golden
+vibration, and stops, hesitates, sets off again, is silent and buzzes....
+
+Hearts and choirs of primroses in the moist, shadowy mosses of the
+woods; long threads of rose and blue dew floating and swinging and
+suspended--from what?--in the immaterial morning; tree-frogs with
+golden eye-lids and white throbbing throats; furze whose perfume of
+faded peach and rose follows along the roads, already torrid....
+
+Iris, cries of jays, turtledoves, mountains of blue snow which are
+rocks of azure, green fields laid out in squares, brook rolling
+a golden pebble in the silence; first foliage of the waters, icy
+trembling of the body beside the springs when the sun lies burning on
+your hands....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Slender alders; fiery marshes where toward noonday puffing out their
+throat, the hoarse gray frogs climb up on the coriaceous plants,
+while slowly from the deep of the shady and gilded mire rises a bubble....
+
+Dry and twisted vines; swarms of insects from the blossoms of rosy
+peach-trees, in slanting flight into the azure; pear-trees and roses
+of Bengal....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Setting of the cherry sun; nocturnal snow of a fruit-tree; green and
+transparent shadowing of the lanes; summit of little hills at seven
+o'clock where the trees are like sponges which little by little blend
+into the severity of the uniform curve which swells and rises sharply.
+
+Starless night; violet night in which the white sandals of a beloved
+pagan can hardly be distinguished, and dense bristling of slender, dry
+trees; pallor of a limestone slope, and water in which something casts
+two long and deep shadows....
+
+Night; fire; lines of shadow blended with shadows of lines; fire;
+humid thickness of fields; fire; crimsoning and reddening of clouds;
+poplars; whiteness which must be a village. Water again, water, and
+shadows of water....
+
+A wagon passes. The lantern lights up only the rear of the horse,
+all else is night. When I was a child it was this which astonished
+me--this light which was quenched again. Another wagon...One sees
+only the rosy bust of a girl. It slips into the night....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I return from a journey. The recollection of a maroon reflection of a
+boat in the canal, the color of gray fish, makes my memory quiver. I
+dream of white tulips.
+
+I have returned at night. The croaking of frogs has greeted me from
+the depths of the damp meadow. My heart, do not burst!... Do not burst
+like the lilacs of the flower-garden whose fragrance I alone have
+touched....
+
+Will hope be born again? I am afraid. Is this one more disillusion?
+
+The wasp has hummed. I love none but the violet lilacs, I love none
+but the blue violets. It is Sunday, and I hear in the depths of my
+soul the droning of the harmoniums of poor churches.
+
+My life, behold my life, ardent and sad like a flame which
+burns through too warm a summer night beside the open window. An
+imperceptible breeze has suddenly swelled out the curtain of muslin
+like my heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the garden the perfume of the lilacs suddenly make me feel ill
+because I am horribly sad.
+
+Nevertheless, lilacs, you are dear to me since childhood. Then I
+thought your clusters were the beautiful polished images of a box of
+toys.
+
+And you, oh lilacs, have also haunted an orchard which I knew well in
+my youth. In this orchard there were hedge-hogs. They glided along old
+beams. How innocent and gentle the hedge-hogs are in spite of their
+quills! I remember my emotion one winter's evening, when I found one
+of them at the threshold of the kitchen; it had taken flight from the
+snow, and was poking its little nose into the refuse left there....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I love the creatures of the night, the screech-owls with their
+graceful flight, the bats, the badgers, all the timid beasts which
+glide through the air or in the grass and of which we know so little.
+What festivals do they hold amid the plants, their sisters?
+
+At the hour when man is at rest, the rabbits, silvered by the dew,
+bound over the mint of the furrow and hold their conventicles; the
+frogs croak in the marsh and make it ripple; the glowworms filter
+their soft and humid yellow light; the mole bores the meadow; the
+nightingale sobs like a fountain; the owl utters sad laughter as if it
+too, however timidly, were trying to have a share in the joy of God.
+
+How I would like to be a creature of the night, a hare trembling in
+a hedge of hawthorn, a badger grazed by the leaves of the juicy green
+corn. My only care would have been to safeguard my physical being. I
+would not have loved. I would not have hoped.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT***
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Romance of the Rabbit, by Francis Jammes,
+Edited by Gladys Edgerton, Translated by Gladys Edgerton
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Romance of the Rabbit
+
+Author: Francis Jammes
+
+Release Date: July 14, 2004  [eBook #12909]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Carla Kruger and Project Gutenberg Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT
+
+By
+
+FRANCIS JAMMES
+
+Authorized Translation from the French by Gladys Edgerton
+
+1920
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The simple and bucolic art of Francis Jammes has grown to maturity in
+the solitude of the little town of Orthez at the foot of the Pyrenees,
+far from the clamor and complexities of literary Paris. In the preface
+to an early work of his he has given the key of his artistic faith:
+"My God, You have called me among men. Behold I am here. I suffer and
+I love. I have spoken with the voice which you have given me. I have
+written with the words which You have taught my mother and my father
+and which they transmitted to me. I am passing along the road like a
+laden ass of which the children make mock and which lowers the head. I
+shall go where You wish, when You wish."
+
+And this is the way he has gone without faltering or ever turning
+aside to become identified with this school or that. It is this simple
+faith which has given to Francis Jammes his distinction and uniqueness
+among the poets of contemporary France, and won for him the admiration
+of all classes. There is probably no other French poet who can evoke
+so perfectly the spirit of the landscape of rural France. He delights
+to commune with the wild flowers, the crystal spring, and the friendly
+fire. Through his eyes we see the country of the singing harvest where
+the poplars sway beside the ditches and the fall of the looms of the
+weavers fills the silence. The poet apprehends in things a soul which
+others cannot perceive.
+
+His gift of sympathy with the poor and the simple is infinite. He
+is full of pity and tenderness and enfolds in his heart and in his
+poetry, saint and sinner, man and beast, all that which is animate
+and inanimate. He is passionately religious with a profound and humble
+faith, but it has nothing in common with the sumptuous and decorative
+neo-catholicism of men like Huysmans or Paul Claudel. Rather one must
+seek his origins in the child-like faith of Saint Francis of Assisi
+and the lyrical metaphysics of Pascal.
+
+Those of a higher sophistication and a greater worldliness may smile
+at the artlessness, and, if one will, naivete of a man like Jammes. It
+is true that his art is limited, and that if one reads too much at one
+time there is a note of monotony and a certain paucity of phrase, but
+who is the writer of whom this is not equally true? The quality of
+beauty, sincerity, and a large serenity are in his work, and how
+grateful are these permanencies amid the shrilling noises of the
+countless conflicting creeds and dogmas, and amid the poses and
+vanities which so fill the world of contemporary literature and art!
+
+As far as the record goes the outward life of Francis Jammes has been
+uneventful. In a remarkable poem, "A Francis Jammes," his friend and
+fellow-poet, Charles Guerin, has drawn an unforgetable picture of this
+Christian Virgil in his village home. The ivy clings about his house
+like a beard, and before it is a shadowy fire, ever young and fresh,
+like the poet's heart, in spite of wind and winters and sorrows. The
+low walls of the court are gilded with moss. From the window one sees
+the cottages and fields, the horizon and the snows.
+
+Jammes was born at Tournay in the department of Hautes Pyrenees on
+December 2, 1863, and spent most of his life in this region. He was
+educated at Pau and Bordeaux, and later spent a short time in a law
+office. Early in the nineties he wrote his first volumes, slender
+_plaquettes_ with the brief title "Vers." It is interesting that
+one of these was dedicated to that strange English genius, Hubert
+Crackanthorpe, the author of "Wreckage" and "Sentimental Studies."
+This dedication, and the curious orthography (the book was set up in a
+provincial printery) led a reviewer in the _Mercure de France_ into an
+amusing error, in that he suggested that the book had been written by
+an Englishman whose name, correctly spelled, should perhaps be Francis
+James.
+
+Since then his life has been wholly devoted to literature and he has
+published a considerable number of volumes of poetry and prose which
+by their very titles give a clue to the spirit pervading the author's
+work. Among the more important of these are: _De l'Angelus de
+l'Aube a l'Angelus du Soir, Le Deuil des Primeveres, Pomme d'Anis
+ou l'Histoire d'une Jeune Fille Infirme, Clairieres dans le Ciel_, a
+number of series of _Georgiques Chretienne_, etc.
+
+The present volume consists of a translation of _Le Roman du Lievre_,
+one of the most delightful of Francis Jammes' earlier books. In it he
+tells of Rabbit's joys and fears, of his life on this earth, of the
+pilgrimage to paradise with St. Francis and his animal companions,
+and of his death. This book was published in 1903, and has run through
+many editions in France. A number of characteristic short tales and
+impressions of Jammes' same creative period have been added.
+
+To turn a work so delicate and full of elusiveness as Jammes' from one
+language into another is not an easy task, but it has been a labor of
+love. The translator hopes that she has accomplished this without too
+great a loss to the spirit of the original.
+
+G.E.
+
+
+
+
+ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+
+Amid the thyme and dew of Jean de la Fontaine Rabbit heard the hunt
+and clambered up the path of soft clay. He was afraid of his shadow,
+and the heather fled behind his swift course. Blue steeples rose from
+valley to valley as he descended and mounted again. His bounds curved
+the grass where hung the drops of dew, and he became brother to
+the larks in this swift flight. He flew over the county roads, and
+hesitated at a sign-board before he followed the country-road, which
+led from the blinding sunlight and the noise of the cross-roads and
+then lost itself in the dark, silent moss.
+
+That day he had almost run into the twelfth milestone between Castetis
+and Balansun, because his eyes in which fear dwells are set on the
+side of his head. Abruptly he stopped. His cleft upper lip trembled
+imperceptibly, and disclosed his long incisor teeth. Then his
+stubble-colored legs which were his traveling boots with their worn
+and broken claws extended. And he bounded over the hedge, rolled up
+like a ball, with his ears flat on his back.
+
+And again he climbed uphill for a considerable time, while the dogs,
+having lost his scent, were filled with disappointment, and then, he
+again ran downhill until he reached the road to Sauvejunte, where he
+saw a horse and a covered cart approaching. In the distance, on this
+road, there were clouds of dust as in Blue Beard when Sister Anne is
+asked: "Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anything coming?" This
+pale dryness, how magnificent it was, and how filled it was with the
+bitter fragrance of mint! It was not long before the horse stood in
+front of Rabbit.
+
+It was a sorry nag and dragged a two wheeled cart and was unable to
+move except in a jerky sort of gallop. Every leap made its disjointed
+skeleton quiver and jolted its harness and made its earth-colored
+mane fly in the air, shiny and greenish, like the beard of an ancient
+mariner. Wearily as though they were paving-stones the animal lifted
+its hoofs which were swollen like tumors. Rabbit was frightened by
+this great animated machine which moved with so loud a noise. He
+bounded away and continued his flight over the meadows, with his
+nose toward the Pyrenees, his tail toward the lowlands, his right eye
+toward the rising sun, his left toward the village of Mesplede.
+
+Finally he crouched down in the stubble, quite near a quail which
+was sleeping in the manner of chickens half-buried in the dust, and
+overcome by the heat was sweating off its fat through its feathers.
+
+The morning was sparkling in the south. The blue sky grew pale under
+the heat, and became pearl-gray. A hawk in seemingly effortless flight
+was soaring, and describing larger and larger circles as it rose. At
+a distance of several hundred yards lay the peacock-blue, shimmering
+surface of a river, and lazily carried onward the mirrored reflection
+of the alders; from their viscous leaves exuded a bitter perfume,
+and their intense blackness cut sharply the pale luminousness of
+the water. Near the dam fish glided past in swarms. An angelus beat
+against the torrid whiteness of a church-steeple with its blue wing,
+and Rabbit's noonday rest began.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stayed in this stubble until evening, motionless, only troubled
+somewhat by a cloud of mosquitoes quivering like a road in the sun.
+Then at dusk he made two bounds forward softly and two more to the
+left and to the right.
+
+It was the beginning of the night. He went forward toward the river
+where on the spindles of the reeds hung in the moonlight a weave of
+silver mists.
+
+Rabbit sat down in the midst of the blossoming grass. He was happy
+that at that hour all sounds were harmonious, and that one hardly knew
+whether the calls were those of quails or of crystal springs.
+
+Were all human beings dead? There was one watching at some distance;
+he was making movements above the water, and noiselessly withdrawing
+his dripping and shimmering net. But only the heart of the waters was
+troubled, Rabbit's remained calm.
+
+And, lo, between the angelicas something that looked like a ball bit
+by bit came into view. It was his best-beloved approaching. Rabbit ran
+toward her until they met deep in the blue aftercrop of grass. Their
+little noses touched. And for a moment in the midst of the wild
+sorrel, they exchanged kisses. They played. Then slowly, side by
+side, guided by hunger, they set out for a small farm lying low in the
+shadow. In the poor vegetable garden into which they penetrated there
+were crisp cabbages and spicy thyme. Nearby the stable was breathing;
+the pig protruded its mobile snout, sniffing, under the door of its
+sty.
+
+Thus the night passed in eating and amatory sport. Little by little
+the darkness stirred beneath the dawn. Shining spots appeared in the
+distance. Everything began to quiver. An absurd cock, perched on
+the chicken-house, rent the silence. He crowed as if possessed, and
+clapped applause for himself with the stumps of his wings.
+
+Rabbit and his wife went their separate ways at the threshold of the
+hedge of thorns and roses. Crystal-like, as it were, a village emerged
+from the mist, and in a field dogs with their tails as stiff as cables
+were busy trying to disentangle the loops so skillfully described by
+the charming couple amid the mint and blades of grass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rabbit took refuge in a marl-pit over which mulberries arched, and
+there he stayed crouching with his eyes wide-open until evening. Here
+he sat like a king beneath the ogive of the branches; a shower of rain
+had adorned them with pale-blue pearls. There he finally fell asleep.
+But his dream was unquiet, not like that which should come from the
+calm sleep of the sultry summer's afternoon. His was not the profound
+sleep of the lizard which hardly stirs when dreaming the dream of
+ancient walls; his was not the comfortable noonday sleep of the badger
+who sits in his dark earthen burrow and enjoys the coolness.
+
+The slightest sound spoke to him of danger, the danger that lies
+in all things whether they move or fall or strike. A shadow moved
+unexpectedly. Was it an enemy approaching? He knew that happiness can
+be found in a place of refuge only when everything remains exactly the
+same this moment, as it was the moment before. Hence came his love of
+order, that is to say his immobility.
+
+Why should a leaf stir on the eglantine in the blue calm of an idle
+day? When the shadows of a copse move so slowly, that it seems they
+are trying to stop the passage of the hours, why should they suddenly
+stir? Why was there this crowd of men who, not far from his retreat,
+were gathering the ears of maize in which the sun threaded pale
+beads of light? His eyelids had no lashes, and so could not bear
+the palpitating and dazzling light of noondays. And this alone was
+sufficient reason why he knew that danger lurked if he should approach
+those who unblinded could look into the white flames of husbandry.
+
+There was nothing outside to lure him before the time came when he
+would go out of his own accord. His wisdom was in harmony with things.
+His life was a work of music to him, and each discordant note warned
+him to be cautious. He did not confuse the voice of the pack of hounds
+with the distant sound of bells, or the gesture of a man with that of
+a waving tree, or the detonation of a gun with a clap of thunder, or
+the latter with the rumbling of carts, or the cry of the hawk with
+the steam-whistle of threshing-machines. Thus there was an entire
+language, whose words he knew to be his enemies.
+
+Who can say from what source Rabbit obtained this prudence and this
+wisdom? No one can explain these things, or tell whence or how they
+have come to him. Their origin is lost in the night of time where
+everything is all confused and one.
+
+Did he, perhaps, come out of Noah's ark on Mount Ararat at the time
+when the dove, which retains the sound of great waters in its cooing,
+brought the olive-branch, the sign that the great wave was subsiding?
+Or had he been created, such as he is, with his short tail, his
+stubbly hide, his cleft lip, his floppy ear, and his trodden-down
+heel? Did God, the Eternal, set him all ready-made beneath the laurels
+of Paradise?
+
+Lying crouched beneath a rosebush he had, perhaps, seen Eve, and
+watched her when she had wandered amid the irises, displaying the
+grace of her brown legs like a prancing young horse, and extending
+her golden breasts before the mystic pomegranates. Or was he at first
+nothing but an incandescent mist? Had he already lived in the heart
+of the porphyries? Had he, incombustible, escaped from their boiling
+lava, in order to inhabit each in turn the cell of granite and of
+the alga before he dared show his nose to the world? Did he owe his
+pitch-black eyes to the molten jet, his fur to the clayey ooze, his
+soft ears to the sea-wrack, his ardent blood to the liquid fire?
+
+...His origins mattered little to him at this moment; he was resting
+peacefully in his marl-pit. It was in a sultry August toward the end
+of a heavy afternoon. The sky was of the deep-blue color of a plum,
+puffed out here and there, as if ready to burst upon the plain.
+
+Soon the rain began to patter on the leaves of the brake. Faster and
+faster came the drumming of the long rods of rain. But Rabbit was not
+afraid, because the rain fell in accordance with a rhythm which was
+very familiar to him. And besides the rain did not strike him for it
+had not yet been able to pierce the thick vault of green above him. A
+single drop only fell to the bottom of the marl-pit, and splashed and
+always fell again at the same place.
+
+So there was nothing in this concert to trouble the heart of Rabbit.
+He was quite familiar with the song in which the tears of the rain
+form the strophes, and he knew that neither dog, nor man, nor fox, nor
+hawk had any part in it. The sky was like a harp on which the silver
+strings of the streaming rain were strung from above down to the
+earth. And down here below every single thing made this harp resound
+in its own peculiar fashion, and in turn it again took up its own
+melody. Under the green fingers of the leaves the crystal strings
+sounded faint and hollow. It was as though it were the voice of the
+soul of the mists.
+
+The clay under their touch sobbed like an adolescent girl into whom
+the south wind has long blown inquietude. There where the clay was
+thirstiest and driest was heard a continual sound as of drinking, the
+panting of burning lips which yielded to the fullness of the storm.
+
+The night which followed the storm was serene. The downfall of rain
+had almost evaporated. On the green meadow where Rabbit was in the
+habit of meeting his beloved, nothing was left of the storm, except
+ball-like masses of mist. It looked as though they were paradisiacal
+cotton-plants whose downy whiteness was bursting beneath the flood of
+moonlight. Along the steep banks of the river the thickets, heavy with
+rain, stood in rows like pilgrims bowed down under the weight of their
+wallets and leather-bottles. Peace reigned. It was as though an
+angel had rested his forehead in a hand. Dawn shivering with cold was
+awaiting her sister the day, and the bowed-down leaves of grass prayed
+to the dawn.
+
+And suddenly Rabbit crouching in the midst of his meadow saw a man
+approaching, and he wasn't in the least afraid of him. For the first
+time since the beginning of things, since man had set traps and
+snares the instinct of flight became extinguished in the timid soul of
+Rabbit.
+
+The man, who approached, was dressed like the trunk of a tree in
+winter when it is clothed in the rough fustian of moss. He wore a cowl
+on his head and sandals on his feet. He carried no stick. His hands
+were clasped inside the sleeves of his robe, and a cord served as
+girdle. He kept his bony face turned toward the moon, and the moon was
+less pale than it. One could clearly distinguish his eagle's nose and
+his deep eyes, which were like those of asses, and his black beard on
+which tufts of lamb's wool had been left by the thickets.
+
+Two doves accompanied him. They flitted from branch to branch in the
+sweetness of the night. The tender beat of their wings was like the
+fallen petals of a flower, and as if these were striving to re-unite
+again and expand once more into a blossom.
+
+Three poor dogs that wore spiked collars and wagged their tails
+preceded the man, and an ancient wolf was licking the hem of his
+garment. A ewe and her lamb, bleating, uncertain, and enraptured,
+pressed forward amid the crocuses and trod upon their emerald, while
+three hawks began to play with the two doves. A timid night-bird
+whistled with joy amid the acorns. Then it spread its wings and
+overtook the hawks and the doves, the lamb and the ewe, the dogs, the
+wolf, and the man.
+
+And the man approached Rabbit and said to him:
+
+"I am Francis. I love thee and I greet thee, Oh thou, my brother. I
+greet thee in the name of the sky which mirrors the waters and the
+sparkling stones, in the name of the wild sorrel, the bark of the
+trees and the seeds which are thy sustenance. Come with these sinless
+ones who accompany me and cling to my foot-steps with the faith of the
+ivy which clasps the tree without considering that soon, perhaps, the
+woodcutter will come. Oh Rabbit, I bring to thee the Faith which we
+share one in another, the Faith which is life itself, all that of
+which we are ignorant, but in which we nevertheless believe. Oh dear
+and kindly Rabbit, thou gentle wanderer, wilt thou follow our Faith?"
+
+And while Francis was speaking the beasts remained quite silent; they
+lay flat on the ground or perched in the twigs, and had complete faith
+in these words which they did not understand.
+
+Rabbit alone, his eyes wide-open, now seemed uneasy because of the
+sound of this voice. He stood with one ear forward and the other back
+as if uncertain whether to take flight or whether to stay.
+
+When Francis saw this he gathered a handful of grass from the meadow,
+and held it out to Rabbit, and now he followed him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From that night they remained together.
+
+No one could harm them, because their Faith protected them. Whenever
+Francis and his friends stopped in a village square where people were
+dancing to the drone of a bagpipe at the evening hour when the young
+elms were softly shading into the night and the girls were gaily
+raising their glasses to the evening wind at the dark tables before
+the inns, a circle formed about them. And the young men with their
+bows or cross-bows never dreamed of killing Rabbit. His tranquil
+manner so astounded them, that they would have deemed it a barbarous
+deed had they abused the faith of this poor creature, which he so
+trustfully placed beneath their very feet. They thought Francis was a
+man skilled in the taming of animals, and sometimes they opened their
+barns to him for the night, and gave him alms with which he bought
+food for his creatures, for each one that which it liked best.
+
+And besides they easily found enough to live on, for the autumn
+through which they were wending was generous and the granaries were
+bulging. They were allowed to glean in the fields of maize and to have
+a share in the vintage and the songs which rose in the setting sun.
+Fair-haired girls held the grapes against their luminous breasts.
+Their raised elbows gleamed. Above the blue shadows of the chestnut
+trees shooting stars glided peacefully. The velvet of the heather was
+growing thicker. The sighing of dresses could be heard in the depth of
+the avenues.
+
+They saw the sea before them, hung in space, and the sloping sails,
+and white sands flecked by the shadows of tamarisks, strawberry-trees,
+and pines. They passed through laughing meadows, where the mountain
+torrent, born of the pure whiteness of the snows, had become a brook,
+but still glistened, filled with memories of the shimmering antimony
+and glaciers.
+
+Even when the hunting-horn sounded Rabbit remained quite without fear
+among his companions. They watched over him and he watched over them.
+One day a pack of hounds drew near to him, but fled again when they
+saw the wolf. Another time a cat crept close to the doves, but took
+flight before the three dogs with their spiked collars, and a ferret
+who lay in wait for the lamb had to seek a hiding-place from the birds
+of prey. Rabbit, himself, frightened away the swallows who attacked
+the owl.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rabbit became specially attached to one of the three dogs with spiked
+collars. She was a spaniel, of kind disposition, and compact build.
+She had a stubby tail, pendant ears, and twisted paws. She was easy to
+get on with and polite. She had been born in a pig-pen at a cobbler's
+who went hunting on Sundays. When her master died, and no one wanted
+to give her shelter, she ran about in the fields where she met
+Francis.
+
+Rabbit always walked by her side, and when she slept her muzzle lay
+upon him and he too fell asleep. All of them always had their noonday
+sleep, and under the dull fire of the sun it was filled with dreams.
+
+Then Francis saw again the Paradise from which he had come. It seemed
+to him as if he were passing through the great open gate into the
+wonderful street on which stood the houses of the Elect. They were low
+huts, each like the other, in a luminous shadow which caused tears
+of joy to rise in the eyes. From the interior of these huts might be
+caught the gleam of a carpenter's plane, a hammer, or a file. The work
+that is sublime continues here; for, when God asked those who had come
+to him what reward they desired for their work on earth, they always
+wished to go on with that which had helped them to gain Heaven.
+And then suddenly their humble crafts became filled with a sort of
+mystery. Artisans appeared at their thresholds where tables were set
+for the evening meal. One heard the cheery burble of celestial wells.
+And in the open squares angels that had a semblance to fishing-boats,
+bowed down in the blessedness of the twilight.
+
+But the animals in their dreams saw neither the earth nor Paradise as
+we know them and see them. They dreamed of endless plains where their
+senses became confused. It was like a dense fog in them. To Rabbit the
+baying of the hounds became all blended into one thing with the heat
+of the sun, sharp detonations, the feeling of wet paws, the vertigo
+of flight, with fright, with the smell of the clay, and the sparkle
+of the brook, with the waving to and fro of wild carrots and the
+crackling of maize, with the moonshine and the joyous emotion of
+seeing his mate appearing amid the fragrant meadow-sweet.
+
+Behind their closed eyelids they all saw moving like mirrored
+reflections the courses of their lives. The doves, however, protected
+their nimble and restless, little heads from the sun; they sought for
+their Paradise beneath the shadow of their wings.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+
+When winter came Francis said to his friends:
+
+"Blessings upon you for you are of God. But in my heart I am uneasy
+for the cry of the geese that are flying southward tells that a famine
+is near at hand, and that it is not in the purposes of Heaven to make
+the earth kind for you. Praised be the hidden designs of the Lord!"
+
+The country around them, in fact, became a barren waste. The sky let
+drip a yellow light from its sack-like clouds bulging with snow. All
+the fruits of the hedges had withered, and all those of the orchards
+were dead. And the seeds had left their husks to enter into the bosom
+of the earth.
+
+..."Praised be the hidden designs of the Lord," said Francis.
+"Perhaps it is His wish that you leave me, and each of you go your own
+way in quest of nourishment. Therefore separate from me since I cannot
+go with each one of you, if your instincts lead you to different
+lands. For you are living and have need of nourishment, while I am
+risen from the dead and am here by the grace of God, free from all
+corporeal needs, a spirit as it were who had the privilege of guiding
+you to this day. But whatever knowledge I have is growing less, and
+I no longer know how to provide for you. If you wish to leave me, let
+the tongue of each be loosed, and freely let each speak."
+
+The first to speak was the Wolf.
+
+He raised his muzzle toward Francis. His shaggy tail was swept by the
+wind. He coughed. Misery had long been his garb. His wretched fur made
+him seem like a dethroned king. He hesitated, and cast his eye upon
+each one of his companions in turn. At last his voice came from his
+throat, hoarse like that of the eternal snow. And when he opened his
+jaws one could measure his endless privations by the length of his
+teeth. And his expression was so wild that one could not tell whether
+he was about to bite his master or to caress him.
+
+He said:
+
+"Oh honey without sting! Oh brother of the poor! Oh Son of God! How
+could even I leave you? My life was evil, and you have filled it with
+joy. During the nights it was my fate to lie in wait listening to
+the breath of the dogs, the herdsmen, and the fires, until the right
+moment came to bury my fangs in the throat of sleeping lambs. You
+taught me, Oh Blessed One, the sweetness of orchards. And even at this
+moment when my belly was hollow with hunger for flesh, it was your
+love for me that nourished me. Often, indeed, my hunger has been a
+joy to me when I could place my head on your sandal for I suffer this
+hunger that I may follow you, and gladly I would die for your love."
+
+And the doves cooed.
+
+They stopped in their shivering flight together among the branches
+of a barren tree. They could not make up their minds to speak. Each
+moment it seemed as though they were about to begin, when in sudden
+fright they again filled the listening forest with their sobbing white
+caresses. They trembled like young girls who mingle their tears and
+their arms. They spoke together as if they had but a single voice:
+
+"Oh Francis, you are more lovely than the light of the glow-worm
+gleaming in the moss, gentler than the brook which sings to us while
+we hang our warm nest in the fragrant shade of the young poplars. What
+matter that the hoarfrost and famine would banish us from your side
+and drive us far away to more fruitful lands? For your sake we will
+love hoarfrost and famine. For the sake of your love we will give up
+the things we crave. And if we must die of the cold, Oh our Master, it
+will be with heart against heart."
+
+And one of the dogs with the spiked collars advanced. It was the
+spaniel, Rabbit's friend. Like the wolf she had already suffered
+bitterly with hunger and her teeth chattered. Her ears were wrinkled
+even when she raised them, and her straggly tail which looked like
+tufts of cotton she held out rigid and motionless. Her eyes of the
+color of yellow raspberries were fixed on Francis with the ardor of
+absolute Faith. And her two companions, who trustfully were getting
+ready to listen to her, lowered their heads in sign of their ignorance
+and goodwill. They were shepherd dogs, who had never heard anything
+but the sob of the sheep-bells, the bleating of the flocks and the
+lash-like crack of the lightning on the summits, and, proud and happy,
+they waited while the little spaniel bore witness.
+
+She took a step forward. But not a sound came from her throat. She
+licked the hand of Francis, and then lay down at his feet.
+
+And the ewe bleated.
+
+Her bleats were so full of sadness that it seemed as if she were
+already exhaling her soul toward death at the very thought of leaving
+Francis. As she stood there in silence, her lamb, seized by some
+strange melancholy, was suddenly heard, crying like a child.
+
+And the ewe spoke:
+
+"Neither the placidity of grassy meadows toned down by the mists of
+the dawn, nor the sweet woods of the mountains dotted by the fog
+with the pearls of its silvery sweat, nor the beds of straw of the
+smoke-filled cabins, are in any way comparable to the pasture-grounds
+of your heart. Rather than leave you we should prefer the bloody and
+loathful slaughter-house, and the rocking of the cart on which we are
+carried thither with our legs tied and our flanks and cheeks on the
+boards. Oh Francis, it would be like unto death to us to lose you, for
+we love you."
+
+And while the sheep spoke the owl and the hawks, perched near one
+another, remained motionless, their eyes full of anguish and their
+wings pressed close to their sides lest they fly away.
+
+The last one to speak was Rabbit.
+
+Clothed in his fur of the color of stubble and earth he seemed like a
+god of the fields. In the midst of the wintry waste he was like a clod
+of earth of the summer time. He made one think of a road-mender or
+a rural postman. Tucked up in the windings of his flapping ears he
+carried with himself the agitation of all sounds. One of the ears,
+extended toward the ground, listened to the crackling of the frost,
+while the other, open to the distance, gathered in the blows of an axe
+with which the dead forest resounded.
+
+"Surely, Oh Francis," he said, "I can be satisfied with the mossgrown
+bark which has grown tender beneath the caress of the snows and which
+wintry dawns have made fragrant. More than once have I satisfied
+my hunger with it during these disastrous days when the briars have
+turned into rose-colored crystals, and when the agile wagtail utters
+its shrill cry toward the larvae which its beak can no longer reach
+beneath the ice along the banks. I shall continue to gnaw these barks.
+For, Oh Francis, I do not wish to die with these gentle friends who
+are in their agony, but rather I wish to live beside you and obtain my
+sustenance from the bitter fiber of the trees."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Therefore because the country of each of them was a different land
+where each could dwell only by himself, Rabbit's companions chose not
+to separate, but to die together in this land harrowed by winter.
+
+One evening the doves which had become like dead leaves fell from the
+branch on which they were perched, and the wolf closed his eyes on
+life, his muzzle resting on the sandal of Francis. For two days his
+neck had been so weak that it could no longer support his head, and
+his spine had become like the branch of a bramble bespattered with
+mud, shivering in the wind. His master kissed him on the forehead.
+
+Then the lamb, the sheep-dogs, the hawks, the owl, and the ewe gave up
+their souls, and finally also the little spaniel whom Rabbit in vain
+had sought to keep warm. She passed away wagging her tail, and
+it grieved stubble-colored Rabbit so much that it took until the
+following day before he could touch the bark of the oaks again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And in the midst of the world's desolation Francis prayed, his
+forehead on his clenched hand, just as in an excess of sorrow a poet
+feels his soul escaping him once more.
+
+Then he addressed him of the cleft lip.
+
+"Oh Rabbit, I hear a voice which tells me that you must lead these
+(and he pointed to the bodies of the animals) to Eternal Blessedness.
+Oh Rabbit, there is a Paradise for beasts, but I know it not. No man
+will ever enter it. Oh Rabbit, you must guide thither these friends,
+whom God has given me and whom he has taken away. You are wise among
+all, and to your prudence I commit these friends."
+
+The words of Francis rose toward the brightening sky. The hard azure
+of winter gradually became limpid. And under this returning gladness,
+it seemed as if the graceful spaniel were about to raise her supple,
+silken ears again. "Oh my friends who are dead," said Francis, "are
+you really dead, since I alone am conscious of your death? What proof
+can you give to sleep that you are not merely slumbering? Is the fruit
+of the clematis asleep or is it dead when the wind no longer ruffles
+the lightness of its tendrils? Perhaps, Oh wolf, it is merely that
+there is no longer sufficient breath from on high for you to raise
+your flanks; and for you, doves, to make you expand like a sigh;
+and for you, sheep, to cause your lamentations by their sweetness to
+augment even the sweetness of flooded pastures; and for you, owl, to
+reawaken your sobbing, the plaint of the amorous night itself; and for
+you, hawks, to rise soaring from the earth; and for you, sheep-dogs,
+to have your barking mingle once more with the sound of the sluices;
+and for you, spaniel, to have exquisite understanding born again, that
+you may play with Rabbit again?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly Rabbit made a leap into the azure from the molehill where
+he had lain down, and did not drop back. And lightly as if he were
+passing over a meadow of blue clover he made a second bound into
+space, into the realm of the angels.
+
+He had hardly completed this second leap when he saw the little
+spaniel by his side, and joyously he asked her:
+
+"Aren't you really dead, then?"
+
+And skipping toward him she replied:
+
+"I do not understand what you are saying to me. My noonday sleep
+to-day was peaceful and bright."
+
+Then Rabbit saw that the other animals were following him into the
+void, while Francis was journeying along another heavenly pathway,
+indicating to the wolf by means of signs with his hand to put his
+trust in Rabbit. And the wolf with docility and peace in his heart
+felt Faith come over him again. He continued on his way with his
+friends, after a long look toward his master, and knowing that for
+those who are chosen there is something divine even in the final
+adieu.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They left winter behind them. They were astonished at passing through
+these meadows which formerly were so inaccessible and so far above
+their heads. But the need of gaining Paradise gave them a firm footing
+in the sky.
+
+By the paths of the seraphim, along the trellises of light, over the
+milky ways where the comet is like a sheaf of grain, Rabbit guided his
+companions. Francis had entrusted them to him, and had given him to
+them as guide because he knew Rabbit's prudence. And had he not on
+many occasions given his master proofs of this quality of discretion
+which is the beginning of wisdom? When Francis met him and begged
+him to follow, had he not waited until Francis held out a handful of
+flowering grass and let him nibble at it? And when all his companions
+let themselves die of hunger for love of one another, had not he with
+his down-trodden heels continued to gnaw the bitter bark of the trees?
+
+Therefore it seemed that this prudence would not fail him even in
+heaven. If they lost their way he would find the right road again. He
+would know how not to get lost, and how not to collide with either the
+sun or the moon. He would have the skill to avoid the shooting-stars
+which are as dangerous as stones thrown from a sling. He would find
+the way by the heavenly sign-posts on which were marked the number of
+miles that had been left behind, as well as the names of the celestial
+hamlets.
+
+The regions traversed by Rabbit and his companions were ravishing
+and filled them with ecstasy. This was all the more the case because
+contrary to man, they had never suspected the beauties of the sky;
+they had been able to look only sidewise and not upward, this being
+the exclusive right of the king of animals.
+
+So it came that Short-tail, the Wolf, the Ewe, the Lamb, the Birds,
+the Sheep-Dogs, the Spaniel, discovered that the sky was as beautiful
+as the earth. And all except Rabbit, who was sometimes troubled by
+the problems of direction, enjoyed an unalloyed pleasure in this
+pilgrimage toward God. In place of the heavenly fields, which only a
+short while ago seemed inaccessible above their heads, the earth now
+became in its turn slowly inaccessible beneath their feet. And as
+they moved further and further away from it, this earth became a new
+heavenly canopy for them. The blue of the oceans formed their clouds
+of foam, and the candles of the shops sprinkled like stars the expanse
+of the night.
+
+Gradually they approached the regions which Francis had promised them.
+Already the rose-red clovers of the setting suns and the luminous
+fruits of the darkness which were their food grew larger and fuller
+and melted in their souls into the sweets of paradise.
+
+The leaves and ardent pulp of the fruits filled their blood with some
+strange summer-like power, a palpitating joy which made their hearts
+beat faster as they came nearer and nearer the marvels that were to be
+theirs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At last they came to the abode of the beasts, who had attained eternal
+bliss. It was the first Paradise, that of the dogs.
+
+For some time already they had heard barking. Bending down toward the
+trunk of a decayed oak they saw a mastiff sitting in a hollow as in
+a niche. His disdainful and yet placid glance told them that his mind
+was disordered. It was the dog of Diogenes, to whom God had accorded
+solitude in this tub, hollowed out of a very tree itself. With
+indifference he watched the dogs with the spiked collars pass by.
+Then to their great astonishment he left his moss-grown kennel for
+a moment, and, since his leash had become undone, tied himself fast
+again using his mouth as aid. He reentered his den of wood, and said:
+
+"_Here each one takes his pleasure where he finds it_."
+
+And, in fact, Rabbit and his companions saw dogs in quest of imaginary
+travelers who had lost their way. They dared descent into deep abysses
+to find those who had met with accident, bearing to them the bouillon,
+meat, and brandy contained in the small casks hanging from their
+collars.
+
+Others flung themselves into icy waters, always hoping, but always in
+vain, that they might rescue a shipwrecked sailor. When they regained
+the shore they were shivering, stunned, yet happy in their futile
+devotion, and ready to fling themselves in again.
+
+Others persistently begged for a couple of old bones at the thresholds
+of deserted cottages along the road, waiting for kicks, and their eyes
+were filled with an inexpressible melancholy.
+
+There was also a scissors-grinder's dog, who with tongue hanging out,
+was joyfully turning the wheel-work which made the stone revolve, even
+though no knife was held against it in the process of sharpening. But
+his eyes shone with the unquestioning faith in a duty fulfilled; he
+ceased not to labor except to catch his breath, and then he labored
+again.
+
+Then there was a sheep-dog, who, ever faithful, sought to bring back
+to a fold ewes that were evermore straying. He was pursuing them on
+the bank of a brook which gleamed on the edge of a grassy hill.
+
+From this green hill and from out of the under-woods a pack of hounds
+broke forth. They had hunted the hinds and gazelles of their dreams
+all the day long. Their baying which lingered about the ancient scents
+sounded like the happy bells on a flowery Easter morning.
+
+Not far from here the sheep-dogs and the little spaniel established
+their home. But when the latter wished to bid Rabbit a tender farewell
+she saw that Long-Ear had slipped away on hearing the dogs of the
+chase.
+
+And it was without him that the hawks, the owl, the doves, the wolf,
+and the ewes had to continue their flight or their progress. They
+understood very well that he, a rabbit of little faith, would not know
+how to die like them. Instead of being saved by God, he preferred to
+save himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The second Paradise was that of the birds. It lay in a fresh grove,
+and their songs flooded the leaves of the alders and made them
+tremble. And from the alders the songs flowed onward into the river
+which became so imbued with music that it played on the rushes.
+
+At a distance a hill stretched out; it was all covered with springtime
+and shade. Its sides were of incomparable softness. It was fragrant
+with solitude. The odor of nocturnal lilacs mingled with that which
+came from the heart of dark roses whence the hot white sun quenches
+its thirst.
+
+Now, suddenly, at intervals, the song of the nightingale was heard
+expanding; it was as if stars of crystal had fallen upon the waves
+and broken there. There was no other sound but the song of the
+nightingale. Over the whole expanse of the silent hill nothing was
+heard but the song of the nightingale. Night was merely the sobbing of
+the nightingale.
+
+Then in the groves dawn appeared, all rose-red because it was naked
+amid the choirs of birds who still sang from a full throat for their
+wings were heavy with love and morning dew. The quails in the grain
+were not yet calling. The tom-tits with their black heads made a noise
+in the thicket of fig-trees like the sound of pebbles moved by water.
+A wood-pecker rent the azure with its cry, and then flew toward the
+old, white-flowered apple-trees. It had almost the appearance of a
+handful of grass torn from the golden meadows with a clover-flower as
+its head.
+
+The three hawks and the owl entered into these places abounding in
+flowers, and not a single redbreast and not a single gold-finch and
+not a single linnet was frightened by them. The birds of prey sat on
+their perches with an arrogant and sad air, and kept their eyes fixed
+on the sun; now and then they beat their steely wings against their
+mottled, keel-like breasts.
+
+The owl sought out the shadows of the hill, so that hidden in some
+solitary cavern and happy in its darkness and wisdom, it might listen
+to the plaint of the nightingale.
+
+But the most wonderful shelter of all was that chosen by the doves.
+They sat among the olive-trees, that were stirred by the evening
+breeze. In this garden young girls dwelled, who were permitted to
+enter here because of their animal-like grace. They included all the
+young girls who sighed and were like to honey-suckle; all the young
+girls who languish with all the doves that weep. And all the doves
+were included here, those from Venice, whose wings were like cooling
+fans to the boredom of the wives of the doges, as well as those
+of Iberia whose lips had the orange and tobacco-yellow color of
+fisherwomen and their provocative allurement. Here were all the doves
+of dreams, and all the dreaming doves: the dove that drew Beatrice
+heavenward and to which Dante gave a grain of corn; and the one which
+the disenchanted Quitteria heard in the night. Here was the dove which
+sobbed on Virginia's shoulder, when during the night she sought
+in vain to calm the fires of her love in the spring underneath a
+cocoanut-palm. And here too was the dove to which the heavy-hearted
+maiden at the waning of summer, in the orchard among the ripening
+peaches, confides passionate messages that it may bear them along in
+its flight into the unknown.
+
+And there were the doves of old parsonages shrouded in roses, and
+those which Jocelyn with his incense-fragrant hand fed as he dreamed
+of Laurence. And there was the dove which is given to the dying little
+girl, and that which in certain regions is placed upon the burning
+brow of the sick, and the blinded dove whose voice is so filled
+with pain that it lures the flight of its passing sisters toward
+the huntsman's ambush, and the dove, the gentlest of all, who brings
+comfort to the forgotten old poet in his garret.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The third paradise was that of the sheep.
+
+It lay in the heart of an emerald valley watered by streams, and
+beneath their sun-bathed crystal the grass was of a marvelous green.
+And nearby was a lake, iridescent like mother-of-pearl and the
+feathers of a peacock; it was azure and glistened like mica, and
+seemed to be the breast of humming-birds and the wing of butterflies.
+Here after they had licked the pure white salt from the golden-grained
+granite, the sheep dreamed their long dream, and their tufts of thick
+wool overlapped like the leaves of great branches covered with snow.
+
+This landscape was so pure and of such dreamlike clarity that it had
+whitened the eye-lashes of the lambs, and had entered into their eyes
+of gold. And the atmosphere was so transparent that it seemed one
+could see in the depth of the water clearly revealed the outlines of
+the yellow-striped summits of limestone. Flowers of frost, of sky, and
+of blood were woven into the carpets of the forests of beech and fir.
+After having passed over them the breeze went forth again even more
+softly, more fragrant, more ice-like in its purity.
+
+Like a blue flood the marvelous cone-like trees, interwoven with
+silvery lichens, stretched upward. Waterfalls as if suspended from
+the rocky crags, scattered in a smoke-like spray. And suddenly the
+heavenly flocks sent forth their bleating toward God, and the ecstatic
+bells wept for the shadow of the ferns. And the dark water of the
+grottoes broke in the light.
+
+Lying amid the wild laurel the lamb of the Gospel became visible
+again. Its paw rested under its nose, and was still bleeding. The
+roads over which it had passed had been hard, but soon it would be
+fully restored by the slightly acid sweetness of the myrtles. Even now
+it was quivering as it listened to its scattered companions.
+
+On entering this Paradise to dwell therein the sheep of Francis saw
+the lamb of Jean de la Fontaine amid the forget-me-nots which were
+of the mirror-like color of the waves. It no longer disputed with
+the wolf of the fable. It drank, and the water did not become turbid
+thereat. The untamed spring over which the two hundred year old ivy
+seemed to have thrown a shadow of bitterness, streamed on amid
+the grass with its broken waves in which were mirrored the snowy
+tremblings of the lamb.
+
+And high on the slopes of the _happy valleys_ they saw the sheep of
+those heroes that Cervantes tells about, all of whom were sick at
+heart for the love of one and the same girl and left their city to
+lead the life of shepherds in a far-away country. These sheep had
+the gentlest of voices, like hearts that secretly love their own
+sufferings. They drank from the wild thyme the always new, burning
+tears which their bucolic poets had let fall like dew from the cups of
+their eyes.
+
+At the horizon of this Paradise there rose a confused murmur like
+that of the Ocean. It consisted of the broken sobbing of flutes
+or clarinets, of cries reechoed from the abysses, of the baying of
+restless dogs, and of the fall of a moss-covered stone into the
+void. It was the tumult of the waterfalls high above the noise of the
+torrents. It was like the voice of a people on the march toward the
+promised land, toward the grapes without name, toward the fiery spikes
+of grain; and mingled with this sound was the braying of pregnant
+she-asses, that were laden with heavy containers of milk and the
+mantles of the herdsmen and salt and cheeses which were brittle like
+chalk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fourth Paradise in its almost indescribable barrenness was that of
+the wolves.
+
+At the summit of a treeless mountain, in the desolation of the wind,
+beneath a penetrating fog, they felt the voluptuous joy of martyrdom.
+They sustained themselves with their hunger. They experienced a bitter
+joy in feeling that they were abandoned, that never for more than an
+instant--and then only under the greatest suffering--had they been
+able to renounce their lust for blood. They were the disinherited,
+possessed of the dream that could never be realized. For a long time
+they had not been able to approach the heavenly lambs whose white
+eyelashes winked in the green light. And as none of these animals ever
+died, they could no longer lie in wait for the body which the shepherd
+threw to the eternal laughter of the torrent.
+
+And the wolves were resigned. Their fur, bald as the rock, was
+pitiable. A sort of miserable grandeur reigned in this strange abode.
+One felt that this destitution was so tragic and so inexorable that
+one would have tenderly kissed the forehead of these poor flesh-eating
+beasts even had one surprised them in slaying the lambs. The beauty
+of this Paradise in which the friend of Francis now found his home was
+that of desolation and hopeless despair.
+
+And beyond this region the heaven of the beasts stretched on to
+infinity.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+
+As for Rabbit, he had prudently taken flight at sight of the heavenly
+pack of hounds. While Francis had remained near him he had trusted in
+Francis. But now, even though he was in the abode of the Blessed,
+his distrust which was as natural to him as to the suspicious peasant
+gained the upper hand again. And since he did not yet feel himself
+entirely at home in this Paradise, tasting neither perfect security,
+nor the thrill of familiar danger against which he could battle,
+Long-Ear became bewildered.
+
+Accordingly he strayed hither and thither, ill at ease, not knowing
+where he was, nor finding his way. He sought in vain for that from
+which he fled and that which fled from him. But what was the reason
+for this? Was not Heaven happiness? Was there any stillness that
+could be more still? In what other resting-place could Cleft-Lip have
+dreamed a sleep more undisturbed than on these beds of wool that the
+breeze spread beneath the flower-covered bushes of the stars?
+
+But he did not sleep here, because he missed his constant uneasiness
+and other things. Crouching in the ditches of Heaven he no longer
+had the feeling beneath the whiteness of his short tail of the chilly
+dampness penetrating through and through him. The mosquitoes, who had
+withdrawn to their own Paradise of shallow pools, no longer filled
+his always open eyelids with the sharp burning sensation of summer.
+He longed regretfully for this fever. His heart no longer beat as
+powerfully as it had beaten when on knolls in the flame-colored heath
+a shot scattered the earth like rain about him. Under the smooth
+caress of the lawn-like grass hair grew again on the callous parts
+of his paws where it had been so sparse. And he began to deplore the
+over-abundance of heaven. He was like the gardener who, having become
+king, was forced to put on sandals of purple, and longed regretfully
+for his wooden shoes heavy with clay and with poverty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And Francis in his Paradise heard of Rabbit's troubles and of his
+bewilderment. And the heart of Francis was grieved that one of his
+old companions was not happy. From that moment the streets of the
+celestial hamlet where he dwelled seemed less peaceful to him, the
+shadows of the evening less soft, less white the breath of the lilies,
+less hallowed the gleams of the carpenter's plane within the sheds,
+less bright the singing pitchers whose water radiated like fresh
+sheaves and fell cooling upon the flesh of the angels seated on the
+curb-stones of the wells.
+
+Therefore Francis set out on his way to find God, and He received him
+in His Garden at the close of day. This garden of God was the most
+humble but also the most beautiful. No one knew whence came the
+miracle of its beauty. Perhaps because there was nothing in it but
+love. Over the walls which the ages had filled with chinks dark lilacs
+spread. The stones were joyous to support the smiling mosses whose
+golden mouths were drinking at the shadowy heart of the violets.
+
+In a diffused light which was neither like that of the dawn nor
+like that of the twilight, for it was softer than either of these, a
+blue-flowered leek blossomed in the center of a garden-bed. A sort of
+mystery enveloped the blue globe of its inflorescence which remained
+motionless and closed on its tall stalk. One felt that this plant was
+dreaming. Of what? Perhaps of its soul's labor which sings on winter
+evenings in the pot where boils the soup of the poor. Oh divine
+destiny! Not far from the hedges of boxwood the lips of the lettuce
+radiated mute words while a low light clung about the shadow of the
+sleeping watering-pots. Their task was over.
+
+And full of trust and serenity, without pride or humility, a
+sage-plant let its insignificant odor rise toward God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Francis sat down beside God on a bench sheltered by an oak round which
+an ivy twined. And God said unto Francis:
+
+"I know what brings thee hither. It shall never be said that there was
+any one, whether maggot or rabbit, who was unable to find his Paradise
+here. Go therefore to thy fleet-footed friend, and ask him what it is
+that he desires. And as soon as he has told thee, I shall grant him
+his wish. If he did not understand how to die and to renounce the
+world like the others, it was surely because his heart clove too much
+to my Earth which, indeed, I love well. Because, Oh Francis, like this
+creature of the long ears I love the earth with a profound love.
+I love the earth of men, of beasts, of plants, and of stones. Oh
+Francis, go and find Rabbit, and tell him that I am his friend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And Francis set out toward the Paradise of beasts where none of the
+children of man except young girls had ever set their foot. There he
+met Rabbit who was disconsolately wandering about. But when Rabbit saw
+his old master approaching he experienced such joy that he crouched
+down with more fright in his eye than ever and with his nostrils
+quivering almost imperceptibly.
+
+"Greeting, my brother," said Francis, "I heard the sufferings of your
+heart, and I have come here to learn the reason for your sadness. Have
+you eaten too many bitter kernels of grain? Why have you not found
+the peace of the doves, and of the lambs which are also white...?
+Oh harvester of the second crop, for what do you search so restlessly
+here where there is no more restlessness, and where never more will
+you feel the hunting-dogs' breath on your poor skin?"
+
+"Oh my friend," answered he, "what am I seeking? I am seeking my
+God. As long as you were my God on earth I felt at peace. But in this
+Paradise where I have lost my way, because your presence is no longer
+with me, Oh divine brother of the beast, my soul feels suffocated for
+I do not find my God."
+
+"Do you think, then," said Francis, "that God abandons rabbits, and
+that they alone of the whole world have no title to Paradise?"
+
+"No," Rabbit replied, "I have given no thought to such things. I would
+have followed you because I came to know you as intimately as the
+earthly hedge on which the lambs hung the warm flakes of snow with
+which I used to line and keep warm my nest. Vainly I have sought
+throughout these heavenly meadows this God of whom you are speaking.
+But while my companions discovered Him at once and found their
+Paradise, I lost my way. From the day when you left us and from the
+instant that I gained Heaven, my childish and untamed heart has beaten
+with homesickness for the earth.
+
+"Oh Francis, Oh my friend, Oh you in whom alone I have faith, give
+back to me my earth. I feel that I am not at home here. Give back to
+me my furrows full of mud, give back to me my clayey paths. Give back
+to me my native valley where the horns of the hunters make the mists
+stir. Give back to me the wagon-track on the roadway from which I
+heard sound the packs of hounds with their hanging ears, like an
+angelus. Give back to me my timidity. Give back to me my fright. Give
+back to me the agitation that I felt when suddenly a shot swept the
+fragrant mint beneath my bounds, or when amid the bushes of wild
+quince my nose touched the cold copper of a snare. Give back to me the
+dawn upon the waters from which the skillful fisherman withdraws his
+lines heavy with eels. Give back to me the blue gleaning under the
+moon, and my timid and clandestine loves amid the wild sorrel, where
+I could no longer distinguish the rosy tongue of my beloved from the
+dew-laden petal of the eglantine which had fallen upon the grass. Give
+back to me my weakness, oh thou, my dear heart. And go, and say unto
+God, that I can no longer live with Him."
+
+"Oh Rabbit," Francis answered, "my friend, gentle and suspicious like
+a peasant, Oh Rabbit of little faith, you blaspheme. If you have not
+known how to find your God it is because in order to find this God,
+you would have had to die like your companions."
+
+"But if I die, what will become of me?" cried he with the hide of the
+color of stubble.
+
+And Francis said:
+
+"If you die you will become your Paradise."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus talking they reached the edge of the Paradise of beasts. There
+the Paradise of men began. Rabbit turned his head, and read at the top
+of a sign-post on a plate of blue cast-iron where an arrow indicated
+the direction
+
+Castetis to Balansun--5 M.
+
+The day was so hot that the letters of the inscription seemed to
+quiver in the dull light of summer. In the distance, on the road,
+there were clouds of dust, as in Blue Beard when Sister Anne is asked:
+"Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anything coming?" This pale
+dryness, how magnificent it was, and how filled it was with the bitter
+fragrance of mint.
+
+And Rabbit saw a horse and a covered cart approaching.
+
+It was a sorry nag and dragged a two-wheeled cart and was unable to
+move except in a jerky sort of gallop. Every leap made its disjointed
+skeleton quiver and jolted its harness and made its earth-colored
+mane fly in the air, shiny and greenish, like the beard of an ancient
+mariner. Wearily as though they were paving-stones the animal lifted
+its hoofs which were swollen like tumors....
+
+Then a doubt, stronger than all the doubts which hitherto had assailed
+the soul of Rabbit, pierced him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This doubt was a leaden grain of shot which had just passed through
+the nape of his neck behind his long ears into his brain. A veil of
+blood more beautiful than the glowing autumn floated before his eyes
+in which the shadows of eternity rose. He cried out. The fingers of
+a huntsman pinioned his throat, strangled him, suffocated him. His
+heart-beat grew weaker and weaker; this heart which used to flutter
+like the pale wild rose in the wind dissolving at the morning hour
+when the hedge softly caresses the lambs. An instant he remained
+motionless, hollow-flanked and drawn-out like Death itself in the
+grasp of his murderer. Then poor old Rabbit leaped up. He clawed in
+vain for the ground which he could no longer reach because the man did
+not let go of him. Rabbit passed away drop by drop.
+
+Suddenly his hair stood erect, and he became like unto the stubble of
+summer where he formerly dwelled beside his sister, the quail, and the
+poppy, his brother; and like unto the clayey earth which had wetted
+his beggar's paws; and like unto the gray-brown color with which
+September days clothe the hill whose shape he had assumed; like unto
+the rough cloth of Francis; like unto the wagon-track on the roadway
+from which he heard the packs of hounds with hanging ears, singing
+like the angelus; like unto the barren rock which the wild thyme
+loves. In his look where now floated a mist of bluish night there was
+something like unto the blessed meadow where the heart of his beloved
+awaited him at the heart of the wild sorrel. The tears which he shed
+were like unto the fountain of the seraphs at which sat the old fisher
+of eels repairing his lines. He was like unto life, like unto death,
+like unto himself, like unto his Paradise.
+
+
+END OF THE ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT
+
+
+
+
+
+TALES
+
+
+
+
+PARADISE
+
+
+The poet looked at his friends, his relatives, the priest, the doctor,
+and the little dog, who were in the room. Then he died. Some one wrote
+his name and age on a piece of paper. He was twenty-eight years.
+
+As they kissed his forehead his friends and relatives found that he
+was cold, but he could not feel their lips because he was in heaven.
+And he did not ask as he had done when he was on earth, whether heaven
+was like this or like that. Since he was there, he had no need of
+anything else.
+
+His mother and father, whether or not they had died before him, came
+to meet him. They did not weep any more than he, for the three had
+really never been separated.
+
+His mother said to him:
+
+"Put out the wine to cool, we are about to dine with the _Bon Dieu_
+under the green arbor of the Garden of Paradise."
+
+His father said to him:
+
+"Go down and cull of the fruits. There is none that is poisonous. The
+trees will offer them to you of their own accord, without sufferance
+either to their leaves or their branches, for they are inexhaustible."
+
+The poet was filled with joy in being able to obey his parents. When
+he had returned from the orchard and submerged the bottles of wine in
+the water, he saw his old dog. It too had died before him, and it came
+gently running toward him, wagging its tail. It licked his hands, and
+he patted it. Beside it were all the animals he had loved best while
+on earth: a little red cat, two little gray cats, two little white
+cats, a bullfinch, and two goldfish.
+
+Then he saw that the table was set and about it were seated the _Bon
+Dieu_, his father and mother, and a lovely young girl whom he had
+loved here-below on earth. She had followed him to heaven even though
+she was not dead.
+
+He saw that the Garden of Paradise was none other than that of his
+own birthplace here on earth, in the high reaches of the Pyrenees, all
+filled with lilies and pomegranates and cabbages.
+
+The _Bon Dieu_ had laid his hat and stick on the ground. He was garbed
+like the poor on the great highways, those who have only a morsel of
+bread in their wallet, and whom the magistrates arrest at the town
+gates, and throw into prison, since they know not how to write their
+name. His beard and hair were white like the great light of day, and
+his eyes profound and black like the night. He spoke, and his voice
+was very soft:
+
+"Let the angels come and minister unto us, for to serve is their
+happiness."
+
+Then from all corners of the heavenly orchard legions were seen to
+hasten. They were the faithful servitors who here on earth had loved
+the poet and his family. Old Jean was there, he who was drowned while
+saving a little boy, old Marie who had fallen dead under a sunstroke,
+and lame Pierre was there and Jeanne and still another Jeanne.
+
+Then the poet rose to do them honor, and said unto them:
+
+"Sit down in my place, it is meet that you should be near God."
+
+And God smiled because he knew in advance what their answer would be.
+
+"Our happiness is service. This puts us close to God. Do you not serve
+your father and mother? Do they not serve Him who serves us?"
+
+And suddenly he saw that the table had grown larger and that new
+guests were seated about it. They were the father and mother of his
+mother and father, and the generations that had gone before them.
+
+Evening fell. The older of the people slumbered. Love held the poet
+and his sweetheart. But God to whom they had done honor, took up his
+way again like the poor on the great highways, those who have only a
+morsel of bread in their wallet, and whom the magistrates arrest at
+the town gates, and throw into prison, since they know not how to
+write their name.
+
+
+
+
+CHARITY CHILDREN
+
+
+One day the souls of the charity children cried out to God. It was on
+a stormy evening when their fevers and wounds made them suffer more
+than ever. They lay white with grief in their rows of beds, above
+which ignoble science had hung the placards of their maladies.
+
+They were sad, very sad, for it was a day of festival. Their tiny arms
+were stretched out on the coverlets, and with their transparent hands
+they touched the meager toys that pious grand ladies had brought them.
+They did not even know what to do with these playthings. A President
+of the Republic had visited them, but they had not understood what it
+meant.
+
+Their souls cried out toward God. They said:
+
+"We are the daughters of misery, of scrofula, and of syphilis. We are
+the daughters of daughters of shame."
+
+"I," said one, "was dragged out of a cesspool where in her distraction
+my mother, the servant of an inn, had thrown me." Another said: "I
+was born of a child with an enormous head that had a red gap in the
+forehead. My father killed my mother, and he killed himself."
+
+Still others said:
+
+"We are the survivors of abortions and infanticides. Our mothers are
+on the lists. Our fathers, cigar in mouth, saunter smiling amid the
+tumult of business and the markets. We are born like kings with a
+crown on our heads, a crown of red rash."
+
+And God, hearing their cry, came down toward these souls. He entered
+the hospital of more than human sorrows. At his approach the fumes
+rose from the medicaments which the good sisters had prepared, as
+though from censers by the side of the child martyrs, who sat up in
+their narrow cots like white, weary flowers.
+
+The sovereign Master said to them:
+
+"Here I am. I heard your call, and am waiting to condemn those that
+caused you to be born. What torment do you implore for them?"
+
+Then the souls of the children sang like the bindweed of the hedges.
+
+They sang:
+
+"Glory to God! Glory to God! Pardon those who gave us birth. Lead us
+some day to Heaven by their side."
+
+
+
+
+THE PIPE
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a young man who had a new pipe. He was
+smoking peacefully in the shade of an arbor hung with blue grapes. His
+wife was young and pretty; she had rolled up her sleeves as far as her
+elbows and was drawing water from the well. The wooden bucket bounded
+against the edge, and shed tears like a rainbow. The young man was
+happy smoking his pipe, because he saw the birds flying hither and
+thither, because his dear old mother was still among the living,
+because his old father was hale, and because he loved with all his
+heart his young wife, and was proud of her lithesomeness and her firm
+and smooth breasts that were like two ripe apples.
+
+The young man, as I have said, was smoking a new pipe.
+
+His mother fell very ill. They had to operate, and it made her cry out
+aloud, until after thirty-four days of horrible suffering she died.
+His father, who was always so hale, was talking one day with a workman
+at the door of the little village church, which was undergoing repair,
+when a stone became detached from the arch and crushed his head.
+The devoted son wept for these, his best and oldest friends, and, at
+night, he sobbed in the arms of his pretty wife.
+
+The young man, as I have said, was smoking a new pipe.
+
+But I have forgotten to say that he had an old spaniel of whom he was
+very fond and whose name was Thomas.
+
+A very great illness had fallen on Thomas, since the good mother's
+and the good father's deaths. When he was called he could barely drag
+himself along by the paws of his fore-legs.
+
+One day a man of the world took residence in the little village where
+the young man was smoking a new pipe. He wore decorations and
+was distinguished and spoke with an agreeable accent. They became
+acquainted, and once, when the young man still smoking his new pipe
+entered his house unexpectedly, he found this fine fellow abed with
+his pretty wife whose firm and smooth breasts were like two ripe
+apples.
+
+The young man said nothing. He placed a poor old collar around the
+neck of Thomas, and with a line which his mother had once used to
+hang clothes upon, he dragged him along to a huge town, where the two
+dwelled together in sorrow and want.
+
+The young man had now become an old man, but he was still smoking his
+new pipe which too had become old.
+
+One evening Thomas died. People came from the police department, and
+carried off his carcass somewhere.
+
+The old man was now all alone with his old pipe. A great cold fell
+upon him and a terrible trembling. And he knew that his time had come,
+and that he never would be able to smoke again. So from the wretched
+bag which he once had brought with him from his home, he took a sad
+old hat, and in this he wrapped his pipe.
+
+Then he threw a cape, greenish with age, about his feverish shoulders,
+and dragged himself painfully to a little square near by, taking care
+that no policeman should see him. He knelt down, and dug in the earth
+with his finger nails, and devoutly buried his old pipe underneath a
+tuft of flowers. Then he returned to his dwelling-place and died.
+
+
+
+
+MAL DE VIVRE
+
+
+A poet, Laurent Laurini by name, was sick unto death with the illness,
+called weariness of life. It is a terrible malady, and those who have
+fallen prey to it are unable to look upon men, animals, and things
+without frightful suffering. Great scruples poison his heart.
+
+The poet went away from the town where he dwelled. He sought out the
+fields to gaze at the trees and the corn and the waters, to listen to
+the quails that sing like fountains and to the falling of the weavers'
+looms and the hum of the telegraph wires. These things and these
+sounds saddened him.
+
+The gentlest thoughts were bitterness to him. And when he picked a
+little flower in order to escape his terrible malady, he wept because
+he had plucked it.
+
+He entered a village on an evening sweet with the perfume of pears.
+It was a beautiful village like those he had often described in his
+books. There was a town square, a church, a cemetery, gardens, a
+smithy, and a dark inn. Blue smoke rose from it, and within was the
+sheen of glasses. There was also a stream which wound in and out under
+the wild nut-trees.
+
+The poet with his sick heart sat down mournfully on a stone. He was
+thinking of the torment he was enduring, of his old mother crying
+because of his absence, of the women who had deceived him, and he had
+homesickness for the time of his first communion.
+
+"My heart," he thought, "my sad heart cannot change."
+
+Suddenly he saw a young peasant-girl near by gathering her geese under
+the stars. She said to him:
+
+"Why do you weep?"
+
+He answered:
+
+"My soul was hurt in falling upon the earth. I cannot be cured because
+my heart is too heavy."
+
+"Will you have mine?" she said. "It is light. I will take yours and
+carry it easily. Am I not accustomed to burdens?"
+
+He gave her his heart and took hers. Immediately they smiled at each
+other and hand in hand they followed the pathway.
+
+The geese went in front of them like bits of the moon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She said to him:
+
+"I know that you are wise, and that I cannot know what you know. But
+I know that I love you. You are from elsewhere, and you must have been
+born in a wonderful cradle like that I once saw in a cart. It belonged
+to rich people. Your mother must speak beautifully. I love you. You
+must have loved women with very white faces, and I must seem ugly and
+black to you. I was not born in a wonderful cradle. I was born in the
+wheat of the fields at harvest time. They have told me this, and also
+that my mother and I and a little lamb to which a ewe had given
+birth on that same day were carried home on an ass. Rich people have
+horses."
+
+He said to her:
+
+"I know that you are simple, and that I cannot be like you. But I know
+that I love you. You are from here, and you must have been rocked in
+a basket placed on a black chair like that which I have seen in a
+picture. I love you. Your mother must spin linen. You must have danced
+under the trees with strong handsome laughing boys. I must seem sick
+and sad to you. I was not born in the fields at harvest time. We
+were born in a beautiful room, I and a little twin sister who died at
+birth. My mother was sick. Poor people are strong."
+
+Then they embraced more closely on the bed where they lay together.
+
+She said to him:
+
+"I have your heart."
+
+He said to her:
+
+"I have your heart."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They had a sweet little boy.
+
+And the poet, feeling that the illness which had so weighed upon him
+had fled, said to his wife:
+
+"My mother does not know what has become of me. My heart is wrung with
+that thought. Let me go to the town, my beloved, and tell her that I
+am happy and that I have a son."
+
+She smiled at him, knowing that his heart was hers, and said:
+
+"Go."
+
+And he went back by the way he had come.
+
+He was soon at the gates of the town in front of a magnificent
+residence. There was laughter and chatter within for they were giving
+a feast, one to which the poor were not invited. The poet recognized
+the house, as that of an old friend of his, a rich and celebrated
+artist. He stopped to listen to the conversation before the latticed
+gate of the park through which fountains and statues could be seen.
+He recognized the voice of a woman. She was beautiful, and once had
+broken his boyish heart. She was saying:
+
+"Do you remember the great poet, Laurent Laurini?...They say he has
+made a mesalliance, and has married a cowherd...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tears rose to his eyes, and he continued his way through the streets
+of the town until he came to the house where he was born. The
+paving-stones replied softly to the words of his tired steps. He
+pushed open his door and entered. And his old dog, faithful and gentle
+as ever, ran limpingly to meet him; it barked with joy, and licked his
+hand. He saw that since his departure the poor beast had had some sort
+of stroke or paralysis, for time and trouble afflict the bodies of
+animals as well.
+
+Laurent Laurini mounted the stairs, keeping close to the bannisters,
+and he was deeply moved, when he saw the old cat turn around, arch her
+back, raise her tail, and rub against the steps. On the landing the
+clock struck, as if in gratitude.
+
+He entered her room gently. He saw his mother on her knees praying.
+She was saying:
+
+"Dear God, I pray unto Thee, that my son may still be among the
+living. Oh my God, he has suffered much...Where is he? Forgive me
+for this that I have given him birth. Forgive him for this that he is
+causing me to die."
+
+Then he knelt down beside her, laying his young lips on her poor gray
+hair, and said:
+
+"Come with me. I am healed. I know a land where there are trees and
+corn and waters, where quails sing, where the looms of the weavers
+fall, where the telegraph wires hum, where a poor woman dwells who
+holds my heart, and where your grandson is playing."
+
+
+
+
+THE TRAMWAY
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a very industrious workman who had a good
+wife and a charming little daughter. They lived in a great city.
+
+It was the father's birthday and to celebrate it they bought beautiful
+white salad and a chicken made for roasting. Every one was happy that
+Sunday morning, even the little cat that looked slyly at the fowl,
+saying to herself: "I shall have good bones to pick."
+
+After they had eaten breakfast, the father said:
+
+"We are going to be extravagant for once, and ride in a tram to the
+suburbs."
+
+They went out.
+
+They had many times seen well-dressed men and beautiful ladies give a
+signal to the driver of the tram, who immediately stopped his horses
+to permit them to get on.
+
+The honest workman was carrying his little girl. His wife and he
+stopped at a street-corner.
+
+A tram, shiny with paint, came toward them, almost empty. And they
+felt a great joy when they thought of how they were going to enter it
+for four sous apiece. And the honest workman signaled to the conductor
+to stop the horses. But he seeing they were poor simple people looked
+at them disdainfully, and would not halt his vehicle.
+
+
+
+
+ABSENCE
+
+
+At eighteen Pierre left the home in the country where he had been
+born.
+
+At the very moment when he left, his old mother was ill in bed in
+the blue room, where there were the daguerreotype of his father and
+peacock-feathers in a vase and a clock representing Paul and Virginia.
+Its hands pointed to the hour of three.
+
+In the courtyard under the fig-tree his grandfather was resting.
+
+In the garden his fiancee stood among roses and gleaming pear-trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pierre went to earn his living in a country where there were negroes
+and parrots and india-rubber trees and molasses and fevers and snakes.
+
+He dwelled there thirty years.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the very moment when he returned to the home in the country where
+he had been born, the blue room had faded to white, his mother was
+reposing in the bosom of heaven, the picture of his father was no
+longer there, the peacock-feathers and the vase had disappeared. Some
+sort of object stood in the clock's place.
+
+In the courtyard under the fig-tree where his grandfather, who had
+long since died, had been accustomed to rest, there were broken plates
+and a poor sick chicken.
+
+In the garden of roses and gleaming pear-trees where his fiancee had
+stood, there was an old woman.
+
+The story does not tell who she was.
+
+
+
+
+THE HIGHWAY OF LIFE
+
+
+One day a poet sat down at a table to write a story. Not a single
+idea would come to him, but nevertheless he was happy, because the sun
+shone on a geranium on the window-sill, and because a gnat flew about
+in the blue of the open window.
+
+Suddenly his life appeared before him like a great white road. It
+began in a dark grove where there were laughing waters, and ended at a
+quiet grave overgrown with brambles, nettles, and soapwort.
+
+In the dark grove he found the guardian-angel of his childhood. He had
+the golden wings of a wasp, fair hair, and a face as calm as the water
+of a well on a summer's day.
+
+The guardian-angel said to the poet:
+
+"Do you remember when you were a child? You came here with your father
+and mother who were going fishing. The field near by was warm and
+covered with flowers and grasshoppers. The grasshoppers looked like
+broken blades of moving grass. Do you wish to see this place again, my
+friend?"
+
+The poet answered: "Yes."
+
+So they went together as far as the blue river over which there were
+the blue sky and the dark nut-trees.
+
+"Behold your childhood," said the angel.
+
+The poet looked at the water and wept and said:
+
+"I no longer see the reflection of the beloved faces of my mother and
+father. They used to sit on the bank. They were calm, good, and happy.
+I had on a white pinafore which was always getting dirty, and mamma
+cleaned it with her handkerchief. Dear angel, tell me what has become
+of the reflections of their beloved faces? I no longer see them. I no
+longer see them."
+
+At that moment a cluster of wild nuts dropped from a hazel-tree and
+floated down the stream of water.
+
+And the angel said to the poet:
+
+"The reflection of your father and mother went on with the stream of
+water like those nuts. For everything obeys the current, substance
+as well as shadow. The image of your beloved parents is merged in the
+water and what remains is called memory. Recollect and pray. And you
+will find the dearly loved images again."
+
+And as an azure kingfisher darted above the reeds, the poet cried:
+
+"Dear angel! Do I not see the color of my mother's eyes in the wings
+of that bird?"
+
+And the divine spirit answered:
+
+"It is as you have said. But look again."
+
+From the top of a tree where a turtle-dove had built her nest a downy
+white feather fell soaring and eddying to the water.
+
+And the poet cried:
+
+"Dear angel! Is not this white down, my mother's gentle purity?"
+
+And the divine spirit answered:
+
+"It is as you have said."
+
+A light breeze ruffled the water and made the leaves rustle.
+
+The poet asked:
+
+"Is not that the grave sweet voice of my father?"
+
+And the spirit answered:
+
+"It is as you have said."
+
+Then they walked along the road which left the grove and followed the
+river. And soon under the glare of the sun the road became white, very
+white. It was like the linen at Holy Communion. To the right and left
+hidden springs tinkled like pious bells. And the angel said:
+
+"Do you recognize this part of your life?"
+
+"This is the day of my first communion," answered the poet. "I
+remember the church and the happy faces of my mother and grandmother.
+I was happy and sad at the same time. With what fervor I knelt!
+Thrills ran through my hair. That evening at family supper they kissed
+me and said: 'He was the most beautiful.'"
+
+And in recalling this the poet burst into sobs. And as he wept he
+became as beautiful as on the day of the blessed ceremony. His tears
+flowed through his hands like holy water.
+
+And they went on along the road.
+
+The day waned a little. The supple poplars swayed gently along the
+ditches. At a distance one of them in the center of a field looked
+like a tall young girl. The sky tinted it so delicately that it was
+pale and blue like the temple of a virgin.
+
+And the poet dreamed of the first woman he had loved.
+
+And his guardian-angel said to him:
+
+"This love was so pure and so sad that it did not offend me."
+
+And as they walked along, the shade was sweet. Lambs passed by. And
+seeing the sadness of the poet the divine spirit had on his lips a
+smile, grave and gentle like that of a dying mother. And the trembling
+of his golden wings pursued the whispers of the evening.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soon the stars were lighted in the silence.
+
+And the sky resembled a father's bed surrounded by wax tapers and dumb
+sorrows. And the night seemed like a great widow kneeling upon the
+earth.
+
+"Do you recognize this?" asked the angel.
+
+The poet made no answer but knelt down.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Finally they reached the end of the road near the small quiet grave
+overgrown with brambles, nettles, and soapwort.
+
+And the angel said to the poet:
+
+"I wished to show you your way. Here you will sleep, not far from the
+waters. Every day they will bring you the image of your memories:
+the azure of the kingfisher like your mother's eyes, the down of the
+turtle-dove like her sweetness, the echo of the leaves like the grave
+calm voice of your father, the reflected brightness of the road white
+as your first communion, and the form of your beloved supple as a
+poplar.
+
+"At last the waters will bring you the great luminous Night."
+
+
+
+
+INTELLIGENCE
+
+
+One day the books which contained the wisdom of men disappeared by
+enchantment.
+
+Then the great scholars assembled: those who were engaged in
+mathematics, in physics, in chemistry, in astronomy, in poetry, in
+history, and in other arts and letters.
+
+They held counsel and said:
+
+"We are the custodians of human genius. We will recall the noblest
+inventions of the wisest of men and the greatest of poets and have
+them graven in immortal marble. They will represent only the supreme
+summits of achievement since the beginning of the world. Pascal shall
+be entitled to but one thought, Newton to but one star, Darwin to
+but one insect, Galileo to but one grain of dust, Tolstoi to but one
+charity, Heinrich Heine to but one verse, Shakespeare to but one cry,
+Wagner to but one note...."
+
+Then as the scholars summoned their thoughts to recall the
+masterpieces indispensable to the salvation of man, they realized with
+terror that their brains were void.
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO GREAT ACTRESSES
+
+
+I wish I could find new words to depict the gentleness of a little
+prostitute whom we met one evening in the center of a large, almost
+deserted square. The little prostitute was wearing wretched boots that
+were too large and soaked up the water. She had a parasol covered like
+an umbrella, and a little straw hat, the lining of which surely bore
+the words: _Derniere mode_.
+
+She had a weak little voice, and she was intelligent. She was
+recovering, as the expression goes, from pleurisy. Moreover, she had
+the air of being as frail morally as physically.
+
+I encountered her many times, after ten o'clock, when she was weary
+with seeking, often in vain, for any first-comer who would go with
+her.
+
+She sat down on a bench in the shadows, beside me, and rested her poor
+pale head against me.
+
+I knew that when she did this it was somewhat with the feeling of
+slight consolation, like that of a poor animal when it no longer feels
+itself abused. I was held by an infinite pity for this friend. I knew
+that she looked at her trade as an important task, however ungrateful
+it was. For a long time she waited thus for the train to the suburb
+where she lived.
+
+One evening she asked if she might go with me to the end of the
+street.
+
+We came to a great lighted square where there was a large theater. On
+one of the pillars of this edifice was a brilliant, gilded poster. It
+represented Sarah Bernhardt in the costume of Tosca, I believe. She
+wore a stiff rich robe and held a palm in her hand. And I called to
+mind the things I had been told of this famous woman: her caprices
+that were immediately obeyed, her extravagances, her coffin, her
+pride.
+
+I felt the poor little sufferer trembling at my side. She saw
+this barbarous idol rise up and throw unconsciously upon her the
+splattering flood of her golden ornaments.
+
+And I had a desire to cry out with grief at this meeting face to face
+of the two. And I said to myself:
+
+"They are both born of woman. One holds a palm, and the other an old
+umbrella so shabby that she does not dare to open it before me.
+
+"The one trails an admiring throng at her feet, and the other tatters
+of leather. The one sells her sorrow for the weight of gold and not
+a sob comes from her mouth that does not have the clinking sound of
+gold. Not a single sob of the other is heard."
+
+And something cried aloud within me:
+
+"The one is a human actress. She is applauded because she is of the
+same clay as those who listen to her. And they have need of the lie on
+which the most beautiful roles are builded.
+
+"But the other, she is an actress of God. She plays a part so great
+and so sorrowful that she has not found one man who understands her
+and who is rich enough to pay her.
+
+"And the great actress has never attained, even in her most beautiful
+roles, the true genius of sorrow which makes the little prostitute
+rest her forehead upon me."
+
+
+
+
+THE GOODNESS OF GOD
+
+
+She was a dainty and delicate little creature who worked in a shop.
+She was, perhaps, not very intelligent, but she had soft, black eyes.
+They looked at you a little sadly, and then drooped. You felt that
+she was affectionate and commonplace with that tender commonplaceness,
+which real poets understand, and which is the absence of hate.
+
+You knew that she was as simple as the modest room in which she lived
+alone with her little cat that some one had given her. Every morning
+before she went to the shop, she left for her a little bit of milk in
+a bowl.
+
+And like her gentle mistress the little cat had sad, kind eyes. She
+warmed herself on the window-sill in the sun beside a pot of basil.
+Sometimes she licked her little paw, and used it as a brush on the
+short fur of her head. Sometimes she played with a mouse.
+
+One day the cat and the mistress both found themselves pregnant,
+the one by a handsome fellow who deserted her, and the other by a
+beautiful tom-cat who also went his way.
+
+But there was this difference. The poor girl became ill, very ill,
+and passed her days sobbing. The little cat made for herself a kind of
+joyous cradling-place in the sun where it shone upon her white, drolly
+inflated abdomen.
+
+The cat's lover had come later than the girl's. So things happened
+that they were both confined at the same time.
+
+One day the little working-girl received a letter from the handsome
+fellow who had deserted her. He sent her twenty-five francs, and spoke
+of his generosity to her. She bought charcoal, a burner, and a sou's
+worth of matches. Then she killed herself.
+
+When she had entered heaven, which a young priest had at first tried
+to prevent, the dainty and delicate creature trembled because that she
+was pregnant and that the _Bon Dieu_ would condemn her.
+
+But the _Bon Dieu_ said to her:
+
+"My dear young friend, I have made ready for you a charming room. Go
+there for your confinement. Everything ends happily in heaven and you
+will not die. I love little children and suffer them to come unto me."
+
+And when she entered the little room which had been made ready for her
+in the great Hospital of Divine Mercy, she saw that God had arranged a
+surprise for her. There in a box lay the cat she loved, and there was
+also a pot of basil on the window-sill. She lay down.
+
+She had a pretty, little, golden-haired daughter, and the cat had four
+sweet, delightfully black kittens.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE NEGRESS
+
+
+Sometimes my imagination is fascinated by the yellowing of old ocean
+charts, and in my feverish brain I hear the roaring of monsoons.
+What then? Must I, in order to have an interest in this present life,
+exhume that which, perhaps, I led before my birth, between two black
+suns?
+
+It was a vague region, abounding in stars and in the diffused sobbing
+of an ocean. There was a scratching at my door, and I said, "Come in."
+
+A young negress in a loose blue loincloth, reaching halfway down her
+thighs, entered. She crouched down on the ground, and held out her
+thin clasped hands toward me. And I saw that her bare arms were
+covered with the blows of a lash.
+
+"Who did this to you, Assumption?" I asked.
+
+She did not answer, but all her limbs trembled, for she did not
+understand, and wondered, perhaps, whether I too was about to inflict
+some brutality upon her.
+
+Gently I removed her garment, and saw that her back also was wounded.
+I washed it. But she, frightened by such kindness, fled for refuge
+under the table of my cabin. My eyes filled with tears. I tried to
+call her back. But her glance, like that of a beaten dog, shrank from
+me. I had a few potatoes, and a little butter. I mashed them to a pulp
+with a wooden spoon, and placed it in a bowl at some distance from the
+crouching Assumption. Then I lighted my pipe.
+
+At the end of an hour the poor creature began to move. She put one arm
+forward, then the other, and then a knee. I thought she was directing
+her attention toward the food in order to eat. But to my astonishment,
+I saw her crawl on hands and knees toward a corner of the room, where
+I had left a few flowers lying. She rose up quickly, and with a sudden
+movement seized them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was perhaps a hundred and fifty years after this adventure
+occurred, that I met Assumption again. At least I was convinced that
+it was she. It was in Bordeaux at the _Restaurant du Perou_. She
+was drying the glass of a gloomy student who had not found it clean
+enough.
+
+
+
+
+THE PARADISE OF BEASTS
+
+
+Once on a rainy midnight a poor old horse, harnessed to a cab, was
+drowsing in front of a dingy restaurant from whence came the laughter
+of women and young people.
+
+And the poor spiritless animal with drooping head and shaking limbs
+made a sorry spectacle, as he stood there waiting the pleasure of the
+roisterers, that would at last permit him to go home to his reeking
+stable.
+
+Half asleep, the horse heard the coarse jokes of these men and women.
+He had long since grown painfully accustomed to it. His poor brain
+understood that there was no difference between the monotonous
+unchanging screech of a turning wheel and the shrill voice of a
+prostitute.
+
+And this evening he dreamed vaguely of the time when he had been a
+little colt that had gamboled on a smooth field, quite pink amid the
+green grass, and how his mother had given him to suck.
+
+Suddenly he fell stone dead on the slippery pavement.
+
+He reached the gate of heaven. A great scholar, who was waiting for
+St. Peter to come and open the gate, said to the horse:
+
+"What are you doing here? You have no right to enter heaven. I have
+the right because I was born of a woman."
+
+And the poor horse answered:
+
+"My mother was a gentle mare. She died in her old age with her blood
+sucked out by leeches. I have come to ask the _Bon Dieu_ if she is
+here."
+
+Then the gate of Heaven was opened to the two who knocked upon it, and
+the Paradise of animals appeared.
+
+And the old horse recognized his mother, and she recognized him.
+
+She greeted him by neighing. And when they were both in the great
+heavenly meadow the horse was filled with joy in finding again his old
+companions in misery and in seeing them happy forever.
+
+There were some who had drawn stones along the slippery pavements of
+cities, and they had been beaten with whips, and had finally fallen
+under the weight of the wagons. There were some who with bandaged
+eyes had turned the merry-go-rounds ten hours a day. There were mares
+killed in bullfights before the eyes of young girls, who, rosy with
+joy, watched the intestines of these unhappy beasts sweep the hot sand
+of the arena. There were many more, and then still more.
+
+And they all grazed eternally in the great plain of divine
+tranquillity.
+
+Moreover, the other animals were happy here also.
+
+The cats, mysterious and delicate, did not even obey the _Bon Dieu_
+who smiled upon them. They played with the end of a string patting
+it lightly with an important air, out of which they made a sort of
+mystery.
+
+The good mother-dogs spent their time nursing their little ones. The
+fish swam about without fear of the fisherman. The birds flew without
+dread of the hunter. And everything was like this.
+
+There were no men in this Paradise.
+
+
+
+
+OF CHARITY TOWARD BEASTS
+
+
+There is in the look of beasts a profound light and gentle sorrow,
+which fills me with such understanding that my soul opens like a
+hospice to all the sorrows of animals.
+
+They are forever in my heart, as when I see a tired horse, his nose
+drooping to the ground, asleep in the nocturnal rain, before a cafe;
+or the agony of a cat crushed beneath a carriage; or a wounded sparrow
+who has found refuge in a hole in a wall. Were it not for the feeling
+that it is undignified for a man, I would kneel before such patience
+and such torments, for I seem to see a halo around the heads of these
+mournful creatures, a real halo, as large as the universe, placed
+there by God Himself.
+
+Yesterday I was at a fair, and watched the merry-go-round. There was
+an ass among the wooden animals. The sight of it almost made me weep,
+because I was reminded of those living martyrs, its brothers.
+
+I wanted to pray, and to say to it: "Little ass, you are my brother.
+They say that you are stupid, because you are incapable of doing evil.
+You go your slow pace, and seem to think as you walk: 'See! I cannot
+go any faster...The poor make use of me, because they need not give
+me much to eat.' Little ass, the goad pricks you. Then you go a little
+faster, but not a great deal. You cannot go very fast...Sometimes
+you fall. Then they beat you, and pull at the rein fastened to the bit
+in your mouth. They pull so hard that your lips are drawn back showing
+your poor, yellow teeth which browse on miseries."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the same fair I heard the shrilling of a bagpipe. F. asked me:
+"Doesn't it remind you of African music?"--"Yes," I answered, "at
+Touggart the bagpipes have the same nasal note. It must be an Arab
+who is playing."--"Let us go into the booth," he said...Dromedaries
+were on exhibition there.
+
+A dozen little camels, crowded like sardines in a can, were stupidly
+going round and round in a sort of trench. These creatures which I
+have seen in the Sahara undulant like waves with only God and Death
+surrounding them, I now saw here, Oh sorrow of my heart! They went
+round and round again in that narrow space. The anguish which passed
+from them to me filled me as with nausea toward man. They went on
+and on, always on, proud as poor swans, hallowed as it were by their
+desolation. They were covered with grotesque trappings, and the butt
+of dancing women. They raised their poor verminous necks toward God,
+and toward the miraculous leaves of some imaginary oasis.
+
+Ah! what a prostitution of God's creatures. Farther along there were
+rabbits in a cage. Then came goldfish, that were offered as prizes of
+a lottery. They swam about in blown glass bowls, the necks of which
+were so narrow that F. said to me: "How did they get in?"--"By
+squeezing them a little," I answered. Still farther on were living
+chickens, also lottery prizes, spun around in a whirligig. In the
+center a Tittle milk-fed pig, mad with fear, was crouching flat on his
+stomach.
+
+Hens and pullets, overcome by vertigo, squawked and pecked frantically
+at one another. My companion called my attention to dead, plucked
+chickens hanging beside their living sisters.
+
+My heart swells at these memories. An infinite pity overcomes me.
+
+Oh poet, receive these poor suffering beasts into your soul. Let them
+warm themselves, and live there in eternal joy.
+
+Preach the simple word which bestows kindness on the ignorant.
+
+
+
+
+OF THINGS*
+
+*Some of the instances here are purely imaginary. I invented them so
+that I might more deeply penetrate into the heart of these things.
+
+
+I enter a great square of stirring shadow. Here close beside a red and
+black candle a man is driving nails into a shoe. Two children stretch
+their hands toward the hearth. A blackbird sleeps in its wicker cage.
+Water is boiling in the smoky earthenware pot from which rises a
+disagreeable soupy smell which mingles with that of tanner's bark and
+leather. A crouching dog gazes fixedly into the coals.
+
+There is such an air of gentle peace about these souls and these
+obscure things that I do not ask whether they have any reason for
+being other than this very peace, nor whether I read a special charm
+into their humility.
+
+The God of the poor watches over them, the simple God in whom I
+believe. It is He who makes an ear of grain grow from a seed; it is
+He who separates water from earth, earth from air, air from fire, fire
+from night; it is He who blows the breath of life into the body; it
+is He who fashions the leaves one by one. We do not know how this is
+done, but we have faith in it as in the work of a perfect workman.
+
+I contemplate without desiring to understand, and thus God reveals
+Himself to me. In the house of this cobbler my eyes open as simply
+as those of his dog. Then _I see_, I see in truth that which few can
+see--the essence of things, as, for example, the devotion of the
+smoky flame without which the hammer of the workman could not be a
+bread-winner.
+
+Most of the time we regard things in a heedless fashion. But they are
+like us, sorrowful or happy. When I notice a diseased ear of wheat
+among healthy ears, and see the livid stain on its grains I have a
+quick intuitive understanding of the suffering of this particular
+thing. Within myself I feel the pain of those plant-cells; I realize
+their agony in growing in this infected spot without crushing one
+another. I am filled with a desire to tear up my handkerchief, and
+bandage this ear of wheat. But I feel that there is no remedy for a
+single ear of wheat, and that humanly it would be an act of folly
+to attempt this cure. Such things are not done, yet no one pays
+any special attention if I take care of a bird or a grasshopper.
+Nevertheless I am certain that these grains suffer, because I feel
+their suffering.
+
+A beautiful rose on the other hand imparts to me its joy in life. One
+feels that it is perfectly happy swaying on its stem, for does not
+everybody say simply, "It is a pity to cut it," and thus affirm and
+preserve the happiness of this flower?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I recall very distinctly the time when it was first revealed to me
+that things suffered. It happened when I was three years old. In my
+native hamlet a little boy, while playing, fell on a piece of broken
+glass, and died of the wound.
+
+A few days later I went to the child's home. His mother was crying
+in the kitchen. On the mantelpiece stood a poor little toy. I recall
+perfectly that it was a small tin or leaden horse, attached to a
+little tin barrel on wheels.
+
+His mother said to me: "That is my poor little Louis's wagon. He is
+dead. Would you like to have it?"
+
+Then a flood of tenderness filled my heart. I felt that this _thing_
+had lost its friend, its master, and that it was suffering. I accepted
+the plaything, and overcome with pity I sobbed as I carried it home.
+I recall very well that I was too young to realize either the death of
+the little boy or the sorrow of his mother. I pitied only that leaden
+animal which seemed heart-broken to me as it stood on the mantelpiece
+forever idle and bereaved of the master it loved. I remember all this
+as if it had happened yesterday, and I am sure that I had no desire
+to possess this toy for my own amusement. This is absolutely true, for
+when I came home, with my eyes full of tears, I confided the little
+horse and barrel to my mother. She has forgotten the whole incident.
+
+The belief that things are endowed with life exists among children,
+animals, and simple people.
+
+I have seen children attribute the characteristics of a living being
+to a piece of rough wood or to a stone. They brought it handfuls of
+grass, and were absolutely sure that the wood or stone had eaten it
+when, as a matter of fact, I had carried it off without their noticing
+it.
+
+Animals do not differentiate the quality of an action. I have seen
+cats scratch at something too hot for them for a long time. In this
+act on the part of the animal there is an idea of fighting something
+which can yield or perhaps die.
+
+I think it is only an education, born of false vanity, that has robbed
+man of such beliefs. I myself see no essential difference between the
+thought of a child who gives food to a piece of wood and the meaning
+of some of the libations in primitive religions. Do we not attribute
+to trees an attachment to us stronger than life itself when we believe
+that one planted on the birthday of a child that sickens and dies will
+wither and dry up at the same time?
+
+I have known things in pain. I have known some which are dead. The sad
+clothes of our departed wear out quickly. They are often impregnated
+with the same disease as those who wore them. They are one with them.
+
+I have often considered objects which were wasting away. Their
+disintegration is identical with our own. They have their decay, their
+ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses. A piece of furniture gnawed
+by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of
+a violin suddenly out of tune, such are the ills which move me.
+
+When we become attached to things why do we believe that love is in us
+alone, and afterwards regard it as something external to us? Who can
+prove that things are incapable of affection, or who can demonstrate
+their unconsciousness? Was not that sculptor right who was buried
+holding in his hand a lump of the same clay that had obeyed his dream?
+Did it not have the devotion of a faithful servant; did it not have a
+quality which we should admire all the more, because it had the virtue
+of devoting itself in silence, without selfish interest, and with the
+passiveness of faith?
+
+Is there not something sublime and radiant in the thing that acts
+toward man, even as man acts toward God? Does the poet know any more
+what impulse he obeys, than does the clay? From the moment when
+they have both proved their inspiration, I believe equally in their
+consciousness, and I love both with the same love.
+
+The sadness which disengages from things that have fallen into disuse
+is infinite. In the attic of this house whose inhabitants I did not
+know, a little girl's dress and her doll lie desolate. And here is an
+iron-pointed staff which once bit into the earth of the green
+hills, and a sunbonnet now barely visible in the dim light from the
+garret-window. They have been abandoned since many years, and I am
+wholly certain that they would be happy again to enjoy, the one the
+freshness of the moss, and the other the summer sky.
+
+Things tenderly cared for show their gratitude to us, and are ever
+ready to offer us their soul when once we have refreshed it. They are
+like those roses of the desert which expand infinitely when a little
+water brings back to their memory the azure of lost wells.
+
+In my modest drawing-room there is a child's chair. My father played
+with it during his passage from Guadeloupe to France when he was
+_seven_ years old. He remembered distinctly that he sat on it in the
+ship's saloon, and looked at pictures which the captain lent him. The
+island wood of which it was made must have been stout for it withstood
+the games of a little boy. The piece of furniture had drifted into my
+home, and slept there almost forgotten. Its soul too had been asleep
+for many long years, because the child who had cherished it was no
+more, and no other children had come to perch upon it like birds.
+
+But recently the house was made merry by my little niece who was just
+_seven_. On my work-table she had found an old book with plates of
+flowers. When I entered the room I found her sitting on the little
+chair in the lamplight, looking at the charming pictures, just as once
+a long time ago her grandfather had done. And I was deeply touched.
+And I said to myself that this little girl alone had been able to
+make live again the soul of the chair, and that the gentle soul of the
+chair had bewitched the candor of the child. There was between her and
+this object a mysterious affinity. The one could not help but go to
+the other, and it could be awakened by her alone.
+
+Things are gentle. They never do harm voluntarily. They are the
+sisters of the spirits. They protect us, and we let our thoughts rest
+upon them. Our thoughts need them for resting-places as perfumes need
+the flowers.
+
+The prisoner, whom no human soul can any longer console, must feel
+tenderly toward his pallet and his earthen jug. When everything has
+been refused him by his fellows his obscure bed gives him sleep and
+his jug quenches his thirst. And even if it separates him from all the
+world without, the very barrenness of his walls stands between him and
+his executioners. The child who has been punished loves the pillow on
+which he cries; for when every one of an evening has hurt and scolded
+him, he finds consolation in the soul of the silent down. It is like a
+friend who remains silent in order to calm a friend.
+
+But it is not only out of the silence of things that is born their
+sympathy for us. They have secret harmonies. Sometimes they weep in
+the forest which Rene fills with his tempestuous soul; and sometimes
+they sing on the lake where another poet dreams.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are hours and seasons when certain of these accords are most to
+the fore, when one hears best the thousand voices of things. Two or
+three times in my life I have been present at the awakening of this
+mysterious world. At the end of August toward midnight, when the day
+has been hot, an indistinct murmur rises about the kneeling villages.
+It is neither the sound of rivers, nor of springs, nor of the wind,
+nor of animals cropping the grass, nor of cattle rubbing their chains
+against the cribs, nor of uneasy watchdogs, nor of birds, nor of the
+falling of the looms of the weavers. The chords are as sweet to the
+ear, as the glow of dawn is sweet to the eye. There is stirring a
+boundless and peaceful world in which the blades of grass lean toward
+one another till morning, and the dew rustles imperceptibly, and the
+seeds at each moment's beat raise the whole surface of the plain.
+It is the soul alone which can apprehend these other souls, this
+flower-dust joy of the corollas, these calls, and these silences that
+create the divine Unknown. It is as if one were suddenly transported
+to a strange country where one is enchanted by langorous words, even
+though one does not understand very clearly their meaning.
+
+Nevertheless I penetrate more deeply into the meaning whispered
+by these things than into that hidden in an idiom with which I am
+unfamiliar. I feel that I understand and that it would not require a
+very great effort to translate the thought of these obscure souls, and
+to note in a concrete fashion some of their manifestations. Perhaps
+poetry sometimes actually does this. It has happened that mentally I
+have answered this indistinct murmur, just as I have succeeded by my
+silence in answering distinctly a sweetheart's questions.
+
+But this language of things is not wholly auditory. It is made up
+of other symbols also, which are faintly traced on our souls. The
+impression is still too faint, but, perhaps, it will be stronger when
+we are better prepared to receive God.
+
+It is objects which have been my consolation in the grievous events of
+my life. At such moments some thing will catch my eye particularly.
+I who know not how to make my soul bow before men have prostrated it
+before things. A radiance emanates from them which may be outside the
+memories that I attach to them, and it is like a thrill of love. I
+have felt them. I feel them now living around me. They are part of
+my obscure realm. I feel a responsibility toward them like that of an
+elder brother. At this instant while I am writing I feel the souls of
+these divine sisters leaning upon me with love and trust. This chair,
+this chest of drawers, this pen _exist_ as I do. They touch me, and
+I feel prostrated before them. I have their faith ... I have their
+faith, which is beyond all systems, beyond all explanations, beyond
+all intelligence. They give me a conviction such as no genius could
+give me. Every system is vain, every explanation erroneous, the moment
+I feel living in my heart the knowledge of these souls.
+
+When I entered this cobbler's home I knew at once that I was welcome.
+Without a word I sat down before the hearth near the children and the
+dog and I opened my soul to the thousand shadowy voices of things.
+
+In this communion the falling of a half charred twig, the grating of
+the poker with which the fire was stirred, the blow of the hammer,
+the flickering of the candle, the creak of the dog's collar, the
+round bulging spot of blackness which was the sleeping blackbird,
+the singing of the cover of the pot, all combined to form a sacred
+language easier for me to understand than the speech of most men.
+These noises and these colors are only the gestures and expressions
+of objects, just as the voice or the glance are among our means of
+expression and gesture.
+
+I felt that a brotherhood united me to these humble things, and I knew
+it was childish to classify the kingdoms of nature when there is but
+one kingdom of God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Can we say that things never exhibit to us manifestations of their
+sympathy? The tool grows rusty when it no longer serves the hand of
+the workman, even as the workman when he abandons the tool.
+
+I knew an old smith. He was gay in the time of his strength, and the
+sky entered his dark smithy through the radiant noondays. The joyous
+anvil answered the hammer. And the hammer was the heart of the anvil
+beating with the heart of the craftsman. When night fell the smithy
+was lighted by its single light, the glance of the eyes of the burning
+coal which flamed under the leather bellows. A divine love united the
+soul of this man to the soul of these things. And when on the Lord's
+days the smith retired into pious contemplation, the forge which had
+been cleaned the night before prayed also in silence.
+
+The smith was my friend. At his dim threshold I often questioned him,
+and the whole smithy always answered me. The sparks laughed in the
+coal, and syllables of metal fashioned a mysterious and profound
+language which moved me like the words of duty. And I experienced
+there almost the same feelings as in the home of the humble cobbler.
+
+One day the smith fell ill. His breath grew short, and I noticed that
+now when he pulled the chain of the bellows, formerly so powerful, it
+also gasped and gradually caught the sickness of its master. The man's
+heart beat with sudden jumps, and I heard plainly that the hammer
+struck the iron irregularly as he brandished it above the anvil. And
+in the same degree as the light in the eyes of the man faded, the
+flame of the hearth grew dim. In the evenings it wavered more and
+more, and there were long intervals when the light vanished on the
+walls and ceiling.
+
+One day while at work the man felt his extremities turn to ice. In the
+evening he died. I entered the smithy. It was cold as a body deprived
+of life. One small ember glowed alone under the chimney, humble
+and watching, like the praying women that I found later beside the
+death-bed.
+
+Three months later I went into the abandoned workshop to help evaluate
+his small amount of property. Everything was damp and black as in a
+vault. The leather of the bellows was filled with holes where it had
+rotted. When we tried to pull the chain it came loose from the wood.
+And the simple people who were making the appraisal with me declared:
+
+"This forge and these hammers are worn out. They ended their life with
+the master."
+
+Then I was _moved_, because I _understood_ the mysterious meaning of
+these words.
+
+
+
+
+TO STONES
+
+
+Brilliant sisters of the torrents that I find on the shore of the
+Alpine lake: you are the stones loved by the rainbow and the azure
+cold, on you falls the white salt which is licked up by the lambs, you
+are mirrors whose light is iridescent as the pigeon's breast, you
+have more eyes than the peacock, you are crystallized by fire and your
+veins of snow have become eternal, you have been the companions of
+primordial cataclysms, you were washed by the sea and then rocked by
+it until the dove from the ark cooed with love at sight of you....
+
+The gleaming grain of your flesh at times has the blue-veined
+whiteness of a child's wrist, at times it has the golden coppery hue
+of the thigh of a heavy and beautiful woman, sometimes it is silvered
+with mica like a cheek in the sunlight, sometimes it is brown like the
+complexion of those in whom the dead blondness of tobacco is blended
+with the gold of the mandarin orange.
+
+You are stones that have been broken by the heart of the torrent, you
+have been dashed against each other and have been tossed about amid
+the daphnes of the ravine, you have been whipped by hailstorms and
+tempest, buried under the avalanche, uncovered by the sun, loosened by
+the feet of the chamois, you are cold and beautiful but above all else
+you are pure.
+
+I know little of your sisters of the Indies: either of her whose
+transparency rivals water gushing from marble, or of her who makes
+me dream of the clear meadows of my native valley, or of her who is a
+drop of frozen blood, or of her who resembles the solid sun.
+
+I prefer you to them, even though you are less precious. Sometimes you
+support the beams of thatched roofs while you gaze at the star-dotted
+sky, sometimes it is on you that the sheep-dog stretches himself as he
+mournfully guards his flock.
+
+At the heart of the ether where you rest upon the summits may you
+continue to receive the nourishment with which your peaceful
+kingdom is endowed, may the light bathe your cells which are still
+unrecognized, may buoyant flakes and curves steep them, may they
+resound to the vibration of the winds, may they receive at last that
+harmonious manna which stilled the hunger of Mary Magdalene in the
+grotto.
+
+Around you will bloom your sweethearts, the purest flowers of the
+world, but they are already less chaste than you for they have a
+perfume of snow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Poor gray sisters of the brook that I find on the plain, you are
+tarnished stones, on you falls the shower of rain that the sparrow
+may drink, you are struck by the foot of the she-ass, you are the
+guardians that form the inclosures of miserable gardens, it is you who
+are the concave threshold and the stone at the edge of the well worn
+smooth by the chain of the bucket, you are servants, poor things
+become shiny like the blades of implements of husbandry, you are
+heated in the hearth of the poor to warm the feet of old women, you
+are hollowed out for mean needs and become the humble table for the
+dog and the sow, you are pierced so that the singing harvest may be
+ground beneath the millstone, you are cut, you are taken, you are
+tossed aside, on you the wanderer will sleep, Oh, you under whom I
+shall sleep....
+
+You have not guarded your independence like your alpine companions.
+But, Oh my friends, I do not despise you for that. You are beautiful
+like the things which are in the shadow.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+Then, behold me on my return to this old parlor where I look upon
+the least object with tenderness. This shawl belonged to my paternal
+grandmother whom I never knew and who rests amid flowers in a humble
+cemetery of the Antilles. May the humming-birds glitter and cry above
+her deserted grave, and the tobacco-plants with their rosy bells
+delight her memory ... I have never seen the portrait which represents
+her. But I know she had a reputation for goodness and beauty. I have
+read admirable letters that she wrote from there to my father when he
+was a child. He had been brought back to France to be educated here,
+and had remained here.
+
+How often have I dreamed of reviving this past. How beautiful it
+would be if God gave us, once a year, the festival of seeing our dear
+departed return. I love to imagine it as occurring on Twelfth Night
+during a season of snow. The modest dining-room would be opened at
+the stroke of eight, and seated about the enlarged table, adorned
+with Christmas roses, I would find all those for whom my soul mourns
+beneath the cheery light of the lamps.
+
+It seems to me that this meeting would be entirely natural with
+little of the uncanny, and not at all like a fairy tale. My paternal
+grandfather, the doctor of medicine who died at Guadeloupe, would
+occupy the place of honor, and about his shoulders would be a little
+traveling cloak on which grains of frost were shining. His steely blue
+eyes behind the enormous gold-rimmed spectacles, which he wore and
+which my mother uses to-day, would make him appear as he was, at the
+same time severe and good. In a grave and melodious voice he would
+speak of the Great Crossing, of the wind of the Eternal Ocean, of
+earthquakes in unexplored countries, of shipwrecked men whom he had
+saved.
+
+And all would listen; and, death being eternal, it would be wonderful
+to see each one again at the particular age which we with singular
+obstinacy always attribute to our dear departed.
+
+The cousins from Saint-Pierre-de-la-Martinique, there were four of
+them I believe, would not be more than eighteen years old, and would
+be dressed in white muslin gowns. They would laugh at some cake that
+had not come out right. And my great aunts who were Huguenots, rigid
+but happy, with long chains of gold about their necks, would interpret
+the revelations of the Prophets to one another. And five and seventy
+years would quaver in each of their cracked voices. And my maternal
+grandsire at nineteen, with the green coat of a romantic student, all....
+
+But the dream fades and the wind weeps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In moss full of sunshine and transparent as an alga or an emerald, I
+have covered the roots of these first daisies of January. They and the
+rare periwinkles and the furze are the only flowers of this season.
+It is too much love doubtless which fills them. They must be born in
+spite of the ice. The white little bands of their flower-heads are
+tinged with violet at the ends, and surround the flowers which are
+greenish yellow like the under side of an old mushroom. The muddy
+roots feel the plowed fields. I have been so cruel as to pluck these
+flowers and now they are wretched; they are as wounded as animals
+could be; and see how, slowly as if they were moved by a terrible
+fear, the petals of the flowers curve in to cover and protect the
+sheathes of the minute corollas that I can no longer see. Tenderly I
+try to raise these petals, but they resist me and I only succeed in
+murdering the plant. Fool! Why could I not let these flowers live
+on the edge of their ditch? There they would have felt the fresh
+shrivelling of drinking in the sun, a bird would have touched them
+lightly, the proboscis of the mosquitoes would have sucked up their
+pollen, and they would have died gently by the side of their friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The stars of winter are beautiful when they are dusted on the
+slate-colored sky, and when in the hazy blue depth they light up the
+shreds of clouds. I passed through the little town at six o'clock,
+when the candles behind the window-panes make square shadows move
+within the shops and shine upon the reddish mud of the pavements.
+A dog trots by sniffing under the doorways. A wagon whose oxen have
+slipped makes a grating noise. A lantern flickers, a voice is heard.
+The angles of the roofs are clear-cut. The rest is consumed by the
+darkness. Here and there, still, at great distances, a window of smoky
+rose, and I am at the top of the slope.
+
+At the left an enormous star trembles. It seems to breathe and its
+rays alternately elongate and withdraw again. Its white fire appears
+to flow. I look upon the constellations, behind which there are other
+spaces of constellations, which hide still more constellations, until
+the glance is lost in luminous embers like those of a hearth.
+
+I am in no wise troubled by these stars. I do not see in them worlds
+infinitely great or small according to the one with which we compare
+them. They are in my thoughts, such as I see them: the largest like
+hummingbirds the smallest like wasps. The space which separates them
+one from another does not seem any greater than the pace with which I
+measure the road. It is simply the sky of January above a little town.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A peasant-woman has sold me some mushrooms. They are very rare
+nowadays. Their odor captures me, and I dream of the edges of
+the meadows, of the elves who, according to Shakespeare, make the
+mushrooms grow beneath the spell of the moon. They have been moistened
+by the melting frost, and fine and long grasses have become attached
+to their humidity. They bear within them the quivering mist of the
+nights. The first, they came forth from the earth under their
+umbels of ivory to find out whether the feet of the hedge were still
+surrounded by moss. They must have been deceived. They could not have
+seen the periwinkles or the violets, but only the irritating and fine
+gray rain in the gray sky.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Often I have visualized Heaven for myself. That of my childhood was
+the hut an old man had built at the top of a climbing road. This hut
+was called _Paradise_. My father brought me there at the hour when the
+dark mist of the hills became gilded like a church. I expected, at the
+end of each walk, to find God seated in the sun which seemed to sleep
+at the summit of the stony pathway. Was I mistaken?
+
+It is less easy for me to imagine the Catholic Paradise: the harps of
+azure, the rosy snow of legions in the pure rainbows. I still cling
+to my first vision, but since I have known love I have added to the
+divine kingdom a warm, sloping lawn in front of the old man's hut. On
+it a young girl gathers herbs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have simultaneously the soul of a faun and the soul of an
+adolescent. And the emotion which I feel on looking upon a woman is
+quite contrary to that which I feel on gazing at a young girl. If one
+could make one's self understood by the aid of fruits and flowers,
+I would offer to the first burning peaches, the rosy blossoms of the
+belladonna, heavy roses; to the second, cherries, raspberries, the
+blossoms of the wild quince, eglantine, and honeysuckle. I find it
+difficult to have any feeling which is not accompanied by the image of
+a flower or a fruit. When I think of Martha, I dream of gentians.
+With Lucy I associate the white anemones of Japan, and with Marie the
+lilies of Solomon; with another a citron which should be transparent.
+
+To the first meeting that a sweetheart has granted me, I have brought
+a spray of gladiolus whose throats have the rosy hue of an apricot.
+We placed them on the window during the night when I forgot them to
+remember only my love. To-day I would forget my loved one, to recall
+only the gladiolus.
+
+My memory is therefore, if I may so express it, vegetal. Trees as well
+as flowers and fruits symbolize for me beings and emotions. Plants
+as well as animals and stones filled my childhood with a mysterious
+_charm_. When I was four years old I remained rapt in contemplation
+of the broken stones of the mountain, lying in heaps along the roads.
+When struck they gave forth fire in the twilight. When rubbed against
+one another they felt the burning heat. I gathered pieces of marble
+from among them which seemed heavy with a water they had concealed
+within themselves. The mica of the granite held my curiosity in a way
+which nothing could satisfy. I felt that there was something that no
+one could tell me--the life of the stones.
+
+At the same age I was scolded because I carried away the artificial
+beetles from a hat of my mother. I had the passion of collecting
+animals, I felt toward them so great a love that I wept if I thought
+them unhappy. And I still endure a deep anguish when I remember the
+little nightingales which some one gave me and which pined away in the
+dining-room. Still at the same age, in order to make me go to sleep,
+they had to place not far from me a bottle containing a tree-frog.
+I knew that here was a faithful friend who would protect me against
+robbers. The first time that I saw a stag-beetle, I was so overcome
+by the beauty of its horns that the longing to possess one became an
+actual torment.
+
+The passion for plants did not develop until later, about the age of
+nine years, and I did not really begin to understand their life until
+about the age of fifteen. I remember the circumstances under which it
+happened. It was in summer, one Thursday, on a scorching afternoon.
+I was passing through the botanical garden of a great city with my
+mother. A white sun, dense blue shadows, and perfumes so heavy that
+one could almost feel them cling, made of this half desert spot a
+kingdom whose portal I crossed at last.
+
+In the tepid and reddish-brown water of the ponds plants vegetated;
+some were leathery and gray, and others long, soft, and transparent.
+But from the very heart of these poor and sad algae there rose into
+the very blue of the sky itself, green lance-like stalks whose
+rose and white umbels challenged the ardent day with their grace;
+water-lilies slept on their leaves as in a trustful afternoon sleep.
+
+To the plants of the water, the plants of the earth answered. I recall
+an alley where students, a handkerchief about the neck, were as if
+buried beneath the beauty of the leaves. It was the alley of the
+_umbelliferae_. The fennel and the ferula raised their crowns upon
+their stems with glistening sheaths. The perfumes spoke to each other
+in the silence. And one felt that a silent understanding went from
+plant to plant, and that over this isolated realm there hovered
+something like resignation.
+
+Since then I have understood the flowers and that their _families_
+belonged together and have a natural affinity, and are not merely
+divided into classes as an aid to our slow memories. Toward what
+solution do these geometries in action, which are plants, progress?
+I do not know. But there is a fascinating mystery in considering that
+even as species correspond to certain geological periods and thus
+group their sympathies, even so to-day they group themselves according
+to the seasons. What correspondence is there between the character
+of the shivering and snowy liliaceous plants of winter and the
+purple solanaceous plants of autumn? And then there are still other
+delightful dispositions which are due far less to the artifice of
+man than to the consent of certain species to regard others as their
+friends and not to pine away beside them. How sweet is the village
+garden where the gleaming lily, like those gods who often visit the
+humble, lives amid the cabbages, the blue leek, and the scallions,
+which boil in the black pot of the poor! How I love the peasant
+gardens at noonday when the mournful blue shadow of the vegetables
+sleeps in the white squares of granular earth, when the cock calls
+the silence, and when the buzzard, slanting and wheeling, makes
+the scuttling hen cluck! There are the flowers of simple loves, the
+flowers of the young wife who will dry the blue lavender to scent
+her coarse sheets. And in this garden grows also the flower of the
+rondel--the humble gilliflower with its simple perfume. There is also
+the faithful box, each leaf of which is a small mirror of azure, and
+the hollyhock in which the sweet and pure flame of melancholy
+corollas burns; they are the flowers of religion vowed to silence and
+austerity.
+
+And I love also the flora of the meadows: the meadow-sweet swayed by
+the breezes, rocked by the murmur of the brook. Its perfumed crown is
+adorned like the water-beetles, more iridescent than the throats of
+humming-birds.
+
+It is the beloved of the greensward, the bride of the grassy borders.
+
+But it is in the deep recesses of old deserted parks that the plants
+are most mysterious. There dwell those which we call _old
+flowers_, such as the ground-lilac, the belladonna-amaryllis, the
+crown-imperial. Elsewhere they would die. Here they persist, guarded
+by the favor of the age-old trees, strange trees, the names of which
+have disappeared. And these affected and distinguished blossoms raise
+their swaying heads only when, murmuring across the liquadambars and
+the maples, the wind moans like Chateaubriand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The very mournfulness of the little town is pleasing to me; I love its
+streets of dark shops, the worn thresholds, and the gardens. In the
+fine season they seem to float against a background of blue mist which
+is a confusion of hollyhocks, glycins, trellises; or again they seem
+patchy as the skin of asses, with drying rags above the hedges
+of battered boxwood. The tanner's brook drifts by with the pale
+mother-of-pearl of the sky, and reflects sharply the rooftops amid the
+slimy plants; the mountain torrent, which hollows the rocks, gleams,
+twines and flows away.
+
+The little place is charming when the grasshopper shrills in the
+summer's elms and the autumn wind scours it, or when the rains streak
+it. There is a little public garden that Bernardin de Saint Pierre
+would have loved; in May the night there is dense, blue, and soft in
+the chestnut-trees.
+
+For years I have lived here, whence my grandfather and a great uncle
+departed toward the flower-covered Antilles. They listened to the
+roaring of the sea; robes of muslin glided upon the verandas, and they
+died perhaps looking back with regret on these streets, these shops,
+these thresholds, these gardens, this brook, and this mountain
+torrent.
+
+When I go to my little farm I say to myself that this is where they
+once were. They brought their luncheon in a little basket, and one of
+them carried a guitar. And young girls surely followed swiftly. Song
+stirred among the damp hedgerows. An unutterable love frightened the
+birds, the mulberries were green. They kept time as they walked. A
+young girl's cry stirred the air, a big hat turned the corner of the
+road, a clear laugh rose from the rain-torn eglantines; then hearts
+beat when, in the bright dog-days, the black barns softened the
+clucking of the hens under the scarlet sky of the south.
+
+...This guitar or another I heard in the courtyard of my Huguenot
+great-aunts, one summer's evening when I was four years old. The
+courtyard slept in the white twilight, the roofs shed an unimaginable
+tenderness upon the climbing rosebushes and the bright paving-stones.
+Some one sitting on a beam was making merry at the expense of my
+childhood and my white apron. My great uncle sang some melody from the
+capital. I can see him again, standing upright with his head thrown
+back. The air trembled softly. At the end of a roulade he made an
+exaggerated and charming bow.
+
+I bless you, oh humble town where I am not understood, where I shelter
+my pride, my suffering, and my joy, where I have hardly any other
+distraction than that of listening to the barking of my old dog and
+watching the faces of the poor. But I reach the hillside where the
+prickly furze is spread, and in musing upon my difficulties I am
+filled with a beneficent gentleness. To-day it is no longer the
+coarse and disdainful laugh of the public, nor the terrible doubt of
+everything, which disturbs me. The laugh of my detractors has grown
+wearied, and I have become indifferent to what I am. Yet I have become
+grave toward myself and others. It is with an apprehensive joy that I
+regard the heedlessness of the happy. I have learned what misery
+may spring from love, what blindness is born of a glance. And it is
+because of what I have suffered that I would bestow a sad and slow
+caress on those who have not yet known anything but happiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The open door, the blue sky, the watering of the grass and the
+gilliflowers, and the hyacinths, and a single bird which chirps, and
+my dogs stretched on the ground and the rosebushes with their thick
+stems, the verdure of the lilacs, and a clock that is striking, a wasp
+which flies straight and marks the meadow with the lines of its golden
+vibration, and stops, hesitates, sets off again, is silent and buzzes....
+
+Hearts and choirs of primroses in the moist, shadowy mosses of the
+woods; long threads of rose and blue dew floating and swinging and
+suspended--from what?--in the immaterial morning; tree-frogs with
+golden eye-lids and white throbbing throats; furze whose perfume of
+faded peach and rose follows along the roads, already torrid....
+
+Iris, cries of jays, turtledoves, mountains of blue snow which are
+rocks of azure, green fields laid out in squares, brook rolling
+a golden pebble in the silence; first foliage of the waters, icy
+trembling of the body beside the springs when the sun lies burning on
+your hands....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Slender alders; fiery marshes where toward noonday puffing out their
+throat, the hoarse gray frogs climb up on the coriaceous plants,
+while slowly from the deep of the shady and gilded mire rises a bubble....
+
+Dry and twisted vines; swarms of insects from the blossoms of rosy
+peach-trees, in slanting flight into the azure; pear-trees and roses
+of Bengal....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Setting of the cherry sun; nocturnal snow of a fruit-tree; green and
+transparent shadowing of the lanes; summit of little hills at seven
+o'clock where the trees are like sponges which little by little blend
+into the severity of the uniform curve which swells and rises sharply.
+
+Starless night; violet night in which the white sandals of a beloved
+pagan can hardly be distinguished, and dense bristling of slender, dry
+trees; pallor of a limestone slope, and water in which something casts
+two long and deep shadows....
+
+Night; fire; lines of shadow blended with shadows of lines; fire;
+humid thickness of fields; fire; crimsoning and reddening of clouds;
+poplars; whiteness which must be a village. Water again, water, and
+shadows of water....
+
+A wagon passes. The lantern lights up only the rear of the horse,
+all else is night. When I was a child it was this which astonished
+me--this light which was quenched again. Another wagon...One sees
+only the rosy bust of a girl. It slips into the night....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I return from a journey. The recollection of a maroon reflection of a
+boat in the canal, the color of gray fish, makes my memory quiver. I
+dream of white tulips.
+
+I have returned at night. The croaking of frogs has greeted me from
+the depths of the damp meadow. My heart, do not burst!... Do not burst
+like the lilacs of the flower-garden whose fragrance I alone have
+touched....
+
+Will hope be born again? I am afraid. Is this one more disillusion?
+
+The wasp has hummed. I love none but the violet lilacs, I love none
+but the blue violets. It is Sunday, and I hear in the depths of my
+soul the droning of the harmoniums of poor churches.
+
+My life, behold my life, ardent and sad like a flame which
+burns through too warm a summer night beside the open window. An
+imperceptible breeze has suddenly swelled out the curtain of muslin
+like my heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the garden the perfume of the lilacs suddenly make me feel ill
+because I am horribly sad.
+
+Nevertheless, lilacs, you are dear to me since childhood. Then I
+thought your clusters were the beautiful polished images of a box of
+toys.
+
+And you, oh lilacs, have also haunted an orchard which I knew well in
+my youth. In this orchard there were hedge-hogs. They glided along old
+beams. How innocent and gentle the hedge-hogs are in spite of their
+quills! I remember my emotion one winter's evening, when I found one
+of them at the threshold of the kitchen; it had taken flight from the
+snow, and was poking its little nose into the refuse left there....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I love the creatures of the night, the screech-owls with their
+graceful flight, the bats, the badgers, all the timid beasts which
+glide through the air or in the grass and of which we know so little.
+What festivals do they hold amid the plants, their sisters?
+
+At the hour when man is at rest, the rabbits, silvered by the dew,
+bound over the mint of the furrow and hold their conventicles; the
+frogs croak in the marsh and make it ripple; the glowworms filter
+their soft and humid yellow light; the mole bores the meadow; the
+nightingale sobs like a fountain; the owl utters sad laughter as if it
+too, however timidly, were trying to have a share in the joy of God.
+
+How I would like to be a creature of the night, a hare trembling in
+a hedge of hawthorn, a badger grazed by the leaves of the juicy green
+corn. My only care would have been to safeguard my physical being. I
+would not have loved. I would not have hoped.
+
+
+
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