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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40618 ***
+
+                      THE SURPRISES OF LIFE
+
+                      BY GEORGES CLEMENCEAU
+
+
+    TRANSLATED BY
+    GRACE HALL
+
+    GARDEN CITY       NEW YORK
+
+    DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+    1920
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
+    DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+
+    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
+    INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                                       PAGE
+
+        I. MOKOUBAMBA'S FETISH                                       3
+
+       II. A DESCENDANT OF TIMON                                    19
+
+      III. MALUS VICINUS                                            31
+
+       IV. AUNT ROSALIE'S INHERITANCE                               45
+
+        V. GIDEON IN HIS GRAVE                                      61
+
+       VI. SIMON, SON OF SIMON                                      73
+
+      VII. AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS                                 87
+
+     VIII. EVIL BENEFICENCE                                        101
+
+       IX. A MAD THINKER                                           113
+
+        X. BETTER THAN STEALING                                    125
+
+       XI. THE GRAY FOX                                            137
+
+      XII. THE ADVENTURE OF MY CURÉ                                149
+
+     XIII. MASTER BAPTIST, JUDGE                                   161
+
+      XIV. THE BULLFINCH AND THE MAKER OF WOODEN SHOES             173
+
+       XV. ABOUT NESTS                                             185
+
+      XVI. A DOMESTIC DRAMA                                        197
+
+     XVII. SIX CENTS                                               209
+
+    XVIII. FLOWER O' THE WHEAT                                     221
+
+      XIX. JEAN PIOT'S FEAST                                       233
+
+       XX. THE TREASURE OF ST. BARTHOLEMEW                         249
+
+      XXI. A HAPPY UNION                                           263
+
+     XXII. A WELL-ASSORTED COUPLE                                  275
+
+    XXIII. LOVERS IN FLORENCE                                      287
+
+     XXIV. A HUNTING ACCIDENT                                      301
+
+      XXV. GIAMBOLO                                                313
+
+
+
+
+THE SURPRISES OF LIFE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+MOKOUBAMBA'S FETISH
+
+
+It may be that you knew Mokoubamba who became famous in Passy for his
+labours as a reseater of rush-bottomed chairs, weaver of mats, of
+baskets and hampers, mender of all things breakable, teller of tales,
+entertainer of the passerby, lover of all haunts where poor mortality
+resorts to eat and drink. He was an old Negro from the coast of Guinea,
+very black as to skin, wholly white as to hair, with great velvety black
+eyes and the jaws of a crocodile whence issued childlike laughter. He
+used to honour me with his visits on his way home at evening when he had
+not sold quite all his wares. With abundance of words and gestures, he
+would explain to me how fortunate I was to need precisely the article of
+which by an unforeseen and kindly chance he was the owner. And as he saw
+that I delighted in his talk, he gave free rein to that spirited
+eloquence which never failed to bring him more or less remuneration.
+
+Our latest "reformers" having put intoxication by the juice of the grape
+within reach of all, Mokoubamba died on the fourteenth of last July,
+from having too copiously celebrated the taking of the Bastille. No more
+will Passy see Mokoubamba, with his white _burnous_, his scarlet
+_chechia_, his green boots, and his drum-major's staff. A genuine loss
+to the truly Parisian picturesqueness of this quarter. As for me, how
+should I not miss the rare companion who had seen so many lands,
+consorted with so many sages, and collected so many strange teachings?
+
+"Mokoubamba knows the whole earth," he was wont to say, candidly adding:
+"Mokoubamba knows everything that man can know."
+
+And the generosity of this primitive nature will be seen in the fact of
+his not keeping his hoard of knowledge to himself, but lavishing it upon
+all comers. He was equally willing to announce what the weather would be
+on the morrow and what it had been on the day before. By means of
+cabalistic signs on a very grimy bit of parchment he foretold any man's
+destiny: a choice destiny, indeed, of whose felicities he was never
+known to be niggardly.
+
+The poor were informed that a rich inheritance awaited them, the rich
+saw their fortunes increased by unlooked-for events, love knocked at the
+door of the young, children came into the world who were to be the pride
+of their families, the old, beloved for their own sakes, saw their
+lives stretch out indefinitely: Mokoubamba kept a Paradise shop.
+
+One day I made bold to call him to account for this, claiming that life
+held in store for us disappointments, here and there, for the purpose of
+giving an edge to our pleasures, and that there must from time to time
+be a discrepancy between the sovereign bliss of which he so freely held
+out the hope and the sum of realized joys.
+
+"Life," replied the wise Mokoubamba, "is a procession of delights. As
+soon as one has disappeared, another has started upon its way. It may be
+a more or less long time in arriving, but no one will begrudge waiting
+for it, and the waiting is often the best a man gets out of it."
+
+For a chairmender this saying seemed to me fairly profound.
+
+"Who taught you this?" I asked.
+
+"A fakir from Benares from whom the heavens withheld no secrets."
+
+"You have been in India?"
+
+"I have been everywhere."
+
+"Mokoubamba, my friend, yours is no ordinary life. Will you not tell me
+something of it? The past interests me more than the future."
+
+"If you will order them to give me coffee and cigarettes, and if I may
+drink and smoke as long as I talk, you shall have my entire history."
+
+I nodded in assent, and Mokoubamba, taking possession of my verandah,
+squatted upon one of his own mats, inhaled the perfume of Arabia,
+exhaled three puffs of curly blue smoke, and seemed to lose himself in
+the search for a starting point.
+
+"What was your first occupation?" I asked by way of helping him on.
+
+"The easiest of all," said he, with a shamefaced air. "I began by being
+a minister."
+
+"Minister!" I cried in high surprise. "Minister to whom? Minister of
+what?"
+
+"Minister to the great King Matori. Down there--down there--beyond the
+Niger."
+
+"Truly! My compliments to His Excellency! And you say the profession
+seemed an easy one to you? Your colleagues up here would scarcely agree
+with you."
+
+"I speak of what I have seen. In my country those who are the masters
+are always in the right. Tell me if you know of a place on earth where
+it is any different? I did not know how to do anything. I could not even
+have braided a mat in those days. Well, then, all that I said was
+admirable, and as soon as I had given an order it was considered the
+best in the world. I was myself a Fetish, my mother having given me
+birth on a day of rain after a long drought which had reduced our
+villages to famine."
+
+"And what were your functions?"
+
+"The same as elsewhere. I was purveyor of provisions to the royal
+household and I reserved a just share for myself. Matori loved me very
+much. But I had enemies. They persuaded him that my Fetish was stronger
+than his, and as he feared my power, he sold me to an English trader who
+needed carriers for his ivory. It was a long journey to the coast. If a
+man fell he was gently dispatched on the spot, so that he might not be
+eaten alive by the beasts, and his load was distributed among the rest
+of us. Without my Fetish I should have been left behind. I may add that
+being beaten with a stick helped to keep up my courage."
+
+"And what is your Fetish?"
+
+"At that time I did not know, but I felt it without knowing. In time we
+arrived among the English. I was not a slave. Oh, no! but I had been
+'engaged,' and in order that I might better fill my 'engagement' they
+fastened me, with many others, to the wall of a courtyard, by an iron
+chain."
+
+"Poor Mokoubamba!"
+
+"I was not unhappy, for they fed me very well. They wished to have us in
+good condition so as to get rid of us. It was there that I learned the
+art of weaving reeds and rattan, and carving curious designs upon wood.
+My neighbour, the man chained beside me, was a great sorcerer in his own
+land. He could carve bamboo, he could cook; he was skilled in hammering
+red-hot iron, in stitching leather, in dancing; he could call up
+spirits. They took very good care of him. They did not sell him, of
+course, since there existed no slavery, but they bartered him for two
+dozen bottles of French brandy. There was a price for you! Matori had
+handed me over for a single calabash of rum and a copper trumpet."
+
+"Poor Mokoubamba!"
+
+"Yes, you are right! It was a paltry price. I was humiliated by it for a
+long time. But as my new master used to say, I must learn to overcome
+the demon of pride."
+
+"Your new master used to say that?"
+
+"It was like this. I was quietly sitting at my chain one day, making a
+large basket, when a man dressed in black, with an edge of white around
+his neck, came near me and said: 'My brother, what have you done with
+your soul?' I had learned a few words of English on the journey.
+However, I asked my visitor to repeat his question. He repeated it again
+and again, and I finally understood that he was talking about my Fetish,
+and that he wished to know what I had done with it. I answered that it
+was a sacred thing, and that I had it with me, but that I would
+willingly employ it in his service if he would acquire me for a sum of
+money. My answer had the good fortune to please him, it seems, for on
+that very evening the excellent Reverend Ebenezer Jones installed me in
+his parsonage. He taught me about his great Fetish, who did not much
+differ from Matori's. Is not a Fetish always something that we do not
+know and that works us either good or evil? We ask it for good, and it
+does not always grant it. But as I was just saying, we go on expecting
+it, and that keeps us in patience.
+
+"Ebenezer Jones told me beautiful tales full of marvels, and he always
+ended with the question: 'Dost thou believe?'
+
+"How should I not have believed him? So good a man, who daily let me
+have soup with meat in it. I was baptized by him with a fine ceremony.
+Before long he was so pleased with me that he made me his sexton. I was
+the edification of the faithful, everyone brought me gifts, and I was
+able, unknown to the Right Reverend, to treat myself to a superior brand
+of _tafia_.
+
+"Ebenezer Jones travelled about the country preaching his Fetish, and I
+accompanied him. I had ended by knowing his discourses by heart, and
+often at gatherings I recited portions of them after he had finished
+speaking. People understood me better than they did him, which was not
+to be wondered at. My 'spiritual guide' owed to me most of the success
+that made him famous in his own country. This lasted for nearly ten
+years.
+
+"One day, Ebenezer having been called back to London proposed that I
+should follow him. I did it joyfully, and I must say that the six weeks
+I spent in that capital were one long-drawn-out feast. I was exhibited
+at the Missionary Society as a model among converts. At dessert I would
+rise and speak of my complete happiness, which was but natural after so
+good a meal. People wept with emotion, and so did I myself. In that
+country the religious fervour of elderly gentlewomen is extraordinary.
+Between puddings and mince pies, it was one stream of gifts of food.
+Never have I eaten so well or drunk so much.
+
+"There, however, I was surprised to find that the English no more than
+the Negroes are all of one mind with regard to their Fetishes, which I
+ought to have expected. In Africa, at a six days' journey from our
+church, there was a Catholic Mission. I was careful never to go near it,
+since Ebenezer had warned me that they worked evil spells there upon the
+poor Negroes who let themselves be deceived.
+
+"But one afternoon in London, I was accosted by a big devil of an Irish
+priest who had heard of my religious zeal. He was greatly perturbed by
+the glory which the Missionary Society owed to me. He had determined to
+snatch me away from Ebenezer Jones. I let him take me home with him,
+where I found a table abundantly spread. Meat, pies, and preserves, and
+liqueurs, oh, such liqueurs! I was deeply shaken, and could not disguise
+the fact from my new friend, Father Joseph O'Meara. He increased his
+efforts, and so successfully explained to me the superiority of his
+Fetishes over Ebenezer's that I was obliged to agree he was right. No
+sooner had I uttered the word than he baptized me on the spot, gave me a
+good bed to sleep in, and on the morrow celebrated my reconversion with
+a ceremony even finer than the former one. There were Fetishes
+everywhere surrounded by lights. Joseph O'Meara wept for joy and so did
+I. That evening there was a magnificent banquet, ... just like the
+others. They had taught me a speech, but as the generous potations had
+slightly clouded my memory, I was able to utter but one sentence:
+'Mokoubamba is very happy, very happy.'
+
+"And that was no lie.
+
+"The trouble was now that Ebenezer Jones, ashamed of having allowed
+Mokoubamba to be stolen from him, wished to get me back. But Joseph
+O'Meara was not the man to let any such trick be played upon him. I was
+treated like a prince, and kept well in sight for fifteen glorious days.
+Then it was explained to me that I must go to another country so as to
+escape from the machinations of the 'Evil One,' which was the name of
+Ebenezer's bad Fetish. I was consequently hurried off to a mission in
+Bombay where the religion was very different. Here were priests who
+fasted all day long. A moiety of rice, much dust, and as much warm water
+as I cared to consume. This did not suit me in the least. I wandered
+about the streets looking for some Fetish willing to take an interest in
+me. There are all manner of people out there. I questioned concerning
+their Fetishes a Parsee, a fire-worshipper who had nothing to cook in
+his dish, and a Chinaman who considering my appetite told me that I
+should be born again in the form of a shark. None of them showed any
+care to convert me. A Mahomedan alone seemed disposed to win me over to
+his Fetish, but he wished first to take from me a portion of something
+which I at that time considered very desirable. That ended it.
+
+"I travelled, weaving baskets and mats, even as I do to-day. I lived
+very poorly. Everyone in that country cares above all things for his own
+Fetish, and will not change it. There is no work there for Ebenezer
+Jones or Joseph O'Meara. And yet their Fetishes leave the people in
+great misery. They let them starve by the hundred thousand, yet no one
+has the slightest idea of turning to those Fetishes through whom other
+peoples live in abundance.
+
+"I laid this question before a fakir of Benares who was said to possess
+supreme wisdom. His Fetish was a wooden bowl behind which he squatted at
+the roadside by way of adoration. Looking at the thing casually, you
+would have seen in it nothing extraordinary. And yet that bowl had the
+property of attracting money because of the belief established by the
+fakir that it brought good luck to the giver. Indeed, I have found the
+same thing true here in your country. But the mendicant fakir class of
+India is here divided in two classes: the beggar by trade, to whom you
+give nothing because he is not 'respectable,' and the professional fakir
+to whom you give everything because your success may depend on his
+favour.
+
+"The man of Benares knew this and much besides. He became my friend
+because of the very simplicity of my questions. At evening he would
+bestow on me the alms of a bowl of rice. Often he let me spread my
+litter in his reed hut. At night under the stars he taught me concerning
+the creation, and imparted to me his knowledge of all things. It was he
+who expounded to me the great mystery of Fetishes, since which I have
+lived without care for the morrow. Later, a Parsee, a great grain
+merchant, took me to your Algiers, and thence brought me here, where I
+have remained. But all that I have seen of the world has but confirmed
+my belief in the profound wisdom of the illustrious fakir of Benares."
+
+"Good. But what did he tell you about Fetishes?"
+
+"You see ... I have no more coffee...."
+
+"There you are, and how about this little glass of brandy?"
+
+"With pleasure. And anyway it can be summed up in one word. The fakir
+told me that the universe is but one huge agglomeration of Fetishes.
+There are as many as there are creatures alive. Some are strong and some
+are weak. It is a great battle as to which shall come out on top. The
+wicked are those who work evil on others to get the upper hand. The
+good are those who use gentleness, persuasion, art. One had better be on
+the side of the good unless one is stronger than they."
+
+"I see. But was the fakir speaking of Fetishes or of men?"
+
+"Ha-ha! You want to know all of it! Another little glass and you shall
+have your answer. Excellent! I can refuse you nothing. Well, then, the
+fakir affirmed that Fetish and man are one and the same thing, for every
+man makes his Fetish according to the strength of his interest in
+himself, and the will power he expends in satisfying it. That is why I
+am not deceiving when I foretell a happy fortune for people. It but
+strengthens their Fetish, their chance of happiness is increased, they
+enjoy it in anticipation."
+
+"Then, Mokoubamba, under varying forms and shifting denominations, you
+maintain that the only Fetish to whom you have remained unalterably
+faithful, and which has rewarded your fidelity by pulling you through
+everything in the world----"
+
+"Is Mokoubamba himself. There is the great secret. Meditate upon it,
+like the fakir----"
+
+"I shall meditate upon it, have no fear. But do you suppose this great
+secret is known in Benares alone?"
+
+"I have often asked myself that question. Judging by actions, everyone
+seems perfectly aware of what he is about. But I have never known any
+one except the fakir of Benares to state things as they are."
+
+Thus spake Mokoubamba, reseater of rush-bottomed chairs in Passy, mender
+of all things breakable, entertainer of the passerby, teller of fanciful
+tales.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+A DESCENDANT OF TIMON
+
+
+Timon of Athens hated all men because he had once too greatly loved
+them. To whom shall the fault be ascribed, to mankind, or to Timon of
+Athens? The long-standing open question does not yet appear to have been
+answered. The human race continues to lay the blame on its detractors,
+and the descendants of Timon, who was above all a disappointed lover of
+his kind, have not ceased to find good reasons for their censure.
+
+The special descendant of Timon who trotted me on his knee when I was a
+child was an old navy doctor retired from service after a severe wound
+received at Navarino. If I close my eyes, the better to call up my
+memories, there arises before me a long, gaunt silhouette surmounted by
+a bald head, the entire figure running to length, which is, they say,
+the mark of an immoderate idealism. I remember his small, mocking green
+eyes, sunk behind the brush of his formidable eyebrows. The long, white
+side-whiskers, the carefully shaven lips that would stretch to his ears
+in a grin like Voltaire's, accompanied by a dry chuckle, have remained
+alive in my memory, as have also his wide, incoördinate gestures, his
+dry, harsh voice, and his biting, wrathful utterances.
+
+I should find it impossible at this distance to trace the life history
+of Doctor Jean du Pouët, known over the entire Plain, from Sainte
+Hermine to Fontenay-le-Comte, under the familiar yet respectful title of
+"The Doctor." All I can say is that the Doctor, hailing originally from
+L'Aiguillon, a little port of the Vendée at the mouth of the Lay, had
+sailed every sea, landed on every island, visited every coast of every
+continent, and made his studies of all nations on earth from life, which
+enabled him to criticise his neighbours at every turn by comparing them,
+disastrously for them, with heaven knows what abominable savages, in
+which comparison the latter were always found far superior, with regard
+to the point under discussion, to the men of the Vendée, from the Plain,
+the Woodland, and the Marsh, all put together.
+
+It was in the very heart of the Plain, in the village of Ecoulandres,
+that the "Doctor" had come to settle, brought there by an inheritance
+from a cousin, who had left him lord and master of an old middle-class
+dwelling with large tile-paved rooms in which hung panoplies of
+tomahawks, javelins, bucklers, boomerangs, in warlike wreaths around
+monstrous idols, whose barbaric names, impressively enumerated by the
+traveller, aroused a holy terror in the soul of the peaceable tillers of
+the soil.
+
+A little wood of elms, a great curiosity in a region where not a tree is
+to be seen, surrounded the domain. It was a thin copse, the layer of
+soil making but a shallow covering to the underlying limestone. This did
+not prevent our stern censor from taking a certain pride in his "grove,"
+without its like to the furthermost boundary of the horizon. I must even
+confess that the doctor, like any other true son of the Vendée, had a
+very well-developed sense of landed proprietorship. Money ran through
+his fingers, and no outstretched palm ever sought his help in vain. But
+the possessive pronoun rose readily to his lips when talk turned upon
+the land. "My dung," "my stones," "my nettles," he was wont to say. He
+adored his Plain--"Green in springtime, in summer gold," where fleecy
+crops rippled under the great blue canopy,--pierced along the horizon by
+steeples suggestive of distant shipping. Flights of plovers in January
+and ducks in September engaged the doctor's attention. He watched for
+them from a murderous shooting shelter, and invented incredible ruses to
+allure them nearer. The rest of his time was spent scouring the
+countryside in a jolting rural trap, hastening to the bedside of the
+sick, who sent for him on any and all occasions, but did not greatly
+value his visits, as he never required payment, or administered to his
+patients that accompanying dose of legitimate charlatanism which forms
+the chief factor in so many cures.
+
+For the doctor was above all things outspoken. I am unaware whether some
+great disappointment had driven him to misanthropy, or whether he had
+merely given way to the natural bent of his character. Whatever may have
+been his soul's history, it is certain that he at every opportunity
+exercised his fine capacity for indignation against mankind in general,
+and with particular delight against the specimens of it who happened to
+be present. Never any coarse rudeness, however, and absolutely never any
+active ill will. He was not to be taken at his word, his pleasure
+consisting merely in satanic thoughts, the cruel expression of which
+sufficed for the satisfaction of his ferocity.
+
+You should have heard him on the subject of love, of friendship, of
+gratitude. It was his joy to demonstrate that every form of courtesy
+concealed a lie, by which he was no more deceived than was the person
+favouring him with it. It was no pleasure trip, coming to thank him for
+having saved a sick man's life. The patient and his friends heard
+startling things concerning the self-interest at bottom of their
+thoughts.
+
+"Are you so glad, then, not to get your inheritance?" he would say to a
+son who came to tell him of his old father's complete return to health.
+
+And he would cite living parallels, drawn from the life of neighbouring
+villages, calling the characters by name, to demonstrate what a
+foundation of selfishness was covered by the veneer of affection people
+are so fond of exhibiting. The peasant would listen silently, wearing a
+foolish grin, pretending to be stupid in order to escape the necessity
+of answering, and admitting in the depth of his inmost heart that the
+doctor read him like an open book, and that one could have no secrets
+from that devil of a man.
+
+His talk upon marriage, the family, religion, property, the judiciary,
+the administration itself, was directed by the blackest psychology. But
+his chief victim was the _curé_ of Ecoulandres, an old friend who did
+not take abuse without virulent retaliation, which led to curious
+fencing bouts between the two.
+
+The truth is that the two men had a great liking for each other. Both of
+them were remnants of the France of the eighteenth century, both
+suffering from the same stab of disillusion which the Revolution and the
+Empire had driven into their fondest dreams. The doctor found vent in
+wrath, the Abbé in resignation. Fundamentally alike in their wounded
+ideality, they sought each other out in the obstinate hope of agreeing,
+yet met only to offend, and to spend their strength in painful and
+useless strife, parting with bruised hearts and great oaths never to
+meet again, only to rush together on the following day.
+
+The Abbé Jaud, like his inseparable enemy, was of more than ordinary
+height, and without the cassock clinging to his lean sides might at
+fifty paces have been taken for him. The doctor's excuse for
+frequenting the Abbé was that he could talk to him without stooping.
+When the two tall silhouettes were outlined against the horizon at the
+edge of the plain they might have been taken for one and the same man.
+They were, in truth, one man in two persons.
+
+In their last years death naturally formed the inexhaustible topic of
+their conversation. The doctor had, he used to say, determined to die
+before the Abbé, in order to force him to perform an act of supreme
+hypocrisy by obliging him to bury with every formality the man who,
+having proclaimed himself an atheist all his days, had refused with his
+latest breath to put himself in order with the Church.
+
+"One talks like that," said the Abbé. "When on the verge of the great
+step, one changes one's mind."
+
+"Mine will not change."
+
+"Then, my dear Doctor, I shall be under the painful necessity of letting
+you go unaccompanied to the grave."
+
+"Not so. You will accompany me. You will mutter your Pater Nosters, let
+me assure you. You will sprinkle my coffin with holy water. You will
+sing psalms, clad in your finest stole. You will say a mass with all the
+fallals, and you will not leave me until you have provided me with a
+proper passport in due form."
+
+"Cease blaspheming, or I must refuse to listen."
+
+"A fine way to dispose of a difficulty! Do you know where I wish to be
+buried by your good agency, Abbé? In the unconsecrated part of the
+graveyard. Once upon a time the earth as well as the skies belonged to
+you. You laid claims to this planet as your property, and no one had the
+right to rot under ground save by your leave. Six feet of sod had to be
+wrested from you by main force to bury Molière! To-day, at last, we have
+taken back control over our earth. We have conquered the right to a
+peaceful return to nothingness. And now, to foster the illusion of
+getting even, and to shut yourselves to the very end in your secular
+spirit, you have devised nothing better than to create an unhallowed
+portion in the field of eternal rest. The other day, when I went there
+to select a spot to my liking, did not a fool of a peasant say to me:
+'You mustn't be buried there, Doctor, that corner is reserved for those
+condemned to death.' To be 'condemned to death' seemed to that idiot the
+utmost of horror. He does not realize that he--that they--that you--that
+we are all in the same case, my poor Abbé. Well, I chose my spot. I had
+a great stake driven there, so that there should be no mistake. Go and
+have a look at it, Abbé, for it is there that you will with pomp and
+ceremony, according to your rites, deposit me in unhallowed ground."
+
+"That will never be, my dear Doctor."
+
+"That will surely be, my dear Abbé."
+
+A few months later, the doctor, after lying in wait for plovers on the
+Plain (it was Christmas Eve, and he was then more than eighty years
+old), returned home shivering with fever. A pleurisy set in on the
+following day, and soon death was rapidly nearing.
+
+The Abbé was by his bedside, as will have been surmised. When he saw
+that there was no hope of recovery:
+
+"Come, my dear friend," he began, having sent away the bystanders, "do
+you not think it fitting, in this hour, to speak seriously of serious
+things?"
+
+"Hush," said the dying man, placing a thin, feverish finger on the
+priest's lips. "We have said all there was to be said, and there is
+nothing more to say. Take the key under my pillow--open that drawer--and
+give me my will--the drawer on the left--hand me also a pen--I wish to
+add a line."
+
+The Abbé did as he was requested. The trembling hand wrote a few words,
+then the head fell back on the pillow. The old man was dying. An hour
+later Doctor Jean du Pouët had breathed his last.
+
+The will when opened ran thus:
+
+"I die in absolute unbelief, refusing to perform any act of faith. I
+bequeathe my fortune, which amounts approximately to 100,000 francs, to
+the church of Ecoulandres, for the purchase, under the direction of M.
+the Abbé Jaud, of ornaments of the cult, as sumptuous as the sum
+permits. This in the hope that the sight of such wealth in contrast
+with their own poverty will awaken appropriate sentiment in the souls
+of my fellow citizens. I desire to be buried in the unconsecrated part
+of the cemetery, in the spot where six months ago I caused a stake to be
+driven. If the Church should refuse me her prayers, the disposition
+above described will be held null and void. In that case I name as my
+sole legatee Toussaint Giraudeau, apothecary of Sainte Hermine, and
+President of the Masonic Lodge named 'Fraternity.' I desire him to
+distribute the inheritance as he shall think best among those Masonic
+activities most especially directed against superstition and mummery."
+
+Under the signature were added these words:
+
+"I shall be dead within the hour. Nothing to change," and the name, in a
+large, shaky handwriting, which, by the emphasis of the downward stroke
+told, however, of an inflexible will.
+
+The Abbé Jaud's first impulse was one of haughty refusal, but his second
+was to go and consult his bishop, who made clear to him that highest
+duty lay in presenting every obstacle to Free Masonry. He was obliged to
+obey. The doctor in his grave had the last word, his face twisted with
+sardonic laughter under the holy water sprinkled by the discomfited
+Abbé.
+
+The infants born before their time who filled in the cemetery of
+Ecoulandres, "the corner reserved for those condemned to death," gained
+this much by the event, that the earth they lay in was blessed. In that
+respect, at least, one of the doctor's predictions was unfulfilled.
+
+But the Abbé's real revenge, although he was perhaps unaware of it, was
+that the sight of the magnificent golden chalices and monstrances
+ornamented with precious stones, far from arousing rebellion in the
+hearts of the poor, as the doctor had intended, only increased the
+fervour of the faithful, and provoked the piety of the indifferent by
+wonder at the splendour in which the power of the Invisible revealed
+itself. Victory and defeat on both sides. Blows struck in the darkness
+of the Unknown. And so passes the life of man.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+MALUS VICINUS
+
+
+Saint-juirs is the name of a village in the canton of Sainte Hermine.
+Lying on the slope of a hill, it overlooks a fresh, grassy valley
+planted with poplars and watered by a brook which has no recorded name.
+A very modest Romanesque church laboriously hoists skyward a heavy stone
+belfry amid a clump of elm and nut trees. The ruins of an old castle
+degenerated from the dignity of a stronghold to the simple rank of a
+country residence testifies that here, possibly, some notable event may
+have taken place. But as the inhabitants have forgotten it, and have no
+care to search it out, they live in absolute indifference to a thing
+that is not their direct business. Their village appears to them like
+all other villages, their church, their houses, their fields, their
+beasts, like all other churches and houses and fields and beasts. They
+only vaguely take in the idea of other countries on the earth. The
+newspapers tell them of unknown lands and of strange doings; it all
+seems to belong to some other world. What does it matter to them,
+anyhow, since they have no intention of ever stirring, and since
+nothing will ever happen to them? For them the past is without interest,
+and the future does not mar the peace of their slumbers. The present
+means the crops, the flocks, and the weather. For the things of Heaven
+there is the _curé_, for the things of earth there are the mayor, the
+notary, the customs officer, and the tax collector: a simplification of
+life.
+
+Markets and fairs purvey to the restless cravings of such as are curious
+about outside happenings, but no inhabitant of Saint-Juirs would
+entertain the absurd idea that any trace of an event worth relating was
+to be found in his own village. Love itself is without drama, owing to
+the lack of stiffness in rustic morals, which precludes excesses of
+imagination by reducing to the proportions of newspaper items the
+conjunctions natural to our kind. There are, doubtless, disputes in
+Saint-Juirs as elsewhere, in connection with property rights, for
+"thine" and "mine," which are the foundation of "social order," are
+likewise a permanent cause of disorder among men. Trespassing in a
+pasture, the use of a well, a right of way, the branch of a tree
+reaching beyond a line, a hedge encroaching upon a ditch, result in
+quarrels, lawsuits, and dissension in families, the importance of which
+is no less to the small townspeople than was the feud between Capulets
+and Montagues to Verona. Centuries pass, the man of the past and the man
+of to-day meet on common ground in displaying the same old violence, to
+which sometimes even the excuse of interests involved is wanting, as
+happened when Benvolio drew his sword upon a burgher of Verona who had
+taken the liberty to cough in the street, and thereby waked his dog
+asleep in the sunshine.
+
+The peaceful inhabitant of Saint-Juirs is a stranger to such vagaries.
+Yet a Latin inscription above a door on the church square testifies to
+the fact that a local scholar took to heart those neighbourly quarrels
+to the point of wishing to leave some memory of them to posterity. A
+plain stone door-frame gives access to a little garden surrounded by
+high walls. Behind box hedges a house may be seen, rather broad than
+high, built apparently as far back as the last century, and looking much
+like other houses of the period. A servant comes out carrying a laundry
+basket. A woman is sewing at the window. The door closes again. Nothing
+more. Mechanically the eye travels back to the cracked stone whereon
+stands deeply engraved the following wise epigraph: "Malus vicinus est
+grande malum."
+
+I have often passed by, and while freely granting that a bad neighbour
+is indeed a great evil, have always wondered what epic strife was
+recorded by this dolorous exclamation. Was the inscription the vengeance
+of the impotent, the amiable irony of a philosopher, resigned to the
+inevitable, or the triumphant cry of the unrighteous, eager to deceive
+by blaming for his own fault the inoffensive being who had no choice
+but to remain silent? I gazed at the house of God, twenty paces distant.
+I wondered whether this ecclesiastical Latin might not be ascribed to
+some man of the church. Who else would know the sacred language
+sufficiently well to attain this degree of epigraphic platitude? Was
+there not in the mildness of the method of revenge a flavour of the
+seminary? A real man harassed by a bad neighbour would have responded by
+blows in kind. A priest was more likely to strike back with a sentence
+out of the breviary. So I reflected, questioning the unanswering stone,
+and never dreaming that chance would one day bring me the solution of
+the problem.
+
+Chance knocked at my door a few years ago in the shape of a little
+account book found in the study of a lawyer, my neighbour, and fallen
+through inheritance into the possession of a friend of mine. It is a
+manuscript copy-book of which only a dozen pages are covered by
+accounts. On the parchment cover the two words "Malus vicinus" met my
+eye. Turning over the blank pages I discovered that the little notebook
+had been commenced at both ends--accounts at the front, and notes at the
+back of the volume. I found various items of information concerning
+births, deaths, and inheritances. At the beginning the date 1811. The
+well-known names of several Saint-Juirs families passed under my eyes.
+Then came the fateful title "Malus vicinus," followed by a long and
+terribly tangled story. It was the secret of the door that was there
+revealed to me. A priests' quarrel, as I had fancied.
+
+The Abbé Gobert and the Abbé Rousseau, both natives of Saint-Juirs, had
+been ordained upon leaving the seminary of Luçon, in about 1760. The
+book contains nothing concerning their families. One may suppose them
+both to have been of good middle-class origin. Each manifestly had "a
+certain place in the sun." They were warm friends up to the time of
+their ordination, which brought about inevitable separation. Abbé Gobert
+was installed as vicar at Vieux Pouzauges whose _curé_ was to sit in the
+Constituency among the partisans of the new order; Abbé Rousseau was
+sent to Mortagne-sur-Sèvres, in the heart of what was destined to be the
+territory of the Chouans.
+
+Concerning their life up to the beginning of the Revolution we know
+nothing, except that they remained on friendly terms. They often visited
+each other. The walk from Pouzauges to Mortagne following the ridge of
+the hills of the Woodland is one of the most picturesque in our lovely
+western France, so rich in beautiful landscapes. Very pleasant are its
+valleys, watered by crystalline brooks flowing musically over pebbly
+beds; they are everywhere intersected by hedges behind which in serried
+ranks rise shady thickets, inviolate sanctuary of rural peace. There
+might the peasant be born and die with never the least knowledge of the
+outer world. Thirty years ago specimens of the kind were still to be
+found. If, however, you follow one of the road-cuts under the heavy,
+overarching boughs and laboriously climb the steep rise amid granite
+rocks and thick tufts of gorse mingling with brambles, which drape
+themselves from one to another tree stump centuries old, you emerge
+suddenly and as if miraculously into the very sky, whence all the earth
+is visible. Northward as far as the Loire, where rise the towers of
+Saint Peter's in Nantes, westward as far as the sea, stretches an
+immense garden of verdure bathed in that translucent bluish light which
+unites earth and sky and gives the sense of our planet launched in
+infinite space. But to this day man and beast contemplate this
+marvellous spectacle with the same indifferent eye.
+
+In those days, the preaching of the Gospel to peasants still stupefied
+from serfdom, by a clergy whose leaders prided themselves upon their
+unbelief, in nowise resembled the stultifying mummeries of to-day. When
+Abbé Gobert and Abbé Rousseau, arm in arm, stopped at some farmhouse for
+noonday rest after a frugal meal, their free speech would doubtless
+startle many a modern seminarist. Their views of the future were perhaps
+not very different. The ardent liberalism of the good _curé_ of
+Pouzauges could not have been unknown to his vicar, and how could the
+latter, open as he was to the new ideas, have refrained from unbosoming
+himself to his friend?
+
+Meanwhile, every day witnessed the rising of the revolutionary tide.
+Under a tranquil surface, unknown forces were gathering for the
+devastating tempests soon to rage. Finally the hurricane broke loose,
+and its tornadoes of fire and iron shook the quiet Woodland. There was
+no time for reflection. Everyone was swept into the conflict without a
+chance to know his own mind. Abbé Rousseau, belonging to the "White
+Vendée," could not refuse to follow his boys when they asked him to
+accompany them, declaring that they were "going to fight God's battle."
+Abbé Gobert of the "Blue Vendée" found nothing to answer when his
+compatriots told him that they refused to make common cause with the
+foreigner against France, and that the Revolution was nothing more or
+less than the fulfilment of the Gospels on earth, despite the Pharisees
+of the ancient order, who while invoking the name of heaven appropriated
+all earthly privileges.
+
+The adventures of the two Abbés during the war are not set down in the
+manuscript. There is mention of Abbé Rousseau being transferred to
+Stofflet's army, but no comment. Further on a note of three short lines
+in telegraphic style tells us that Abbé Gobert, "following his fatal
+bent," secularized himself, took up arms, and was left for dead at the
+taking of Fontenay. We are not told what saved him.
+
+The writer of the little book now makes a jump to the Consulate, and we
+learn that the "reëstablishment of the cult," at the Concordat, resulted
+in the installation of Abbé Rousseau as officiating priest in his native
+place of Saint-Juirs. Three years later, Gobert, then a "refugee in
+Paris," where he "was writing for the newspapers," returned to his old
+home, his fortune having been increased by an inheritance from his uncle
+Jean Renaud, owner of the house now adorned by the Latin inscription.
+Destiny, after having violently separated the two men and set them at
+odds in a bitter war, now suddenly brought them together in their native
+place, where they might have the opportunity for an honest searching of
+their consciences, for justifications, and, before the end of life,
+possibly, reconciliation.
+
+On the day after his arrival Gobert came face to face with Abbé Rousseau
+in the church square. He went straight to him, with hands outstretched.
+The other, not having had time to put himself on guard, was unable to
+withstand a friendly impulse. The eyes of each scrutinizingly questioned
+the other, but every dangerous word was avoided. The Abbé, moreover, cut
+short the interview with the excuse of being expected at the bedside of
+a sick man. They had parted with the understanding that they should soon
+see each other again, but two days later, Gobert, going up to the Abbé
+who was passing, received a curt bow from him, unaccompanied by a word
+of even perfunctory courtesy. It meant the end of friendly intercourse.
+The meeting between the "annointed of the Lord" and the "unfrocked
+priest" had created a scandal in the community of the faithful, and
+Master Pierre Gaborit, President of the vestry board, had called his
+_curé_ roundly to account. Could a chaplain of the King's armies afford
+to be seen consorting with a tool of Satan, a renegade living amid the
+filth of apostasy, a man who, the report ran, had danced the Carmagnole
+at the foot of the scaffold?
+
+The disconcerted Abbé listened, shaking his head.
+
+"He was a good fellow, and a godly one, when I knew him formerly, at the
+seminary. He is perhaps not as guilty as they say--I hoped to bring him
+back into the fold----"
+
+"One does not bring back the Devil," replied Gaborit, violently. "You do
+not wish to be a stumbling block, do you, _Monsieur le Curé_?"
+
+"No--no----" replied the Abbé, who already saw himself denounced,
+excommunicated, damned.
+
+From that day onward relations between the priest and his ancient
+comrade limited themselves to a mutual raising of the hat, for the Abbé
+never found the courage to ignore "the renegade," as Gaborit would have
+wished him to. That is why the latter conceived the plan of forestalling
+any eventual relapse into weakness by fostering between the man of God
+and the man of the Devil every possible cause for enmity.
+
+Abbé Rousseau owned the house next to Gobert's, and Gaborit had rented
+it for his newly married son. A party wall, a common well, contiguous
+fields and rights of way through them, were more than sufficient to give
+rise to daily friction. After some resistance, Abbé Rousseau, under the
+pretext that he could have "no dealings with Satan's emissary," let
+himself be convinced that he must refuse all customary "rights" to the
+"enemy." Gobert's remonstrances obtained no attention, and thereupon
+followed lawsuits. A bucket of lime was thrown into his well. The trees
+in his orchard were hacked with a bill hook. His hens disappeared.
+Investigation by a bailiff ensued, and the arrival of the police, who
+had first been to take instructions at the rectory. For a trifling
+bribe, the servant of the "accused" permitted the "revolutionary" cow to
+stray into the clerical hay field. This time Abbé Rousseau could do no
+less than to denounce the crime from the pulpit. A somewhat distorted
+version of the entire Revolution was rehearsed.
+
+Gobert, who like Talleyrand, similarly unfrocked, would perhaps have
+ended in the arms of the Church, had he been important enough to
+stimulate the zeal of a Dupanloup, experienced more surprise than anger
+at all these vexations. What surprised him most was to find that justice
+was unjust. Having become a philosopher, however, he resigned himself.
+Only the loss of his friend caused him grief. He ended by suspecting
+Gaborit's manoeuvres, and several times sought opportunity for an
+explanation with Abbé Rousseau himself, but was met by obstinate
+silence.
+
+It was then that, for the sake of reaching his former fellow student in
+spite of everything, by a word in the language familiar to both, he had
+had engraved on the lintel of his door the inscription which denounced
+Gaborit as the cause of their common misfortune. Daily, as he came out
+of his rectory, Abbé Rousseau could read the touching appeal which laid
+his guilt upon another. But the "glory of God" never permitted him to
+answer, as in the depth of his heart he would have liked to do.
+
+He was the first to die. To the great scandal of all Gobert, "the
+excommunicated," followed him to the grave. On the very next day he gave
+orders to have the inscription removed, since it served no further
+purpose. The masons were soon at work, and a clumsy blow had already
+split the stone, when the ex-abbé was carried off suddenly by a
+pernicious fever. Things remained as they may be seen at the present
+day. Gobert went without church ceremonies to rest in the graveyard, not
+far from his old friend. They are still neighbours, but good neighbours,
+now, and for a long time!
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+AUNT ROSALIE'S INHERITANCE
+
+
+Mademoiselle Rosalie Rigal was by unanimous admission the most important
+person in the village. And yet the hamlet of St. Martin-en-Pareds, in
+the Woodland of the Vendée, boasts a former court notary who without
+great difficulty was allowed to drop out of the profession, and a
+retired sergeant of police who keeps the tobacconist's shop. Around
+these dignitaries are grouped a few well-to-do farmers and a dozen or
+more small landowners who, although obliged to work for a living, have a
+sense of their importance in the State. When they speak of "my field,"
+"my cow," "my fence," the ring of their voice expresses the elation of
+the conqueror who in this infinite universe has set his clutch upon a
+portion of the planet and has no intention of letting go.
+
+No one is unaware that the chief joy of country people is to surround
+themselves with hedges or walls, and to despise those who cannot do as
+much. That their admiration, their esteem, their respect, go out
+automatically to wealth is a trait they share with city people, which
+spares us the necessity of a detailed psychological analysis. Who,
+then, shall explain the unanimous deference with which St.
+Martin-en-Pareds honoured Miss Rosalie Rigal?
+
+The aged spinster--she was entering upon her seventieth year--possessed
+nothing under the sun but a tiny cottage, not in very good repair, but
+shining and spotless from front door steps to roof tiles, at the end of
+a narrow little garden scarcely wider than the path to her door. Such a
+domain was not calculated to attract to its mistress the admiring
+attention of her fellow townsmen. The interior of the dwelling was
+extremely modest. A large oaken bedstead with carved posts, a common
+deal dining table, a few rush-bottomed chairs and Miss Rosalie's
+armchair, were all the furniture of the room in which she lived. On the
+walls were holy pictures. On the mantelpiece a tarnished bronze gilt
+clock, representing a savage Turk carrying off on his galloping steed a
+weeping Christian maiden, had as far back as any one could remember
+pointed to a quarter before twelve.
+
+At the window-door leading to the street and letting in the light of day
+Miss Rosalie sat with her knitting from sun-up to sun-down. Hence arose
+difficulties of entrance and exit. When a visitor appeared, Miss Rosalie
+would call Victorine. The servant would come, help her mistress to rise,
+as she did slowly and stiffly, move the armchair, settle the old woman
+in it again, propping her with special cushions in stated places, move
+the foot stool or the foot warmer, push out of the way the little stand
+which served as a work table, and open the door with endless excuses for
+the delay.
+
+No fewer ceremonies were necessary than in seeking an audience with the
+Sun-God. If Victorine were busy with the housework, she sometimes
+obliged a caller to wait. Which gave Miss Rosalie's door step a
+reputation as the most favourable spot in the entire canton for catching
+cold.
+
+In spite of these inconveniences visitors were not wanting. Foremost
+among the assiduous ones were the notary and the _curé_. Monsieur
+Loiseau, the retired notary, was the friend of the house. A stout man,
+with a florid, smooth shaven face, and a head even smoother than his
+chin, always in a good humour, always full of amusing stories, yet
+concealing under his idle tales and his laughter a professional man's
+concern with serious matters, as was betokened by the ever-present white
+cravat, badge of his dignity, which added an official touch even to his
+hunting costume and to the undress of his gardening or vintaging attire.
+
+The love of gardening was well developed in Monsieur Loiseau, and as he
+was especially fond of Miss Rosalie, he delighted in coming to hoe her
+flower beds, to tend her plants and water them, chatting with her the
+while. The old lady during this would be seated in the garden, near a
+spot where a deep niche in the wall had made it possible to cut a
+loophole commanding the street. From her point of vantage she could
+watch all St. Martin, and without moving keep in touch with its daily
+events, which gave her inexhaustible food for comment.
+
+So close became the friendship between these two, that the notary one
+day announced that if certain old documents once seen by him at the
+county town could be trusted, there was no doubt that their two families
+were related. From that moment Miss Rosalie Rigal became "Aunt Rosalie"
+to Monsieur Loiseau, and as the relationship was one which anybody might
+claim, Miss Rosalie soon found herself "Aunt" to the entire village. She
+duly appreciated the honour of this large connection, and with pride in
+the universal friendliness, which seemed to her a natural return for her
+own rather indiscriminate good will toward all, she let herself softly
+float on the pleasure of being held in veneration by everyone in St.
+Martin, which for her represented the universe.
+
+The _curé_, who lived at two kilometers' distance, could come to see her
+only at irregular intervals. But a lift in a carriage, or even a
+friendly cart, often facilitated the journey, and although Aunt Rosalie
+was not in the least devout, despite the saintly pictures on her walls,
+the long conversations between her and the _curé_, from which the notary
+was excluded, gave rise to the popular belief that they had "secrets"
+together.
+
+And the supposition was correct. There were "secrets" between Aunt
+Rosalie and the priest. There were likewise "secrets" between Aunt
+Rosalie and the notary, and they were, to be plain, money secrets. For
+the irresistible attraction which drew all St. Martin-en-Pareds to Aunt
+Rosalie's feet must here be explained. The simple-minded old spinster
+supposed it the most natural thing in the world; she fancied her amiable
+qualities sufficient to engage the benevolent affection of all who knew
+her. Undeniably Aunt Rosalie's good humour and quiet fun were infinitely
+calculated to foster friendly neighbourly relations. But there was more
+to it than the uninquiring good soul suspected.
+
+Aunt Rosalie was a poor relation of certain enormously rich people in
+the neighbouring canton. She was a grand niece of the famous Jean
+Bretaud, whose lucky speculations had made him the most important man in
+the district. The Bretauds had entirely forgotten the relationship and,
+taking the opposite course from the notary, would probably have denied
+it had Aunt Rosalie claimed it.
+
+Aunt Rosalie claimed nothing, but she did not forget her family. When
+evening fell, and the blinds were closed, and the doors securely locked:
+"Victorine, go and bring the documents," she would say, after a glance
+all around to make sure that no one could spy on her in the mysterious
+elaborations of the work under way. At these words, Victorine, with
+sudden gravity, would extract from the wardrobe a little flat box,
+cunningly tied with string, and place it respectfully on the table,
+after having with much ado untied the knots and unrolled the complicated
+wrappings which guarded the treasure from the gaze of the profane.
+
+The treasure was simply a genealogy of the Bretauds with authentic
+documents to support it. As soon as the papers had been spread out under
+the lamplight, and set in order, the work would begin. The point was to
+discover what catastrophes would have to occur in the Bretaud family
+before the millions could fall into Aunt Rosalie's purse. A considerable
+number of combinations were conceivable, and it was to the examination
+of them all that Aunt Rosalie and Victorine devoted their nightly
+labour. A quantity of sheets of white paper covered with pencil
+scribbling showed incredible entanglements of calculation and
+rudimentary arithmetical systems.
+
+"Well, now, how far had we got?" said Aunt Rosalie.
+
+"We had ended with the death of your grand niece Eulalie, Miss," said
+Victorine.
+
+"Ah, yes, the dear child. The fact is, that if she were to die it would
+help greatly. There are still two cousins left who would have claims
+prior to mine, it is true. But they have very poor health in that branch
+of the family."
+
+"I heard the other day that there was an epidemic of scarlet fever in
+their neighbourhood."
+
+"Ah! Ah!"
+
+"And then they go to Paris so often. A railway accident might so easily
+happen."
+
+"Ah, yes! It is a matter of a minute----"
+
+And they would continue in that tone for a good hour, warming up to it,
+comparing the advantages between the demise of this one and that one.
+
+As soon as a Bretaud received a hypothetical inheritance from some
+relative, he was set down on Victorine's slip of paper as deceased.
+Presently there was strewn around these gentle maniacs on the subject of
+inheritance a very hecatomb of Bretauds, such as the eruption of
+Vesuvius which blotted out Pompeii would not more than have sufficed to
+bring about. Herself on the edge of the grave, this septuagenarian built
+up her future on the dead bodies of children, youths, men and women in
+the flower of life, whom she theoretically massacred nightly, with a
+quiet conscience, before going to sleep, she who would not willingly
+have hurt the smallest fly!
+
+When Aunt Rosalie's table had assumed the aspect of a vast cemetery,
+they began their reckonings. If only eleven people were to die in a
+certain order, Aunt Rosalie would get so and so much. If fourteen, she
+would acquire another and fatter sum. Change the order, and there would
+be a new combination. They assessed fortunes, and if they did not agree
+in their valuations, they split the difference. But whatever happened,
+the discussion always ended by Aunt Rosalie receiving an enormous
+inheritance. Be it noted that whenever a real death or birth took place,
+the combinations were disturbed, the game had to be commenced all over
+on a new basis. This afforded fresh pleasure.
+
+But the supreme joy lay in the distribution of the heritage. Neither
+Aunt Rosalie nor Victorine had any use for their treasures. Without
+personal needs, the harmless yet implacable dreamers experienced before
+the fantastic riches fallen to them from Heaven the delightful
+embarrassment of human creatures provided with the chance to be a
+shining example of all the virtues at very small cost to themselves.
+Victorine had never cared to receive her wages, and did not dream of
+claiming them, living as she did in the constant vision of barrelfuls of
+gold. Set down in the will for 50,000 francs, no more, she was only too
+happy to participate royally in her mistress's generosities.
+
+Two account books were ready at hand. One for the distribution of
+legacies, and the other for "investments." Both presented an
+inextricable tangle of figures scratched out, rewritten, and then again
+scratched out for fresh modifications.
+
+"Yesterday," said Rosalie, "we gave 100,000 francs to the hospital at La
+Roche-sur-Yon. That is a great deal."
+
+"Not enough, Miss," took up Victorine. "I meant to speak of it; 100,000
+for the sick! What can they do with that?"
+
+"Perhaps you are right. Let us say 150,000."
+
+"No, Miss, 200,000."
+
+"Very well, say 200,000. I do not wish to distress you for so little."
+
+"And the Church?"
+
+"Ah, yes, the Church----"
+
+"You cannot refuse to give God His share, Miss, after He has given you
+so much!"
+
+"Quite true. Next week I shall add something in my will."
+
+And for an hour the discussion would continue in this tone. The results
+were duly consigned to the secret account book, and then would follow
+the question of investments.
+
+"Monsieur Loiseau tells me that the Western Railway shares have dropped.
+He advises me to buy Northern. He says that Northern means Rothschild,
+which means a good deal, you understand, Victorine."
+
+"That Monsieur Loiseau knows everything! You must do as he says. Me, I
+don't know anything about such things."
+
+"Well, then, put down Northern instead of Western shares. As for the
+dividends, they talk of changing the rate of interest."
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"It is just a way of making us lose money."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Well, then, we may have to get rid of our stock. I will talk it over
+with Monsieur Loiseau to-morrow, and perhaps also with the good _curé_
+who is very well informed in these matters. Make a cross before those
+shares, so that I may not forget."
+
+And Aunt Rosalie actually did ply notary and _curé_ with questions about
+her investments, and the use to be made of her fortune after her death.
+
+These two had acquired a liking for the topic. On the day when Aunt
+Rosalie, questioned by him with regard to her direct heirs, declared
+that as she had seen none of the Bretauds for more than forty years she
+"had decided not to leave any of them a penny's worth of her property,"
+the _curé_ began pleading for the Church, for the Pope, and for his
+charities. His efforts were amply rewarded, for Aunt Rosalie, though not
+perhaps satisfying all his demands, generously wrote him down for large
+sums, of which she handed him the list, with great mystery. In return
+for which she received the confidential assurance of eternal felicity,
+although she never performed any of her religious duties.
+
+The notary, scenting something of this in the air, before long
+insinuated delicately that he would be glad of a "remembrance" from his
+old friend. How could she refuse, when his suggestions in the matter of
+investments were so valuable?
+
+"Give me good information and advice, Monsieur Loiseau," said Aunt
+Rosalie, with a kind smile. "You shall be rewarded. I will not forget
+you."
+
+And from time to time, by a codicil, of which he had taught her the
+form, she would add something in her will to the sum she intended for
+the good notary. Whereupon he would exert himself with renewed diligence
+in her garden, which he jovially called "hoeing Aunt Rosalie's will."
+
+Such things could not be kept secret. St. Martin-en-Pareds soon knew
+that Aunt Rosalie had great wealth, which they surmised had come to her
+through the generosity of her great uncle Bretaud. Having quarrelled
+with her "heirs," she would leave everything to her "friends." Who could
+withstand such generous affection as was exhibited toward her? Following
+the example of the notary, all St. Martin had by the claim of friendship
+become relatives. And visits were paid her, and good wishes expressed,
+accompanied by gifts in produce, eggs, fruits, vegetables, bacon, or
+chickens, all of which the good "Aunt" accepted with a pretty nodding of
+her head, accompanied by an "I shall not forget you!" which everyone
+stored in memory as something very precious.
+
+Aunt Rosalie constantly received, and never gave. Even the poor got only
+promises for the future. Nothing did so much to rivet her in the public
+esteem. Her reputation for blackest avarice was the surest guarantee
+that the hoard would be enormous.
+
+Things had gone on like this for more than thirty years, when Aunt
+Rosalie was carried off in two days by an inflammation of the lungs.
+Victorine, in stupefaction, watched her die, thinking of the inheritance
+which had not come, but which could not have failed to come eventually,
+if only the old Aunt had continued to live. When the dead woman was
+cold, Victorine, who was alone with her in the middle of night, ran to
+the box of documents, muttering over and over, in an access of positive
+madness: "No one will get anything, no one will get anything!" and threw
+the box into the fire.
+
+As she stood poking the bundle to make it kindle, a flame caught her
+petticoats. The wretched creature was burned alive, without a soul to
+bring her help.
+
+Monsieur Loiseau, anxious for news, arrived on the spot at dawn and
+discovered the horrible sight. The fire had crept to the bed. Sheets of
+charred paper covered with figures fluttering about the room exposed
+Victorine's crime, which had been followed by punishment so swift. When
+the official seals had been removed, after the funeral, no trace of
+funds could be found, nor any last will and testament. All the notary's
+searching led to nothing.
+
+It was concluded that Victorine, an "agent of the Bretauds," had made
+everything disappear. Wrath ran high. There rose a chorus of angry
+wailing and gnashing of teeth.
+
+"Ah, the money will not be lost!" people said, heaping maledictions upon
+the "thief." "The Bretauds will know, well enough, where to look for the
+treasure!"
+
+"Poor dear Aunt!" each of them added, mentally. "So rich, so kindly
+disposed toward us! And that beast of a servant had to go and----"
+
+As a sort of protest against the Bretauds, Aunt Rosalie was provided by
+subscription with a beautiful white marble grave stone, while the
+charred remains of Victorine, thrust in a despised corner of the
+cemetery, were consigned to public contempt.
+
+Such is the world's justice.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+GIDEON IN HIS GRAVE
+
+
+Everyone connected with the Cloth Market of Cracow still remembers
+Gideon the Rich, son of Manasseh, who excelled in the cloth trade and
+died in the pathways of the Lord. Not only for his prosperity was Gideon
+notable. He was universally regarded as "a character," and the man truly
+had been gifted by Heaven with a combination of qualities--whether good
+or bad, yet well balanced--setting him apart from the common herd.
+
+Gideon was a thick, rotund little Jew, amiable in appearance to the
+point of joviality, with a fresh pink and white face in which two large
+emotional blue eyes, always looking ready to brim over, bathed his least
+words, whether of pity or business, with generous passions. Being an
+orthodox Jew, he naturally wore a long, black levitical coat which
+concealed his swinging woollen fringes. Where his abundant gray hair met
+with his silky beard (unprofaned by shears) hung the two long _paillès_,
+cabalistic locks which Jehovah loves to see brushing the temples of the
+faithful. When the whole was topped by a tall hat, impeccably lustrous,
+and Gideon appeared in the Soukinitza, silence spread, as all gazed at
+the noble great-coat (of silk or of cloth, according to the season)
+whose pockets offered a safe asylum to the mysteries of universal trade.
+
+Never suppose that such authority was a result of chance or any sudden
+bold grasping of advantage. It was the fruit of long endeavour,
+continually fortunate because he never embarked on an enterprise or a
+combination without laborious calculations, in which all chances
+favourable or adverse had been duly weighed. Manasseh had acquired a
+very modest competence in the old clothes business, and everyone knows
+that the old clothes of the Polish Jews are young when the rest of
+mankind consider them past usefulness. One cannot accumulate any great
+fortune in this business, which is why Gideon, at Manasseh's death, sold
+his paternal inheritance and went unostentatiously to occupy the meanest
+booth in the Cloth Market.
+
+At first no one took any notice of him. The shops in that market are
+little more than wardrobes. The doors fold back and become show-cases.
+The proprietor sits on a chair in the middle, and the passer will hardly
+get by without being deluged with reasons for buying exactly the entire
+contents of the shelves. Gideon, at the front of his black cave, lighted
+only by the big, hollow, smouldering eyes of his mother, seated
+motionless for hours on a heap of rags, thought himself in a palace fit
+for kings. Dazzled but calm, he skillfully spread his striking wares to
+tempt the passer. Others ran after possible purchasers, soliciting them,
+bothering them. The modest display which depended upon nothing but its
+attractiveness obtained favour. "It may be cheaper in there," people
+said, and submitted to persuasion. It was the beginning of a great
+destiny.
+
+Twenty years later Gideon, now surnamed "the Rich," had a wife and
+children, whom he kept busy under the noisy arcade brightened by the
+rainbow colours of silks for sale. He had clung to his humble counter
+and was never willing to change it for another. He himself was seldom
+found there; he was elsewhere occupied with large transactions planned
+in the silence of the night. Rachel and his two sons, Daniel and Nathan,
+represented him at the Soukinitza, where he only showed himself to
+inquire concerning orders. There he would chatter for hours with the
+peasants on market days, to make a difference of a few kreutzers in the
+price of a piece of gossamer silk. No profit is too small to be worth
+making. This is the principle of successful firms. His conduct excited
+the admiration of all. How, furthermore, begrudge to Gideon his dues in
+honour, when he was constantly bestowing hundreds of florins upon
+schools, synagogues, and every sort of charitable institution?
+
+For Gideon had a dual nature, as, brethren, is the case with many of
+us. In business the subtle art of his absorbing rapacity circumvented
+any attempt to lessen his profits by the shaving of a copper. "It is not
+for myself that I work," he used to say, "it is for the poor." And as
+this came near being the truth, people were afraid of appearing
+heartless if they opposed him. They let themselves be caught by his
+smiling good humour, his friendly familiar talk, and they were, after
+all, not much deceived in him, for Gideon, though a victor in life's
+bitter struggle, was happiest when stretching out a brotherly hand to
+the vanquished. In the same way, those American billionaires whose
+immoderate accumulations of wealth spread ruin all around them will
+anxiously question the first comer as to the most humanitarian way of
+spending the fortune thus acquired. I know of someone who when asked by
+that foolish ogre, Carnegie, what he should do with his money, answered:
+"Return it to those from whom you took it!"
+
+Gideon could hardly have looked upon the matter in that light. He would
+never have asked advice of any one in reference either to amassing or to
+returning money. His chief interest, very nearly as important as his
+business schemes, was religion. The poetry of Judaism roused in him an
+ardour that nothing could satisfy but the feeling of substantially
+contributing to the traditional work of his fathers. His charitable
+gifts were simply a result. His object was the fulfilment of "the Law."
+
+Daniel and Nathan, brought up in the same ideas, lived in silent respect
+for their father's authority. In Israel, ever since the days of the
+patriarchs, the head of the house has been, as with all Oriental
+peoples, an absolute monarch. The sons of Gideon could therefore feel no
+regret at their father's generosities. Like their father, they placed
+the service of Jehovah above everything else. Having, however, been
+reared by him, and taught all the combinations of exchange by which you
+get as much and give as little as you can, they were conscious of
+possessing invincible capacities for acquisition.
+
+"They have something better than money," Gideon would say, "they know
+how to make it."
+
+On one point alone could, possibly, some ferment of dissension in the
+family have been found. Gideon took a rich man's pride in living
+modestly. He never would have more than one servant in the house. The
+young men, with vanity of a different kind, would have delighted in
+dazzling the twelve tribes. As they were not given the necessary means,
+they made up their minds to migrate. During the long evenings of whole
+winter nothing else was talked of. Gideon did not begrudge the very
+considerable outlay involved, knowing that it was a good investment.
+Only one consideration troubled him at the thought of launching his
+progeny "in the cities of the West." Under penalty of closing the
+avenues to social success, they would be obliged to relinquish the
+orthodox long coat and clip off the two corkscrew locks on their
+temples. Without attaching too much importance to these outward signs,
+Gideon grieved over what seemed to him a humiliating concession.
+
+"Father," said Daniel, "in Russia the orthodox Jews are obliged to cut
+their hair, in conformity with an edict of the Czar. But even without
+_paillès_ Jehovah receives them in his bosom, for it is a case of
+superior force."
+
+"Yes, that is it, superior force," said Gideon, nodding assent. "The
+only thing that troubles me is that I have always noticed that one
+concession leads to another. Where shall you stop? One of these days you
+may think it necessary to your social success to become Christians!"
+
+"That!... Never!" cried Daniel and Nathan in one voice, horror-stricken.
+
+"I know, I know that you have no such intention. Like me, you are
+penetrated by the greatness of our race, and like me you stand in
+admiration before the miracles of destiny. By their holy books the Jews
+have conquered the West. Upon our thought the thought of our rulers has
+been modelled. That, you must know, is the fundamental reason for their
+reviling us; they are aware of having nothing but brutal force to help
+them, and of living upon our genius. Though vanquished, we are their
+masters. Even in their heresy, which is a Jewish heresy, they proclaim
+the superiority of the children of Jehovah. When their God was incarnate
+in man, his choice fell upon a Jewish woman. He was born a Jew. He
+promised the fulfilment of the Law. His apostles were Jews. Go into
+their temples. You will see nothing but statues of Jews which they
+worship on their knees. How sad a thing it is, when signs of our grace
+are so striking on all sides, to see the wealthiest among us seeking
+alliances with the barbarous aristocracy who subjugated us. Some of
+them, while remaining Jews, make donations to the church of Christ, so
+as to win the favour of nations and kings. Others submit to the disgrace
+of baptism. Should you, Daniel, or you, Nathan, commit such a crime, I
+should curse you, if living; if dead, I should turn in my grave."
+
+Terrified by this portentous threat, Daniel and Nathan, rising with a
+common impulse, swore, calling upon the Lord, to live as good Jews, like
+their forefathers.
+
+"That is well done," said Gideon. "I accept your oath. Remember that if
+you break it, I shall turn in my grave."
+
+Nathan and Daniel acquired great wealth by every means that the law
+tolerates. Gideon was gathered to his fathers. In accordance with his
+will, the greater part of his fortune was distributed in charities. A
+considerable sum, however, fell to each of his sons, accompanied by a
+letter in which affection had dictated final injunctions. The last word
+was still: "If ever one of you should become a Christian,--forswear the
+pure faith of Abraham for Christian idolatry, I should turn in my
+grave."
+
+Time passed. Daniel and Nathan, loaded with riches, had friends in
+society, at court, and most especially among those great lords who in
+the midst of their reckless magnificence may sometimes be accommodated
+by a pecuniary service. Daniel wished to marry. The daughter of an
+impoverished prince was opportunely at hand. But his conversion was
+required. The Vatican conferred a title upon him. From the class of mere
+manipulators of money, the son of the Cloth Market was raised to the
+higher sphere of world politics. Daniel did not hesitate. His absent
+brother coming home found him turned into a Christian count.
+
+No violent scene ensued between the two sons of Gideon. Nathan
+understood perfectly. One thought, however, tormented him.
+
+"I agree with you," he said, "that the Christians are but a sect of
+Israel, that they are sons of the synagogue, and that you remain loyal
+in spirit to our faith, though overlaid by debatable additions. The fact
+none the less remains that we had given our oath to our father.... He
+foresaw only too well the thing that has occurred. And you know what he
+said: 'I shall turn in my grave.'"
+
+"One says that sort of thing----"
+
+"Gideon, son of Manasseh, was not the man to speak idle words. Think of
+it, Daniel, if we were to lift the grave stone and our eyes were to
+behold----"
+
+"Nathan, say no more, I beg of you. The mere thought turns me cold with
+fear."
+
+The two brothers, formerly indissolubly united, drew away from each
+other little by little: Daniel, forgetful, cheerfully disposed, a
+nobleman not altogether free from arrogance, amiably deceived by his
+Christian spouse, but with or without this assistance becoming the
+founder of a great family; Nathan, morose, restless, smoulderingly
+envious of a happiness paid too high for, in his opinion. When a
+question of interest brought them together for a day, Nathan always
+ended by returning to his theme:
+
+"Our father said: 'I shall turn in my grave!'"
+
+Whereupon Daniel, finding nothing to reply, cut short the interview.
+
+Then, suddenly, Nathan dropped sadness for mirth, severity for
+indulgence, stopped sermonizing and smiled instead at other people's
+faults. The change struck Daniel the more from twice meeting his brother
+without a word being spoken about their father and his terrible threat.
+Finally he found the key to the mystery: Nathan had in his turn received
+baptism and was about to become the happy bridegroom of a widow without
+fortune whom an act of the royal sovereign authorized to bestow upon her
+consort a feudal title threatened with falling to female succession. In
+gratitude, Nathan had promised that Daniel and he would "supervise" a
+future loan.
+
+"So!" cried Daniel in anger, when he heard the great news. "You are
+becoming a Christian, too, after viciously tormenting me on every
+occasion, and reminding me of our father who on my account had 'turned
+in his grave.' And I was filled with remorse. Yes, I may have seemed
+happy, but my sleep was troubled. I did not know what to do. There were
+times when I even contemplated returning to the synagogue. Well, then,
+if what you tell me is true, if our father actually has turned in his
+grave, you will admit that you are now to blame as well as I. Come,
+speak, what have you to say?"
+
+"I say," replied Nathan, undisturbed, "that I have shown myself in this
+the more devoted son of the two. I take back nothing of what I said. It
+is you assuredly who caused Gideon, son of Manasseh, to turn in his
+grave. About that there is no doubt whatever. But thanks to the act to
+which I have resigned myself, he has undoubtedly turned back again,
+according to his solemn promise, and there he lies henceforth just as we
+buried him, and as he must remain forever. I have retrieved your fault.
+Our father forgives you. I accept your thanks."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+SIMON, SON OF SIMON
+
+
+Simon, son of Simon, was nearing the end of his career without having
+tasted the fruits of his untiring effort to acquire the riches which may
+be said to represent happiness. Whether we be the sons of Shem or of
+Japheth, each of us strives for the representative symbol of the
+satisfaction of his particular cravings. Not that Simon, son of Simon,
+of the tribe of Judah, had ever given much thought to the joys that were
+to come from his possession of treasure. No, the question of the
+possible use to be made of a pile of money had never occupied his active
+but simple mind. The satisfaction of money-lust having been his single
+aim, he had never looked forward to any enjoyment other than that of
+successful money getting. Fine raiment appealed to him not at all. The
+safest thing, after snaring wealth on the wing, is to conceal it under
+poverty, lest we lead into temptation the wicked, ever ready to
+appropriate the goods of their neighbours. Jewels, rare gems, precious
+vessels, delicate porcelain, rugs, tapestries, luxurious dwellings,
+horses, none of these awakened his desire. He cared nothing for them,
+and had no understanding of the vain-glorious joys to be derived from
+their possession. Neither did he yearn for fair persons--sometimes
+containing a soul--obtainable at a price for ineffable delight. Simon,
+son of Simon, had a very vague notion of the esthetic superiority of one
+daughter of Eve above another, and would not have given a farthing for
+the difference between any two of them.
+
+His ingenuous desire was concerned solely with coined metal. Gold,
+silver, bronze, cut into disks and stamped with an effigy, seemed to
+him, as in fact they are, the greatest marvel of the world. The thought
+of collecting them, carefully counted in bags--making high brown, white,
+or yellow piles of them in coffers with intricate locks--filled him with
+superhuman joy. And so great is the miracle of metal, even when absent
+and represented only by a sheet of paper supplied with the necessary
+formulæ and bearing imposing signatures along with the stamp of Cæsar,
+that the delight of it in that form was no less. Some, with a cultivated
+taste in such matters, tell us indeed that the delight is enhanced by
+the thought of safeguarding from the world's cupidity so great a
+treasure in a bulk so small.
+
+All of this, however, Simon, son of Simon, had tasted only in dream
+visions, finding it infinitely delectable even so. How would he have
+felt, had reality kept pace with the flight of a delirious imagination?
+But such happiness seemed not to be the portion of the miserable Jew,
+who had so far vainly exerted himself to win gold. Gold for the sake of
+gold, not for the vain pleasures, the empty shells, for which fools give
+it in exchange. Gold was beautiful, gold was mighty, gold was sovereign
+of the world. If Simon, son of Simon, had attempted to picture Jehovah,
+he would have conceived of him as gold stretching out to infinity,
+filling all space! Meanwhile, he trailed shocking old slippers through
+the mud of his Galician village, and arrayed himself in a greasy, ragged
+garment on which the far-spaced clean places stood out like spots. He
+was a poor man, you would have thought him an afflicted one, but the
+golden rays of an indefatigable hope lighted his life.
+
+He walked by the guidance of a star, the golden star of a dream which
+would end only with the dreamer. He was always busy. Always on the eve
+of some lucky stroke. Never on the day after it. The things he had
+attempted, the combinations he had constructed, the traps he had set for
+human folly, would worthily fill a volume. It seemed as if his genius
+lacked nothing necessary for success. Yet he always failed, and had
+acquired a reputation for bad luck. He had travelled much; taken part in
+large enterprises, to which he contributed ideas that proved profitable
+to someone else. He could buy and sell on the largest or the smallest
+scale. He dealt in every ware that is sold in the open market as well
+as every one that is bargained for in secret, from honours--and
+honour--to living flesh, from glory to love. And now, here he was,
+stripped of illusions--I mean illusions on the subject of his
+fellowman--dreaming for the thousandth time of holding a winning hand in
+the game.
+
+The sole confidant of his dreams was his son Ochosias, a youth of great
+promise, initiated by him into all the mysteries of commerce. Ochosias
+profited by his lessons and was not lacking in gifts, but never rose to
+his father's sublime heights. He had a preference for the money trade.
+
+"Money," said he, "is the finest merchandise of all. Purchase, sale,
+loan, are all profitable for one knowing how to handle it. If you will
+give your consent, father, I will establish myself as a banker--by the
+week."
+
+"You are crazy," answered Simon, son of Simon. "The money trade
+certainly has advantages perceptible even to the dullest wit. But in
+order to deal with capital, capital you must have, or else find some
+innocent Gentile to lend it you at an easy rate. Before doing this,
+however, he will ask for securities. Where are your securities?"
+
+And as the other shrugged his shoulders--
+
+"Listen," continued the man of experience, "the time has come to submit
+to you a plan that has been haunting me and from which I expect a rare
+profit."
+
+"Speak, speak, father," cried Ochosias, eagerly, with such a racial
+quiver at the words "rare profit" as a war-horse's at a bugle call.
+
+"Listen," said Simon with deliberation, "I have long revolved in my mind
+the history of my life. I can say without vanity that nowhere is Simon,
+son of Simon, surpassed in business ability. Should you, Ochosias, live
+to be the age of the patriarchs, you might meet with one more fortunate
+than your father, but one more expert in trade--never. And yet I have
+not been successful ... at least, not up to the present time. For the
+future is in the hands of Jehovah alone by whom all things are decided."
+
+The two men bowed devoutly in token of submission to the Lord.
+
+"What, then, has been wanting?" continued Simon, son of Simon, following
+up his thought. "Nothing within myself, I say it without any uncertainty
+as to my pride being justifiable. Nothing within myself, everything
+outside of myself. It is no secret. Everyone proclaims it aloud. Ask
+anybody you please. Everyone will tell you: 'Simon, son of Simon, is no
+ordinary Jew.' Some will even add: 'He is the greatest Jew of his time.'
+I do not go as far as that. We must always leave room for another. But
+you will find opinion unanimous in respect to one curious statement:
+'Simon, son of Simon, has no luck. All that he has lacked is luck,'
+There you have the simple truth. There is nothing further to say."
+
+"Well----?" inquired Ochosias, breathlessly, scenting something new in
+the air.
+
+"Well, one must have luck, that is the secret, and, I tell you plainly,
+I mean to have it."
+
+"How?"
+
+"It is within reach of all, my child. You cannot fail to see it. A state
+institution, through the care of the Emperor Francis Joseph, Christian
+of Christ, distributes good luck impartially to every subject of the
+Empire, whether Christian, Jew, or Mahomedan."
+
+"The lottery?" asked Ochosias, and pouted his lips disdainfully.
+
+"The lottery, you have said it, the lottery which graciously offers us
+every day a chance of which we neglect to avail ourselves."
+
+"Unless, of course," mused the youth, with a brightening countenance,
+"you know of some way to draw the winning number----"
+
+"Good. I was sure that blood would presently speak. You are not far from
+guessing right."
+
+"But, come now. Seriously. You know of some such means?"
+
+"Perhaps. Tell me, who is the master of luck?"
+
+"Jehovah. You yourself just said so."
+
+"Yes, Jehovah, or some god of the outsiders, if any there be mightier
+than Jehovah, which I cannot believe."
+
+"Other gods may be mighty, like Baal, or like Mammon, who ought by no
+means to be despised. But Jehovah is the greatest of all. He said: 'I am
+the Eternal.' And He is."
+
+"Doubtless. There are, however, more mysteries in this world than we can
+grasp, and Jehovah permits strange usurpations by other Celestial
+Powers."
+
+"It is for the purpose of trying us."
+
+"I believe it to be so. But I have no more time to waste in mistakes.
+And so I have said to myself: 'Adonai, the Master, holds luck in his
+hands. According to my belief, that master is Jehovah. He just might,
+however, be Christ, or Allah, or another. I shall, if necessary, exhaust
+the dictionary of the Gods of mankind, which is, I am told, a bulky
+volume. Whoever is the mightiest God, him must we tempt, seduce, or, to
+speak plainly, buy.' That is what I have resolved to do. I shall
+naturally begin the experiment with Jehovah, the God of Abraham and of
+Solomon, whom I worship above all others. To-morrow is the Sabbath.
+To-day I will go and purchase a ticket for the imperial lottery, the
+grand prize of which is five hundred thousand florins, and to-morrow,
+bowed beneath the veil, in the temple of the Lord, I shall promise to
+give him, if I win----"
+
+"Ten thousand florins!" Ochosias bravely proposed.
+
+"Ten thousand grains of sand!" cried Simon, son of Simon. "Would you be
+stingy toward your Creator? Ten thousand florins! Do you think that in
+the world we live in one can subsidize a Divinity, a first-class one,
+for that price? Triple donkey! Know that I shall offer Jehovah one
+hundred thousand florins! One hundred thousand florins! What do you
+think of it? That is how one behaves when he is moved by religious
+sentiments."
+
+The amazed Ochosias was silent. After a pause, however, he murmured:
+
+"You are right, father, in these days one cannot get a God, a real one,
+under that figure. But a hundred thousand florins! You must own that it
+is frightful to hand over such a pile of money even to Jehovah."
+
+"Ochosias, in business one must know how to be lavish. With your ten
+thousand florins I should never win the grand prize. Whilst with my
+hundred thousand----We shall see."
+
+And Simon, son of Simon, did as he had said. He bought his lottery
+ticket, he took a solemn oath before the Thorah to devote, should he
+win, a hundred thousand florins to Jehovah, and then he waited quietly
+for three months, to learn that his was not the winning number.
+
+Ochosias and Simon, son of Simon, thereupon deliberated. To which God
+should they next turn their attention? For some reason Jehovah had lost
+power. Was it possible that the centuries had strengthened some other
+God against him? Strange things happen. Still, Ochosias ventured the
+suggestion that Jehovah with the best will in the world might have been
+bound by some previous engagement.
+
+"Any other Jew to have promised a hundred thousand florins to the
+Eternal?" uttered Simon, son of Simon, sententiously. "No! I am the only
+one capable of a stroke of business such as that!"
+
+But upon the insistence of Ochosias, whose faith in Jehovah remained
+unshaken, he was willing to try again. This time he waited six
+months ... with the same result.
+
+It then became necessary to make a decision, and the two men agreed that
+after Jehovah the honour of the next trial was due to his son Jesus, a
+Jew, offspring of the Jew Joseph and the Jewess Mary. So Simon, son of
+Simon, bought another lottery ticket and hastened to the church of
+Christ where, having been properly sprinkled with holy water, he knelt
+according to the custom of the place, and pledged himself solemnly, in
+case he won the grand prize, to present the Crucified with a hundred
+thousand florins. Having given his word, Simon, son of Simon, looked all
+around him in the hope of some sign, but seeing nothing that could
+concern him he retired, not without repeating his promise and gratifying
+the Deity with a few supplementary genuflexions.
+
+Time passed. Simon, son of Simon, and Ochosias went about their ordinary
+occupations, taking great care to utter no word that could give offence
+to the Power whose favour they were seeking. Jehovah remained during
+this long period exiled, as it were, from their thoughts. What if the
+Other should be jealous?
+
+And then, of a sudden, the miracle! Simon, son of Simon, won the grand
+prize. At first he doubted, fearing some trick of the invisible powers.
+But in the end he was obliged to accept the evidence. The Most Catholic
+bank paid the money, and soon the five hundred thousand florins were
+safely bestowed.
+
+After a few twitches of nervous trembling, Simon, son of Simon, regained
+command over himself. But he was visibly sunk in deep thought. Vainly
+the agitated Ochosias plied him with questions. Such answers as he
+obtained were vague and unsatisfactory. "Oh," and "Ah," and "Perhaps,"
+and "We shall see," which in no wise revealed what lay in the other's
+mind. Finally, Ochosias could no longer restrain himself. He must know
+what was going on in his father's soul, for his own was torn by a
+dreadful doubt. The genius of Simon, son of Simon, was marvellous, it
+had opened the way for him to recalcitrant fortune, and in the natural
+course of things he, Ochosias, would presently through death's agency be
+placed in possession of the treasure. But here was a difficulty. Could
+one grant that Jehovah had no power left and that Christ was
+all-powerful? Ochosias shuddered at the thought, for, after all, if
+Christ had greater power than the One who was formerly all-powerful, if
+supreme power had devolved upon Christ, then to Christ must one bow.
+Conversion would be inevitable. To leave the temple of Jehovah for the
+altars of his enemy and pay, into the bargain, an enormous fee?
+Horrible!
+
+In hesitating and fragmentary talk Ochosias made the sorrowful avowal of
+his anguish.
+
+"Must we believe that Jesus is mightier than Jehovah? What consequences
+would such a belief involve! Is it possible that the religion of Jesus
+is the true one? No, no, it cannot be! What are your thoughts on the
+subject, father?"
+
+"Man of little faith, who hast doubted," spoke Simon, son of Simon,
+softly, with a flash as of lightning in his eye. "Let me reassure thee
+who have not doubted. Clearly I perceive the true significance of
+events. Jehovah is not one whom we can deceive, even unintentionally. To
+Him all things are known. He foresees all, and works accordingly. The
+proof that He is mightier than Jesus is that He perfectly understood on
+both occasions that I should never be able to part with the hundred
+thousand florins I so rashly promised. He knows our hearts. He does not
+expect the impossible. The Other was taken in by my good faith, which
+deceived even myself. Jehovah alone is great, my son."
+
+"Jehovah alone is great," repeated Ochosias, his soul divinely eased by
+the lifting off it of a great weight.
+
+And both men, with foreheads bowed before the Almighty, worshipped.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS
+
+
+Buried in silence, the city slept under the friendly moon. With the
+setting of the sun, activities had slowed, then halted in temporary
+death, and over the noisy pavements had fallen the peace of the grave.
+Divine sleep by oblivion shielded the children of men from evil and by
+dreams comforted them with hope. Some of the windows, however, were kept
+alight by love, or suffering, or labour. The hushed street, touched with
+bluish light, emerged from shadow here and there, and as abruptly
+dropped into it again. Where three converging roads ended in a public
+square, the water of fountains murmured around the great stone base of a
+bloodstained crucifix.
+
+The street of the people, "_everybody's street_," as it was also called,
+was recognizable by its neglect of the customary city ordinances. A
+narrow track of aggressive cobblestones, amid which the sewage trailed
+its odours, wound between high, mouldy walls, and led from their dens to
+the foot of the Divine Image the sad, long procession of those who are
+not of the elect. The citizen's road, "_the middle road_," as some
+called it, offered greater convenience to its travellers. Wide, airy,
+drained according to the latest hygienic system, salubriously paved with
+wood, bordered by sumptuous shops where all the pleasant things of life
+were on sale, this road invited idleness to leisurely promenades,
+invariably ending, however, at the foot of the cross. For greater
+certainty, a moving platform took people thither, saving them the
+trouble of exerting themselves. As to the way of the elect, likewise
+called "_the way of the few_," it stretched along triumphantly,
+indescribable in splendour, amid monuments of art, statues, marvellous
+trees, blossoming bowers, fragrant lawns, singing birds, all that the
+utmost refinement of luxury could devise for human felicity. There were
+even, at stated hours, fair traffickers in delight, artfully adorned,
+who moved about in accordance with a prescribed order, selling heaven on
+earth to whomsoever had the price to pay. In commodious coaches drawn by
+six gold-caparisoned horses these repaired like the rest to the
+cross-roads where in His patient anguish the God awaited them.
+Motionless, from the height of His gibbet, He gazed down upon it all
+with ineffable sadness, as if He said: "Is this what I laboured for?"
+
+And now, on the three avenues which even during the hours of sleep
+preserve their characteristics, shadows are seen moving. Their outlines
+increase in distinctness, and one after the other three human figures
+issue from the three roads into the flickering lamplight of the square.
+
+The man from "_the low road_," hugging the wall, advances timidly, with
+hesitating step, yet like one driven by a higher power. A stranger to
+fear, the man of "_the middle road_" advances with tranquil eye,
+securely bold, knowing that others have care for his safety. _Incessu
+patuit Homo._ The man from "_the road of the few_" treads the earth as
+if he owned it, and seems to call the stars to witness that he is the
+supreme justification of the universe. Each with his different gait,
+they proceed toward their goal, which fate has made identical. At the
+foot of the cross, whose massive base had until that moment concealed
+them from one another, they suddenly come face to face, under the gaze
+of Him whom their ancestors nailed to the ignominious tree.
+
+Three simultaneous cries cross in the air.
+
+"Ephraim!"
+
+"Samuel!"
+
+"Mordecai!"
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"And you?"
+
+"And you?"
+
+Silence falls, as each waits for an answer.
+
+"Three Jews at the foot of the cross!" said Ephraim _of the low road_.
+
+"Three renegade Jews," said Mordecai _of the tribe of the few_, below
+breath. "For we are Christians."
+
+"Renegade is not the word, brother," objected Samuel _of the middle
+class_, softly. "Apostasy is the name for those who go over to the
+beliefs of the minority. The others are converts."
+
+"Admirably expressed, Samuel," said Ephraim. "You are a wise man. Why
+should I take the trouble to lie to you? I have come here alone, by
+night, because having changed Lord, I need compensating gifts, and--God,
+though He has become Jesus, son of Joseph, cannot hear me when His crowd
+of courtiers is besieging Him with clamorous petitions. Therefore I come
+sometimes to speak to Him as man to God. And who knows? Perhaps if I
+help myself sufficiently my words will be heard."
+
+"I will not deny," said Samuel, "that I am here with the same object."
+
+"My case differs in nothing from yours," Mordecai readily owned.
+
+"You, then, are a believer?" asked Ephraim, as if really curious, and at
+the same time anxious to avoid facing the same question.
+
+"I must be ... since I am converted," answered each of the others.
+
+"Sensible words," observed Ephraim, after a thoughtful pause. "To
+believe is to observe the forms of worship. In men's eyes, as in those
+of God himself, the ceremonies of the cult class one as a believer, and
+society first, Heaven later, will show approval by favours."
+
+"As far as men are concerned, it is not difficult to satisfy them,"
+spoke Mordecai. "You go to the temple at prescribed times, you perform
+the rites scrupulously, with proper manifestations of zeal. And this, I
+dare say, is equally satisfactory to the God."
+
+"Certainly," said Ephraim. "But He is Jesus, son of Joseph, a Jewish God
+still, and sent by Jehovah, as is proved by His success. He must be a
+jealous God. Cleverness is necessary, and in my conferences with Him,
+when we are alone----"
+
+"That is it! That is it!" exclaimed the other two.
+
+"Brother," said Samuel, "what was it that led to your--conversion?"
+
+"It came about very naturally," replied Ephraim, "the reason for it
+being the great, the only motive of men's actions: self-interest.
+Self-interest, which it is the fashion among Christians to decry in
+words, while adhering to it strictly in action. When it became plain to
+me that the sons of Jehovah, to whom the earth was promised, were not
+masters of the earth, the holy promises notwithstanding, doubts entered
+my mind, which were only augmented by reflection. If Jehovah does not
+keep His promises, thought I, what right has He to the fidelity of those
+whom He leaves unrewarded? Give and receive is the rule. If I receive
+nothing, God himself has no claim to anything from me. On the other
+hand, I observed that the followers of Jesus possessed the earth,
+conquered treasures which they reserved strictly for themselves, being
+forever anxious to proclaim their indifference to worldly goods while
+inordinately preoccupied with collecting them. Their success seemed to
+me a sign. And when, after having burned, tortured, and in a thousand
+ways persecuted us during the dark ages, I saw them inaugurating the
+reign of justice and liberty by a return to persecution, I saw that the
+hour had come. I could not, however, decide immediately. A foolish
+self-respect held me back, I blush to own it. But then the head of the
+commercial house in which I am employed, doing justice to my talents,
+said to me:
+
+"'What a pity that you are a Jew, Ephraim. I would gladly turn over my
+business to you, but all our customers would forsake us.'
+
+"'If that is all that stands in the way, I am a Christian.'
+
+"'A Christian?'
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"And, the day after, I was a Christian. Six months later I married his
+daughter. My signature is honoured at the bank and at the church. I am
+president of the Anti-semitic Committee of my district."
+
+"That is going somewhat far," remarked Samuel.
+
+"Jews who remain Jews are inexcusable!" said Ephraim, in irritation
+against his people. "What is asked of them? A little salt water on their
+heads. A great matter! Is there any question of denying Jehovah? None,
+for it is our God whom, by our holy book, we have imposed upon the
+Gallic barbarians. In all the temples it is Jehovah they worship. Why
+should we refuse to enter? Whose effigies are they, if you please, on
+the altars, in the niches? Those of Jews. All Jews! Peter, the first
+pope--nothing less!--Paul, Joseph, Simon, Thomas, all the apostles. Even
+to the Jewess Mary and her mother Anna, who are regularly worshipped and
+who obtain favours from their son and grandson, Jesus, who Himself
+proclaimed that He had come to fulfill the law of Moses. Now there is
+not and there cannot be any other law than to vanquish one's rivals, and
+the victory of Christ is manifestly the victory of Jehovah himself.
+Christianity is the finest flower of Israel. It is the most flourishing
+among the Jewish sects, and in it nothing is changed but certain words.
+Shall we for the sake of a word or two forego that which makes life on
+earth beautiful? The Jews will come to understand this, and if they
+delay much longer the anti-semites will make them understand it."
+
+The other two were silent in admiration.
+
+"I suppose, brother," said Samuel after a time to Mordecai, "that your
+story is practically the same."
+
+"Not at all," replied Mordecai, curtly. "My case is wholly different. I
+was rich from birth. My ancestors, a beggarly lot, I admit, had by
+filing away at Christian coins made Jewish ingots, which I found in my
+inheritance, and was able to increase considerably by analogous methods.
+Hence, the idea could never have occurred to me to be--converted--for
+the sake of gain." (This shaft was accompanied by a sidelong glance at
+Ephraim, who did not flinch.) "I lived in peaceful enjoyment of the
+things money can give, and it can give almost everything, as you know.
+Sovereigns loved me. I entertained them in my various dwellings. They
+pushed friendliness to the point of borrowing money from me which they
+forgot to return. I had the friendship besides of all those
+aristocracies that draw near at the sound of clinking coin, as serpents
+do at the sound of the charmer's flute. Good priests came to my
+antechamber on begging missions for the restoration or completion of
+their cathedrals."
+
+"I fail to see what more you could want," said Samuel.
+
+"I wanted nothing. You have said it, brother. Count Mordecai of Brussels
+was the equal of earth's kings. More princes applied for the hand of my
+daughters than I had time to refuse."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, Jehovah, or Christ, or both, placed an extinguisher over this too
+bright happiness of mine."
+
+"You are ruined?"
+
+"Oh, no, on the contrary. Only, the wind changed. To divert the
+attention of the crowd from a demagogue who shouted, 'Clericalism is the
+great enemy!' the Jesuits devised the plan of raising a cry in
+opposition: 'The great enemy is Semitism!' And as the Jesuits had the
+whole Church behind them, and the demagogue controlled nothing but a
+fluctuating crowd, a very feather in the wind, anti-semitism prospered.
+Thereupon arose from somewhere or other certain so-called
+"intellectuals," who defended us in the name of their "ideas." What
+clumsy nonsense! And they could not be hushed up. They being our
+defenders, others for that very reason attacked us. Whereas, had we,
+according to our traditions, offered our backs to their blows, our
+enemies would presently have desisted, from weariness. Now the harm is
+done. We are contemned. No more priests after that sat on my benches. My
+noble friends deserted my drawing rooms, leaving their unpaid notes in
+my pocketbook. I went hunting with no company but the two hundred
+gamekeepers for the battue. Society forsook me. I was no longer
+"esteemed." Now, let me declare to you that there is no more exquisite
+torture than to see the friendship of the great go up in smoke.
+Unhesitatingly, therefore, resolutely, with the object of reinstating
+myself in public favour, I turned Christian. It means nothing, as
+Ephraim here demonstrated. My Christian friends came back, with
+contribution boxes outstretched, just as in earlier days. My generosity
+has ceased to be obnoxious. Now, as before, I build churches. So there
+is nothing really new in my estate. When I shall have received some
+honorary employment from the Vatican there will be nothing left to wish
+for. I have all that is needed for winning in the game. As it is wise,
+however, to neglect no detail, I thought that the intervention of the
+Master----"
+
+He indicated the Crucified. But Samuel gave him no time to finish.
+
+"Brothers," he cried, "I pity you! Conversion in itself means nothing, I
+agree. It is none the less true that there are traditions worthy of
+respect, which one must not renounce without serious reasons. A base
+money lust guided you, Ephraim. And you, Mordecai, were moved by love of
+the approbation of the majority. Which shows that man is never satisfied
+on earth. One for material advantages, the other for a thing as illusory
+as imprisoning the wind, you have sacrificed the ideal by which alone
+humanity is strong----"
+
+"But you?" cried the others. "Why were you converted?"
+
+"Because of opinion. I came here even now to seek fuller light from----"
+
+"What? What is that you say? Say it over again!"
+
+"I have changed my religion simply because my convictions have
+changed."
+
+At these words Ephraim and Mordecai were unable to contain themselves.
+Leaning for support against the stone pile, they burst into laughter so
+wild, so loud, at the madness of the statement, that the neighbouring
+windows shook. They uttered guttural cries, they tossed into the
+affrighted air grunts of raucous merriment, before the unheard-of
+monstrosity of the case. There were Ohs and Ahs and Hoo-hoos and
+Hee-hees, interrupted by fits of coughing brought on by strangling
+laughter. Then of a sudden, reflection, following upon amusement, turned
+into fury.
+
+"Villain! Are you making fools of us? Perhaps you think us such
+simpletons as to swallow your lie. Dog! Reprobate! Accursed! Bad Jew!
+Raca! Raca! Take that for your belief, your convictions!"
+
+And they fell to beating him.
+
+"What's the matter?" cried the watchman, arriving on the scene,
+attracted by the noise. "You, over there! Stop pommeling one another, or
+you will go to jail. Move on! Move on!"
+
+In less time than it takes to tell it, the three men had quieted down.
+They separated hastily, without good-night, and each with nimble foot
+went home to bed.
+
+The fourth Israelite, Jesus, son of Joseph, was left alone beneath the
+stars. He is still there. Without disrespect, I blame Him for not having
+on this occasion put in a word.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+EVIL BENEFICENCE
+
+
+Beneficence is a virtue: no one will deny it. But let no one deny,
+either, that there are benefactors maleficent in the extreme, through
+the stupidity of their benefactions.
+
+In the distant days of my youth there flourished in the Woodland of the
+Vendée a highly respected couple, who during a period of fifty years
+wearied three cantons with their "kindness."
+
+These excellent people were, of course, possessed of great wealth, for
+in order to pester one's fellowman with generosity one must have
+received the means for it from heaven. They were, on top of that, pious,
+again as a matter of course, for the preacher's promise of eternal
+reward has killed in man the beautiful disinterestedness that is the
+fine flower of charity.
+
+The Baron de Grillères was a small noble of large fortune. Formerly a
+member of the body guard of Charles X, he had little care for "Divine
+Right" or a return to the splendours of the old régime, as he proved by
+accepting a captaincy in the militia called out by Louis Philippe to
+crush the royalist attempt at an uprising in the Vendée, in which the
+Duchesse de Berry so miserably failed. I have seen in the Baron's study
+a shining panoply in which his epaulettes of a royal guardsman
+eloquently fraternized with his collar piece of a captain of the
+National Guard in arms against the King. In the centre were two crossed
+swords, one of them formerly worn in the service of the legitimate
+sovereign anointed at Rheims, the other drawn from its scabbard against
+that same legitimacy, to uphold the rights of the usurper.
+
+It is certain that the excellent soldier had never perceived anything
+contradictory in these two manifestations of a martial spirit. He had
+consistently upheld established order, that is to say, the régime which
+assured him the peaceful enjoyment of his property, and the logic of his
+conduct seemed to him unquestionable, for what in the world could be
+more sacred than that which promoted the quietness of his life? Totally
+uneducated, barely able to write his name, he was never troubled by any
+longings after learning. The Church answered for everything; he referred
+everything to the Church. This principle has the great advantage of
+dispensing one from any effort to think for himself.
+
+The Baroness, of middle-class origin, and doubtless for that reason very
+proud of the three gates on her escutcheon, lived solely, as she was
+pleased to say, "for the glory of God." Divinity, according to this
+simple soul, needed the Baroness de Grillères in order to attain the
+fullness of glory. It is a common idea among believers that the Creator
+of the Universe is open to receiving from His creatures pleasant or
+unpleasant impressions, just as we are from our fellow-beings. These
+estimable people are convinced that the Good Lord of All is pleased or
+angered accordingly as they act thus or so. They hold Providence in such
+small esteem as to believe that It needs defending by those same human
+beings whom It could with a gesture reduce to the original dust. Do we
+not often hear it said that such and such a minister or party is bent on
+"driving out God" from somewhere or other, and that they would in all
+likelihood succeed but for some paladin, ecclesiastical or military,
+stepping in to defend the Supreme Being, unequal, apparently, to
+defending Himself? This Baroness of the Vendée, dwelling in perpetual
+colloquy with the Eternal, either directly or through the mediation of
+the divine functionaries delegated for that purpose, had taken as her
+special mission to "contribute to the Glory of God." In some nebulous
+way it seemed to her that if she gave an example of all the virtues, the
+Sovereign Artificer, like Vaucanson, delighted with himself on account
+of his famous mechanical duck, would be puffed up with pride at His
+success in producing so perfect a human specimen, and that the
+admiration of the world for the genius capable of such a masterpiece
+would deliciously tickle the conceit of the Almighty. One might
+attribute to the Master of the Infinite less human causes of
+satisfaction. But, might one say, what matter, if this rather earthly
+view of Divinity incited the devout Baroness to the practice of the
+virtues?
+
+"The virtues," when one has an income of 80,000 francs, and no personal
+tastes, no passion of mind or heart to satisfy, do not seem beyond human
+reach. For "the glory of God" the Baroness de Grillères was in life as
+chaste as an iceberg, and at death bequeathed her wealth to the rich.
+
+God, the Holy Virgin, and the Saints bid us to give. More especially,
+they are pleased if we give first of all to the Church. Chapels sprang
+up in the Baroness's footprints. After a consultation with her spiritual
+adviser, she had dedicated her husband to Saint Joseph. The Saint and
+the Baron exchanged a thousand amenities. The one received statues and
+prayers, the other, the highest example of resignation. Wherever two
+avenues crossed in the park, stood a group of the Holy Family, with an
+inscription showing that the Baron and Baroness de Grillères aspired to
+linking their names in the public memory with those of the pair
+conspicuous for the greatest miracle known on earth.
+
+Upon every religious establishment in the surrounding country
+successively were bestowed sums of money, in exchange for which the
+pious donors desired nothing but a marble tablet, placed well in view,
+whereon was published in golden letters that Christian charity in
+connection with which the Master has said that the right hand must not
+know what is done by the left. Of course, the presence of the poor, the
+sick, and the infirm, in an institution conducted by some congregation,
+did not actually constitute a reason in the minds of the Baron and
+Baroness for withholding their gifts. They considered, however, that
+direct service to God and the Saints must be given precedence, for the
+heavenly powers were the ones who dispensed rewards; it might, moreover,
+be feared that there was a sort of impiety in thwarting the unfathomable
+designs of Providence, by attempting to alleviate the trials It had seen
+fit to impose upon human beings.
+
+When the mayor of La Fougeraie, a notorious Free Mason, headed a
+subscription for setting up a public fountain in the village square, the
+lord and lady of the château refused to contribute, but immediately
+devoted 2,000 francs to purchasing a holy water font of Carrara marble,
+on which might be seen a flight of angels carrying heavenward the
+escutcheon with the three gates.
+
+As for the poor who did not shrink from personally soliciting alms, the
+Baron and Baroness alike held them in profound contempt. In the history
+of every wretched beggar there invariably turned out to be some fault in
+conduct making him unworthy of charity. One of them had got drunk last
+Sunday at the tavern, one was accused of stealing potatoes, another had
+been mixed up in a brawl at the village festival. How could disorderly
+living of this sort lead to anything but mendicancy? "You ought to go to
+work, my good man," they would say. "Look for employment. Do you so much
+as go to mass? Do you keep Lent? Go and see the _curé_. It is to him we
+give our alms, for the whole countryside knows we keep nothing for
+ourselves of what the Good God has given us. It is not to the deceitful
+riches of this earth that we must cling, my poor friend; for heavenly
+things only must we strive. Go and see the _curé_, he is so kind. He
+will know how to minister to the needs of your soul."
+
+Sometimes the gift of a little brass medal with the image of Saint
+Joseph or the Virgin Mary would accompany this homily, and the beggar,
+however hardened in his evil ways, would depart with humble salutations
+and a melancholy thankfulness.
+
+It is true that vice deserves hate, but can it be denied that certain
+aspects of virtue are utterly hateful? Vice, not unlikely to bring about
+humility and repentance, is sometimes capable of generous actions
+without hope of reward. The selfish goodness of calculating virtue sees
+in Christian charity the opening of a bank account with the Creator, and
+while making lavish gifts, forfeits the merit of giving, by the avowed
+exaction of a profit immeasurably greater than the amount paid. The
+Baron and Baroness de Grillères basked in the delight of hearing
+themselves praised from the pulpit. No flattering hyperbole seemed to
+them excessive, for, as they sowed money on all sides, they looked for a
+great harvest of splendidly ostentatious veneration. All they lacked in
+order to be loved was that they should first love a little.
+
+Of family life they never knew anything but the companionship of two
+egoisms, both fiercely straining toward an incomprehensible future
+felicity, to be earned by the application of a language of love, in
+which was wrapped their lust of eternity. They had for incidental
+diversion the base adulation of poor relations, whose mean calculations
+did not, however, escape them. But the habit of hearing, at every step,
+every conceivable virtue attributed to them, was an agreeable one, and
+although they knew that money counted for something in the outpouring of
+eulogistic superlatives of which they were the objects, they lent
+themselves easily to the sweet belief that they did, in fact, achieve
+prodigies of kindness every hour of their lives. No need to say that
+they never made a gift of three shirts or a pair of shoes to a grand
+nephew without the fact being trumpeted abroad.
+
+A delightful game, for the Baroness, was distributing legacies among her
+relatives. Not a piece of furniture, of jewellery, or of silver, did she
+possess, not a single object of commonest use, that she had not in
+theory and in anticipation given to some one of her heirs. She would
+open a wardrobe and show the happy prospective owner a label posted on
+the inside of the door: "I bequeathe this piece of furniture, which came
+to me from my dear Mamma, to my good little cousin Mary, whom I love
+with all my heart." Picture the embraces, the ensuing effusions of
+tenderness! Further on, the corner of a bit of paper would stick out
+from under the pedestal of a clock. "I bequeathe this clock, which was
+the property of my beloved Grandmother, to my grandnephew, Charles, who
+will pray for his good aunt." With what ecstasy little grandnephew
+Charles, led with much mystery to the spot, would with his own eyes read
+the text naming him possessor of the treasure! No member of the family
+was without his allotted share.
+
+Only, the capricious Baroness, whom it was very easy to annoy, was
+perpetually taking offence. For a delayed letter, for thanks which
+seemed insufficient tribute to her generosity, she would declare that
+Mary or Charles no longer loved her, and as she looked upon affection
+merely as a marketable commodity, the little slips of paper referring to
+heirship were immediately replaced by others. Mary's wardrobe would fall
+to Selina. Charles's clock would leap into John's inheritance, who would
+be apprised of the fact in deep secret, until presently, for some
+unconscious fault, the clock would be temporarily bestowed upon
+Alphonse, and the wardrobe upon Rose. Variable book-keeping, which
+kindled among relatives inextinguishable hatreds. But the Baroness'
+masterpiece was the marriage between John and Rose.
+
+John was an overseer of highway and bridge construction. He loved his
+cousin Mary, who contributed by her needlework to the slender family
+earnings. The young people had been betrothed six months, when one fine
+day, without any known reason, the Baroness declared that Rose was the
+one for John, and John exactly suited to Rose. Great commotion. The fear
+of being disinherited kept every one concerned in subjection to the
+"dearly beloved Aunt." Mary, desperately weeping, was preached into
+promising to enter a convent, the Baroness paying her dowry; this for
+the dear sake of John, whose name she might unite in her prayers with
+that of the Providential Aunt, who mercifully opened the way of
+salvation to her. John, alas, was more easily persuaded than she, when
+he learned that he and Rose together would be chief heirs; and Rose, who
+had ideas of grandeur, and dreamt of nothing less than going on to the
+stage, lent herself with her whole heart to the comedy of love fatly
+remunerative. John was invited to give up his work and "live like a
+gentleman," and Rose's natural tendencies coöperating, the young couple,
+loaded down with gifts of sounding specie, spread themselves gloriously,
+under the happy eyes of the Baroness, in every description of silly
+extravagance.
+
+The Baron died of an attack of gout, a disease unknown to clodhoppers.
+His wealth passed to his wife. Rose and John had received on their
+marriage an income of only 10,000 francs, but they had the formal
+promise of the entire inheritance. Unfortunately, a week before her
+death, the Baroness was shocked by "a lack of regard" on Rose's part,
+which consisted in not having evinced a sufficiently vociferous despair
+at the recital of her Aunt's sufferings! By a will made in her last
+moments everything was bequeathed to the Church, in payment for
+numberless ceremonies whereby the utmost of celestial bliss was to be
+secured for the dying woman.
+
+Rose and John, after a torrent of invectives, left that part of the
+country. An income of 10,000 francs signified poverty for them. They
+fled to Paris, where in less than a year John lost down to his last
+penny in speculations. After that they went their respective ways, Rose
+to sing in a café-concert of the Faubourg St. Martin, John to take
+employment with a booking agency for the races. He has as yet only been
+sentenced to one month's imprisonment for a swindling card-game.
+
+Admirable results of an Evil Beneficence!
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+A MAD THINKER
+
+
+Among the wise, some will perhaps agree with me, the maddest madmen are
+not those who are commonly called so. In great walled and barred and
+guarded buildings--prisons where people who are condemned by "science,"
+just as elsewhere people are condemned by "law," expiate the crime of a
+psychological disorder greater than that of the majority--unfortunate
+beings are kept behind bolts and triple locks, for the incoherence of
+their syllogisms, while fellow mortals no more mentally stable are
+allowed to do their raving out on the world's stage.
+
+For one whole year in my youth I dwelt among the lunatics of Bicêtre. I
+had many interviews with "impulsives," whom a sudden disturbance of the
+organism had made dangerously violent, and who talked pathetically about
+their "illness," believing it cured, whereas it was not. I held
+discussions with patients suffering from more or less specific
+delusions. From those now long-past associations I have retained a habit
+of comparing the mentalities inside asylums with those outside, which
+proceeding leads rather to the proposal than the solution of problems.
+
+What seems clear, however, is that we have not discovered a standard of
+good sense, a way of measuring reason, by which we could definitely
+separate sane from morbid psychology; that, furthermore, such a method,
+had we discovered it, would not help us much, considering the
+disconcerting ease with which men pass from the normal to the
+pathological state, and vice versa. We should need too many asylums, and
+there would be too continual a coming and going in and out of them. We
+should not have time, between sojourns there, to study what we wanted to
+learn, to teach what we knew, to prove to each other that we are all
+afloat in a sea of errors, to quarrel, to vote, to kill one another, and
+to reproduce ourselves for the sake of perpetuating the balance of
+unbalance amid which fate has placed us.
+
+Let us then accept the human phenomenon as it stands, and beware of
+classifications which might lead us to believe that the mere fact of
+being at liberty on the public highways is a guarantee of sound mind.
+Whoever doubts this may wisely consider the judgments men are pleased to
+pass upon one another. Question the Christian with regard to the
+atheist, he will tell you that one must be totally devoid of common
+sense to deny evidence that to him seems conclusive. The Mahomedan will
+not conceal from you, if you discuss Christianity with him, that one
+must unmistakably be mad, to identify three in one, and believe in a
+physical manifestation of God to man. The Buddhist will look upon the
+Mussulman as feeble in reasoning power, and the practiser of fetishism
+on the coast of Africa or of Australasia will declare all these sects
+foolish, since to him the only rational thing is to worship his
+fetishes, which are, strangely enough, matched in our religion by the
+many miraculous statues. Lastly, let me mention the philosophers, who
+agree in regarding all those people as affected with morbid
+degeneration, while pitying one another because of the mutual imputation
+of diseased understanding.
+
+At the time when I, like so many others, was seeking for the absolute
+truth which should give me the key to all knowledge, I made the
+acquaintance of one of those same seekers, possibly mad, or possibly
+gifted with more than ordinary intelligence, who applied all his mental
+energy to the solution of the problem of the construction of the world,
+and to answering the questions raised by the presence of man on earth.
+He was one of those "unfrocked priests" whom people usually blame
+because they refuse to preach what seems to them a lie. I do not give
+his name, his express desire having been to pass unknown among men. He
+left the priesthood quietly, and after a fairly long stay in Paris,
+during which he studied medicine, returned to his native village, where
+two small farms brought an income more than sufficient for his needs.
+
+He lived alone, despised by pious relatives, who besieged him with
+flattering attentions aimed at his inheritance, but were kept at a
+respectful distance by his witty and well-directed shafts of sarcasm. A
+veritable Doctor Faustus. Fifty years he spent in assiduous study of the
+great minds that make up the history of human thought. His door was open
+to the poor, but he did not seek them out, absorbed as he was in
+problems allowing him neither diversion nor respite. He had no curiosity
+as to what was going on in the world. His spirit lived in the perpetual
+tension of reaching out toward the unknown, feverishly importuned to
+deliver up its mystery, and he did not wish to know anything of men,
+their conflicts, their often contradictory efforts to better their fate.
+Had he lived in the midst of the Siberian steppes, or on some Malay
+Island, he would not have been more entirely cut off from the
+surrounding social life. The Franco-Prussian war and the Commune were as
+remote from him in the depths of the Vendée as Alexander's expedition to
+the Indies. When one of the farmers once tried to recall that period to
+his mind: "Yes, yes, I remember," he answered, "all the fruit was frozen
+that year." It was the only vestige in his memory of those terrific
+storms.
+
+He was naturally considered mad, but it could not be denied that he
+reasoned pertinently on all subjects. Absorbed in books, he had for
+sole company the men of all time, and felt himself far better acquainted
+with Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, Newton, Laplace, Darwin, and
+Auguste Comte than with Bismarck or General Trochu. Shut up day and
+night in a great room to which no one had admittance, he lived over with
+delight the vast poem of the creation of the world. In waking to
+consciousness, the universe, he was wont to say, had set us a riddle,
+after the manner of the Sphinx, and he, a new Oedipus, was challenging
+the monster. He would tear out its secret, he would proclaim it from the
+earth to the stars, while disdaining the glory dear to ordinary mortals.
+For he had taken every precaution to ensure the author's name remaining
+absolutely unknown when his great work should be published. In order to
+avert suspicion, the book was first to be printed in a foreign tongue.
+
+If the Abbé was mad--the peasants still called him by his ecclesiastical
+title, either from old habit, or respect for his mysterious
+investigations--his madness was certainly not a mania for
+self-aggrandizement. Disinterested truth, truth with no other reward
+than success in the effort to reach it, was the single impulse moving
+this monkishly cloistered existence. One might say that there was proof
+of an unbalanced mind. I will not argue the point. Absolute truth is
+undoubtedly beyond our reach. It is none the less true that the
+sustained effort to attain truth remains the noblest distinction of
+man. If it is reasonable to desire to know, who shall say at what point
+it becomes folly, through aspiration outstripping the possibility of
+satisfaction? Since, furthermore, this possibility increases with the
+progressive evolution of the mind, might not it follow that one who had
+been thought mad, in olden days, would be called wise to-day and that
+the madman of to-day will in future ages be a prodigy of luminous
+intellect? Find the boundary line between reason and unreason in this
+inextricable tangle!
+
+But to return to our excellent "Abbé," with whom, by a curious chance, I
+became intimately acquainted, a few months before his death, I must say
+that he never troubled himself with these considerations, to him inane.
+He did not deny that there were maladies of the mind, but he professed
+complete scorn for the "collection of low prejudices" to which the name
+of "reason" was given by the general public. "I have come too soon," he
+said to me. "In a few thousand years they will erect statues to the man
+who will be a repetition of me. So far, men have parted at the
+cross-roads where the paths of science and faith diverge. Some day there
+will be one broad highroad to knowledge. The time has not come to lay
+that road. As barbarism covered over the premature flowering of Greek
+thought, so our present savagery would soon crowd out truths too newly
+arrived at, which only very gradually will take root in men's minds."
+
+"Tell me," I said to him one day, "since you stand on such a height that
+you are free from the pride of the precursor, that you are insensible to
+human glory, that you do not even intend to leave to posterity your name
+as a seeker, have you never, alone with your conscience, and stripped of
+all personal interest, asked yourself whether you were sure, after all,
+entirely sure, of possessing this total and absolute truth?"
+
+The Abbé's little gray eyes twinkled. He answered with a melancholy
+smile: "The final and irreparable failure of my religious faith was a
+fearful blow to me. I no longer believed. What had appeared to me good
+evidence on the day before looked to me from that day onward like the
+irrational wanderings of delirium. But I realize to-day, after so many
+years of meditation, that although my old conceptions of existence could
+not stand the test of experience, yet the framework of my mind has
+remained the same. I had abandoned the Theological Absolute; I was in
+search of a Scientific Absolute, no more to be found than the other. I
+do not regret my error, for I owe to it the greatest joys of my life.
+For thirty years the marvel of seeing the veil of Isis slowly raised,
+and the world, bit by bit, taken to pieces and put together again,
+according to infallible laws, brought me the supreme delight of
+grasping the world by thought. When I had exhausted analysis and
+synthesis, I undertook to tell my discoveries, and such was my mastery
+of my subject that in ten years I wrote a volume of five hundred pages,
+in which, I can say it now, for I have burned it, was contained what, in
+incalculable centuries to come, will be considered the treasure of human
+knowledge."
+
+"You burned this work of yours?"
+
+"Yes, to replace it by another."
+
+"And is this other one final?"
+
+"You want my complete confession? I am so near death that I will afford
+you this pleasure. Having finished my book, I decided to devote the rest
+of my life to going over it, pen in hand, and annotating it. Alas! When
+I became my own critic I found the fine frenzy of creation replaced by a
+power of keenly reasoning destructiveness which I had up to that time
+not suspected in myself. The creators of systems in the past were only
+gifted with the power of induction and prophecy. I had the power to
+dissect, to undermine my own inductions and prophecies. What we term
+truth is but an elimination of errors. I thought, I still think, that I
+had attained truth, pure and simple, but the edifice so laboriously
+built could not escape the pitiless criticism of the builder. The same
+mental gymnastics which had led to my replacing former doubts by
+demonstrated affirmations now raised fresh doubts in the face of my new
+demonstrations. What would have been their effect upon the unprepared
+intelligences for which the result of my labour was intended? I spent
+five years of painful spiritual tension in rewriting and condensing my
+work."
+
+"And this time you were satisfied?"
+
+"No more than before. While I am writing, I am, in spite of myself,
+possessed by the absolute. I take too vaulting a leap toward truth. Then
+I realize that men will shrug their shoulders and call me mad, and I
+question whether it is not in fact madness to try to bring to
+intelligences of to-day knowledge which belongs to the far future.
+Furthermore, no matter how strongly I have felt myself fortified on all
+sides by evidence, a fury of criticism has hurled me to the attack of my
+fortress of truth. It took two years to reduce my five-hundred-page book
+to two hundred pages. Four more years of work--and a notebook of perhaps
+fifty pages is all that is left--the bone and marrow of the whole
+matter, for my aim has been to eliminate, one by one, every element of
+possible uncertainty."
+
+"And now there remains no doubt, I suppose?"
+
+"Nay, doubt remains. Is it strength or weakness of mind? I cannot say.
+If I have time to go on working, nothing will be left of my work, and I
+shall have made the great journey, from reason that seeks to folly that
+finds, and from folly that knows to reason which, very wisely, still
+doubts."
+
+The Abbé died six months later, leaving all he had to the poor. Besides
+his will, not a single page of writing was found among his belongings.
+
+The village priest came to see him in his last hour. He spoke to him of
+God--bade him believe, alleging that science led to doubt--whereas
+faith----
+
+"Then you yourself are sure, are you?" asked the dying man.
+
+"Certainly--I know with absolute certainty."
+
+"Reverend sir, I once spoke as you are speaking. Only ignorance is
+capable of such proud utterances. Grant to a dying man the privilege of
+delivering this lesson. I who have aspired to know, know that you know
+no more than I--even less--I dare affirm it. It is really not enough to
+justify taking up so much room in the sunshine!"
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+BETTER THAN STEALING
+
+
+The man from Paris is a natural object of hatred to the poacher. I refer
+to the hunting man from Paris, who raises game for his own sport in
+carefully preserved enclosures. This ostentatious personage, who comes
+and fills the countryside with special guards to keep the aggrieved
+pedestrian out of glades and plains and bypaths, seems to the rustics a
+pernicious intruder, in a state of legal warfare against the countryman,
+who feels himself the friend and legitimate owner of the animals, furry
+or feathered, with whom his labour in the fields has made him well
+acquainted. All is fair play against this "maker of trouble." The only
+thing is not to get "pinched."
+
+Then begins a warfare of ambushes and ruses with the band of
+gamekeepers, who, having the law on their side, always end by getting
+the better of those whose only argument of defence is the "natural
+right" of a man to destroy wild life.
+
+During the season there are almost daily exchanges of shot. Often a man
+is killed, which means jail, penitentiary, scaffold. All for a miserable
+rabbit! Remnants of the feudalism of birth which the effort of
+revolutions has merely replaced by the feudalism of money.
+
+The worst of it is that gamekeepers and poachers, mutually exasperated,
+cling to their quarrel, and that a taste for brigandage develops in men
+diverted from the unremunerative tilling of the soil by the daily
+temptation of booty. Deal as harshly as you may with the poacher, you
+will not succeed in discouraging him. Has anything ever cured a devotee
+of roulette? And to the excitement of gambling, in this case, is added
+the attraction of danger. There is no cure for it. The question of
+increasing the penalty for poaching often comes up. There will be long
+discussion before anything is ever done. The discrepancy would be too
+great between the misdeed and the punishment. And the matter of
+elections enters into it. No one is anxious to make too violent enemies
+among the citizen electors.
+
+Entirely different is the question of poaching in the happy
+regions--there are not many left in France--where preserved hunting is
+still at the rhetorical stage. There the poacher is merely a hunter
+without a permit, and as no such thing exists as a peasant whom a hare
+has never tempted to use his gun, and as a natural understanding unites
+all those who are compelled to pay taxes against the State which
+represents taxation and statute labour, never will you find a field
+labourer ready to admit that a shot, in order to be lawful, needs the
+seal of a tax gatherer.
+
+The poacher on free territory, therefore, does not hide as does the
+poacher on preserved lands. He plays a sort of tag with the rural guard,
+who is by no means eager to meet him, and with the occasional
+_gendarmes_, whose cocked hats and baldricks make them conspicuous from
+afar. Following along hedges, looking for burrows, keeping his eyes
+steadfastly on the ground, he scents out the wild creatures and knows
+the art of capturing them.
+
+How often, in the days of my youth, have I accompanied the redoubtable
+Janière on his Sunday expeditions, when he would ostensibly leave the
+village by the highroad, his hands in his pockets, then dash into the
+fields, and miraculously find his gun hidden in a bush, a few feet from
+a rabbit hole. Nor man nor beast was ever known to get the better of
+him. He was an old Chouan of 1815 who, having been a poacher all his
+days, and a marauder now and then, died without ever having had a writ
+served on him. The entire district took pride in Janière. When he left
+us for a better world: "He never once went to prison," said the peasants
+by way of funeral oration. What that man could deduce from a blade of
+grass lying over on one side or the other at the edge of a thicket
+really approached the miraculous. He would consult the wind, the sun,
+and would construct for me the train of reasoning which must have
+brought the hare to the precise spot where we invariably found him. His
+accommodating gun made no more noise than the cracking of a whip. The
+victim, hidden in the hollow of a pollard, would at nightfall find its
+way under Janière's blouse.
+
+But whither have I let myself wander? It was of the water poacher that I
+meant to speak. He, one might say, is the enemy of no man on earth.
+Fish, of dubious morals we are assured, find no such personal sympathy
+among us as do the furry and feathered folk. A carp, gasping on the
+grass, does not bring tears to our eyes, he seems to belong to a
+different world, and the police officer at war against illicit fishing,
+backed up by more or less convincing arguments relating to the
+restocking of rivers, has no one on his side. For this reason, my
+compatriot Simon Grelu counted as many friends as there were inhabitants
+in the canton. The killing of a hare in his lair rouses enmity among the
+poachers who alike had their eye on him. No quarrel results from a tench
+landed. Simon Grelu, besides fishing at once for profit and the love of
+it, gave freely of his catch, whence came the universal good-will
+accompanying him on his nightly or daily expeditions.
+
+Our river in the Vendée, the Lay, wends its leisurely way amid reeds and
+waterlilies, sometimes narrowing between rocks covered with broom and
+furze and oak trees, sometimes widening under overarching alders,
+onward to the meadows, where it attracts the flocks. Everywhere are
+mills with their gates. It is a populous river, and no one could be said
+to "populate" it more than Simon Grelu, nominally a miller's assistant,
+living in the ruin of what was thought to have been a mill at the time
+of the wars between the Blues and the Whites.
+
+Simon Grelu is a great tall fellow, all legs and arms and joints, with a
+long neck leading up to a long nose, which gives him the look of a
+heron. From the Marshland to the Woodland there is no more noted spoiler
+of rivers; he is celebrated for the constancy of his relations with the
+police. Hampered by his lengthy appendages, he is perpetually letting
+himself be caught, and disdaining what will be thought of it. Every
+angle of every rock, every stump by the water's edge, is so familiar and
+homelike to him that he cannot bear to leave his river, and rather than
+make good his escape on land, prefers to have a warrant served on him,
+secure in the fact that he has nothing wherewith to pay a fine.
+
+When the police sergeant rebukes his men for their laziness, they cry
+with one accord:
+
+"Let us go and look up Grelu!"
+
+They go, and find him without the least trouble.
+
+That was what happened last week, and owing to it I had the pleasure of
+witnessing the interview I am about to relate. I was taking a walk with
+the Mayor, when Simon Grelu suddenly stood before us. More elongated
+than ever, with his bony, sallow face, his pointed skull topped by a
+little tuft of white hair, his mouth open in a smile truly formidable
+from the threat of a single great black tooth which the slightest cough
+would inevitably have flung in one's face, the heron-man stood before
+us, motionless in his wooden shoes.
+
+"I have come for my certificate, _monsieur le maire_," said he with a
+sort of clucking which might express either mirth or despair.
+
+"What certificate?"
+
+"Why, my certificate of mendicancy, as usual, when I am caught."
+
+"What! Again? Is there no end to it?"
+
+"It is better than stealing, isn't it, _monsieur le maire_?"
+
+"But you have not the choice between poaching and stealing only, Simon.
+You could work."
+
+"And do you suppose I don't work? Many thanks! Who drudges more than I
+do? The whole night in the water! Those accursed policemen played a
+trick on me!"
+
+"They caught you?"
+
+"That's nothing. They made a fool of me, _monsieur le maire_. No, it
+can't be called anything else. I shall never forgive myself for being
+made a fool of----"
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"What happened is that those policemen laughed at me all the way up and
+down the river. They were half a mile away, and I could still hear them
+roaring with laughter. No, I never knew I was such a dunderhead."
+
+"But, come to the point, what did they do to you?"
+
+"Ah--the villains! Imagine, _monsieur le maire_, it was just before
+daylight, and I was quietly fishing below the mill of La Rochette. The
+idea, anyway, of forbidding fishing before sunrise! Is it my fault if
+fishes come out to play at night?"
+
+"Well--what happened?"
+
+"I was in my boat----"
+
+"You have a boat, then?"
+
+"No, _monsieur le maire_, I may as well tell you, for you'll know it
+to-morrow, anyway, that it was your boat, which I had taken from your
+dike by the big pasture."
+
+"And where did you get the key?"
+
+"Ah--you know--with a nail--and there is no chain----But I shut
+everything up again without damaging the lock. I should not like to give
+you any trouble. I washed the boat, too, where the fish had left it
+muddy."
+
+"You had caught a great deal of fish?"
+
+"No. Ten pounds, perhaps. I had only just begun."
+
+"I never caught that much fish in my life. How do you do it?"
+
+"Oh--they know me. As I was telling you, I was in my--in your boat, when
+I heard those d----policemen calling me. 'Hey! Grelu, come ashore! We
+are serving your warrant on you!' Well, I landed, of course. I am used
+to it. We chatted like friends. They carried away my fish to fry for
+themselves. You won't tell me there is any justice in that, will you,
+_monsieur le maire_?"
+
+"Is that the trick they played on you?"
+
+"Oh, no! When the police had gone, I said to myself: 'Now I'm fined, I
+may as well go on fishing. I shan't be able to pay the fine, whether I
+do or not. So I'll stay.' I fished and I fished. I was doing first rate.
+I was happy. When, suddenly, I hear voices. The police again! Two
+warrants in one night! I couldn't have that! The boat was giving me
+away. But they might think I had left it there. So I hide in the water,
+with nothing out but my head, and I wait. What do you think they do?
+They stretch out on the grass, they light their pipes, and they begin to
+talk. They had got lost, the idiots! And finding themselves back at the
+mill, were looking for me to ask their way.
+
+"As for me, I was none too comfortable in the mud. Those loafers
+wouldn't go away. When one pipe went out, they lighted another. I saw
+there was going to be nothing for it but to get caught again. Suddenly
+one of the men says: 'Father Grelu,' says he, 'you must be cold in
+there. Come and warm yourself at my pipe.' I come out, all covered with
+mud, and I shake my fist at him. 'If you serve another warrant on
+me----!' says I to him. 'A second warrant?' says he. 'No danger of that.
+The law prevents it. We can only serve one warrant in twenty-four hours
+on the same person for the same offence. What! You didn't know that,
+Grelu? And that is why you stayed in the water? We were just saying: "I
+wonder why he does that?" Ah, Father Grelu, we are sorry! We thought you
+knew better.' And they laughed. And they laughed. I was in no mood for
+laughing. Did you know that, _monsieur le maire_, that two warrants
+could not be served at once?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I know it for another time, you may be sure. And now, may I have
+my certificate of mendicancy, which releases me from liability to fine?"
+
+"Very well. Your bath might have given you pneumonia. How old are you?"
+
+"Over seventy. No harm will ever come to me from water."
+
+"Nor from wine, eh? It is funny, all the same, to be giving you a
+certificate of destitution when I see you so often at the tavern."
+
+"They give me credit, _monsieur le maire_. I pay them in fish. It is
+better than stealing, anyway."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE GRAY FOX
+
+
+After the poacher the vagabond has the place of honour in the disfavour
+of the licensed citizen. A man without an abode inscribed in the tax
+collector's book comes near to being a man without a country, in the
+eyes of the bourgeois, inclined to regard the land of his fathers as
+exclusively what one of them has frankly called it, "the native land of
+the landed proprietor."
+
+It is easy to pronounce against the unfortunate nomad the withering
+sentence: "He pays no taxes." No taxes, the barefoot tramp who halts on
+the edge of a ditch to eat his succinct meal? I defy him to spend the
+penny just tossed him, without the State stepping in between him and his
+poor bite and taking a portion of it away. How can he be fed, clothed,
+and warmed without the State making its existence felt by the exaction
+of a tithe? Merely tithes levied upon beggars would amount to a
+considerable revenue. The beggar takes no pride in this fact, being
+carelessly ungrudging of the sacrifices demanded by public duty, and
+this very modesty does him wrong, for under the pretext that he is of no
+social utility, householders, under-prefects, army corps commanders,
+and directors of the Bank of France, all unite in imputing to him most
+of the evils from which they are supposed to protect us.
+
+In country places, the blame for whatever happens falls on the
+vagabonds. Theft, arson, trespassing, who could be guilty of these
+offences, if not the homeless wanderers going over the roads afoot, when
+all self-respecting men have at least the use of an automobile? What
+trade can they ply but taking other people's belongings, seeing that
+they have nothing of their own? Hence the execration of those who have
+belongings. I once knew an old philosopher who maintained that it was
+better to throw bread than stones at them. Ordinarily stones are readier
+to hand. When there are enough of them, the tramp gathers them into a
+pile at the roadside and breaks them for honest wages. Never for a
+moment believe that any one, from the President of the Republic down to
+the road mender, will express the slightest gratitude to him. Like Timon
+of Athens, he expects nothing from human kind.
+
+And yet, his defence, should he take the trouble to make one, would not
+be lacking in interest. Lost sentinel of the army of labour, he might
+relate strange adventures in the industrial warfare, no less cruel than
+the other warfare. He might find it difficult to deny a share of
+shortcomings on his side--but what of the consciences of "the
+righteous," oftentimes, if one could see them in nakedness?
+
+Humanity means weakness. If the vagabond can own as much for himself, he
+can bear witness to the same in the case of others. Oftener, perhaps,
+than is generally believed, for peasants, like city people, are tempted
+by their neighbours' property, and as the caught thief always accuses
+some unknown personage of the crime attributed to him, the vagabond is
+in all countries the easy expiatory victim of "the respectable."
+
+Something of the kind happened in the affair of the "Gray Fox," which
+once upon a time set my village in uproar. At that distant date one of
+the notables of the hamlet, a locksmith by trade, who had "inherited
+property," was Claude Guillorit. Without vanity in his Roman Emperor's
+name, he carried it with the quiet dignity of a man whose future is
+assured. He was a "scholar," incredibly learned in the accumulation of
+miscellaneous facts which almanacs spread even in the remotest
+districts. He quoted proverbs, was full of strange saws, foretold the
+future--approximately. He was to be met with by night, carrying a large
+basket, in search of simples, which have special virtues when gathered
+after sun-down. He brewed philters for the benefit of man and beast, and
+cured fevers, I must admit, more easily than he did locks.
+
+For, in spite of his explicit locksmith's sign, locks were wrapped in
+mystery for Claudit--so called "for short." Village housewives, whose
+furniture knows not intricate locks, are at the end of their resources
+when they have cleaned the rust off their keys, or smeared a creaky lock
+with oil. If the evil persisted, in those days, the cry of supreme
+distress used to be: "Go and get Claudit," even as Napoleon's cry was:
+"Send forward the guard!" when he was at the end of his genius.
+
+Accompanied by a formidable clatter of ironware, a little slim, spare,
+sharp man would approach, with long gray locks swinging about his face,
+after straggling from under a black round of which no one could have
+declared with any certainty whether it had been a hat or a cap at the
+time of the Revolution. But it was not his headgear that held the eye.
+What struck one, what fixed the attention, what filled even a person
+unacquainted with him with a sort of superstitious uneasiness, was the
+black dart of two small, lustreless eyes, which entered one's very soul
+and stuck there. When the shaft of Claudit's glance had pierced one, it
+was not to be plucked from the memory. The man, however, did not concern
+himself with the impression he produced; he never broke the silence
+except from necessity, and then spoke only of things pertaining to lock
+mending.
+
+When he had arrived before the recalcitrant lock, he would throw on the
+ground--together with the great basket from which he was never
+separated, and which no one ever saw open except on one memorable
+occasion--an iron hoop, whence hung an extraordinary number of queerly
+wrought and bent hooks; then he would kneel down as if in prayer, and
+apply his eye to the keyhole. After a moment of scientific examination:
+
+"_Pardine!_" he would cry--it was his favourite oath--"I see nothing at
+all."
+
+In which there was nothing surprising. Claudit seemed, none the less, to
+experience great relief from this first ascertainment. Then followed
+questions regarding the piece of furniture, what was its history, and
+the probable age of its lock, then groans over the wretched work done in
+olden days. And now the moment had come for the diagnosis. Every lock
+may be afflicted with any one of numerous ailments. Claudit would
+enumerate them with great erudition, giving his client his choice among
+the various evils.
+
+"It may be that, or it may be something else. I am no wizard. We shall
+see."
+
+Thereupon a storm of hammerblows would beat upon the wood and the iron.
+The cloudburst over, the key would function no better.
+
+He would have to resort to subtler methods. Unperturbed, Claudit would
+brandish his hoop with the pendent hooks, and having examined each with
+care, would select one and insert it very deliberately, with appropriate
+contortions, into the orifice where lay the seat of the trouble.
+Creakings would ensue beyond anything ever heard. Up and down, down and
+up, from left to right, and right to left, and all around the compass,
+he would turn and twist and rub the rusty point, would force it to the
+exhaustion of human strength, and, since the truth must be told, I will
+confess that I have seen locks which under this violent treatment took
+the provisional course of behaving themselves. Claudit would exhibit no
+pride. Such triumphs of his art were not calculated to surprise him.
+
+When the lock seemed to be entirely bedevilled, Claudit would draw from
+his pocket a two-penny knife, the blade of which had gained a saw-edge
+from much usage, and for the final satisfaction of conscience would do
+what he could by "rummaging" with it. After that it was finished.
+
+"The King himself could do no more," he would declare, fully assured
+that Louis Philippe would have succeeded no better than he. "If you
+like, I will make you a new lock."
+
+Do not imagine that the manufacture of this lock would give Claudit any
+great trouble. He sent to Nantes for his locks. He unscrewed one, and
+screwed on another, and by this simple performance acquired the
+reputation of a "skilled workman."
+
+A little forge was attached to his house. It was littered with iron
+junk. But no man alive ever saw it lighted, so that hens had formed the
+habit of making their nest amid the cinders of the hearth, and the white
+gleam of eggs was pleasant to see at the bottom of the crater where one
+looked for glowing coals. I have seen as many as ten, for Claudit, owing
+to an extreme love of poultry, permitted large numbers of hens to wander
+at will about his dwelling.
+
+In reality, the mending of locks and the brewing of healing philters
+were merely the recreations of his life. Its passion was "the little
+hen," as he tenderly called her. One of those silent passions deeply
+rooted in our inmost being, for the satisfaction of which the Evil One
+besieges us with temptations. It is certain that between Claudit and the
+gallinaceous tribe obscure affinities existed. On Claudit's side the
+sentiment might be explained by an appetite for toothsome eating. But
+why did the hen feel Claudit's fascination? Why did she stand there,
+stupidly motionless, fastened to the ground by the magnetism of that
+black eye? They say that hypnotized hens will drop of themselves into
+the fox's jaws. To quote Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and
+earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy."
+
+Curious as it may seem, Claudit was not the only one in our village to
+cultivate a fondness for poultry. From time immemorial housewives on all
+sides had complained of missing hens. Everyone blamed it on the tramps,
+who were never there to answer back. Claudit more than any other
+suffered from these thefts, and bewailed his losses at every street
+corner. His white hen gone, his black hen and his yellow hen gone, the
+thieves were cleaning him out--and the neighbours got Christian
+consolation in their misfortunes from the reflection that Claudit was
+even more cruelly hit than they.
+
+Claudit, as may be imagined, was on the lookout for marauders, but in
+vain. One day he saw one, but was unable to catch up with him. It was a
+bent old man, dragging along a bag, full of hens, no doubt. "A regular
+gray fox," muttered the wronged and indignant Claudit.
+
+The name stuck to the unknown. His description was given to the police,
+and a warning was sent out by the authorities, against the despoiler of
+farms, and chief of a band of marauders, known under the name of "Gray
+Fox."
+
+One day Claudit, on his way home from a heated battle with a stubborn
+lock, was crossing the village, when he stopped at sight of a crowd. An
+aged tramp, bent double under the weight of a coarse canvas bag, was
+struggling with the rural guard, who had found him lying asleep beside a
+ditch and was accusing him of all the vague crimes reported over the
+whole canton. The women had come running out of their houses, and each
+of them had some accusation to bring against the malefactor. One in
+particular was making an outcry:
+
+"My cuckoo hen was stolen this morning. He took it! Come, now, give me
+back my hen and go get yourself hanged elsewhere!"
+
+"Ah! So you stole a hen, did you?" exclaimed the rural guard. "I knew
+there was something wrong."
+
+Then addressing the crowd: "The bent old man with a bag is the 'Gray
+Fox,' isn't he? You are the 'Gray Fox,' aren't you? You may as well
+confess."
+
+It was here that Claudit arrived upon the scene, by good luck, for
+having once seen the thief, he could identify him better than any one
+else. Way was made for him, and the entire village, hanging on his lips,
+waited to hear what he would say.
+
+"_Pardine!_" said Claudit, scratching his ear, "I believe we've got him
+this time. Yes, yes, I recognize him. He is the 'Gray Fox.'"
+
+"Hoo--hoo! To prison with the Gray Fox!" howled the delirious crowd.
+
+"Give me back my cuckoo hen!" screamed the housewife.
+
+But the man, not in the least agitated, straightened up and said:
+
+"So I am the Gray Fox, am I? My word! You are too great fools! Often
+enough, from the other side of a hedge, I have seen him at work, your
+Gray Fox. I know him. Do you want me to show him to you?"
+
+And with a kick he overturned Claudit's basket, whence fell the dead
+body of the much-lamented cuckoo hen.
+
+The entire canton still echoes with this spectacular stroke. With blows
+and kicks the Gray Fox, the real one, was led back to his lair, and
+there, in a secret cellar, was discovered a collection of stolen hens,
+peacefully awaiting their turn to be cooked with accompaniment of
+cabbage. Everyone recognized his own hen, and everyone hastily seized
+it. Even Claudit's legitimate hens went by that road. But he was not the
+man to let himself be despoiled in silence.
+
+"You say these hens are yours!" he cried. "I know nothing about it. I am
+willing to give them to you. But I shall let nobody steal the hens that
+belong to me."
+
+And before a week had passed, Claudit had, by the power of speech, got
+back all his hens, with, it was said, a few of doubtful ownership into
+the bargain.
+
+To this insistence and its success he owed a return of public esteem.
+But when a lock thereafter required his attention he was emphatically
+bidden to leave his basket at home.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF MY CURÉ
+
+
+I have had no very consecutive relations with the _curé_ of my village.
+Many things stand between us. Our age, our occupations, our ideas. He
+follows one path, I another. Which does not prevent our occasionally
+meeting out in the country, or at the cross roads. We exchange greetings
+which vary according to the time of day; we occasionally talk of the
+weather, as it is, and as it should be to satisfy the peasants. In the
+crops we find yet another subject for a brief conversation. But we
+rarely venture beyond this circle of observations. His breviary claims
+him, and the finger marking the page of his interrupted reading is a
+delicate hint that the talk had best be brief. I have partridges to
+deliver, and must not linger, either. There is a slight awkwardness
+between us, even in saying good-bye. I am anxious not to say anything
+that may offend the simplicity of his faith, but I always fear one of
+those somewhat indiscreet suggestions which priests regard as part of
+their duty. On his side, it is evident that he dreads my so far
+forgetting myself as to make remarks which will oblige him to stand on
+the defensive. I cannot help seeing that I am an incomprehensible enigma
+to him, whereas his state of mind is not in the least puzzling to me.
+How can I explain this mystery to him, without cruelly wounding him? We
+therefore part, after a few conventional words, regretting the necessity
+to stop short on the verge of a conversation which tempts us both, and
+aware that we have something to say to each other which we shall never
+say. To his last day he will undoubtedly regard me as an agent of the
+Devil. And on my side I can only silently sympathize with his sorrow in
+the recesses of my mind.
+
+Abbé Mignot is a tall, robust, florid Burgundian, whose muscular frame
+seems better suited to field labour than to the unctuous gestures of the
+sacred ministry. The son of a vintner, he had begun life as a plowboy,
+when an aged singer, who had been a great sinner while she trod the
+boards of light opera in Paris, returned to her native village, there to
+acquire spiritual merit by good works, which the remuneration for vice
+out in the world enabled her to do. She reared altars, and munificently
+endowed them. She enriched the church with incomparable raiment. The
+pulpit praised the zeal of the excellent donor, who was earning Heaven
+by the virtues belonging to old age, and by preaching austerity to
+others.
+
+One day this saintly lady, in quest of redemption, met at the edge of
+the village a dishevelled boy who was subduing the fierceness of a
+young bullock by the aid of sounding oaths and a shower of blows. The
+picture seemed to her beautiful, even though the music was profane. She
+questioned the child, whose precocious adolescence called up distant
+memories connected with this same muddy, rustic setting, and being
+suddenly vouchsafed light from on high, she conceived the plan of
+redeeming her very earliest sin (which had led to so many others), by
+means of the young bullock driver who seemed to her on the brink of
+perdition. Providence, and not chance, had set on her path this
+innocence to be saved from imminent peril. What an admirable priest the
+youth would make, when properly scrubbed, with his great clear eyes, his
+blond curls, his laughing insolence of a conquering hero! So the sinner
+who had turned away so many souls from the path to Heaven would redeem
+the past forever by leaving behind her an authentic servant of God, to
+keep up the necessary expiatory work after her death.
+
+All would have been well had not the vintner hung mightily back. His son
+had cost him "a lot of money." He was just about to "bring him in
+something" now. This was not the time for sending him away.
+
+"If he goes," he said, "I shall have to hire a servant.... That costs a
+great deal, counting his food. I can't afford it."
+
+But the more obdurate the peasant was, the more obstinate became the
+devout lady in her resolve to accomplish the duty laid upon her by
+Heaven, as she declared. Negotiations were difficult, for Father Mignot
+had no liking for "skullcaps," as he called priests, and a double
+argument had to be used: one bag of money to repay him for his
+"pecuniary loss," and a second bag to allay the scruples of
+anticlericalism, aggravated by the circumstances. And this is what was
+called "The vocation of Arsène Mignot."
+
+More than twenty years later, Abbé Mignot came to us with the remnants
+of his family: a widowed sister and three nephews without means of
+support. As I am telling nothing but what is strictly true, I have to
+admit that he met with a chilly reception. The old _curé_, whom we had
+just lost, had had enough to do to guard his eighty years from the heat
+and the cold, and to quaver out his masses. Our peasants are not fond of
+being too closely questioned. When they saw this new man, still under
+forty, carrying his need for action into their very houses, breaking,
+from one day to the next, the happy-go-lucky traditions which had made
+his predecessor popular, they silently assumed the attitude of
+self-defence. But the _curé_, being a peasant, knew his peasants. When
+he discovered his mistake, he had the sense to change his course, and to
+win back the discontented, one by one, without noise or waste of words.
+
+And so, our village would have had no story, but for a hospital
+belonging to it, and standing in a hamlet two miles away. This hospital,
+privately endowed, was tended by four nuns of I know not what order.
+Disease, however, never marred the spot by its presence. Against the
+express wish of the founder, a school had been established in it, and
+any sick person coming to ask admission was told that his presence would
+be dangerous to the school children, upon which he obediently went to
+die elsewhere. Two elderly spinsters, who did the work of servants,
+figured in the Sisters' conversation as "our incurables." By this means
+they were entitled to retain the inscription on the wall, announcing
+that hospital care might there be obtained.
+
+Concerning the Sisters themselves there is nothing to say. They taught
+the catechism, sang off the key at mass, and made a great show of zeal
+toward the one they called "Mother." Their chief entertainment was
+luncheon at the _curé's_ on Sunday after church. A sweet dish and a
+little glass of Chartreuse crowned this extravagance. Then there would
+be much puerile chatter on topics drawn chiefly from the _Religious
+Weekly_. New recruits were proudly enumerated, eyes were rolled
+heavenward at talk of "apostates," and the latest miracles were related
+in minutest detail. A touch of politics occasionally spiced the heroic
+resolution to brave martyrdom. At parting, all were in a state of
+edification.
+
+The trouble was that Abbé Mignot, without income, had four mouths to
+feed. The cost of the luncheon could not be brought within the limits of
+his budget. He made a frank confession of this to the "Mother," who
+answered haughtily that privation was the luxury of her estate, and that
+the Sisters would uncomplainingly return to sharing the "bread of the
+sick," at the hospital. Her words came true, for the very next week
+there was a patient at the hospital: the "Mother" herself, whom an
+attack of erysipelas carried off in three days. The school had to be
+dismissed and everything scientifically disinfected, before the scholars
+could return. This duty fell upon the new Mother, a charming young nun,
+whose beautiful eyes, gentle speech, and affable manners, created a
+sensation in the countryside.
+
+Mother Rosalie was gifted with a beautiful soprano voice, which proved
+to be a source of divine refreshment to Abbé Mignot, who was fond of
+playing the organ. There can be no music without work. Work at their
+music threw the Mother and the _curé_ together. And as one study leads
+to another, the visits of Mother Rosalie to Abbé Mignot came to be
+fairly frequent. Presently there was gossip, and after a time what had
+at first been a playful buzzing became rumblings of scandal. Is it
+credible? The first threat of a storm came from the three Sisters at the
+hospital. These old maids, who had until that moment been totally
+insignificant, felt surging in them, of a sudden, an irrepressible wave
+of spleen, intensified and again intensified by the acid of celibacy.
+Although touched in a sensitive spot by the discontinuance of luncheon
+at the rectory on Sundays, sole amusement of their lives, they had made
+no sign. But the moment their one-time host laid himself open to
+criticism, the hurricane burst, and the flood of heinous words came
+beating against the very walls of the sacred edifice.
+
+Nothing can be hidden in a village. Life is carried on in broad
+daylight. The ditches, the stones, the bushes have eyes. Everyone knew
+very well that Abbé Mignot and "the pretty Mother," as she was currently
+called, had never met anywhere but in the church, the door of which was
+open to all. The pealing of the organ and the pure voice rising to the
+rafters ought, it would seem, to have counteracted the poison of
+malevolent insinuations.
+
+"Certainly," said the peasants, "they are doing no harm, _as long as
+they keep on singing_!"
+
+Occasionally, when the organ was silent, Mother Rosalie knelt in the
+confessional. Busybodies, stationed behind pillars, considered that she
+remained there too long, and that she confessed oftener than necessary.
+This was all that any one could find to say against them. I did my best
+to defend them, when occasion arose, but the only effect of my pleading,
+I fear, was to give more importance to the spiteful words.
+
+Meanwhile, Abbé Mignot and Mother Rosalie continued happy in their music
+and their friendship. I never knew Mother Rosalie, and will not invent a
+psychology for her. We exchanged a few words on several occasions, and I
+received the impression of a remarkably refined nature. Whatever I might
+say beyond this would be drawn from my imagination. With regard to the
+Abbé, the reader is as well qualified to judge him as I. Bound over to
+continence by an adept in the reverse, he resigned himself to inevitable
+fate, the cruelty of which he had recognized when it was too late.
+Heaven, chance, or destiny had thrown a friendly soul in his path, a
+prisoner of the same destiny. He surrendered to the delight of the
+association, happy to come out of himself, to give a little of his life,
+to receive something of a human life in return, and to feel his pleasure
+shared. They did not conceal themselves, having nothing to conceal. This
+seemed to them a safeguard, under the eyes of their brothers in
+humanity.
+
+The "scandal" lasted three months. One fine day, without warning, an
+elderly, hunchbacked Sister descended from the coach, and having entered
+the hospital, exhibited, along with her titles as the new "Mother," the
+order to "Sister Rosalie" to return _within the hour_ to the convent.
+Sister Rosalie bowed her head in submission, asked whether time would be
+allowed her for one leave-taking, and upon receiving a negative answer,
+retired to her chamber, "to pray and to obey." She came out with
+faltering steps, and departed never to return.
+
+The following day was Sunday. The event had been kept secret for the
+sake of a more dramatic climax. When the priest, coming before the
+altar, met the shock of the sardonic joy twisting the lips of the
+hunchbacked Mother and her three acolytes in the charity of the Lord, he
+fell a step backward, as if mocked by Satan himself. Pale, shaken, he
+was unable to restrain the trembling of his lips. The thunderbolt had
+struck. In the anguish of death he retained the appearance of life, and
+must play the part of a living man. By an heroic effort he regained self
+command. Violently the _Introit_ rang out, as if from depths beyond the
+grave, and in it were mingled the tragedy of the man and of the God.
+
+There was but one word at the end of mass:
+
+"_Monsieur le curé_ made the pretty Mother sing too much. She has gone
+away to rest."
+
+Last month I met Abbé Mignot out among the rocks of Deux Fontaines. He
+sat with knitted brows at the foot of a bush, and nervously turned the
+pages of his breviary. He was evidently making a desperate effort to
+fasten down his wandering attention. He did not notice me, and had not
+my dog run up to him, I should have turned and walked away, to avoid
+disturbing him in his lonely struggle. When he saw me he rose, afraid of
+having been caught betraying something of himself. I held out my hand
+in friendship, and this time I would gladly have stopped for a talk had
+I not seemed to read in his eyes an entreaty to pass on without
+speaking. I obeyed the silent appeal. But yielding to an obscure need--
+
+"_Monsieur le curé_," I said, "you ought to be careful. There are snakes
+among those stones. You must have been warned before?"
+
+"Yes, I know," he answered in a muffled voice. "This place is infested
+with vipers--most pernicious beasts, _Monsieur_. I hope that on your
+side you will be able to guard against them."
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+MASTER BAPTIST, JUDGE
+
+
+What kind of justice did Saint Louis dispense under his oak tree?
+History does not tell us that he was a doctor of law. Everything leads
+us to suppose that he owed extremely little if anything at all to
+Papinian, Ulpian, or Tribonian. He was, of course, a Saint, and those
+among us chosen by Providence to make Its Supreme Will known receive
+appropriate inspiration from on high. King Solomon, like other Asiatic
+kings, who are by their people regarded as mouthpieces of divine wisdom,
+consulted no text when he spoke the famous judgment upon which his glory
+still rests.
+
+Jews or Christians, the ancient leaders of the people judged in equity,
+and without too great difficulty arrived at an approximate justice,
+superior to the "judgments of God," which had too often what looked like
+the iniquitous unfairness of chance. Codes, by their inflexible rules
+applied to every case, have overthrown the ancient order, under which an
+arbitrary procedure fitted the law to each individual transgression.
+Laws and judges have since become more flexible, they would otherwise be
+intolerable, but they are still too rigid to bend felicitously to the
+modifications by which natural right might be promoted. In addition to
+which, gratuitous "justice" not infrequently ruins the person seeking
+it.
+
+For all these reasons--fear of the law, which pounces upon poor people
+they know not whence, fear of the hardened judge who refers the case to
+his learning rather than to his conscience--our peasants in Western
+France with difficulty make up their minds to set in motion the
+so-called "protective" machinery of the law. Even the settlement of a
+dispute before a justice of the peace seems an extreme measure, and they
+have recourse to it only under great stress, which is a matter for
+rejoicing, for such is the "social order," that without this fortunate
+tendency, mankind, being entirely composed of people who complain, or
+have reason to complain, law courts would need to be made big enough to
+accommodate the entire human race.
+
+In the country, sources of disagreement abound. The limb of a tree
+stretching beyond a fixed boundary, a vagrant root, a fruit dropping on
+the wrong side of a hedge, the use of a stream, a right of way, may
+bring up interpretations of customs giving to conflicting interests
+occasion for dispute. Before coming to the last expedient of going to
+law, quarrels, insults, and blows perform their office of preparing the
+way for reconciliation, which eventually results from nervous or
+muscular exhaustion. A good hand-to-hand fight would constitute a
+"judgment of God" not without its merits, but for the temptation to
+"appeal" by nocturnal reprisals on innocent crops.
+
+All that might take one very far. Which is the reason why we often find
+in country districts certain natural-born arbiters, who bear the same
+relation to judges that sorcerers do to doctors. The judge is the
+Hippocrates of social maladies, even as the physician is the judge of
+physiological disorders. The power to judge and the power to heal are
+acquired by some mysterious method concerning which rustic clients and
+patients have very misty notions. Judge and physician often make
+mistakes, and these create in men's minds a dismay greater than the
+comfort induced by their most authentic successes.
+
+Is even learning absolutely necessary to make one competent to judge and
+to heal? In olden days this ability was a gift from heaven, a matter
+exclusively of divine inspiration, which invested a man with the
+requisite faculties. Why should it no longer be the same? The peasant's
+slow wit still clings to the old conceptions and retains the imprint of
+past beliefs. He therefore prefers the wizard to the doctor, whom
+science has stripped of the prestige of mysteriousness. In the same way,
+he prefers--rather than to seek advice from competent sources--to
+consult concerning his rights, or the conduct of his affairs, one of his
+own sort, totally ignorant, and playing the part of doctor of law from
+inspiration.
+
+I once knew, long, long ago, alas, one of these improvised Solomons,
+whose reputation for legal knowledge had spread from parish to parish
+over a considerable area of the Woodland of the Vendée. Baptist Merian,
+better known by the name of Master Baptist, was a peasant of uncouth
+appearance, who personally looked after the property apportioned to him
+by heaven and the inheritance laws. He was a big fellow whose
+once-powerful muscles were becoming overlaid with fat as he neared his
+seventieth year, the period when I first happened upon him in the
+exercise of his functions. His purplish, pockmarked face very nearly
+concealed in its fleshy folds two small gray eyes which pierced an
+interlocutor directly through. He had a voice of thunder, and the
+gestures of a thunderer. He had the imposing utterance of one passing
+absolute judgments on men and things. He was like Zeus whose frown shook
+Olympus, when he gave orders to take the mare to pasture or harness the
+oxen to the plough. And yet he was at bottom a timorous spirit, very
+attentive to the suggestions of prudence, and careful never to push any
+matter to a violent issue.
+
+His adversary, whoever contradicted him, was generally called a
+"blockhead," and when Master Baptist had thus pronounced himself nothing
+remained for the sentenced one but to bow his head in silence, which was
+what all around him were in the habit of doing. No one could have told
+whence he derived his legal authority. He made no claim to anything so
+contemptible as a knowledge of the law, for he could scarcely read, and
+with difficulty could sign his name. He was none too pleasant a
+neighbour, and had on various occasions started lawsuits which he had
+wisely brought to a close by a more or less advantageous settlement,
+giving as his reason that the judge in his opinion was a "blockhead."
+The consideration he enjoyed was not lessened by this, for he continued
+to speak of his litigations as if he had won his cases; it was even
+noticeable that the magistrate who had earned that unpleasant epithet
+from his client lost, to a certain extent, the respect in which the
+community had held him.
+
+Master Baptist was not one of those geniuses who need to blow their
+horn. Respectful of everybody's right to manage his own affairs, he
+never ventured to offer advice to any one. At the most, if he saw a
+field which did not carry out his idea of a proper rotation of crops, or
+a field badly fenced, or an animal in poor condition, he would express
+his view that the owner was a "blockhead," and public opinion could do
+nothing but record the condemnation, from which there was no appeal. Far
+from protesting against Master Baptist's uniform verdicts, people would
+at the least disagreement, the first difficulty, come running to him to
+explain their case, inquire what their chances were of success, and
+often beg him to arbitrate.
+
+With great dignity, with benevolence, even, he would receive these
+visitors--if it were winter, by the hearth in the kitchen, which is the
+countryman's parlour; if warm weather, by the house door, a few feet
+from the black drain into which the sink emptied the odoriferous extract
+of culinary operations. Comfortably seated in a quaint semicircular
+armchair, the wool-stuffed cushion of which was covered with ticking, he
+would listen to the men who had come to consult him and who remained
+standing, cap in hand, while they told their interminable and tangled
+stories. When they stopped for lack of breath, Master Baptist would ask
+questions, which usually called forth prolix replies. Finally he would
+speak:
+
+"Peter, it is you who are the blockhead." And Peter would have no choice
+but to submit to John. Both would then pull their blue caps over their
+ears and sit down for a glass of white wine, which by a reversal of
+ancient custom constituted the fee of judge to litigants. Often they
+came from a great distance to find out which was the blockhead, and
+having found out, departed content, glad to have ended the quarrel
+without assistance from the omniscient bench.
+
+It was something of an undertaking at that time to reach the
+out-of-the-way hamlet where Master Baptist uttered his oracles. Now,
+country roads connect "The Pines" with the rest of the world. I used to
+reach it in those days by way of the rocky ridge stretching for two
+miles between Mouilleron-en-Pareds and La Chataignerie. "The Rocks," as
+the ridge is locally called, form the last buttress of the Woodland
+hills. From the top a vast wooded stretch is visible, every field being
+enclosed by a belt of tall trees. The rocks themselves are covered with
+gorse and furze, and giant chestnut trees, twisted and gnarled by old
+storms. Suddenly the rocks part, and in the hollow they reveal lie
+meadows enlivened by the song of running water. There humble huts group
+themselves in hamlets, concealed by the high trees. "The Pines," Master
+Baptist's domain, was doubtless distinguished in former days by the
+presence of a pine tree. The tree disappeared under the axe of time. But
+a cluster of houses remains, sheltered from the world by the high
+rampart of "The Rocks."
+
+One day, as I was hunting in that neighbourhood, I suddenly from my
+hill-top perceived the roofs of "The Pines," before anything had
+betrayed the fact that a human habitation was at hand. The strangeness
+of the place, as a place to live in, aroused my curiosity. I had met
+Master Baptist at Mouilleron. The occasion seemed propitious for a
+renewal of the acquaintance. I entered a courtyard littered with manure,
+and there, behind a yoke of oxen drinking at a trough, I discovered the
+master of the house, seated in his dooryard, surrounded by his poultry,
+and busy as usual dealing justice.
+
+It was vacation time. Baptist's son, a law student at Poitiers and a
+prospective notary, was cheerfully loading dung into a cart (no one
+dreamed of calling upon him for enlightenment), while the unlettered
+father learnedly dispensed the law. In front of the solemn arbitrator,
+and at a respectful distance from him, a man stood waiting open mouthed
+for the solicited verdict. With a kindly wave of the hand, Master
+Baptist motioned to me to wait until the audience should be closed. I
+therefore remained where I was, and watched the plaintiff--a big,
+gray-headed fellow who was mechanically twisting between his hands the
+greasy crown of a brimless hat.
+
+"You are sure that all you have told me is true?" Master Baptist was
+saying, and I could see that he was inclined to apply his epithet of
+"blockhead" to the absent party in the dispute.
+
+"I have told you everything just as it is," answered the other.
+
+"Then you may tell Michael that he is a blockhead. Be sure you tell him
+so, will you?"
+
+"Yes, Master Baptist, I will tell him this very evening. But what if he
+says it isn't so?"
+
+"If he answers that it isn't so, no later than to-morrow you will have
+notice served on him."
+
+The idea of sending his adversary a stamped document seemed to fill the
+plaintiff with keen joy.
+
+"I surely will serve notice on him!" he gleefully exclaimed.
+
+Then, scratching his head: "But suppose he won't have notice served on
+him, what then?"
+
+At these words Master Baptist rose on a gust of excitement. I am not
+aware what his idea was of a man "who will not have notice served on
+him." But the case manifestly appeared to him out of all measure
+horrific. An agonized silence followed. Then the storm burst.
+
+"If he refuses to have notice served on him," thundered Master Baptist,
+"you may take your two hoofs and give him a couple of swift kicks in the
+shins."
+
+Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. The point of law was solved. The
+plaintiff, his spirit forever at rest, vigorously fell upon his judge's
+hand and pressed it, along with what was left of his hat.
+
+"That's it! That's it! My two hoofs--I will not fail!"
+
+As for me, I was filled with admiration at the point chosen for giving
+full force to the arguments of jurisprudence--the part of the leg where,
+just under the skin, the tibia presents a collection of nervous fibres
+which a nimble wooden shoe can crush against the bone, is certainly a
+well-chosen spot, and calculated to give effectiveness to the energy of
+the opposing party.
+
+The white wine was brought. The student of law left his dung heap to
+come and clink glasses.
+
+"All the same," said the good client, dropping into his chair, "I should
+like to know a question for which Master Baptist would have no answer."
+
+"Oh, well," replied the judge, modestly, "one sees so many things. That
+is how one learns."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE BULLFINCH AND THE MAKER OF WOODEN SHOES
+
+
+In connection with the scandalous conduct of a lady pigeon I shall
+presently speak of comparative psychology in the world of animals. The
+capacity of animals for emotion and sentiment is naturally the first
+psychic phenomenon presenting itself to the observer. Their manner of
+expressing the sensations received from the exterior world, and the
+impulses resulting from those sensations constitute what may without
+derision be called the moral life of animals, leading, just as it does
+in the case of man, to the best adjustment possible between the
+individual organism and surrounding conditions.
+
+Many good people will doubtless be distressed by the idea that morality,
+in which they take such pride, though not always preaching it by
+example, instead of falling from heaven in the form of indisputable
+commands, has its roots far down in the animate hierarchy. If they were
+willing to reflect, they would be able to understand that undeniable
+analogies of organism involve a corresponding analogy of function.
+Nothing further is necessary to show the high significance of a study
+of comparative sentimentality and the morality illustrating it,
+determined by the organism that the great mass of living creatures have
+in common. The amusing side of the thing is that the majority of those
+who will cry out against this statement will in the same breath speak of
+the "intelligence" of animals, and will quote some story about a dog or
+cat or elephant, without suspecting that their very manner of presenting
+the problem solves the question of its principle, and leaves them with
+the sole resource of rebelling against the consequences of that
+principle.
+
+But it is not my intention to speak, as the reader may be thinking, of
+Montargis' dog, or any other animal known to history, for the
+astonishing proofs of sagacity he may have given. As I mean to relate a
+very simple but authentic story of brotherly love between a bullfinch
+and a maker of wooden shoes, my subject is more particularly the
+exchange of sentiments between two species of animal, a phenomenon in
+which the kinship of souls is very clearly demonstrated.
+
+It is common enough for man to give affection to the animals that
+surround him, an affection generally proportioned to the service he
+expects of them. Disinterestedness is rarely coupled with power.
+
+Man having made himself the strongest of living creatures, annexes and
+subordinates such animals as he needs for the satisfaction of his wants.
+The hunter loves his dog, but if the latter fails to retrieve, what
+harsh words are showered on him, to say nothing of blows, the danger of
+which perpetually hangs over a dog. Friendship between man and man is
+all too often based upon arrangements in some way profitable to both. Is
+it surprising, then, if an analysis of the affections of the more
+elementary orders of the living hierarchy explains the condescension of
+the strong for the defenceless weak by attributing it to self-interest?
+And may not the devotion of the weak to the strong arise partly from a
+need for protection? But self-interest does not account for
+everything--whatever utilitarian philosophy may say.
+
+I once knew a cock whose favourite haunt was the back of a Percheron
+mare in the stable. It may be that the bird's greed relieved the
+quadruped of certain irritating parasites. But why did the cock never
+turn to any other than his special friend, the mare? And why would any
+other fowl have been swiftly shaken off her back? The two animals "took
+to each other," that is all one can say. You should have seen the mare
+look over her shoulder with beatific eyes when her cock appeared, and
+seen him stand on her complaisant rump, flapping his wings and crowing
+triumphantly.
+
+I say nothing of the animals in our menageries, who are trained to
+tolerate one another for the astonishment of the idle spectator. They
+exemplify a distortion of nature. But we see daily very strong
+attachments between cats and dogs, who are natural enemies. Is the dog,
+whom we accuse of servility for licking the hand of the master who beats
+him, above or beneath the dignity of friendship? He is certainly not
+moved by cowardice, for he will hurl himself against anyone attacking
+that same brutal man of whom he might justly complain. Is it, then, that
+the forgiveness preached by the Gospel is easier for him than for us?
+Are dogs more "Christian" than men? That would make obvious the reason
+why men often misinterpret dogs.
+
+We cannot deny that signs of altruism, born principally of love,
+manifest themselves on all sides in the animal world. The defence of the
+young is the commonest instance of it. The courtship of the male is also
+marked by exhibitions of generosity, even as it is on the Boulevard.
+When a cock finds a worm, does he not summon his entire harem, and
+magnificently toss the savoury morsel to them?
+
+The bullfinch and the maker of wooden shoes who loved each other
+tenderly had no remotest expectation of reward beside the pleasure of
+living and telling their love, each in his own language at first, and
+later, each, as far as he could, in the language of the other. I have
+forgotten the shoemaker's name, but I could go blindfold to his house on
+the main street of the village in the Vendée where I used yearly to
+spend a happy month of vacation. I can see his white sign board with a
+magnificent yellow wooden shoe agreeably surrounded by decorative
+additions. I can see the little door with glass panes, giving access to
+the shop, hardly larger than a wardrobe, where rows of wooden shoes hung
+from the ceiling, were hooked to the walls, littered the floor, and even
+overran into the street.
+
+The little court behind the shop has remained particularly vivid in my
+memory. That was the workshop. There, with both hands clasped around the
+tool that flung chips into his face, the artist would miraculously draw
+from a block of wood braced against his chest the form of a wooden shoe.
+Julius II, watching the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel as they sprang
+from Michael Angelo's brush, could not have been more impressed than was
+my youth before the prodigies performed by the shoemaker.
+
+He, for the increase of my pleasure, seemed to share it; he accompanied
+the manoeuvres of his adze with commentaries calculated to drive well
+into my soul the particular merits of his work. He was a poor, pale,
+thin, fragile being, himself carved down as if by an adze, rubbed flat
+and hollowed out by sickness. Folds of white skin below his hairless
+chin trembled when he moved. His eyes were of no colour. He had a nasal,
+far-away voice, like that of a consumptive ventriloquist. I never knew
+anything about him. I do not believe he had any family--I never saw a
+petticoat that seemed to belong in the house. All day long he worked at
+his wooden shoes without a word, perhaps without a thought, happy in his
+little friend the bullfinch on whom were centred all the emotions of his
+existence.
+
+Although I have forgotten the man's name, I remember the bullfinch's. It
+was Mignon. There was nothing to make him look different from the rest
+of his kind. As you entered the shop, you saw against the wall a large
+cage decorated with rude carvings, on which the shoemaker had lavished
+all the fancy of his art. In this, hopping from one wooden bar to the
+other, was a little bright red ball with a black head, lighted by two
+jet-black eyes gleaming with intelligence. The tiny hooked beak
+retreating into the throat did not appear fashioned for conversation,
+yet if during the shoemaker's absence you crossed the threshold, a
+muffled voice, which seemed to issue from the depths of the walls,
+greeted you with a cry, repeated over and over: "Someone in the shop,
+someone in the shop," etc., etc. By the smothered quality, the nasal
+tone, you recognized the master's voice. But it was not he who spoke,
+for you could see him coming from the courtyard with his mouth shut,
+while the sentinel's warning continued. It was the bullfinch, who with
+unfailing vigilance stood guard over the rows of wooden shoes.
+
+For Mignon talked like a "real person," with a dainty articulation much
+clearer than that of the most accomplished parrot. The shoemaker had, I
+suppose, taken him from the nest, and taught him from tenderest infancy.
+In close association with, and under the suggestion of, a mentality
+which spared no pains in the education of a friend, the bird had by a
+loving effort raised himself to the level of the man who had lagged
+behind in the evolution of his own race. They had met on the same plane,
+and both having capacity for affection had seized upon each other with
+atomic grapnels better than they might have done had both been human.
+
+To please his friend, Mignon had accepted articulate speech as a means
+of communication, for, needless to say, his vocabulary was not limited
+to the sentry challenge: "Who goes there?" but grew daily more
+extensive. On the other side, which was no less remarkable, the human
+teacher had let himself be taught the fluty language of his woodland
+friend. When the shoemaker wished to convey something to his feathered
+comrade, he would break forth in "twee-twees," accompanied by a sort of
+hoarse, throaty trill whose slightest inflection is comprehensible to
+all the bullfinches in the world. They had thus two languages at their
+disposal from which each could draw according to the inspiration of the
+moment. A strange dialogue, in which it was often the man who said
+"twee-twee," while the bird answered with dictionary words.
+
+The door of the cage always stood open. But Mignon loved the peace of
+his home. In his natural state the bullfinch prefers the most secluded
+and silent spot in the forest. His character is both trusting and
+contemplative. I remember once finding a nest of bullfinches in an
+ancient oak. The father and mother could not believe that I was an
+enemy. They perched on a bough at hardly more than a yard's distance
+from me, without a flutter or a note of alarm, as if to give me time and
+opportunity to admire their little ones. They made no sound until my
+departure, when, as if to do the honours of the thicket, they uttered
+farewell "twee-twees." As he was afraid of cats and dogs, Mignon never
+went into the street. The shop and the courtyard were his whole domain,
+with the cage for meals and meditation.
+
+In the courtyard, among the reddish alder logs, Mignon would come and go
+with evident enjoyment, scratching the wood to whet his beak, or
+searching it for dainty bits. I can still see those splendid shafts,
+golden yellow, marbled with sanguine red, on which the bird would
+sometimes stand motionless, swelling his copper-coloured throat, or at
+other times hop and flutter and cheep and softly twitter, to win a
+glance or a silent smile from his friend. Then he would fly straight to
+the shoemaker's shoulder and peck his face and say: "Good morning, my
+friend, I love you, indeed I do. Have you slept well?" The answer to
+which would be given in human "twee-twees," until the neglected wooden
+shoe recalled the forgetful workman to his duty.
+
+Best of all was the song and dance.
+
+"Come now, Mignon, dance the polka for your friend."
+
+Mignon would stretch himself proudly to his full height, uttering three
+rhythmic "twee-twees," and hop from one foot to the other, keeping
+perfect time. He seemed to enjoy himself hugely, and the shoemaker, who
+supplemented the music by an exact imitation of it, expressed boundless
+delight by the contortions of his colourless face.
+
+A childish amusement, some will say. Yet what is more important than
+loving? And if we love, what matters the way of expressing a deep mutual
+tenderness? The shoemaker did not exhibit his friend's accomplishments
+to the casual or the indifferent. The desire to "show off" was foreign
+to these two. They simply lived for each other, and their intimacy
+behind closed doors, far from jealous eyes, must have had exquisite
+sweetness.
+
+I am aware that there should be some effective ending to my story. The
+truth is that I know nothing beyond what I have told. The maker of
+wooden shoes and the bullfinch have remained very much alive in my
+memory--the end of the episode has escaped it. Did I go there one day
+and not find them? Or is it not more likely that I ceased to go there?
+It was all so long ago!
+
+I am certain that whichever of them went first was not long survived by
+the other. At least, I like to think so, for if the shoemaker had
+replaced Mignon by another bullfinch, or if Mignon had found it in his
+heart to dance the polka for Brossard, the nailer, who used to make such
+a racket on the other side of the street, I should lose a supreme
+illusion concerning the heart of man and bird. If we lose our faith in
+man, whom experience may lead us to suspect of selfishness, let us
+retain our respectful esteem for animals.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+ABOUT NESTS
+
+
+Children are always interested in nests--thrilled by the mystery of
+them, filled with admiring wonder at the cunning of the little feathered
+creature in concealing its brood from the enemy, whether it be man or
+hawk, crow or magpie. The impulse to appropriate any living thing (an
+instinct inherited from his carnivorous ancestors), indeed, a whole
+collection of irresistible impulses direct the murderous sporting
+instinct of the future lord of creation toward the delicate feathery
+structure. Sympathy is as yet non-existent in the child man, for he has
+never suffered. He is carried away by delight in the unknown, his eyes
+widen with wonder, his hands reach out, and at the first touch
+irretrievable harm is done.
+
+But no sooner has the nest been torn from the branch, and no sooner are
+the little ones, hideous in their grotesque nudity, scattered on the
+ground, than he is filled with dismay, like the school boy with all the
+parts of his watch spread on the table before him. Having looked at
+everything, analyzed it, touched it, he could go his way with a light
+heart if only he were able to fit the pieces together again, and
+reconstruct a whole. But it is too late. Our first impulse is a
+death-dealing one. A sense of the uselessness of destruction is
+necessary to awaken pity in us for whatever has life. I have sometimes
+seen those very school boys who massacre birds for fun, go back, ashamed
+of the stupid wrong committed, and awkwardly try to put the nest in its
+place, with the little ones in it, then go away, looking over their
+shoulder to witness the gratitude due to them from the despairing family
+for their generous effort. On the following day the boys return to look,
+and find a graveyard.
+
+Many birds forsake their progeny at the least break in the usual course
+of things. Unaccountable panic seizes them, abruptly quenching the
+overmastering love that before had governed the activities of the pair.
+If you merely touch a young pigeon, the parents will from that moment
+onward hear his clamour for food with indifference--they will let him
+starve, while the drama of rearing new young dimly takes shape in their
+mysterious minds. Other more courageous birds will fight to the end
+without yielding, they will fly into snares in the attempt to reach
+their brood, they will come daily to feed their young in the cage, and
+if a strange egg has been introduced into their nest, whether by the
+hand of man or the cunning of the cuckoo, they will make no difference
+between the bastard and their legitimate offspring.
+
+I have witnessed some fierce battles, notably that of a pair of warblers
+against a magpie, who, undeterred by the stones I was throwing, managed
+in less than five minutes to remove from their nest into her own, as a
+treat for her young magpies, all the little warblers just full-fed with
+succulent insects. Whither turn for help against the rivalry of
+appetites organized by Providence? "The reason of the strongest is
+always the best," sadly observes the poet philosopher. A sorrowful
+avowal, that, which leaves us, for sole comfort, the hypothetical
+felicity of another world. But what could be more unjust than to exclude
+from a celestial paradise these secondary creatures, victims of our
+common fate, who in the beginning possessed the earthly paradise, and
+were driven from it in the company of our erring ancestors, without
+having followed their sinful example?
+
+Until the order of things changes, all that the weak can do is to cry
+out their protest, their vain appeal to universal justice, which, deaf,
+insensible, and paralyzed, sits in mute contemplation of the disorder
+composing the order of the world.
+
+Man, the supreme arbiter of the destinies of his inferiors, has
+arrogated all rights. The child who lets a bird flutter at the end of a
+string only to jerk it to the ground when the poor creature finally
+thought itself free, lives in his own person the evolution from the
+frank cruelty of the savage to the decent hypocrisies of civilized
+barbarism. Man is, indeed, the first one whom animals learn to guard
+against. Wherever there are no men, or few, birds are among the first to
+become fearless. I have seen nests built in wide recesses and fully
+exposed to view, amid the desert ruins of the citadel of Corinth.
+
+Better still, I once knew--it is now more than fifty years ago--a
+wonderful garden, in part cultivated, in part allowed to follow the
+fancies of vegetation running wild, where two old people, of beloved
+memory, used to walk and take their last pleasures as life neared its
+close. A large, typically French garden, with symmetrical flower beds
+bordered with box. A long arbour formed a wall at the farther side, and
+had at each end a circular bower, bright in springtime with the rosy
+blaze of Judas trees. In the centre was a fountain covered by a high
+white dome upheld by three slender Ionic columns, delicately mottled
+with rose-coloured lichens. At the summit of the dome the sculptor had
+carved a vase of formal shape, from which sprang a sheaf of flowers that
+took from the mosses overgrowing it an appearance of life. Under the
+arch was a bird with spread wings, bearing the motto of the former
+masters of the domain, whose name you will find in Hozier: "Altiora
+contendimus omnes." The monument dated from the end of the 16th century.
+Its remains, scattered in "artistic ruins," now decorate an ornamental
+grove.
+
+Never was a spot less disturbed by the activities of the world, nowhere
+was solitude more calculated to win man from his fellows and leave him
+to the companionship of trees and animals. Beyond the arbour lay a
+meadow, a brook, woods. No human habitation anywhere near. Peace--the
+great peace of nature. Sheltered by the high wall, animals lived happy
+and unafraid of man, from whom they received only kindness. I can
+remember goldfinch nests among the rose bushes within reach of my hand.
+I was early taught to touch them only with my eyes.
+
+In her very bedroom, the lady of the manor gave shelter to swallows.
+Traces of nests may still be seen on the great rafters of the ceiling.
+In spring, one day at dawn, the travellers, arriving from their great
+journey, would come tapping with beak and claw at the high windows. The
+aged dame would immediately rise and let in her friends. Greetings would
+ensue--enthusiastic greetings after the long separation. Three or four
+birds, sometimes half a dozen, would wheel about the vast chamber, with
+little sharp cries expressing joy in their return and their hospitable
+reception. They perched on the great wardrobes, and twittered for
+happiness, their little ruby throats swelling below their black hoods.
+All day long they came and went. Soon, one might see a swallow drop on
+to the water of a trench, and rest there with wings outspread, then rise
+into the air, and gather on her wet feathers the dust of earth needed to
+make mortar for her nest. Then began the work of masonry. The
+basket-shaped wall rose quickly, formed of thin layers of clay, one
+above another, and as soon as the nest was finished, an indentation
+fashioned in the edge by the dainty black beak informed one that the
+laying of eggs had begun.
+
+Three or four nests among the rafters became in time a whole aviary, for
+the young birds, returning the following year, often selected their
+birthplace as a home. There they reared their family. At first peep of
+dawn, the father from outside and the mother from inside begged to have
+the window opened. They met each other with expressions of delight and
+flew skyward in quest of the supply of insects imperiously demanded by
+the noisy and hungry nestlings. As soon as the successful hunter
+appeared, and before he could fairly get his claws into the earthen
+parapet, six gaping throats were outstretched to catch the prey. This
+business filled the day. A newspaper, spread on the floor, received all
+incongruous happenings. In the evening, when the lamp was lighted, we
+were sometimes startled by a sudden outburst of quarrelling up among the
+rafters. It might be that a small bird was out of his customary place,
+and was beginning his apprenticeship in life by defending his rights,
+as well as he could, against the selfish infringements of an
+enterprising brother. A muffled call from the mother stilled the tumult,
+and fear of punishment brought the children back to moderation, or
+perhaps resignation. And then autumn took on the sharpness of winter,
+and all the swallows, assembled on the summit of a neighbouring elm,
+held a great council of departure. They talked the whole day. But their
+discussion, unlike ours, was a preface to action. They started before
+sunrise of the day after. Sadly their old friend bade them farewell:
+"Go, my dear ones, you intend to come back, but the time is not far when
+I shall no longer be here to open the window at your home coming!" The
+swallows still return. But for a long time, a very long time, the window
+has not been opened.
+
+Alas! the loveliest part of the setting has likewise disappeared. The
+white dome of the fountain, with its rosy colonnade, has been broken up,
+and replaced by a hideous rockery in the style of Chatou. The seemly
+classic rectangular flower beds, with their severe arrangement, have
+made room for a wide lawn dotted with artistic plots of shrubbery. The
+long arbour and the Judas trees have blazed in the fireplace on winter
+evenings. But, near or far, imagination can restore them. I find myself
+walking through twisted underbrush to spy upon domestic scenes in nests.
+I have retained a particularly vivid memory of the tragedy which
+revealed to me for the first time the distressing vicissitudes of the
+struggle for life.
+
+At the foot of the long arbour lay a dying birdling. He had as yet no
+feathers, but a thin black down covered his bluish skin now painfully
+heaving with the last spasms of agony. My first motion was to climb in
+search of the nest from which the victim had fallen. I had not mounted a
+yard from the ground before I found a little dead body similar to the
+one I had just seen, and while I peered upward into the shadow, what
+should tumble on to my head but a third member of the same brood. I
+finally distinguished the nest, and soon little, stifled cries warned me
+of something going on in it. I bent to one side, to get a better view,
+and discovered in the midst of the down-lined dwelling a great grayish
+black bird surrounded by three wretched wee ones who had not as yet been
+tossed into the abyss, but who were rendered miserably uncomfortable by
+the inordinate growth of their big brother.
+
+A cuckoo had deposited her egg there, and the parents, stupidly
+deceived, lavishing the same care upon the intruder as upon their own
+young, had succeeded only in absurdly favouring the strongest.
+Meanwhile, he had grown to twice or thrice the size of his "brothers,"
+and without, presumably, seeking any satisfaction but his "liberty," as
+the economists put it, he was taking up the room of others, for the sole
+reason that the development of his organs required it.
+
+Like all young birds, the baby cuckoo automatically flapped his wings,
+to exercise his joints. In a normal nest, this movement of each inmate
+is limited and regulated by the same movement on the part of the others.
+But here, too great strength was in conflict with too great weakness,
+and the cuckoo's thick, stumpy wings, on which feathers were already
+appearing, spread to the very edge of the nest, lifting the feeble
+little ones on to the monster's back, whence a shake flung them
+overboard. The crime occurred even while I watched. The worst of it was
+seeing the stupid parents, in spite of all, diligently feeding the
+infamous fratricide. Careless of the lamentations of their own children,
+they could see in the nest only the huge hollow of a voracious beak,
+which gobbled whatever they brought, notwithstanding the timid efforts
+of the competitors, doomed beforehand to defeat. And so the
+disproportion in growth augmented daily, the one taking everything, and
+the others condemned to watch him helplessly. The social question is
+repeated in every thicket on earth!
+
+_For the principle of the thing_, I replaced two little birds in the
+nest. They were promptly hurled to the ground. Next day, the whole crime
+was accomplished, and the false father and the false mother were still
+idiotically wearing themselves out to nourish their children's murderer.
+What to do about it? How many human stories there are, in the likeness
+of that incident! One cannot even justly blame the cuckoo, if the great
+principle: "Remove yourself, that I may have your place!" remains in
+this universe the watchword added by Providence to the express
+recommendation to love one another.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+A DOMESTIC DRAMA
+
+
+I am fond of observing animals, real ones, whose spirit has not been
+perverted by the insufferable pretence and affectations which are all
+too often accompaniments of the human form. Whoever watches them with a
+seeing eye may gather deep lessons from the activities of animal life.
+In man and beast the motions of being are governed by one philosophy,
+however much trouble the sacristans of letters may take to separate
+under the heads of "instinct" and "thought" phenomena differing in
+degree but identical in nature.
+
+Analogies of structure and function in the entire hierarchy of the
+organic world were one day perceived, and Lamarck and Darwin drew from
+these their well-known conclusions, to the confusion of biblical
+tradition. Comparative anatomy and comparative physiology are now
+flourishing sciences of which academicians find it less easy to
+assimilate the results than to proclaim the failure. At the point we
+have reached in the knowledge of vital manifestations all along the
+scale of living creatures, unlimited material is day by day accumulating
+for the science of comparative psychology which will soon be
+established.
+
+While experts are elaborating general laws, the profane may be permitted
+to set down the observations suggested to them by the passing show of
+life. In this character I wish to relate a domestic drama the scene of
+which, I grieve to say, was my own garden. The actors, fair readers,
+were simple pigeons. The difference between feathers and hair will
+perhaps seem to you to excuse many things. You shall compare and judge.
+My only ambition is to point out analogies resulting from the nature of
+things, and lead such of my contemporaries as do me the honour to read
+what I write, to a wider comprehension of the human soul.
+
+Our natural tendency is to observe the thoughts and feelings of our
+equals rather than those of animals. They touch us more nearly, and we
+often need, in the course of our study of humanity, to balance the
+indulgence of our judgments upon ourselves by the severity of our
+judgments upon others. Only, man under observation has the advantage of
+articulate speech, which is, of course, a disadvantage to the observer.
+For everyone will agree that man makes use of this chiefly to pervert,
+to conceal, or at the very least to disguise, the truth. Hence arise
+difficulties of analysis, which are not encountered among the innocent
+beasts of the field whom the imperfection of their organism obliges to
+show themselves as nature made them. In defining the characteristics of
+man, it has been said that he alone among animals is gifted with
+laughter, with ability to light a fire, and to state abstractions by
+means of articulate speech. We must not neglect to mention his
+conspicuous faculty for lying. Animals can dissimulate, for the purpose
+of seizing the weaker, or escaping from the stronger. Man alone has
+received from Providence the gift of a perfect mendacity. So he often
+disparages animals, and accuses them of cynicism! Ah--if dogs could
+speak!
+
+But this tale is concerned with pigeons, and when I tell you that
+sitting at my work table I have my dovecote all day under my eyes, you
+will understand that I am necessarily familiar with the manoeuvres of
+the amorous tribe. The pigeon has a reputation for sentimentality. He is
+inclined toward voluptuousness, and has officially but one mate. His
+fidelity has been sufficient to arouse the wonder of man. Poetry, music,
+and art, after long centuries, still find a rich subject in the
+attachment of turtle doves.
+
+"Two pigeons loved with a tender love----"
+
+It is still usual for the fruit vender in Rue St. Denis, swooning in the
+conjugal arms, to call her spouse "My pigeon!" and for him to answer in
+a sigh, "My dove!" Well--at the risk of bringing disillusion to these
+ingenuous souls, and driving them to search for other comparisons, I
+feel obliged to establish facts in their truth, and show pigeons guilty
+of human frailty.
+
+The ones whose story it is my sad duty to record were two big blue
+"Romans," united by the most demonstrative tenderness. They had no other
+occupation than to bill and coo all day long. After their eggs had been
+laid, they took turns at sitting on them, each for half a day at a
+time--and as soon as the little ones had their first feathers, returned
+to their ardent lovemaking.
+
+One day I perceived on a chestnut tree belonging to me a big white
+pigeon who seemed to find the neighbourhood to its liking. After a few
+short turns about the place, the newcomer, in the course of its search
+for food, settled upon the home of the two Romans, and deliberately
+entered it, attracted by the buckwheat and corn. Mr. Pigeon drove the
+intruder out. He returned, and the performance of expulsion began over
+again. This game lasted all day.
+
+The obstinacy of the newcomer seemed to me to indicate the weaker
+sex--which diagnosis was confirmed by my recognition that the Roman
+pigeon, while upholding his rights as first occupant, merely went
+through the motions of battle, and never effectively attacked his
+opponent. For eight days this proceeding continued. Several hundred
+times a day the white pigeon flew from the tree to the dovecote, only to
+turn back at the first threat of the tenant's beak, and then return at
+once from her branch to the blue pigeon's door, where, owing to his
+prompt hostility, she would barely alight.
+
+Wearying of the performance, I, finally, with a desire to protect my
+friends, the Romans, caught the white bird, and presented it to a friend
+who was improving some property in the wilds of Sannois. My chestnut
+tree relapsed into peace, and the feathered pair continued to taste the
+joys of love.
+
+Two months later, to my surprise, I perceived my white visitor on the
+chestnut tree. She had already recommenced her visits to the Roman
+family, and seemed very little affected by the hostile reception given
+to her persistent offers of friendship. At the same time a letter from
+Sannois informed me that the prisoner, taking advantage of a hole in the
+netting, had escaped. Touched by the sentiment that had brought a
+wandering soul back from such a distance to the home of her choice, I
+resolved worthily to exercise the hospitality so perseveringly demanded
+of me. I had a new house built, and I gave a beautiful husband to the
+lady whose heart was so obviously oppressed by the weight of solitude.
+Peace settled upon the amorous pigeon world. Each bent his energies, in
+accordance with established order, to the occupation of reproducing
+himself, and seemed to find happiness therein.
+
+Who does not know that the joys of this world are brief?
+
+One day the white lady's husband was found dead, without having given
+any sign of illness. His funeral was scarcely over, I blush to say,
+before the light creature began visiting the Roman pair again. I soon
+noticed that the male pigeon had reached a sort of reconcilement to
+those obstinate visits. He continued, to be sure, to drive the intruder
+away, but so nervelessly that she returned after a few flaps of her
+wings, without even bothering to go back as far as the chestnut tree.
+
+Soon, I realized that the fascinating person with the white plumage had
+free access to the home of her neighbours. When I inquired into the
+reason for the Roman not barring his entrance to the stranger, I found
+that his mate, hunched in a ball, was seriously ill, and that the
+perturbed husband would not leave her. I greatly admired this exemplary
+conduct. The trouble was that the stranger, taking advantage of the open
+door, formed the annoying habit of perching there inside, day and night.
+The pigeon stayed close by his mate, and hunched himself also in a ball
+to express his sympathy, while the stranger looked, dry-eyed, on the
+ruin of the home, and waited for her day.
+
+As this day was long in coming, the hussy ventured to intrude upon the
+sorrow of the suffering couple. Thereupon, the sick nurse, listening
+only to the voice of duty, hurled himself upon the wicked beast, and
+with beak and claw drove her across the threshold--even a little way
+beyond. Alas! this was precisely the object of her detestable
+machinations. The widow wished to be pursued. She succeeded, returning
+incessantly to the charge--which obliged the pigeon to escort her out of
+the house--and defending herself only enough to lend vivacity to the
+encounter. Then, when the moment seemed opportune, she abruptly ceased
+to resist, and crouching down, half spread her wings, asking that the
+battle of conjugal duty be transformed into a lovers' contest. Rarely
+has human creature given such an exhibition of immoral conduct.
+
+I must say that the virtuous pigeon at first expressed his indignation
+by coos expressive of fury. But what can you expect? The flesh is weak.
+When temptation is offered every minute of the day there is some excuse
+for stumbling. I was a witness of my Roman pigeon's weakening. I saw him
+finally succumb to the suggestions of the wanton, and fall into sin! It
+is true that, ashamed of his weakness, he immediately chastised vice by
+pecking the one who had just given him delight, and quickly flew back to
+the bed of straw where the invalid lay wondering at his prolonged
+absence.
+
+Every creature has its destiny. The betrayed wife refused to die. She
+remained motionless all day long, ate copiously, in spite of her
+illness, and did not waste away. Little by little the gallant husband
+formed the habit of infidelity, and even ended by showing a grievous
+alacrity in evil doing. I must, however, say to his credit, that if he
+found the attraction of sin stronger now than the call of duty, he never
+ceased to observe the strictest decorum under the conjugal roof. He
+always treated the one responsible for his fall as a courtesan whose
+acquaintance was not to be acknowledged. As soon as they were inside the
+dovecote, the two accomplices were not acquainted. The Roman pigeon
+lived faithfully at the side of his Roman wife. The white pigeon would
+go to roost, with an assumption of indifference, on the highest perch.
+Bourgeois decency was preserved. As we see it daily among human beings,
+respectability among animals may be coupled with scandalous debauchery.
+The sad, confiding little invalid seemed to express gratitude to her
+spouse, by tender, cuddling motions, to which, I prefer to believe, he
+did not submit without some feeling of shame. I should think that the
+victim would have suspected something, if only because the two culprits
+looked so remarkably above suspicion. But there are especial immunities.
+
+This state of things might have endured indefinitely if the ill-starred
+idea of an experiment had not come into my mind. I took away the sick
+bird and isolated her for two days in a cage. I planned to observe the
+psychology of her return home, fancying that a crisis would be
+precipitated, from which virtue might issue triumphant.
+
+At first the widower wished to make sure of his "misfortune." He
+searched the garden, then the neighbouring roofs where he had formerly
+spent long periods in the company of his better half. When he finally
+believed that his legitimate mate had vanished into nothingness, he
+plunged into bottomless deeps of bliss with the illegitimate one. What
+an example to the inhabitants of Passy!
+
+For two days a joy so scandalous reigned in the guilty establishment
+that I could not resist the desire to break up the indecent festival. I
+therefore took the unfortunate prisoner and exposed her well in view on
+the lawn. As soon as the adulterous couple beheld her, the courtesan
+hastened to the dovecote, doubtless to establish her rights of
+proprietorship, and the faithless spouse fell furiously upon the wife
+restored to his bosom. He beat her with wing and beak, uttering angry
+coos. I supposed that he was calling her to account for her
+disappearance, and reproaching her with what he might have considered a
+prank, he whose heart should have been racked with remorse. It seemed to
+me that he was driving her toward the dovecote, and thinking that it
+might be well to sustain him in his demand that she resume her position
+in the home, whence it was high time that the adventuress be expelled, I
+myself put back the ailing pigeon in the spot from which I had taken her
+three days before.
+
+I had scarcely left her when a terrible flutter of wings warned me that
+something was happening. I hastened back. The irreproachable wife was
+dead, killed by the lovers, whom two days had sufficed to unite in
+indissoluble bonds of infamy. The unlucky creature lay with her skull
+broken open by their beaks, and the murderers sated their ferocity upon
+the dead body, which I had difficulty in wresting from them.
+
+There are no courts of law in the animal world, wherefore Providence had
+no option but to crown the triumph of crime with happy peace. This it
+did with its customary generosity. The two villains live happy in their
+love. They have had, and will yet have, many children.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+SIX CENTS
+
+
+Here is the history of a man without a history. As far back as I can
+remember, I can see in the great court of honour of the Manor, devoted
+to plebeian uses since the Revolution, Six Cents, the sawyer, silently
+occupied with making boards out of the trunks of poplars, elms, and
+oaks, which at the end of my last vacation I had left green and living,
+filled with the song of birds, and whose corpses I found on my return
+tragically piled up for the posthumous torture by which man pursues his
+work of death-dealing civilization.
+
+Jacques Barbot, commonly called Six Cents, was in those days the
+representative of industry in the rural world; he typified man in the
+first stage above the purely agricultural labourer of olden times. To
+prepare the raw material for the next man to use was his social
+function. He had certainly never given thought to this, any more than to
+the cruel fate which makes of man the first victim of his inventions,
+pregnant though they be of future benefit. For how many centuries the
+grinding of wheat chained the slave to the millstone, until the day
+dawned when the beast of burden, the wind, water and steam, came to take
+his place. Even to-day, how much serf's labour still awaits the
+ingenuity of future liberators!
+
+It is certain that Six Cents, although he expressed his views to nobody,
+for discretion of thought was chief among his characteristics, did not
+feel himself a slave, in his quiet patience under the common subjugation
+of labour. As it happened, the machine which set him free promptly dealt
+him his death blow.
+
+Employee and employer as well, he hired a comrade, whose pay was nearly
+equal to his own, and all the year round, in the cold and the rain, the
+sun or the wind, he matched himself with untiring energy against the
+wide-branched giants, and defeated those adversaries. The ever-renewed
+struggle against the eternal resistance of the woody monsters made up
+his entire life. Beyond that, no horizon, no thought; his was the
+unconsciousness of the soul in the making. Gladstone, stupidly and
+without the excuse of necessity, used to hack down the noble leafy
+creations that form so great a part of the earth's beauty. Six Cents, as
+insensible as he to the esthetic aspect of tree life, engaged in a
+mortal combat to wrest his living from the obstinate fibres clinging to
+life with obscure yet tenacious vitality.
+
+On winter days, favourable for felling trees, the executioners would
+arrive on the spot, axe in hand, to carry out the death sentence
+pronounced by interest against life and beauty. In the desolate country,
+overflown by bands of crows with their ill-omened croaking, the strokes
+of the sinister axe would echo far around, as they accomplished their
+work of death. The tall trunk rocks at each deeper entering of the iron,
+while the plumy branches beat the air in shudders of agony. The rope
+fastened to the top of the tree grows taut--a sharp blow, followed by a
+long wail, and the groaning colossus falls heavily to earth. Like a hero
+on the fields of Ilion hurling himself upon the spoils of the vanquished
+foe, Six Cents on the instant is chopping, cutting, trimming, drawing
+lines where the saw is to divide the tree into logs. Soon the stripped
+shaft, chained to the sawing trestle, will show on its length as well as
+its girth black lines, drawn straight by aid of a string for the
+sawyer's reliance in guiding the steel teeth.
+
+One man stands above and one below the trestle. The thin notched blade,
+working its way forward with a soft swish muffled by the sawdust, rises
+and falls with the rhythmic motion of the bodies alternately bending
+down and straightening up. From a distance you see two men in front of
+each other, one facing earthward, the other skyward, and perpetually
+bowing as if in mutual greeting. When the entire existence of a human
+being has for its sole activity an incessant bowing, not even to the
+tree about to die, but to its corpse, into which he is driving the iron
+a little further with each courteous gesture, there results a monotony
+of sensation, of thought (if the two words may be used in this
+connection,) progressively benumbing the spirit, or reducing it to the
+minimum of cogitation compatible with a continuance of life. The inert
+intelligence becomes atrophied. What is the mentality of the slave
+harnessed to the millstone? Not greatly superior to that of the beast of
+burden substituted for him. Six Cents, slaughtering his trees, took from
+them only vegetative life. His victims unconsciously revenged themselves
+by bringing him down through the continuity of enforced labour to the
+lowest rank of conscious life.
+
+One must not suppose that Six Cents was stupid. His countenance, with
+its regular features, was frank and open. His eyes, which though lacking
+in fire were gentle and appeared to dwell on something far away,
+reminded one of those of certain dogs, "very intelligent," but incapable
+of any effort beyond primitive comprehension. He was not a mere animal,
+but simply an undeveloped man. He did not know how to read, nor had he
+ever stopped to wonder what might be contained in a book. To saw to-day,
+to saw to-morrow: a narrow cycle of dull thoughts brought him
+continually back to his starting point. The wide gray velvet trousers
+from the pocket of which protruded the points of a pair of compasses
+distinguished him from tillers of the soil. The stamp of science and
+art was upon him, but so rudimentary, that the appropriate mechanical
+gesture was the Ultima Thule of his attainment. The smooth-shaven face,
+framed in long gray locks, under a cloth cap in the fashion of Louis XI,
+inspired respect by its placid gravity. His slow, heavy step could be
+heard on the road as he went silently to his work, whereas the plowmen,
+exchanging greetings as they passed one another, urged on their beasts
+with shouts, held them back with oaths, or brightened the day with love
+songs. Presently, they would be turning over their furrows, still
+shouting, still swearing, and still singing, followed by the feathered
+host, to whom the plowshare furnishes inexhaustible feasts. During this,
+Six Cents, at the foot of the trestle, gazing upward open mouthed,
+without sound, his attention centred upon not departing from the
+straight line, would stretch to full height with arms extended, then
+stoop to the ground as if to touch it, bend over only to lift himself,
+and lift himself only to bend again.
+
+And what of the interludes between work hours? There is the cheer of the
+coarse but comforting repast, with the zest of its thin, sourish white
+wine "warming to the heart"--the walk from work to food and from food to
+work; sleep, when strength is spent, and rising when it would be
+pleasant to go on sleeping. On Sundays, there is first and foremost the
+joy of doing nothing, then there are the heavy conversations during
+which no one has anything to say, each having no interest in any but his
+own case, "feeling only his own ills," as the popular saying has it;
+there is the talk about the weather, the tedium of an idle day,
+occasionally the diversion of rural debate on the church square after
+mass; there is communion with the blessed bottle, substituting a
+paradise of dreams for the irksome reality of things. What further?
+
+Married in a purely animal sense, as is the case with the majority of
+the human race, Six Cents lived in the relation of male to female with
+his "good wife," finding in marriage the advantage of partnership in
+labour. Were they faithful to each other? In a village these matters,
+which create so much commotion in the city, have small importance.
+People are too close to nature to resist the attraction of the moment.
+And I cannot see that the dwellers in cities set them such a shining
+example. The distraction of fairs is unknown to the sawyer who has
+nothing to sell. Thefts are too common, crimes too rare, they are not
+common subjects of conversation. Finally, to satisfy the rudimentary
+urge of idealism, there are politics and religion, represented by the
+mayor and the priest. From the pulpit fall incomprehensible words to
+which no one pays attention, since no one can see that they have any
+real effect upon anything whatsoever. Religion consists principally in
+believing that we must by means of certain ceremonies get on the right
+side of a God who will otherwise burn us up. At the approach of death
+one tries to get the balance in his favour at all costs. But this
+changes nothing in the conduct of life. Local politics are in general,
+as they are everywhere, a matter of business. The calculation can
+quickly be made as to the value of a vote on one side or the other.
+There is no other problem. This is how a great many Frenchmen still
+express the "national will" concerning the most important matters of
+politics and sociology. The point ever present to the mind is the
+question of remuneration. But the conditions determining the wages of
+labour escape the power of analysis of such fellows as Six Cents. What
+can they do but say "I work too much and earn too little," and stop,
+amazed before the insoluble puzzle.
+
+One day, however, Six Cents heard news, when he happened to complain
+that "Boards did not find as good market as they used to." He was told
+about pines, and water power, and sawmills in Norway, and cheap
+transportation, a tale which he did not entirely understand, but from
+which he gathered that the evil was irremediable. He therefore resigned
+himself as he had always done, bowing under the inevitable. He earned
+less and still less, while working harder and harder because of arms
+grown weaker, and back grown stiff with the years. In spite of the
+kindly advice of philanthropical political economists, Six Cents,
+wearing out his body by continual labour, had no savings. He had no old
+sock filled with gold pieces against a rainy day, such as the simple
+like to believe in. Why economize, when one knows that a lifetime of
+pinching would lead to a ludicrously inadequate result?
+
+Old age is upon him. Pitiless progress has done its work. Humble village
+craftsmen like Six Cents are out of date. The concentration of capital
+demands the mustering of labourers in the all-devouring factory. Six
+Cents looks on without understanding, without complaining. He has come
+to poverty, want. Utter destitution as he nears the grave seems to him
+but one fate-ordained calamity more to throw on the heap with the
+others. Is any one surprised at heat in summer and cold in winter? We
+must accept things as they come, and if nothing comes, still be content,
+since we cannot change the actual course of things. It is the same
+resignation as that of beasts under the whip. Six Cents' wife with a
+sack on her back goes from door to door begging for a crust or a few
+potatoes, grudgingly given to her. The sawyer does such small odd jobs
+as he finds to do. They keep alive, and at times appear contented.
+Seated on a stone at the threshold of his hut, Six Cents watches the
+world go by. The young come, merry, wilful, noisy. The aged pass,
+dejected, resigned, silent.
+
+"With all the boards I have sawed," said he, the other day, "it will
+certainly be strange if four cannot be found to make my last home."
+
+The history of a man without a history I have called this. But even
+without events, without passions, without desires, without revolts,
+without search for better things, and with the apathy of lifelong labour
+directed to no end, is it not still a history? The evolution of human
+society cannot be denied. But the time seems distant when men shall keep
+abreast in their progression. Up to the present time, what a lot of
+laggards! Consider the mental development of the cave man, chipping his
+flint, polishing his stone axe, sharpening his arrows, dividing his time
+between hunting and fighting, defending his hearth with vigilant effort,
+and trying to destroy the hearth of his neighbour, and then tell me
+whether the wretched man who spends all the days of his life sawing the
+same board, hammering the same iron-bar, turning the same crank of the
+same machine all day long--whether this man is intellectually superior
+to the cave man? All this, of course, must change. Let us, in order to
+help on the good work, take account as we go of the temporary conditions
+of human kind.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+FLOWER O' THE WHEAT
+
+
+Flower o' the Wheat was the prettiest girl in my village. Tall, well set
+up, stepping along with a fine self-confidence, she brightened by her
+clear laughter the fields, the woods, the deep road cuts of the Vendée.
+With the first warm days of spring the milky whiteness of her skin would
+be dotted over with a constellation of freckles.
+
+The peasants used to say: "The good Lord threw a handful of bran in her
+face."
+
+Bran and flour, it would seem, for her face under the sun's rays
+remained as white as if dusted over with the powder of bolted wheat.
+Hence, perhaps, her surname, or possibly she owed it to her red hair,
+matched rather unusually by tawny eyes. She gave one the impression of
+being all of the beautiful gold-brown tone of ripe wheat. Flower o' the
+Wheat was beautiful, and knew it because she was told so all day long.
+
+The man of the fields is not by a long way insensible to beauty. His
+esthetic sense is not the same as ours. He is not moved by a line, a
+contour, the grace of a moving form, but he is powerfully affected by
+colour, as are all whom civilization has not overrefined. Flower o' the
+Wheat being a creature of living colour, had, therefore, the pleasure of
+hearing herself proclaimed fair, and of having to fend off the
+playfulness, and occasionally the somewhat robust caresses, of manly
+youth all the way from Sainte Hermine to Chantonnay. Plant a flower
+wherever you will, there the bees will congregate. Wherever you meet
+beauty, you will see men coming to forage, with eyes and hands and lips.
+Between city and country there is only a difference of setting.
+
+As her fame spread beyond the borders of the canton, Flower o' the Wheat
+had a throng of admirers such as had not been seen for many a day in our
+neighbourhood. The pride of it shone in her eyes, dazzled by their own
+attractiveness, and if she had been told of Cleopatra on whom was
+centred the gaze of the world, it is not certain that she would have
+thought the Egyptian queen had an advantage over the country maid. For
+which I praise her, for enumerating a multitude of adorers is a foolish
+pastime. Moreover, the queen was dead and the peasant girl alive: the
+best argument of all.
+
+The delightful part of the story is that Flower o' the Wheat, while
+permitting herself to be admired by every man, and envied by every
+woman, kept her heart faithful to the friend who had known how to win
+it, in which she differed notably from Cleopatra. Now, that friend, for
+I must finally come to my confession, was none other than your humble
+servant. I may be pardoned the pride of that avowal: I loved Flower o'
+the Wheat, and Flower o' the Wheat entertained sentiments for me which
+she was not in the least loth to exhibit. I used to follow her about the
+fields with her dog, "Red Socks," so called because of his four tawny
+paws, and while the flock browsed very improperly beyond the limit set
+by the rural guard, I told her all about Nantes, where I had spent the
+winter. I amazed her with tales from my books, or else she talked to me
+about animals, what they did, what they thought; she told me
+extraordinary stories. Our souls were very near to each other, I will
+not say the same of our hearts, for the sad part of our love was, alas,
+that she was twenty and I was six--or seven, if I stood on tiptoe. This
+did not make it difficult for either of us, however, to hug the other.
+It was only later that I realized my misfortune.
+
+Our best days were at harvest time. The abominable smoke of the
+threshing machine had not yet invaded the countryside. The flail was
+still in use. At dawn, men and women divided into groups would begin the
+round of the threshing floor, their motions accompanied by the rhythmic
+thud of the wooden flail, muffled by the straw on the ground; one half
+of the quadrille would slowly retreat, while the other half gradually
+advanced. The necessity for attention, and the sustained effort, obliged
+them to be silent. But what a reaction of laughter and song when the
+wooden pitch forks came into play, stacking the straw! Noonday would see
+the ground strewn with harvesters taking their rest in the full glare of
+the sun, for the peasant fears the treacherous shade. Upon the stroke of
+a bell, the noisy concert of the flails would again fill the air on
+every side.
+
+At evening there were dances, and there were songs, in which Flower o'
+the Wheat excelled. She knew every song of that region, and would sing
+in a nasal, untutored voice, delicious to the rustic ear, ingenuous
+poems, in which "The King's Son," the "Nightingale," and the "Rose"
+appeared in fantastic splendours, joyful or sad. A local bard had even
+made about Flower o' the Wheat, a somewhat free and outspoken song in
+dialect, the refrain of which said that the flower of the wheat
+surrenders its grain under the harvester's flail. Flower o' the Wheat
+without false shame celebrated herself in song, and there were fine
+jostlings if some young fellow jokingly made believe to put the refrain
+into action.
+
+Sooner or later, Flower o' the Wheat was bound to come under the
+harvester's flail. And here I call the reader's attention to this story,
+whose merit is that it is the story of everyone. I know of no greater
+error than to suppose that extraordinary adventures are what make life
+interesting. If one looks closely, one finds that the truly marvellous
+things are those which happen to us every day, and that duels, dagger
+thrusts, even automobile accidents, with accompanying hatred, jealousy,
+betrayed love, and treachery, are in reality the vulgar incidents in the
+enormous drama of our common life from birth to death.
+
+To bring, without any will of our own, our ego to the consciousness of
+this world, be subject to a fatal concatenation of joys and sorrows
+dealt by the hazard of fortune, and end in the slow decay which brings
+us back to the condition preceding our existence, is not this the
+supreme adventure? What more is needed to make us marvel? Some, who are
+called pessimists, accept it with a certain amount of grumbling. Others,
+regarded as optimists, consider their misfortune so great that they
+eagerly add to it, by way of consolation, the dream of a celestial
+adventure which everyone is free to embellish as much as he pleases.
+
+Flower o' the Wheat did not bother her head with any of this. She was
+twenty, a more engrossing fact. She listened to the voice of her youth,
+like the women gone before her, as well as those who will follow her on
+this earth. In the fields, nature being so close, people are very little
+hampered by the more or less fantastic social conventions, which
+undertake to regulate the human relations between two young creatures
+hungering and thirsting for each other.
+
+A special sort of cake called "_échaudé_" is the chief industrial
+product of my village: a cake made of flour and eggs, very delectable
+when fresh from the oven, but heavy, and cause of a formidable
+thirstiness, by the time it has travelled through the bracken as far as
+Niort, La Rochelle, or Fontenay. Its transportation is carried on by
+night, in long carts drawn by a horse whose slow and steady gait rocks
+the slumbers of the driver and of the woman who accompanies him to
+preside over the sale of the cakes. These carts are terrible
+go-betweens. The scent of fern is full of danger. The two lie down to
+sleep, side by side, under the open sky. They do not always sleep, even
+after a long day's labour. The market town is far away. The unkindly
+disposed and censorious are shut within their own four walls. Temptation
+is increased by the jolts that throw people one against the other.
+Wherefore resist, since one must finally surrender?
+
+Flower o' the Wheat, who was in the service of a rich dealer in
+_échaudés_, one fine day married her "master," after having given him,
+to the surprise of no one, two unequivocal proofs of her aptitude for
+the joys as well as duties of maternity. Her neighbours in the country
+will tell you that there was nothing out of the ordinary in her life.
+Her husband beat her only on Sundays, after vespers, when he had been
+drinking too much, and she took no more revenge upon him than was
+necessary to show outsiders that he did not have the last word.
+
+I saw her again, at that time, after a fairly long period of absence.
+The handful of flour and bran was still there. Her eyes had kept their
+lustre, and her hair still blazed under the fluttering white wings of
+her coif. But her glance seemed to me sharper, and already the curve of
+her lips betrayed weariness of life. Her pretty name still clung to her,
+but the flower had lost its bloom. She still laughed, but she no longer
+sang. Fortune had come to her, as rings and brooches and gold chains
+attested. On Sundays she wore a silk skirt and apron to church, and
+carried a gilded book, a thing found useful even by those who cannot
+read, since it gives them the satisfaction of exciting their neighbours'
+envy.
+
+My visits to the village had become brief and far spaced. We had lived
+very far apart, when I met her one day, in one of our deep road cuts,
+leading her cow to pasture. An old, wrinkled, broken, worn-out woman. We
+stopped to chat. Her husband was dead and had left her with "property,"
+but the children were pressing her to make over everything to them. They
+would have an allowance settled on her "at the notary's," they said.
+
+"I shall have to make up my mind to do it," she ended with a sigh. "Will
+you believe that my son came near beating me yesterday, because I would
+not say yes or no?"
+
+Ten more years passed. One day, as I was going through a neighbouring
+hamlet, a tumble-down hovel was pointed out to me and I was told that
+"the Barbotte" was ending her days there. Flower o' the Wheat was no
+more. She was now "the Barbotte," from her husband's name, Barbot.
+
+I entered. In the half light, I could see, under the remnants of an old
+mantle, the shaking head of an aged woman, with a dried-up, shrivelled
+parchment face, pierced by two yellow eyes wherein slumbered the dim
+vestiges of a glance. A neighbour told me all about it. The children did
+not pay the allowance, which surprised no one. It was the usual thing.
+From time to time, they brought her a crust of bread, occasionally soup,
+or scraps of food on Sunday, after mass. The old woman was infirm, and
+waited on herself with difficulty. A servant was supposed to come and
+see her once a day. Often she forgot.
+
+"Why not make a complaint?" said I, thoughtlessly.
+
+"She spoke, one day, of letting the notary know. They beat her for it.
+And who would be willing to take her message? No one is anxious to make
+enemies. Her children are already none too well pleased that any one
+should enter the hut. They do not want people meddling with their
+affairs."
+
+During this talk tears were shining in the blinking yellow eyes. "The
+Barbotte" had recognized me.
+
+"Don't be troubled on my account," she said in a thin voice that
+betrayed the fear of being beaten. "I need nothing. My children are
+very kind. They come every day. Maybe you are like the rest, sir, you
+think I find time heavy on my hands. Do you know what I do, when I am
+here alone? I sing, in my mind, all the songs of long ago. I had
+forgotten them, and now they have come back to me. All day I sing them,
+without making any noise. _I sing them inside._ One after the other.
+When I have finished them all, I begin over again. It is like telling my
+beads. It is funny, is it not?"
+
+And she tried to smile.
+
+"_Monsieur le curé_ scolds me," she took up again. "He wishes me to say
+my prayers. But I have no sooner started on the prayers than back come
+the songs. I cannot help it. You remember, don't you, 'The King's Son?'
+Oh, the 'King's Son!' And the 'Nightingale?' And the 'Rose?' I want to
+sing one for you. Out loud, instead of in my mind. Which one? 'Flower o'
+the Wheat!' Flower o' the Wheat! Ah...." She seemed on the point of
+singing, but dropping from it, exclaimed: "The flail of the harvester
+came. The grain was taken. Nothing is left but the straw ... and that
+badly damaged. It was threshed too much.... Dear sir, you who know
+everything, can you tell me why we come into this world?"
+
+"I will tell you another day, my dear friend, when I come again."
+
+But I never went back.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+JEAN PIOT'S FEAST
+
+
+Without examining the question whether life is sad or gay, without
+attempting to say which is right, the groaning pessimist or the optimist
+singing hymns of praise, one may be allowed the remark that a great many
+people encounter between birth and death a great deal of trouble.
+Conspicuous among them is the multitude of wretches who from morning
+until night wear themselves out in ungrateful and monotonous labour for
+which they receive just enough to enable them to continue wearing
+themselves out without rest or reward.
+
+The "fortunate ones of the world," those whom the others call fortunate
+because they are safe from cold and hunger day by day, readily believe
+that men bowed all their lives in the slavery of labour can no more than
+beasts of burden feel the cruelty of their fate. It is, in fact, a great
+aid to optimism to believe that the small allowance of worldly good
+which some of us can get along with, though we feel our share
+insufficient, is not paid for by a corresponding amount of worldly evil
+at the other end of the divinely instituted social scale. In so far as
+he thinks at all, the peasant entertains the same idea about the
+animals, whom he uses without forbearance, and beats unmercifully,
+satisfied with the argument that "they cannot feel anything." As for
+him, what exactly does he feel in connection with the good and evil of
+life? In looking for an answer one should discriminate between the
+peasant of the past and the peasant of to-day, who in a vague way has
+been developed by military service, emancipated, not very coherently, by
+the primary school and universal suffrage, to say nothing of the
+railroads.
+
+When I look at the peasant of to-day, and compare him with the one I
+knew in my youth, I realize that a breach has been made in the
+impenetrable hedge that once closed his horizon. I do not know whether
+he is happier or less happy. He has come into relation with the rest of
+the world; that is the chief difference. I do not say that he personally
+has even a dim conception of things in general. I do not believe he asks
+himself any troublesome questions concerning the universe. But how many
+inhabitants of cities are like him in that respect? Schools have
+remained a place where words are taught. Barracks teach obedience and
+discourage thought, agreeing in this with _Monsieur le Curé_, who exacts
+blind faith, to the detriment of reason, that instrument of the devil.
+Finally, the right to vote, which makes of men with such poor
+preparation the sovereign arbiters of the most important social and
+political questions, the right to vote so frequently reduces itself to a
+simple matter of business or local interest, that the least daring
+generalizations are beyond the understanding of the average peasant.
+
+So it happens that despite the daily advance of civilization the
+countryman continues to lead an elementary kind of life, knowing little
+of society save his obligation to pay taxes, finding nothing in life
+beyond the necessity to work without sufficient remuneration to provide
+for inevitable old age. His distractions, his pleasures, he finds in the
+Church, in fairs and the shows attached, in markets and the drinking
+appurtenant, with interludes of amorous expansion which will be granted
+to the veriest slave by the harshest master, interested in the
+continuance of a servile caste.
+
+It is true that aside from the joys of thought our average citizen, even
+with theatres and music halls, attains to no higher pleasures. To eat,
+to drink, to go out of their way to strip love of the dreams and
+idealism which make it beautiful, these, when all is said, compose the
+everlasting "life of pleasure" of our most assiduous "racketers." As
+love among peasants is unhampered by idealism, the countryman has the
+two other diversions left him, eating and drinking, which few mortals
+hold in contempt, as anybody can see.
+
+My friend Jean Piot, who for many years honourably occupied in broad
+sunlight a position between that of beggar and labourer by the day, or
+"odd jobber," was never one of those good for nothings who grumble over
+their task. In the wood yard he would do double work without flagging.
+On the other hand, he would have been ashamed of himself had he not
+taken as his legitimate reward an equivalent ration of "fun." Puritans,
+turn away your heads! Jean Piot, after his enormous share of work,
+exacted remuneration from Providence, in the shape of joys.
+
+In his youth, labour and joy went hand in hand. If the pay was not large
+in spite of the excellence of the work, neither, on the other hand, is
+the expense large, when a kiss only asks for a kiss in return, when the
+soup of beans, cabbage, potatoes, and the bacon to go with it, are
+plentiful, when the white wine demanded by the labourer with sweat on
+his brow is grudged him by no one. Jean Piot had no trade, or rather he
+had all trades. He was equally good as digger, teamster, herdsman, or
+plowman, he took as much pleasure in all toil connected with the earth
+as if he derived strength from it for his revels.
+
+Then old age came. Jean Piot performed fewer prodigies, and when he did
+the work of one man only, the master rebuked his laziness. He had
+encumbered himself on the way with a certain Jeanne, whom public opinion
+reproached with having put the two or three children she had had before
+her marriage into a Foundlings' Home--she was reproached, that is to
+say, with having estimated that the Republic would provide better than
+she could for their maintenance and education. The sin is not one for
+which in the opinion of the village there is no remission. Jeanne having
+become "the Piotte," showed no less ardour for work and no less love of
+good cheer than did her legitimate spouse. But her best days were
+already past. Illness overtook her. There were no savings. Jean Piot,
+who still caroused, was now no better than an ordinary workman, and
+sometimes complained of stiff muscles, though he continued to drive them
+beyond their strength.
+
+Then came stark poverty. Alas! if the ability to work had diminished,
+hunger and thirst, more pressing than ever, had not ceased to claim
+their dues. Jean and his wife asked first one favour of their
+neighbours, then another, and when they had worn these out they applied
+to their friends, finally to strangers. Thus they passed by a scarcely
+perceptible transition from salaried pride to resigned beggary. Jean
+Piot and his Piotte were well thought of, never having had the
+reputation of being sluggards. They had, to be sure, led a merry life,
+fork and glass in hand. But which of their fellow labourers had never
+been tempted to drown care in the cup? People helped them without too
+bad a grace. From time to time they still worked when an opportunity
+came not out of all proportion with their strength, sapped by work and
+disease and white wine.
+
+Slowly, age increased the inconveniences of being alive. In spite of
+all, the two seemed happy, unmindful of the humiliation of begging,--or
+sometimes even taking without having begged--accepted by all as
+established parasites, always ready to lend a hand if there were
+pressing work. It is not certain that, counting fairly, the collected
+gifts falling into Jean Piot and the Piotte's scrip amounted to more
+than an equitable reward for services rendered.
+
+However that might be, no one seemed to complain of the state of things
+brought about by the natural course of events, when a strange rumour
+came from the county town. Jean Piot had inherited, it was said,
+inherited from an unknown great uncle, who had "had property," and left
+to his numerous relatives the task of dividing a "considerable" sum
+among themselves. At this news, Jean Piot held up his head, and the
+Piotte, going about with her crutch, asked for alms with a braver front.
+Public opinion could but be favourably impressed by the great news.
+Everybody's generosity suddenly increased, to the satisfaction of both
+parties.
+
+"Well, and those potatoes that I offered you the other day? You did not
+take them, my good woman--you must carry them home." The Piotte could
+not remember anybody mentioning potatoes, but she trustfully took
+whatever was offered. From all sides gifts poured in, along with
+congratulations on the wealth to come, which was to raise the Piots from
+the dignity of beggars to the higher functions of the idle living on the
+labour of others. The news soon received confirmation that an
+inheritance there was, of which Jean Piot was a beneficiary. Whether
+large or small, no one knew.
+
+The heirs were said to be numerous, and the most contradictory reports
+ran on the subject of the division. Jean Piot said nothing except
+"perhaps," or "it is not impossible," which gave small satisfaction.
+Everyone knew that he had been to see the lawyer, and that he had seemed
+happy when he came home. The law does nothing quickly. There was a long
+period of waiting, but public generosity did not weary, and Jean Piot
+and his Piotte had easily fallen into the way of being received as "the
+Lord's guests."
+
+Finally, the news burst upon the community that Jean Piot had inherited
+500 francs, all told. The disappointment caused a violent reaction, and
+from one day to the next, the couple found everywhere resisting doors
+and frowning faces. But Jean Piot seemed not to notice them, and before
+long his look of pleasure and his expressions of satisfaction gave rise
+to the idea that there must be something more than appeared. "We do not
+know the whole," people whispered, and each, to forestall the unknown,
+entrenched himself in a position of benevolent neutrality.
+
+Five hundred francs was after all something, and as no one supposed that
+Jean Piot intended to make a three per cent. investment, many wondered
+if they might not draw some small advantage from the inheritance.
+
+"Jean," said the maker of wooden shoes, "your shoes are a sorry sight. I
+will make you a pair, cheap, if you like."
+
+No representative of commerce or industry but came with offers of
+obliging the "heir" with bargains in his wares.
+
+Jean Piot shook his head, with gracious thanks. That was not what he
+wanted.
+
+Presently it was _Monsieur le curé's_ turn.
+
+"Jean Piot, do you ever give thought to your soul?"
+
+"Why, of course, _Monsieur le curé_, I am a good Christian, I think of
+nothing else."
+
+"Well, and what do you do to save your soul from the mighty blaze of
+hell? I never even see you at mass."
+
+"That is no fault of mine, _Monsieur le curé_, I have to earn my living.
+You know very well that I go to the church door. On Sundays people are
+readier to give alms than on week days."
+
+"You should not work on Sundays."
+
+"No danger. I can't work any more. Begging is not work."
+
+"Do you know what would be a good thing to do? You ought to have masses
+said, to redeem your sins."
+
+"There's nothing I should like better. Will you say some for me?"
+
+"Good. How much will you give me?"
+
+"How much money? Does God ask for money, now, to save me from hell? Why,
+then, did he not give me money to give him?"
+
+"Hush--wretched man----! You blaspheme! Have you not just inherited?"
+
+"Ah, you mean those five hundred francs? Wait a bit, _Monsieur le curé_,
+you shall have your share."
+
+"You will have masses said?"
+
+"No, I have not enough for that."
+
+"But for the small sum of twenty francs, I will say----"
+
+"Impossible, _Monsieur le curé_, it is impossible."
+
+"You grieve me, Jean Piot. You will die like a heathen."
+
+"I wish you a good day, _Monsieur le curé_."
+
+When this conversation was retailed, everyone wondered. What! not even
+twenty francs to the Church? Jean Piot surely had some plan. What was he
+going to do?
+
+Soon they knew, for without solicitation orders began to be placed with
+the best tradespeople. Jean Piot had engaged and paid for the largest
+stable in the village. Tables were being set up in it, and covered with
+a miscellaneous collection of dishes, as if for a Camacho's banquet,
+such as was never seen outside of Cervantes' romance.
+
+The two village inn keepers had received gigantic orders for food and
+drink. And Jean Piot, his eyes sparkling with pride, went with a kindly
+smile from door to door, no longer to beg, but to let everyone know that
+"in remembrance of their good friendship" he was going to treat the
+entire countryside for three days. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday there
+was feasting, junketing, merrymaking--and everyone invited! There were
+cauldrons of soup; cabbage, potatoes, and beef at will, and fish, and
+fowls, and cakes and coffee. As for wine, casks of it were tapped, and
+it was of the best; on top of that, little glasses of spirits, "as much
+as you liked."
+
+Amazement! Exclamations! Certainly Jean Piot was an extraordinary man.
+It was perhaps unwise to spend all that money at once, when he must
+necessarily be penniless on the day after. But who was there to blame
+him, when everybody was taking his share of the feast? Only the _curé_
+shook his head, regretting his masses. But public opinion was set in
+Jean Piot's favour, and not even the Church could swim against the
+stream.
+
+At early dawn on Saturday Jean Piot and the Piotte settled themselves in
+the middle seats at the table of honour, and the crowd having flocked
+thither in their best attire, fell upon the victuals, and washed them
+down with generous potations. At first they were too happy to speak, but
+how everybody loved everybody else! How glad they were to say so! On all
+sides handshaking--on all sides affectionate embraces--on all sides
+cries of joy! And for Jean Piot and his Piotte, what kind and laudatory
+expressions! What admiration!
+
+During three days the enormous festival took its tumultuous course, amid
+the muffled crunching of jaws, the gurgling of jugs and bottles, mingled
+with laughter and shouts and songs. Women, children, old
+people--everyone gorged himself immoderately. When evening came, young
+and old danced to the music of fiddles. The church, alas, was empty on
+Sunday, and when the _curé_ came to fetch his flock--God forgive
+me!--they made him drink, and he, enkindled and set up, pressed Jean
+Piot's two hands warmly to his heart. All the mean emotions of daily
+life were forgotten, wiped away from the soul by this great human
+communion. Tramps who were passing found themselves welcomed, stuffed to
+capacity, beloved----And when the evening of the third day fell, not a
+soul was there to mourn the too early close of an epic so glorious. The
+entire village, exhausted, was asleep and snoring, fortifying itself by
+dreams to meet the gloomy return to life's realities.
+
+When his heavy drunkenness was dispelled, Jean Piot realized, for the
+first thing, that the Piotte's sleep would have no awakening.
+Congestion had done for her. He had on the subject philosophical
+thoughts to which he did not give utterance for fear of being
+misunderstood. In the depth of his heart he felt that neither of them
+had any further reason for living, since they had fully lived.
+
+And so, when, left alone, he saw gradual oblivion close over the
+imposing revel of which he had been the hero, when the current of life
+swept ever farther and farther from him that tiny fraction of humanity
+which made up his universe, when countenances darkened at sight of him,
+when doors closed and when he was reproached with having "wasted his
+substance"--he was not surprised, and without a murmur accepted the
+inevitable.
+
+For days and days he remained stretched on his straw, quiet, even happy,
+it seemed, but without anything to eat. He starved, it is said.
+
+Two days before his death, the _curé_ had come to see him.
+
+"Well, Jean Piot, my friend, do you repent of your sins?"
+
+"Oh, yes, _Monsieur le curé_!"
+
+"You remember when I proposed to say masses for you? If you had listened
+to me, you would not to-day be suffering remorse."
+
+"And why should I suffer remorse, _Monsieur le curé_? I have done no
+harm to anybody. You see, I quite believe that the next world is
+beautiful, as you say it is, but I wanted my share of this world. And I
+had it. Rich people have theirs. It would not have been fair otherwise.
+Ah, I can say that I was as happy as any rich man, not for so long, that
+is all. And what does that matter, since it must end sometime anyhow? Do
+you remember? You drank a glass, and you took both my hands, just as if
+I had been a rich man, _Monsieur le curé_. We were like two brothers. If
+you cannot say a mass for me without money, surely you will remember me
+in your prayers, will you not?"
+
+"I promise to, Jean Piot," said the _curé_, who had grown
+thoughtful.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE TREASURE OF ST. BARTHOLEMEW
+
+
+St. Bartholemew is a village in the Creuse, whose exact location I
+abstain from indicating lest I disturb a peaceful community by calling
+up unpleasant memories. St. Bartholemew is a village like any other. It
+has its main street, with old sagging houses huddled one against the
+other; here and there, the discordant note of a new building with
+wrought-iron gateway and gateposts topped by cast-iron vases. There are
+streets running at right angles, oozy with sewage, littered with manure,
+where numerous chickens scratch for their living. There are little
+gardens ornamented with bright shiny balls, reflecting people and
+things, and making them look ugly at close range, beautiful in the
+distance, even as our eyes do.
+
+As far as I have ever been able to judge, the inhabitants of St.
+Bartholemew differ in no wise from those of other villages. There, as
+everywhere in the world, people are born, they live, and they die,
+without knowing exactly why, and without arriving at any reasonable
+explanation of the strange event. They seem, however, quite untroubled
+by the difficulty of the problem. When they come into the world, their
+first business is to lament. All their life long, they lament over the
+labour involved in preserving their lives, but when it comes to dying,
+they cannot make up their minds to it without lamentation! What bonds
+hold them so closely to earth? Although "gifted with reason," they could
+not tell you. What do they see beyond the fatal impulsion which sets men
+at odds in a fierce struggle for life, the results of which seem
+uncommensurate with the effort expended? They have no idea. Man comes
+into collision with brutal fact, and can see nothing beyond a conflict
+of interests. Three persons there are, having a direct action upon him:
+the _curé_, the mayor, and the rural guard, whose injunction will bring
+him to court.
+
+The _curé_ is the purveyor of ideals appointed by the government. His
+church, with its pictures, its gilded candlesticks, its tapers, and its
+anthems, constitutes the only manifestation of art furnished by the
+powers. It provides, in addition, a body of doctrine, texts, and
+uplifting admonitions, the misfortune of which is, that although
+everyone repeats them, no one pays any attention to them. The practice
+of the cult seems to be the important thing. As to the precepts of which
+that same cult is the support, everyone applies them to suit himself.
+Gifts of money, a mechanical deathbed repentance, set the sinner on good
+terms with the Master of the Beyond. With regard to the common events
+of life, Lourdes and St. Anthony of Padua will attend to them for a
+consideration.
+
+As the _curé_ fills the office of God's mayor on earth, so the mayor and
+the rural guard are the _curés_ of that far-away terrestrial divinity
+called: "the Government." What, exactly, that word means, no one has the
+necessary learning to explain. All that is known (and nothing further is
+required), is that it is a mysterious power, as implacable as the Other,
+and that one cannot even acquire merit with it by offering one's money
+willingly, for it has liberty to force open doors and drawers and take
+at its convenience. No one loves it, by whatever fine name it may call
+itself, for it has, like the Other, a court of demons, a fierce company
+of bailiffs, attorneys, judges, and jailers, cruel and vindictive toward
+poor people who have the misfortune to displease it. This conception of
+the social order may not express a very elevated philosophy, but it has
+the great advantage of being exactly adapted to the tangible realities
+of daily life.
+
+If it were objected that at election time the "sovereign (!) voter"
+might feel that he himself is the Government, I should answer that he
+does not feel it for the simple reason that it is not so. To make it
+true, an understanding of things and conditions would be necessary,
+which the law may presuppose, but which it has not so far been able to
+bring about, either among the people, or, for the greater part, among
+the delegates of the people. Promises, of course, have not been wanting,
+but what has followed? One is put in mind of a flock of sheep, given
+their choice of tormentors, and as the personal interest of each, clear
+and conspicuous, comes before the incomprehensible "general interest" (a
+Pandora's box, concealing so many things!) the representative whom it is
+good to elect is the one who will tear up the greatest number of legal
+summonses and substitute for them the greatest number of office holders'
+receipts and tobacconist shops.
+
+It will be admitted, I fancy, that the spiritual condition of St.
+Bartholemew, as shown in all this, does not greatly differentiate it
+from the rural communities known to each one of us. The special
+attribute of the place, aside from its excellent _curé_, and no less
+excellent mayor, was that it boasted a "fool." To be sure, St.
+Bartholemew's was not the usual village fool. He was not one of those
+fantastic creatures in novels, who, happening on the scene at the right
+moment, save the virtuous maiden, and bring the villain to punishment
+before he has carried out his dark designs. No. He was a thickset dwarf,
+with a bestial, twisted face, whose peculiarity was that he never spoke.
+"Yes," and "no" formed his entire vocabulary. This viaticum was,
+however, sufficient to ensure his worldly prosperity, given his notions
+of prosperity. His mother, who had been something of a simpleton
+herself, and whom the birth of the dwarf had firmly established in the
+character of a "witch," had had him, she said, by a passing travelling
+salesman. The adventure was in no way novel, but the appearance of the
+dwarf caused the more superstitious to believe that her travelling
+salesman travelled for the house of Satan!
+
+This might have prejudiced the community against "Little Nick," as the
+simpleton was called, had he not been gifted with more than ordinary
+muscular strength, which impelled him to hurl himself with hyena howls
+upon any one refusing him a bowl of soup, or straw to lie on in the
+stable. Beside which, a strange lust for work possessed the diabolically
+gnarled body. Hard physical labour was joy to Little Nick. He worked
+gladly at any occupation whatsoever, even showing rudiments of art as a
+carpenter or a blacksmith, which had given rise to the suspicion "that
+he was not as stupid as he wished to be thought." But as he worked for
+the love of it, and never demanded payment, he was universally judged to
+be an "idiot," which did not keep the farmers from contending for his
+favours.
+
+The mother lived "from door to door," begging her bread. People gave to
+her chiefly from fear of her "casting an evil spell" upon them. But
+Little Nick was everywhere received with open arms. A piece of bread and
+three potatoes are not extravagant pay for a day's work from a man, and
+Little Nick was as good as two men. From time to time he was given an
+old pair of trousers, or a torn waistcoat, when his too-primitive
+costume might have disgraced his fellow workers; on winter evenings he
+had his place in the firecorner and good straw to sleep on in the stable
+smelling of the friendly beasts.
+
+The legend ran, I must add, if I am to be a faithful reporter, that
+Little Nick had sometimes taken shepherdesses unawares in thickets or
+rocky solitudes. The victims of the "accident," if there had really been
+any such, made no boast of it, and the dumb boy was impeccably discreet.
+It is certain that Little Nick cast upon rustic beauty tender glances
+which made him more grotesque still. Young women ran from him with
+grimaces of disgust and cries of horror which he did not resent. The
+young men were more reserved, out of respect for his formidable fists.
+
+Everything considered, Little Nick was one of the happiest among
+mortals, practicing without effort the maxim of the wise, which is to
+limit one's desire to one's means, and conceiving no destiny finer than
+that with which a kind Providence had fitted him. And what proof is
+there that his fellow citizens in St. Bartholemew were mentally so very
+superior to him? Was it the part of wisdom to seek, or to despise,
+money? The entire village was engaged in a bitter struggle for gain, and
+the hardest worker rarely escaped want in old age. Little Nick worked
+for the sole pleasure of using his strength, and without any effort of
+his the rarest good fortune befell him.
+
+The witch having been found dead one morning, was expedited to the
+cemetery with a more than usual perfunctory recommendation from the
+Church to the Saints in Paradise. Little Nick, who had been sent for,
+found half a dozen neighbours in his hovel "taking stock" of his
+property. He was looking about the empty place without a word, when a
+chest being moved aside, a stone was exposed to view, which had every
+appearance of having recently been lifted. A spade inserted under the
+edge disclosed a hoard of gold: a very burst of sunshine. With a single
+cry, all hands were outstretched. But the warm emanation of the metal,
+inflaming the desire of all, had also waked up Little Nick. With three
+blows he had thrust everyone aside, with three kicks he had emptied the
+house. Half an hour later, the entire village stood in front of his
+locked and bolted door, waiting for the miracle that must issue from it.
+The gossips, surrounded by the gaping populace, made their report: "A
+great hole full of gold! How much could there be? Ten thousand francs,
+at least," said some. "Twenty, thirty," declared others.
+
+"It would not surprise me if there were 100,000," opined one old woman.
+
+"And then, we did not see what might be under other stones----"
+
+"It must be the Devil's money," said the sexton. "I wouldn't take it if
+it were given to me."
+
+"Nor I," said another.
+
+"Nor I."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+Everyone disdainfully refused what was not offered him.
+
+"All the same," said a peasant, "I am his nearest relative, I am his
+guardian."
+
+"You are not!" said another, "It is I who am his guardian!"
+
+And the discussion was soon followed by a quarrel, concerning a
+relationship which no one had ever before thought of.
+
+Presently the door opened, and Little Nick appeared.
+
+"Good morning, Little Nick, it is I, your good friend Pierre."
+
+"No, it is I, Jean, you know me, I am your uncle."
+
+"No, it is I, Matthew, you remember that good soup I gave you. Come with
+me. You shall have a big piece of bacon."
+
+"Come with me!" "Come with me!"
+
+What a lot of friends! Little Nick growls with anger, and energetically
+motions them all to be gone. They obey, each meaning to return later.
+
+On the following day, the many "guardians" betake themselves to the
+justice of peace to explain matters, and lay claim to their "rights."
+
+The magistrate comes.
+
+"Little Nick, you have some gold pieces?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Will you tell me where you have put them?"
+
+"No."
+
+They rummage everywhere, and find nothing. Little Nick has spent the day
+in the woods. Doubtless he has buried his treasure there. They will
+follow him and discover his hiding place. They must wait until then.
+
+But already the "guardians" are wrangling over Little Nick, who does not
+know which to listen to. The cleverest among them suggests his unloading
+a cart of manure for him. That means pleasure. Little Nick runs to it,
+and having finished his task finds himself seated at the table before a
+dish of bacon and cabbage, beside his new cousin "Phemie."
+
+Phemie is a blonde. Phemie has blue eyes. Phemie has fresh, rosy cheeks,
+and large caressing hands with which to fondle her "dear little cousin,"
+promoted to the dignity of "Nicholas." The "guardian" obligingly retires
+after supper, leaving the two "cousins" to make acquaintance. Phemie
+pours out a glass of a certain white wine for "Nicholas."
+
+On the following day the acquaintance has progressed so well that
+Nicholas has no desire to leave. He has found his real guardian. Evil
+tongues are busy, but Phemie holds on to Nicholas and will never let
+go.
+
+"Have you some beautiful gold pieces?" she sometimes whispers in his
+ear.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Will you tell me where they are?"
+
+"No."
+
+But this "no" is feeble, and when Phemie adds: "If you don't tell me, I
+sha'n't love you any more," Nicholas, by an expressive dumb show lets it
+be known that above all things he wishes to be loved.
+
+Months pass, and years. Little Nick lives in an ecstasy of bliss. His
+pleasure in work is less keen. But evidently he has compensations, for
+the fair Phemie is always with him. It is now five years since the witch
+rendered up her soul to the Devil. Not a day has passed, not a night,
+without Phemie questioning Little Nick about the treasure. The "Beast's"
+resistance has weakened to the point that when the "Beauty" asks him:
+"Will you show me where the gold pieces are?" he now answers "Yes."
+
+"Come, let us go," says Phemie, redoubling her caresses.
+
+Little Nick motions to her to wait, but sometimes he takes a few steps
+in the supposed direction of the treasure, and Phemie is convinced that
+she will soon finally wrest from him the secret of the undiscoverable
+hiding place.
+
+It is high time, for the woods around St. Bartholemew are incessantly
+being searched by the villagers, and if Little Nick does not make up his
+mind to speak, Phemie may be the victim of "thieves," for the gold
+pieces are hers, are they not? She has surely earned them! Already, as
+soon as a peasant buys a piece of property, everyone wonders whether he
+may not have found the St. Bartholemew treasure.
+
+Finally Phemie has an idea. She has noticed that when she accompanies
+Little Nick on his walks he avoids the river. She leads him thither,
+saying: "Let us go and have a look at the gold pieces."
+
+Mechanically, Little Nick says "Yes" and obediently follows her.
+
+When they have reached the wildest spot, "Is it here?" asks she,
+pointing at a cavity among the rocks, covered over with bushes.
+
+"No," says Little Nick.
+
+"Up there, then," she pursues, pointing at a sharp rock by the water's
+edge.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Come."
+
+And both of them, helping themselves with feet and knees and hands, torn
+by the brambles and jagged edges, climb the steep slope to the top.
+
+"There?" breathes Phemie, panting.
+
+"Yes."
+
+And Little Nick, lying flat, hanging over the abyss, extracts from an
+invisible hole in the rock, where it makes a straight wall to the river,
+a handful of gold pieces, which he flings, laughing, at his beloved.
+
+There is a frightful scream. Phemie, mad with rage, rises like a fury
+lusting for vengeance. The gold pieces are pasteboard, ironical gift of
+the travelling salesman to the "witch," to overcome her last resistance,
+and heritage of Nicholas, from which, it cannot be denied, the
+"simpleton" has drawn his profit.
+
+"Beast! Beast!" shouts Phemie, foaming at the mouth.
+
+And as Nicholas tries to rise, she pushes him over the edge. He loses
+his balance, but clinging to Phemie's skirt, drags her with him.
+
+The river is deep in that spot. Neither of them could swim.
+
+Their bodies were found at the foot of the rock, and the pasteboard gold
+pieces scattered on the summit, whence their footprints showed that they
+had fallen.
+
+"A trick of the Devil!" said the peasants.
+
+And there was, to be sure, something in that.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+A HAPPY UNION
+
+
+There are happy marriages, whatever novelists say. There are married
+couples who love each other, and live happily together to the end of
+their days. The conditions of this happiness, the circumstances of this
+harmony may not always, perhaps, be such as one solely interested in the
+aesthetic aspects of society might advocate. But what can we do? For
+many centimes there is no virtue but the loftiest minds have commended
+it to the world with arguments as attractive in form as they have been
+sublime in purport. And have they changed us? What is the history of the
+past if not the history of to-day?
+
+There are happy unions. There are unions middling happy. And there are
+unhappy unions. "I alone know where my shoe pinches," said a celebrated
+American, when congratulated upon his happy home. Men or women, great
+numbers can say the same, for Providence seems not to have cared to shoe
+us all according to our measurements. Our subsequent behaviour is the
+important thing. Advice on this point is not lacking, which is not
+surprising, since we have expressly entrusted to a corps of celibates
+the direction of domestic life, and the instruction of man and wife
+separately in the most secret details of a relation which, by his very
+profession, the instructor cannot practically know.
+
+The authority of this advice being all that gives it interest, each
+takes as much of it as he sees fit, and goes on doing what he pleases.
+One cries out and the other is silent. One philosophically resigns
+himself to limping all the way to the grave. Another prefers amputation
+and the hope of comparative comfort with a wooden leg. Who is right and
+who is wrong? Let him decide who has attained certainty in such matters.
+As for me, all I dare affirm is that it is easier to theorize than to
+prove, considering the variety of the problems and the complexity of the
+psychology in which their solution might be found.
+
+Let me, by way of example, briefly sketch the history, as simple as it
+is true, of the happiest couple I have ever known. I will admit that it
+is not a tale proper for publication in a Manual of Morals. Rarely do
+bare facts, unembellished by fiction, authentically illustrate precepts
+which we are more inclined to advocate than to follow. The sole merit of
+this tale is that it is true, from first to last. I leave out nothing
+and add nothing. I knew the people. I kept them in sight all along the
+hard road that led them from crime to perfect conjugal felicity. I am
+not attempting to prove any theory. I am telling what I have known and
+seen.
+
+Adèle was a handsome girl according to country esthetics. Large, strong,
+of brilliant colouring, with a mop of tangled red hair and iron-gray
+eyes which never dropped before those of any man. She helped her father,
+Girard the fishmonger, to carry on his business. In a lamentable old
+broken-down cart, behind a small, knock-kneed horse, who knew no gait
+but a walk, Girard would set out at nightfall for Luçon, the large town,
+and come back in time to sell his fish before midday. Immediately upon
+arrival, the fishmonger, his wife and their children, each loaded with a
+basket of shell fish, mullet, sole, and whiting, packed under sticky
+seaweed, would disperse over the village, the outlying hamlets, the
+farms, and peddle their wares.
+
+This trade entails much travelling about and seeing many people. Bold,
+and pleasant to the eye, Adèle was welcomed everywhere. No speech or
+behaviour from the country lads was likely to fluster her. Peasants, who
+are no more obtuse than city men, have long since recognized the value
+in business of an agreeable young person to attract trade. Any country
+inn that wants to prosper must first adorn itself with a pretty servant.
+There is everywhere a demand for beauty. For lack of anything better,
+men will philosophically fall back upon ugliness. Life takes upon itself
+to accommodate almost everybody.
+
+Adèle, not being one of those young women who are only chosen when there
+is scarcity, early became the blessing of her family. The fish in her
+basket seemed to leap of its own accord into the frying pan, although
+the pretty wheedler took pride in selling it at a high price. Any chance
+meeting on the road furnished occasion for selling her wares. Often a
+kiss was added as a premium. Occasionally something more. What she lost
+or what she won at this game would to-day be hard to reckon. On Sunday,
+at the fair, she exhibited herself in fine attire and ornaments: these
+were her profit. Her name ran from mouth to mouth accompanied by tales
+to which public malice did not always need to add lies: this was her
+loss. But far from being disturbed by the "_chronique scandaleuse_" she
+insolently gloried in it, declaring that the hard-favoured meddlers
+would have been altogether too happy had she found a chance to talk
+scandal about them.
+
+"When they are done tattling, they will stop," she used to say.
+
+Which proved true. So that one day, when there was nothing else that
+Adèle could do to astonish people, the report spread that she was about
+to become the legitimate wife of Hippolyte Morin, the shoemaker. I must
+add that the event was accepted by all as a decent ending to a
+tempestuous youth.
+
+"He will certainly beat her," thought the women, when they saw Morin's
+infatuation.
+
+"He will not make a troublesome husband," said the men, as they looked
+at the sallow and weakly though choleric shoemaker.
+
+Public approval was therefore unanimous. The circumstances of the
+marriage were simple. Girard owed Morin 500 francs, and could not even
+manage to pay the interest on them. Seeing his creditor prowling with
+smouldering eyes about the stalwart Adèle, he had proposed to him to
+marry the girl and give a receipted bill, and the shoemaker, overjoyed
+at the thought of possessing such a marvel all to himself, had gladly
+closed the bargain. As for Adèle, she had said yes without difficulty,
+as she had to so many others. Hippolyte owned land. He was a good match.
+
+They had a fine wedding, and for a full half year happiness appeared to
+reign in the new establishment. Six months of fidelity were surely, for
+Adèle, a sufficient concession to _Monsieur le Maire's_ injunctions.
+Presently lovers reappeared, to Morin's lively displeasure. Adèle was
+thrashed, as the public had foreseen. The muscular young swains none the
+less made game of the husband, at best a puny adversary, as public
+opinion had equally foretold. The worst of it was that the
+unaccommodating shoemaker had a way of watching his rivals with a
+vicious eye, while drawing the sharp blade of his knife across the
+whetstone. No one in a village is afraid of kicks and blows. But no one
+likes the thought of steel coming into play. And so, when the belief
+was established that Morin would some day "do something desperate," the
+ardour of the followers began to abate. They gradually dropped away, and
+it was Adèle's turn to experience the fiercest resentment against her
+sullen lord.
+
+Three years passed in quarrels, in hourly battles. There were no
+children. Grass does not grow on the high road, as Michelet observes.
+One morning the news ran that Morin was seriously ill, then that he was
+dead. On the day before, he had been playing bowls without any sign of
+ill health. The doctor who had been sent for, shook his head gravely,
+and asked to speak to Adèle in private. At the end of the interview the
+bystanders noticed that Adèle kept out of sight, while the doctor,
+without a word, poured the contents of the soup tureen into a jug, and
+carried it away in his gig. That evening, two gendarmes came to arrest
+"Hippolyte Morin's wife," accused of poisoning her husband.
+Conversations in the village were not dull that evening.
+
+The inquiry was brief. Bits of the blue shards of cantharides floating
+among the bread and potatoes in the soup permitted no denial. Adèle
+confessed that passing under an ash tree, and seeing some of those
+insects lying dead in the grass, she picked them up, "to play a joke on
+her husband." Later on, after she had been instructed by her lawyer,
+she said that the aphrodisiacal properties attributed to the beetle
+gave the obvious reason for the matrimonial "joke." But it being proved
+that her extra-*conjugal resources in that line were rather calculated
+to foster a desire to rid herself of an inconvenient husband, the story
+gained small credence. Morin, who had not consented to die, was the only
+witness for the defence.
+
+"Of course it was a joke," he repeated, stupidly. "The proof of it is
+that she had told me."
+
+"And you deliberately took the poison?"
+
+"As long as it was a joke, of course I did, your Honour."
+
+The jury, which readily absolves husbands for a too prompt use of the
+revolver in the direction of their wives, always shows itself resolutely
+hostile to women who attempt to rid themselves of their legitimate
+master. Two years' imprisonment were considered by the representatives
+of social order a just retribution for Adèle, as well as a practical
+incentive to virtue in the home.
+
+Morin returned to his shoes, grieving over his long separation from
+Adèle.
+
+"All that was our own affair," he said. "What business was it of the
+judge's?"
+
+And many shared his opinion. A lot of noise about a "joke!" Adèle was
+too good hearted a girl to have aroused any deep hatreds. As long as
+Morin defended her, why should others hurl obloquy? Husbands looking at
+their wives, and wives at their husbands, mostly refrained from comment.
+Morin, furthermore, sure, now, of his wife's fidelity for at least two
+years, poured himself out in eulogies of the great Adèle, and declared
+that he had often been in the wrong.
+
+"To whom did she ever do any harm?" he would ask everyone that came
+along.
+
+"Not to me!" "Not to me!" all would answer.
+
+The man had received the gift of a lofty philosophy or rather, he had a
+dim feeling that from all this "fuss" a great good might result from his
+wife and for himself.
+
+"When she comes back," he would say, "it will not be as it was before."
+
+"Surely," replied the others, "a little bad luck gives one a lot of
+sense!"
+
+"Two years, that is not so much," answered Morin, who was counting the
+days.
+
+Meanwhile Adèle was silently sewing shirts, and vaguely dreaming. It
+would never have occurred to her to complain. She even found a certain
+contentment in this quiet after the agitations of her youth. She
+tranquilly awaited the release which would take her back to her friendly
+village, and to that good Morin who loved her, and whom she loved, too,
+in spite of all "the judges had done to cross them," as she said after
+her trial. From the very first day, Morin placed to the account of the
+prisoner all the money permitted by the regulations. But she rarely
+touched it, and when, on his visits, he urged her to spend it:
+
+"I need nothing," she would say. "Keep it for yourself, my man. You must
+not be ailing when I come out of jail."
+
+And this allusion to the past made them both laugh in great good humour.
+
+Finally the day of liberation came. Morin, as you would know, was on the
+spot to fetch his wife. They flew to each other's arms, laughing aloud,
+for lack of words to express their joy. It was Sunday. Adèle and her
+husband reached home just as mass was over. In a twinkling they were
+surrounded by the crowd, and acclaimed like conquerors. There was mutual
+embracing and shedding of happy tears, and asking of a thousand absurd
+questions from sheer need to talk and show how glad they were to see one
+another again. Upon arrival at her house Adèle found the table spread;
+at this, twenty guests sat down to celebrate her return with proper
+ceremony. A grand feast, which lasted until daylight. At dessert,
+friends came in, and merest acquaintances, too, swept along by the
+current of universal sympathy. Bottle after bottle was emptied. There
+was a great clinking of glasses. The women kissed Morin, and the men
+Adèle. Never in their lives was there a more wonderful day.
+
+And yet, from that time forward, good days followed one another without
+break. Adèle remained gay, easy, and approachable, quick in the uptake
+of broad jests, but Morin had her heart, and never was word or deed
+charged to her account which could have given umbrage to the most
+suspicious husband. Her spouse, proud of his conquest, tasted the joys
+of a well-earned happiness.
+
+They were during forty years the model of a perfect match. How many of
+the people around them, with an irreproachable past, could boast an
+advantage so rare?
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+A WELL-ASSORTED COUPLE
+
+
+They were not good. They were not bad. They had neither virtues nor
+faults of their own from never having done or said anything except in
+conformity with what others were doing or saying. Never had it entered
+their minds to desire anything on their own initiative. Nothing had ever
+made them reflect upon themselves, and take a decision according to an
+idea, whether good or bad, that was the result of their own
+individuality rather than "established opinions."
+
+He had been born into the cork business. She had seen the light of day
+in the Elbeuf cloth trade. The arrest of a lawyer, unable to return
+several millions to the people whom he had deprived of them, united
+their parents in a common expression of indignation against impecunious
+embezzlers. In court, under the eyes of the Christ who bids us forgive,
+and amidst the encouragements of avenging law, cork and wool came
+together to destroy the unfortunate lawyer whose activities were
+proclaimed criminal because lacking the success which would have made
+his reputation for integrity. The cork merchant and the cloth merchant,
+both of them noisy about their small losses, conceived a "high" mutual
+"esteem," which subsequent acquaintance converted into "friendship."
+
+The heir to corks was twenty-three years old.
+
+"A good sort of boy," said his father.
+
+He was, as a matter of fact, soft, flabby, and spiritless.
+
+The cloth heiress had just completed her twentieth year.
+
+"The sweetest child!" bleated her mother.
+
+The truth being that the girl's inertia took the impulsion of any
+movement near her.
+
+They were married after magnificent promises on both sides of the house.
+It later appeared that the manufacturer of corks was on the verge of
+failure, and that the cloth business had long since gone into the hands
+of a partner. As the fraud was reciprocal, there could be no reproaches
+on either side. They remained "good friends," and from the remnants of
+past splendour collected a small capital with which to set up the young
+couple in the linen draper's business at Caen.
+
+The two young people, who were equally well fitted to manufacture butter
+or deal in building stone, by scrupulously adhering to the rules and
+regulations established for them, made a decent income from their
+business. Their parents died, rather fortunately, before becoming a
+burden and after inculcating into them those principles of public and
+private morals which would enable them to reach the end of their career
+without disaster. They had two daughters whom they married off, one into
+"ribbons," the other into "hardware," while they themselves died, as
+they had lived, in "linen."
+
+"Colourless lives," some will remark.
+
+Not everyone can write Hamlet, or discover the laws of universal
+gravitation. The present order of nature stands upon a foundation of
+passive beings, whence, from some combination of century-old heredities,
+springs, now and then, the miracle of genius. What surprises for us,
+could we examine the authentic genealogies of Shakespeare and Newton,
+and see from what an accumulation of weaknesses their strength emerged!
+
+The _processus_ of any human life is, in truth, not less a marvel. Only,
+from our low level we instinctively look toward the heights. And there
+is no denying that the psychology of St. Francis of Assisi is more
+interesting than that of the ordinary mortal. Still, if one examines
+closely, one finds that the "great man" is not different in substance
+from the little man: the principal difference is that in the two cases
+the forces are differently related. Infinite are the transitional types
+between the two extremes, and all are worthy of analysis as human
+samples capable of furnishing, according to circumstances of time and
+place, acts which would remove them from common mediocrity.
+
+What events would have been necessary to raise our two linen drapers
+into the light of glory I cannot say. I should like to believe that a
+great tragedy, public or private, might have called forth some act of
+sublime devotion on their part, and made them illustrious in history.
+But I will not conceal that nothing in their speech or actions ever
+authorized such a hope.
+
+I speak of them because I met them on my path in life. I found it
+entertaining to observe them as curious specimens of the class of human
+beings whose passive mentality is close to that of beasts of burden, and
+who yet are fairly remarkably individualized in the deep recesses of
+their inner life. Cattle have, without any doubt, ideas at the back of
+their heads, as is proved when we see the drove by tacit agreement
+divide among themselves the task of watching all points of the horizon,
+while with half-shut eyes they ruminate in the fields where nothing now
+threatens them--which performance is a reminder of the days when the
+great carnivorous enemies might at any time unexpectedly come down upon
+them. Still, they know but one law, the goad that drives them to the
+plow or to the shambles. Bovine man taking his part, with or without
+reflection, in a more complex life, develops, in addition, despite the
+weight of his mental inertia, a considerable capacity for emotion, for
+personal activity outside of the rules of action imposed upon him by
+society, whether through its laws or its customs.
+
+The two linen drapers of Caen, seen in the street, had the commonplace
+appearance of the millions who make up the ordinary stock of humanity,
+which is, in fact, what they represented. The chief trouble with
+professional psychologists is that, the better to classify them, they
+insist that men are all alike. It is not surprising that salient points
+in character should be the first to strike the observer. The deep-seated
+traits of "indeterminate" personalities are, however, worthy of
+analysis, being, by the way of hereditary combinations, the productive
+source of characterized energies.
+
+Who will not have concluded from the social passivity of this couple,
+stupefied with "linen," that a corresponding somnolence prevailed among
+their inward activities? Yet these two amorphous creatures, who had
+unresistingly taken the imprint of surrounding wills, lived a life of
+their own, remote from the public eye, and felt seething in the depth of
+their being intense, at times even violent, passions, which made both
+the charm and the torment of their days.
+
+Buying and selling linen had become like a physiological function of
+their organs. Eating, drinking, sleeping, and dealing in linen, were all
+on the same level in their minds. Both man and wife instinctively loved
+money, "because one needs it in order to be honest," they used to say,
+"honesty," to them, meaning keeping out of prison--but neither had even
+the moderate initiative which would have increased their chances of
+becoming rich. After reaching a medium degree of success in their
+business, they stood still, evenly balanced between indifference and
+cupidity. Outside of laws and customs, the opinion of the trade kept
+them straight, like a steel corset. They went to church because "it is
+customary." They even gave to the poor if someone were looking, as do so
+many other charitable Christians. Then, when the doors were closed, and
+their "young ladies" safely bestowed in the Convent of Mercy, where they
+had been placed for the sake of "fine connections, useful in the
+future," they could finally devote themselves to each other.
+
+I said that they were neither good nor bad, meaning that they were as
+incapable of useless malice as of disinterestedness. But the fact that a
+moral tendency is not expressed in action does not make the tendency any
+better. In deference to the requirements of law and "social propriety"
+the pair lived indissolubly united. There was no breaking of marriage
+vows. The model wife was really a figure too far from esthetic to
+inspire a temptation of a guilty thought in even the most abandoned of
+men. Besides, all her activities were centred, conformably with the
+precepts of the Church and the Code, upon her "legitimate spouse." As
+for the faithful husband, he at all times abstained from "sin," whether
+temporary or permanent, for the peremptory reason that the "crime" was
+forbidden by law, as well as doctrinally "condemned by morality." Thus
+held in check by external barriers, there remained for two souls so
+virtuous nothing but to be absorbed in each other, and to seek in the
+intimate contact of their respective susceptibilities the satisfaction
+of an ideal compatible with their natures. This satisfaction was not
+denied them. It was not to be found in love. They found it in a
+powerfully concentrated hatred. When it is the dominant emotion of a
+life, execration, in a heart convulsed with impotence, may afford the
+full amount of violent sensation by which an inferior order of humanity
+is reduced to replacing the joys of love.
+
+Husband and wife hated each other voluptuously, hated each other with a
+crafty ferocity always on the alert to inflict more exquisite wounds.
+And for what reason? They had perhaps never attempted to disentangle it.
+A mutual disgust had come upon them in the very first days of their
+marriage, upon discovering the double deception of the non-existent
+marriage portions. Later on, it is true, they both resorted to identical
+methods for decoying sons-in-law; they had none the less taken pleasure,
+from the beginning, in secretly calling each other thieves. As,
+furthermore, each had a very lively sense of the other's inferiority,
+they mutually despised each other for the conspicuous inertia which
+succeeded only in holding its own in the business, by the balance of
+irresolution in their will.
+
+If they could have found the courage occasionally to discharge the
+overflow of wrath that gathered in the depths of their mean souls! But
+the effort involved with giving free course to the mounting flood of a
+repressed detestation was outside of their possibilities. All they had
+capacity for was silently forcing back the desire to insult which
+contorted their lips, thus aggravating the repressed rage whose seething
+constituted the bitter zest of life. A passion too mighty for their
+weakness, impotent to control it.
+
+Unable to expend in speech the accumulating strength of their hatred,
+they found in secret acts of aggression the only remaining outlet. How
+much more satisfying than idle words was the joy of injuring each
+other--outside of business, of course. When thus employed, they knew
+what the object was of their living! They felt in those moments the
+power of the bond that united them in the only passion for the
+satisfaction of which they were necessary to each other.
+
+The details of the petty warfare with which they opened hostilities
+would fill a volume. There was, at the beginning, a series of light
+skirmishes in which the first thrusts might have seemed due to chance,
+had not the one who received them recognized them as hurts he would
+have liked to deal. The kitchen furnished excellent occasions for
+feminine attack. Too much salt or pepper, tainted meat, cold soups, were
+common occurrences during the early days. It would happen on this
+particular day that Madame was not hungry, while Monsieur had a good
+appetite owing to the more than frugal preceding meal. Monsieur was not,
+however, defenceless. Madame had a "delicate chest," and dreaded
+draughts above everything. But she was obliged to get used to them and
+resign herself to coughing, for by incredible ill luck there was always
+a door that would not close, or a broken window pane, which obliged her
+to live in a perpetual whirlwind. To balance matters, when caught in a
+shower, Monsieur would find his umbrella broken and come home chilled
+through. Each cared to excel in the game. They invented a thousand
+complicated traps requiring careful preparation. One night, Madame,
+alone in bed, had her legs scalded by the stopper suddenly coming out of
+the hot water bottle. Monsieur regretted the "accident," for he had to
+do double work in the shop while Madame uncomplainingly awaited
+recovery. A short time after, Monsieur, jumping out of bed, cut his foot
+on a piece of glass. It was his turn to limp.
+
+So they continued, vying with each other, and increasing in efficiency.
+Madame seemed to have a weakness for the elder of her two daughters.
+Monsieur preferred the younger. A fine battlefield, where each could
+stab the other through the innocent victim. The two marriages afforded
+occasions for subtle persecution, which ended in the common regret of
+feeling so good a weapon slip from the tormentors' hand.
+
+Left alone, face to face, the two, having exhausted their whole arsenal
+of perfidy, stared at each other in the stupor of a paroxysm of hatred
+that made them powerless to renew their warfare. What was to be done?
+Something must be thought of. Madame was the first to hit upon it.
+Monsieur, suddenly taken with a violent colic, passed in one night from
+life to death. At the last moment he had a suspicion. A smell of matches
+was exhaled from the decoction he had been taking. He blew out the
+candle, and saw phosphorescence in the glass. In the same moment death
+throes convulsed him with excruciating pain. He could only point out to
+his wife the damning evidence, with a single word, accompanied by
+hideous laughter.
+
+"The guillotine! the guillotine!"
+
+He died repeating it. Mad with terror, Madame fainted. She never
+regained consciousness. The terrifying name of the engine of death
+fluttered on her lips with her last breath.
+
+The tragic beauty of this ending excited the admiration of the entire
+town.
+
+"How they loved each other!" people said. "Such a well-assorted
+couple!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+LOVERS IN FLORENCE
+
+
+The question of love and marriage has manifestly the most obsessing
+interest for humankind. Presumably dissatisfied with the actual
+experiences of life, men, women, old people and young, seek in fiction,
+in dreams, the unattainable or the unattained. Life passes. Those among
+us who, on the brink of the grave, question themselves honestly,
+recognize that more chances of happiness were offered them than they,
+fickle or wavering, made shift to grasp.
+
+Our excellent ancestors of the "lower" animal order have a fixed period
+for the joys of love, and even in monogamy, as I demonstrated in the
+story of my pigeons, do not pride themselves upon a "virtue" beyond
+their power. The chief feature of the "higher perfection" to which we
+aspire, in word if not in deed, seems to be that we are condemned by it
+to an hypocrisy born of discrepancy between the ideal and our ability to
+realize it. Marriage, when considered aside from its doctrinal aspect,
+is found to be a fairly effectual pledge against the straying of the
+imagination which is the forerunner of human weakness. To protect the
+weak, that is to say the woman and child, against the caprice of the
+strong, is assuredly the duty of society. But who will claim that
+marriage, as the law has instituted it, and as custom practises it,
+performs that office, and does not oftener than not result in the
+triumph, whether just or unjust, of man? Have we not heard, in the
+discussion of the divorce law, one of the chiefs of the "advanced" party
+lending his eloquence to the furtherance of the doctrine of indissoluble
+marriage, while a famous radical argued that there was no equality
+between the adultery of the husband and that of the wife, when viewed as
+a conjugal misdemeanour justifying final separation?
+
+The mistake lies in regarding as immutable, and acting upon it as such,
+a thing that is, in fact, the most unstable and variable in the world,
+viz.: the human being, in perpetual process of change. To ensure the
+durability of a union for that lightning flash which we pompously term
+"all time," the parallel development of two beings would be necessary,
+two beings whom differing heredities in most cases predispose to the
+most fatal divergences. One must admit that the chance of it is small.
+
+I discussed this topic, only a few days ago, with a charming woman, made
+famous throughout Europe by her art, who has with the greatest dignity
+practiced that free bounteousness of self which men audaciously claim as
+their exclusive prerogative. She ingenuously maintained that the act
+which men consider of no consequence when practised by themselves has no
+importance either in the case of woman, except in the event of
+maternity.
+
+"And," she said, "men take advantage of this iniquitous law of nature,
+adding to it a corresponding social injustice which leaves us no choice
+except between 'honour' and liberty. Fortunately life is mightier than
+words, and women who are not by nature slaves will always have the
+resource that masculine vanity has so foolishly made attractive by
+making of it forbidden fruit."
+
+"You assert, then," I suggested with a certain timidity, "that all women
+worthy of the name either do or should deceive their husbands?"
+
+"Oh, my assertion is merely that most women if deceived by their
+husbands have the right to give back what they get. As for those who are
+unfaithful to a faithful husband, I see no reason for your refusing them
+the initiative you grant to the man who goes out on pleasure bent while
+his chaste wife sits at home spinning her wool, and wiping her
+children's noses."
+
+"That is practically what I said; that any woman with self-respect----"
+
+"--has the same rights as the man without self-respect----"
+
+"--and should use them----?"
+
+"--and may use them to suit herself without the least shadow of
+remorse."
+
+"Complete liberty, then, for each to be unfaithful to the other."
+
+"Proclaim this maxim or not, the world has not waited for you to
+formulate it before putting it into practice."
+
+"You think, then, that in reality most women are unfaithful to their
+husbands?"
+
+"I think that in reality most men are unfaithful to their wives--and
+their mistresses, too, as soon as the wife or mistress expects anything
+from duty, even though unwritten duty, instead of the free attraction of
+sentiment or of the flesh. I believe that most women who are unfaithful
+to their husbands are unfaithful to their lovers under the same
+circumstances, that is to say as soon as the lover imposes himself by
+the rights of--morally--a husband, if the combination of words is
+admissible. Worse than that! As fast as odious habit changes lover into
+husband, and mistress into wife, the actual husband, who was the lover
+in the first days of marriage, and the actual wife, who was the
+legitimatized mistress upon leaving the church door, regain the
+ascendency."
+
+"Too late."
+
+"Not always. Stop and think. Women more or less deceive their lovers
+with their husbands. That is classic in happy homes."
+
+"So one hears. But how can one be sure?"
+
+"How many cases I might quote to bear me out! Shall I tell you a case I
+have recently known?"
+
+"Pray do."
+
+"Very well. Last month in an Italian city----"
+
+"Florence, naturally, I notice that you frequently go there."
+
+"Yes, Florence. A friend of mine, a painter, went there to live three
+years ago, with his wife, a woman who would not perhaps be called
+beautiful, but who is really full of charm and grace. When my travels
+bring me in their neighbourhood I never miss an occasion to see them,
+for we are very old friends. He and I, you see, were young together for
+six months. He tells me everything, and I tell him many things. Philip,
+we will call him that, if you like, made a love match which, as it
+happened, was excellent from a worldly standpoint, too. They were the
+most utterly devoted couple for nearly four years. That is a long while.
+Eighteen months ago, on one of those journeys to Florence which you have
+noticed, I easily detected that Philip's wife had a lover. A young
+fellow, an Italian noble with a great name and a slender purse,
+beautiful as a young wild animal crouching for game--well dressed,
+though not as quietly as could be, with a pretty talent for sculpture,
+which he had the good sense never to mention. Their art had brought the
+two men together, and Alice--we will take the chances of calling
+Philip's wife by that name--had, I do not know exactly how, come under a
+new attraction, the strength of which increased as time, through the
+monotony of habit, blunted the formerly supreme charm of her husband.
+
+"On his side, Philip had gradually returned to studio 'affairs,' giving
+as an excuse his research after forms, attitudes, and colours, during
+that relaxing of the body which follows the strain of the model's pose,
+and is like life after death. He confessed all this to me without
+reserve, obviously satisfied that his wife, whose 'angelic sweetness'
+and 'tact' he could not sufficiently praise--was willing to leave him a
+free field for his fancies.
+
+"'I still love her!' he said, in all sincerity. 'But I have to think of
+my painting, do I not?'
+
+"Giovanni, naturally, had a great admiration for Philip's talent, and
+made no secret of it. As for Alice, she regarded her husband as nothing
+less than a genius. When Philip was dissatisfied with his work he was
+frankly unbearable. He indulged in grumbling and complaining and bursts
+of anger, followed by long periods of depression. If, on the other hand,
+he had succeeded in satisfying himself, it was worse still, for then one
+had to endure the recital of the entire performance, down to the least
+trifling detail of composition or execution. At first one might listen
+with pleasure, or at least benevolence. But the wearisome repetition
+from morning until night finally became tedious, even exasperating, when
+Philip, with a childish insistence, invited replies, denials, the better
+to confound his opponent. The docile Giovanni and the sincerely
+admiring Alice lent themselves resignedly to these gymnastic exercises
+of patience, but when days and days had been spent in the occupation,
+both, exhausted by their efforts, must have longed in body and soul for
+a distraction more or less in accordance with current social customs. As
+might have been expected, they found it in each other, and from that
+moment peace descended upon the happy home.
+
+"When I discovered the affair between Alice and Giovanni in the course
+of a visit to Fiesole, where I came upon them suddenly in such a state
+of blind absorption that they did not even raise their eyes at the sound
+of my footsteps, I judged that passion was at flood tide. They did not
+even trouble to conceal themselves, so that had I not been careful, I
+should not have escaped the annoyance of an encounter, the revelations
+of which could hardly have been blinked. I took the course of going
+often to see Philip at his studio, where he had an important piece of
+work under way, and I was able to leave town without disturbing the
+happy quietude of all concerned.
+
+"On my return the following year it seemed to me at first that nothing
+had changed in the arrangement of which I had the secret. Still, Philip
+seemed to me less absorbed in his art. I often caught him with his eyes
+obstinately fixed upon his wife, who, while avoiding them, seemed
+troubled by the obsession of his gaze. Did he suspect something? I did
+not long entertain this idea, for he talked to me with such warmth
+about Alice, that I could not restrain an exclamation of surprise.
+
+"'God forgive me, Philip,' I cried. 'You are in love! And with your
+wife! What has happened?'
+
+"'Nothing' he said. 'I have never ceased to love her.'
+
+"And one confidence leading to another, I learned that a flirtation by
+every rule was going on between the two. For a year they had been living
+in separate apartments. At first the doors had been on the latch, but
+later they had definitely been locked. One day, for no particular
+reason, Philip had wondered why, and found no answer. Alice, when
+questioned, had had nothing to say, but 'Not now--later,' which could
+not fill the function of reasons. That another should have won the heart
+which belonged to him could never have occurred to Philip. But as his
+mind and senses became insistent, sentiment woke up, too. So that the
+inconstant husband began a definite siege of the unfaithful wife.
+
+"Alice appeared to be flattered by the homage, but held back by a sense
+of duty toward her lover. As for Giovanni, confident in the stability of
+his dominion, he was entertained by the performance in which his vanity
+saw nothing but an innocent game started by Alice for the sake of
+keeping him on the alert. It was Philip, and no longer Giovanni, who
+filled Alice's drawing room with flowers. Giovanni amusingly called my
+attention to this detail, with the fine confidence of a man sure of his
+power. He was, after all, fond of Philip, and pitied him for his wasted
+pains.
+
+"I went to spend six months in Rome, and on my way back to Paris,
+stopped for a week in Florence. I was convinced at once and beyond a
+doubt that the legitimate betrayal had been consummated, and that the
+blind lover Giovanni was being cynically duped. Alice had become her
+husband's mistress. I must add, that though the factors were inverted,
+the sum of happiness appeared the same. Contentment continued to reign
+in Philip's household, as it had not ceased to do since his wedding day,
+thanks to the three successive combinations. I even judged that this
+time there was a chance of it becoming a settled condition, for Philip
+no longer bored us with his pictures, being completely absorbed in the
+business of making himself agreeable to his wife, for whom the pleasure
+of the conjugal affair was enhanced by the delicately perverse spice of
+the secret connected with Giovanni. The value of his conquest rose
+appreciably in Giovanni's eyes at sight of Philip in love, and he
+peacefully admired as his achievement the perfect contentment of the
+household. He was even beginning to cast his eyes about him, and I was
+not too greatly surprised when I saw him disposed to make love to me.
+Everybody's destiny was sealed. The divorce between Giovanni and Alice
+which, I suppose, already existed in fact, would soon be formally
+acknowledged.
+
+"I was in the habit of going at nightfall to sit in the Loggia dei Lanzi
+to see all Florence pass on its way home, for has not the Piazza della
+Signoria for centuries and centuries been the town's general meeting
+ground? I have made curious observations there. After a glance at the
+Perseus, I used to go and sit on the upper one of the steps that make
+seats like those of an amphitheatre against the long back wall, and
+there, hidden in the shadow, screened from view by the famous group of
+the Rape of the Sabines, gaze about me, dream, and wait for chance to
+send an inspiration or a friendly face to tear me from my thoughts.
+
+"One evening I had lingered in my hiding place. Darkness had come.
+Ammanati's Neptune and Gian Bologna's Cosimo peopled the night with
+motionless ghosts. Suddenly two shapes rose under the arches, a man and
+a woman with arms entwined. They glided whispering toward the Sabine
+voluptuously struggling in the arms of her new master, and there, out of
+sight of the rare passers, but fully in my sight, clasped each other in
+a long embrace. Finally I saw their faces. They were Philip and Alice,
+who, driven from home by Giovanni's presence, had come to hide in the
+public square and make love.
+
+"'Giovanni must have been surprised,' Philip was saying, 'at not
+finding us in. But really, he is too indiscreet.'
+
+"'Do you know what you ought to do?' asked Alice, after a silence, 'You
+ought to advise him to take a little journey to Rome--or elsewhere.'
+
+"'A good idea. I will do so.'
+
+"Two weeks later Giovanni came to see me in Paris, and made amorous
+proposals to me. I still have to laugh when I think of his discomfited
+face at the sweeping courtesy I made him. It happened only three days
+ago. What do you say to my story?"
+
+"I should have to know the end of it."
+
+"Nothing ever ends. Everything keeps on."
+
+"Well, it is an exception, that is all I can say."
+
+"I admit it. But out of what are rules made, if you please? Is it not
+out of exceptions when there are enough of them? I bring my
+contribution. You ought in return to tell me some fine story of absolute
+monogamic fidelity."
+
+"Such things exist."
+
+"Assuredly. I know a case. Never were two mortals more unhappy. Their
+whole life was one prolonged battle."
+
+"From which you conclude----?"
+
+"That we are all exceptions, my dear friend, and that we all establish
+our great intangible laws only for other people, reserving the right to
+take or to leave as much of them for ourselves as we choose. Good luck.
+Good-bye!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+A HUNTING ACCIDENT
+
+
+I again met the charming woman to whom I owe the story of the Florentine
+love affairs just related.
+
+"What news of Don Giovanni?" I asked.
+
+"I saw him yesterday, by chance. He confessed that he did not know the
+reason of his exile. I gently insinuated that the husband might have
+something to do with it. The idea made him laugh, and he answered:
+'Anything is likelier than that!' which made me laugh in my turn."
+
+"All blind, then?"
+
+"And the result: Peace and happiness."
+
+"And clear vision?"
+
+"Clear vision would simply mean tragedy, because of each one regarding
+his own infidelities as unimportant, only to reach the unexpected
+conclusion that those of his partner are unforgivable crimes. Not
+logical, but very human."
+
+"And do you not think that conjugal fidelity is human, too?"
+
+"Excuse me, I expressly told you that I had once seen a case of it."
+
+"And might one hear the story of this solitary case?"
+
+"An uneventful drama. Nothing is less romantic than virtue. You must be
+aware of that."
+
+"But does happiness lie in romance?"
+
+"That I cannot say. Possibly, because the reality will never equal the
+dream. At all events, my faithful pair were the most unhappy mortals I
+have ever known."
+
+"Do tell me about them."
+
+"Oh, it is very simple. You know that I was brought up in England, near
+the little town of Dorking. I still have friends there whom I visit
+occasionally, when I want a change from Italy. Surrey is a picturesque
+region, where lazy rivers wind their way to the sea between green banks,
+through wide, fertile valleys at the foot of wooded hills. Everywhere
+woods and streams, and ravines crested with yews and ancient oaks. Pale,
+misty skies spread a mother-of-pearl canopy over the wide expanses of
+thick grass. It is a fox hunting country, and I humbly confess that
+there are to my mind few pleasures in life equal to the wild
+intoxication of a mad, aimless gallop, in which, what with hedges and
+ditches, rivers and precipices, one risks breaking one's neck a hundred
+times a day. You will from current pictures of it get a fairly good idea
+of the sport. It is a headlong rush to get--one does not clearly know
+where. Nothing stops one, nothing furnishes a sufficient reason for
+turning back. Onward, and still onward! The horses themselves are
+infected with the general madness. Accidents make no difference. A
+fallen horse scrambles to his feet again, an unseated rider gets back
+into the saddle. Some are carried home on stretchers. At night the
+fallen are counted. In three curt words their friends sympathize with
+them for having to wait three weeks before going at it again.
+
+"A few years ago, in one of these hunting tumults, I stopped to get my
+breath after a long gallop on my cob. I was on a wide heath overlooking
+the valley that ends at the red spires of Dorking. A silvery river,
+whose name I forget, and a sprinkling of pools set patches of sky in the
+vast stretch of flowering green. At the horizon a tower is seen, famous
+in the district, a memorial of the whimsey of a pious personage, who had
+himself buried there head downward so as to find himself standing
+upright on the day of the resurrection, when, it seems, the world will
+be upside down.
+
+"I stood wondering at this ingenuous monument of human simplicity, when
+I heard behind me the noise of frantic galloping. Before I could move or
+cry out, a hunter and a maddened horse burst from the wood, within
+gunshot, and plunged headlong down the steep bank that ended abruptly at
+the gaping pit of an old quarry. What filled me with unspeakable horror
+was that the rider was desperately spurring and lashing his horse, who
+would have been unable anyhow to stop himself in his dizzy descent
+toward death. In the twinkling of an eye the ground appeared to swallow
+them both. Nothing was to be seen but heaven and earth smiling at each
+other with the imperturbable smile of things that never end.
+
+"I finally regained the use of my senses. I jumped from my saddle, and I
+know not how, reached the bottom of the quarry. The horse had been
+killed outright. In a red pool lay a gasping, shattered man. It was an
+old friend of mine, who had been kind to me in my early days in Dorking.
+I called him. He opened his eyes.
+
+"'What!' he cried, 'it is not over?'
+
+"I questioned him in vain.
+
+"'It is not over! It is not over!' he repeated in vain despair, 'I shall
+have to go through with it again!'
+
+"Not knowing what to do or say, I climbed to the top of the bank and
+called for help. A farmer hastened to the spot. With infinite care, the
+wounded man was lifted into a cart. By some miracle he had escaped
+without mortal injury. Two months later he was in full convalescence. He
+suspected before long that I had witnessed his leap, and my
+embarrassment when he questioned me about our encounter at the bottom of
+the quarry only confirmed him in his idea. One day, he could no longer
+keep from speaking.
+
+"'You do not believe it was an accident, do you?' he said, looking me
+squarely in the eyes.
+
+"'What do you mean?' I asked, avoiding the question.
+
+"'I mean that I must have passed close by you on my way to the quarry.'
+
+"'Yes,' I said, with a sudden resolve to tell the truth.
+
+"'You know my secret. I am sure, my dear child, that you will keep it.
+Death would not take me. I shall go on living. But since there is now
+one human being before whom I can pour out the overflow of my misery,
+and since that one is yourself, for whom I have so long felt the warmest
+friendship, I will tell you all.'
+
+"'Some other day. Later on.'
+
+"'No, let me speak. In the first place, let me reassure you, there is no
+crime in my life.'
+
+"'What an idea!'
+
+"'No, I am merely unhappy. And my unhappiness is of a kind for which
+there is no help. It seems to you that I have everything, does it not?
+Wealth, a happy family life, beloved children. My wife, I am sure, seems
+to you----'
+
+"'The best in the world.'
+
+"'Doubtless. And yet, she exactly is the cause of my wretchedness. She
+loves me, and I hate her. It is horrible.'
+
+"'Oh, come. You do not hate your wife. That is impossible.'
+
+"'I repeat it. I hate her. I loved her when I married her. I was in love
+at that time, for she was very beautiful. She has been a faithful wife,
+and a good mother. What have I to complain of, except that she
+mechanically has confined herself to the narrow performance of her
+duties, and while doing it, has allowed us to become strangers? Is she
+above or beneath me? What does it matter? We are not on the same mental
+plane. I have by my side an inert, submissive creature, with an
+exasperating sorrow in her eyes, for although she has never formulated
+any complaint, she naturally holds me responsible for the
+misunderstanding which has never been expressed in words. You look at me
+as if you did not understand. You think me mad, probably. Shall I be
+more explicit? Very well, I no longer love her. There you have it in a
+nutshell. Gradually, habit and her flatly commonplace mind made her
+indifferent to me. There is no sense in blaming her. Be the fault hers
+or mine, I was estranged from her. What remedy was there for the brutal
+fact? I had loved her, and I loved her no longer. We cannot love by
+order of the sheriff or of the Bible. It is as if you should reproach me
+with having white hair instead of blond, as I once had. What have you to
+say to it?'
+
+"'Nothing at all, my dear and unhappy friend. If you wish me to speak
+frankly, the idea had occurred to me that the lack of pleasure you took
+in your excellent wife might come from the possibly unconscious pleasure
+you took in someone else.'
+
+"'Your imagination anticipates the facts. As you suspect, I have not
+finished my story. Since you call for an immediate confession, let me
+tell you, that having been strictly brought up in the discipline of the
+Church, I came to marriage with the perfect purity required by Christian
+morality. Let me also tell you that, for whatever reason you
+choose--ignorance of the strategy of intrigue, or timidity, or fear of
+losing my self-respect--I have remained guiltless of the least departure
+from the strictest marriage laws. I no longer loved my wife, but I was
+her husband, her faithful husband. You will readily guess at the
+wretched lapses into weakness confessed in that statement, followed by a
+reaction of shame, and even of repulsion, which in spite of my best
+efforts I could not disguise.
+
+"'I thought of going on a long journey. A year or two in India might, or
+so I supposed, have brought me back to the woman from whom proximity was
+daily separating me more widely. But she, not understanding this, raised
+the most serious of all objections: the children needed my oversight.
+
+"'Take us with you,' she stupidly suggested.
+
+"'The die was cast. We remained where we were: chained together, each
+horribly distressing the other, and, with each spasm of pain, deepening
+our own hurt and that of our companion in irons. She, unfailingly
+angelic, and I, unbalanced, full of whims, and doubtless unbearable. Who
+knows? If it had been possible to her nature, a clap of thunder might
+have scattered the contrary electric currents between us, and have
+restored peace. But no. We were enemies always on the point of
+grappling, with never the relief of a word or a gesture of battle. My
+nerves were on the point of giving way, when the inevitable romance came
+into my life.'
+
+"'You are still far from strong. Do not tell me any more to-day.'
+
+"'Nay, chance has forced this confession. Let us go through with it to
+the end. After this, we will never refer to it again. The romance you
+have guessed at was connected with a lovable and light-hearted girl. She
+was a little intoxicated with her own youth, and full of the exquisite
+charm which illusion had once lent to the woman I married, and in which
+she was to me so lamentably lacking now. What shall I say? I loved and
+was loved. Our passion was an ideal one, very sweet, very pure, carrying
+with it no remorse. Were I to tell you the story of it, it might even
+seem childish to you. It contained, however, the two happiest years of
+my life. Two years that passed like a flash. Two years of silent
+delight, ending one day in a definite avowal. No sooner had we uttered
+the words, than fear of the sin we glimpsed assailed us, and we fell
+back aghast into the depths of despair. Our only kiss was the kiss of
+eternal farewell.
+
+"'I was left more broken and bleeding by the horrible fall than when you
+found me on the stones of the quarry. She went away, and if I am to tell
+the whole miserable truth, she has found comfort, she is married to a
+boor, who, they say, makes her happy. Why should I care to appear better
+than I am? I often regret the imbecile heroism prompting me, when to
+save that shallow creature I made myself into the victim of an atrocious
+fate. I spared her, and consequently am dying, while she, in the arms of
+her hod carrier----Do not misjudge me. I have suffered. She had sworn to
+love me forever. She is happy, and I--I who could have taken her and
+broken her and made of the eventual harm to her an overwhelming joy,
+while it lasted, have not even the right to proclaim her unworthy of my
+foolish pity. I curse her, and I love her still.
+
+"'And my wife, my blameless wife, who guessed everything, I am sure, and
+forgave it, either from incapacity to resent an outrage, or from
+insulting pity for me, my wife to whom I owe this double disillusion in
+love, who unwittingly tortures me, and whom I equally torture, I
+execrate her, I hate her with all the intensity of my misery. Had I
+yielded to the moment's temptation I might have returned to her sated
+with happiness, or disenchanted, or remorseful.
+
+"'In my deepest misery I shall never forgive her the look of silent
+anguish wherewith she stabs me. I shall never forgive her resignation,
+the quiet submission which, together with her interest in her duties,
+makes our tormented life bearable to her. She is not unaware, you may be
+sure, that I have a hundred times thought of seeking oblivion in death.
+She was no more taken in than you were by the accident on Dunley Hill.
+She will never betray it by a word. She offers herself as a sacrifice,
+and this magnanimity which fills me with despair constantly aggravates
+the intolerable anguish of our daily association. I no longer love the
+woman who loves me; I still love the one who loves me no longer. I have
+committed no sin, I am even blameless. Will you deny that if I had given
+myself cause for remorse I might also have suffered less, might have
+even had chances of happiness?'"
+
+With a far-away look in her eyes, the narrator ended her story abruptly.
+
+"And what did you answer?" I questioned.
+
+"I answered that pain wears itself out no less than joy, that it is our
+nature to regret the things that might have been, because they are so
+different from reality. I answered that patience to live is the greatest
+among the virtues."
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+GIAMBOLO
+
+
+I, too, have known the joys of travel! I, too, have left the easy slopes
+of home for the steep ascents of foreign lands! Like many another
+simpleton, sated with the familiar, I have enthusiastically crossed
+frontiers in search of that something or other which might give me
+unexpected sensations.
+
+After being tossed and jolted and bruised in the hard sleeping cars, I
+have fallen into the hands of porters, or "_traegers_" or "_facchini_,"
+who bewildered me with their violent pantomime accompanied by
+anti-French sounds, obliged me to follow them by going off with my wraps
+and bags, and after an extortionate charge flung me on to the
+sympathetically dejected cushions of the hotel omnibus, amid strange
+companions. Next, a hideous rattling of iron and window glass, while a
+gold-laced individual asks me simultaneously in three different
+languages to account for my presence here, and say how I mean to spend
+my time, telling me in the same breath the great advantage there would
+be in doing something quite different from what I intend to do.
+Presently the torture changes. A gigantic porter in an imperial great
+coat transfers me to silent automata in black broadcloth and white tie,
+who hand people and luggage from one to the next as far as the elevator.
+Nothing more remains but to answer the chambermaid's investigations as
+to my habits and tastes, my theory of existence, while by an error of
+the hall boy my luggage is scattered in neighbouring rooms, and I am
+burdened with someone else's. All is finally straightened out. Alone, at
+last!
+
+Then comes a discreet knock at my door. It is the interpreter, the
+guide, the cicerone, the indispensable man, who with touching
+obsequiousness places his universal knowledge at my disposal for to-day,
+to-morrow, or all time. Here follows a long enumeration of what custom
+imposes upon the stranger. There is no question of breaking away from
+tradition. There stand the monuments, and here are the roads leading to
+them. One may begin the round by one or another. My liberty is limited
+to the order in which I shall see them. The rest does not concern me.
+Here is such and such a picture, there stands such and such a piece of
+statuary. We shall cross the street or the square where such and such an
+event took place. A date, the year, and month, and day, are supposed to
+stamp the facts on my memory. Why did the men of the past choose this
+precise spot to make history? I have no time to inquire, for in three
+turns of the wheel I am in another and still more memorable place, where
+other dates and other names are dextrously driven into the quick of my
+memory. Galleries follow upon galleries, trips to rivers, to mountains.
+A glimpse of a cool garden tempts me. How sweet to rest there for a
+while, and dream! But where is one to find the time, when interpreter
+and coachman are growing impatient because there is no more than time to
+go to the Carthusian monastery, and get back before nightfall?
+
+The interminable road unfolds before me while I delve into my Baedeker
+for the history of the monastery. Suddenly the coachman stops, points
+with his whip at the horizon, and makes an emphatic, incomprehensible
+speech. A battle was fought there in the time of the Risorgimento. His
+little cousin's brother-in-law was wounded there, not mortally, though
+his corporal had his leg cut off. How should one not be proud of such
+memories? My guide says that his father was fond of telling that he had
+seen it all from the top of a tower. He begins another version of the
+story, which is interrupted by our arrival at the monastery, and taken
+up again on the return journey. Next day in the train I shall have
+leisure to think over all these things, if the complete confusion in my
+memory leaves me capacity for anything but stupefaction.
+
+When we try to get at the reason for these extraordinary performances,
+people offer different explanations. This one will call it "taking a
+holiday." The other will say that he has had an unhappy love affair and
+needs distraction. For the most part, people will confess that they are
+trying to forget something--their wife, their children, their business.
+All seem tormented by the same desire for novelty. What they are seeking
+from men and monuments and places in foreign lands is something not yet
+seen, a fresh enjoyment, a virgin impression which shall draw them
+outside the circle of outworn sensations. It is something to rouse a
+happy wonder, and fulfil a hope of pleasure that always keeps ahead of
+any pleasure experienced. Do they find it? Everyone must answer for
+himself. Many probably never ask themselves the question, lest they be
+obliged to confess a weary disappointment.
+
+Before this procession of churches, statues, and pictures, where shall
+we stop, what shall we try to retain? How shall we disentangle the
+significance of things, the meaning and power and expressiveness of
+which can only be grasped by deep study? It would be too simple, if one
+need merely open one's eyes in order to understand. The work of art
+speaks, but we must know its language. Not only is time wanting,
+knowledge of the need of knowledge is wanting in most passers by, who
+will never do anything but pass by. Their pride is satisfied when they
+can say: "I have seen." That is the most definite part of their harvest
+of pleasure. It is apparently a conscientious scruple that obliges them
+to go out of their way to obtain it.
+
+"I am going to Rome," said a young Englishman to Miss Harriet Martineau,
+"oh, just so as to be able to say that I have been there."
+
+"Why don't you say so without going?" was the simple reply.
+
+It is upon Italy particularly that the crowd hurls itself. Wherever you
+may go in that classic land, you will be surrounded by an ever-rising
+flood of the natives of every known continent, all seeking under new
+skies for self-renewal. Silent, tired, their eyes straining at invisible
+things, they file past with their shawls and veils and parasols,
+levelling field glasses, marking maps, asking senseless questions, and
+emitting exclamations expressive of an equal admiration for everything
+they see. I have always pitied these poor people, dragged from their
+native land by a force which their simple minds are unable to analyze.
+They will never express their disappointment, most of them will never
+realize it. But I feel it for them, and I pity their wasted effort.
+
+It was a consolation to me to find one day that there are people who
+turn homeward satisfied, with the object of their desires attained, and
+the happiness secured of having seen and felt what it is granted only to
+a chosen few to see and feel.
+
+I was quite alone on the platform of the bell tower of Torcello, from
+which the entire Venetian lagoon is visible at a glance. Sea, air, and
+sky, all luminous and transparent, melted into one another, building a
+vast dome of light. In the distance, bluish spots--islands, or perhaps
+clouds--what cared I for names! Do clouds have names? Boats loaded with
+fruit and vegetables streaked the bright mirror of the sea, and alone
+reminded one of the reality of the earth. Not a sound. The desert calm
+of sky and sea imposes silence. The lagoon has no song.
+
+I stood there, as if transfixed in the crystal of the universe, admiring
+without reflection, when lo!--a group of Germans arriving, led by the
+fever-shaken cicerone whose aid I had a little earlier refused. Here was
+his chance for revenge. Immediately, without preamble, he gathers his
+audience in a circle, and begins to "exhibit" the horizon. With
+outstretched arms he throws at every point of the compass names, and
+names, and then more names. From the top of the peaceful tower fly
+sonorous sounds to the spots where his imperious gesture firmly fastens
+them. Mountain, island, tower, village, indentations of the coast line,
+everything has its turn, visible objects and objects that might be
+visible. Men, women, and children, all Germany hangs upon the lips of
+the voluble showman. At each name, as if at a military command, all
+glances follow the pointing finger and take an anxious plunge into
+space. For one must be sure to see the designated spot. Otherwise what
+is the good of coming? But as soon as the eyes are settling down to
+feed upon the sight just announced, a new command drags them all in
+another direction. That blue line, that white gleam have a name, a
+history--this is the name, and here is the history. Now let us go on to
+the next thing.
+
+These people, marvellously disciplined, listen in admiring attitudes. A
+student is taking notes, so as to impart his learning when he gets home.
+But the end is not yet. The cicerone, suddenly silent, one hand
+shielding his eyes, appears hypnotized by something at the horizon. The
+attitude, the fixed stare, particularly the silence, keep the spectators
+in suspense. The man has drawn from his pocket a battered opera glass
+which, possibly, in the last century, contributed to the delight of some
+noble dame at the Fenice. Its lenses acquire from being dextrously
+rubbed with an accurately proportioned mixture of saliva and tobacco,
+and then dried with a handkerchief reminiscent of fish fried in oil, and
+of polenta, the unique property of making infinitely small objects at
+the horizon visible--objects smaller than any other optical instrument
+could enable one to see. The man brandishes the apparatus.
+
+"To-day Giambolo is visible," he says. "I am going to show you
+Giambolo."
+
+Everyone exclaims joyously: "What! Is it possible? He is going to show
+us Giambolo!"
+
+And the man on the bell tower of Torcello is as good as his word.
+Pushing aside the German field glasses with a scornful gesture, he
+thrusts his precious instrument upon the group.
+
+"Do you see, just above the horizon line, something white that seems to
+move in a burst of light? Half close your eyes, in order to see farther.
+By an uncommon piece of luck Giambolo is visible to-day. You cannot help
+seeing it. I can even see it with my naked eye. But of course I know
+where to look for it."
+
+The rigid German, ankylosed at his glass, suddenly straightens up.
+
+"Yes, yes, I saw it very well. It is all white, and there is something
+shining."
+
+"That is it," answers the man of Torcello, satisfied.
+
+Then everyone took his turn. The women all saw it at the very first
+glance; they even gave detailed descriptions of it. The student alone
+could not see Giambolo. He confessed it with genuine humiliation, and
+was looked upon with pitying disdain by all the others.
+
+"What is it like?" he asked of everyone. And everyone gave his own
+description. There was a slight vapour at the top. A streak at the
+right, said some, some said at the left; there was nothing of the kind,
+according to the _pater familias_ who had had the distinction of being
+the first to see Giambolo.
+
+The unfortunate student tried again and again, and went on exclaiming
+in despair: "I can see nothing! I can see nothing!"
+
+The Italian shrugged his shoulders with a placid smile, the meaning of
+which obviously was that some people had not the gift.
+
+"But," cried the exasperated youth, "what is Giambolo, will you tell me?
+Is there any such thing, really, as Giambolo?"
+
+A unanimous cry of horror went up at this blasphemy. How could one see a
+thing that did not exist? When half a dozen human beings have in good
+faith seen Giambolo and are willing to swear before God that they have,
+no further discussion is possible.
+
+"Then tell me what it is, since you have seen it."
+
+With a gesture the Italian checked all forthcoming answers.
+
+"Giambolo is Giambolo," he pronounced, with imposing solemnity. "One
+cannot, unless one is mad, argue about it. Only, it is not granted to
+everyone to see it."
+
+There was evidently on the bell tower of Torcello no one bereft of
+reason, for silence followed this speech, and no one seemed inclined to
+dispute a settled fact. Groaning under the weight of his shame, the
+unfortunate young man who had not seen Giambolo gave the signal for
+moving on, and the descent was made in the contented repose of mind that
+attends the happy accomplishment of an act above the common.
+
+On the lowest step, the good Torcellian reaped in his discreetly
+outstretched cap an abundant harvest of silver coins. It is hardly
+possible to be niggardly with those who have shown one Giambolo.
+
+A few days later, on the roof of the Milan Cathedral, amid the thick
+forest of statues which makes the place surprising, I saw a mustachioed
+guide hurling at the marble multitude augmented by a flock of Cook's
+tourists the names of the snowy summits composing the Alpine range along
+the horizon. The memory of Torcello was so recent that I could not but
+be struck by the identity of the scene. The same motions, same accent,
+same voluble emphasis. The session was near its end. I was about to pass
+on, when the man, after a moment's silent scrutiny, drew forth an opera
+glass through which perhaps, in her day, Malibran was seen at the Scala;
+he signified by a gesture that he had a supplementary communication to
+make. All Cook's flock drew near, grave, anxious, open mouthed. Oh,
+surprise! Like the man of Torcello, the Milanese had caught sight of
+something not usually to be seen. With an authoritative gesture he
+called upon the elements to deliver up their mystery, and extending a
+finger with infallible accuracy toward a point known only to himself,
+cast upon the wind a name the sonorous vibrations of which spread
+through space. Was it an illusion? It seemed to me that the name was
+Giambolo.
+
+Still Giambolo! Giambolo, visible from all heights. And the same scene
+was enacted as on the lagoon at Venice.
+
+The magical glass passed from hand to hand; exclamations of joy and
+surprise followed one another. Everybody wished to see and saw Giambolo.
+They exchanged their impressions.
+
+"Did you see the little puff of vapour?"
+
+"Something white."
+
+"Yes--blue."
+
+"No--gray."
+
+"That is it! You have seen it!"
+
+And there was inexpressible delight. Only a few silent individuals
+showed by their dejected attitude the humiliation they felt at not being
+sure of what they had seen, or whether they had seen it. But no one took
+any notice of this in the tumult of commentary.
+
+I looked at the happy group. Laughing faces, bright eyes, all the
+weariness of travel wiped out. Some of the women grew quiet, the more
+consciously to taste their joy. The men, more communicative, exchanged
+opinions. They had seen Giambolo, and could not get over the wonder of
+it.
+
+They had not come to Italy in vain. Which opinion was shared by the
+excellent Lombardy guide, weighing in his palm the money accruing to him
+from the sight of Giambolo.
+
+A week had passed without any notable event other than meeting
+everywhere those pilgrim bands who spoil all pleasure in beautiful
+things by the obsession of their ready-made admirations. From the outer
+rotunda of the convent in Assisi I was letting my gaze wander over the
+plain of Umbria, all the world in sight being an expanse of billowing
+greenness. As if through a trap door a man sprang up at my side, then
+two, then ten, then what seemed a thousand, for the platform on which I
+had a moment before been walking alone under the sky was turned into a
+clamorous ant hill.
+
+Voices on all sides exclaimed: "Here it is! Here is the place from which
+we can see. Over there, there, the towers of Perugia. And the railway!"
+
+"What! The railway that brought us?"
+
+"Yes, really!"
+
+"How strange!"
+
+"Can you tell me, sir," said a fat man, puffing, "the name of yonder
+village?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Ah, and that other one?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+There was a cry. Everyone rushed in the direction whence it came. I
+feared that someone had fallen over the parapet. Not at all, it was the
+call of the cicerone who had something to impart. As soon as he had
+obtained silence:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he began in ringing tones, "the day is
+exceptionally favourable to show you, far away, beyond Perugia,
+something which few travellers have had the good fortune to see from
+here."
+
+The greasy opera glass came into sight, wrapped in a red handkerchief
+together with cigarettes and divers odds and ends. The entire audience
+was aquiver with suspense, keen to the point of anguish.
+
+"You shall now see," he cried.
+
+I fled. But I had finally begun to see the philosophy of the phenomenon.
+In a word, Giambolo was a reality, since it was the thing that all these
+people came in search of. What exactly was it? There was no advantage in
+knowing, since, if Giambolo were within reach, all joy in it would be
+lost. Giambolo stands for that which cannot be grasped. Giambolo stands
+for the beyond--it is the door leading from the known to the Infinite.
+
+We leave our country, our home and friends, all to whom we give the best
+of ourselves, all for whom we spend ourselves, and we go to foreign
+lands in quest of that fascinating Giambolo which we do not find at
+home, where strangers sometimes come in search of it. We wear ourselves
+out in the quest. When we reach home again, we claim to have seen it.
+Sometimes we are not sure of having done so. A monument, a statue, a
+picture is too close. We can always, taking the word of fame, make
+believe to discover what we in reality do not. But if we succeed in
+deceiving others, it is harder in good faith to delude ourselves.
+Whereas, from a height, through the blurred glass of faith, the little
+white light, beyond the edge of the visible world, by which we are
+enabled sincerely to see what we do not see brings us the surest
+realization of human hope.
+
+And, kind readers, if any one of you ever has any doubts, even though
+you sit in your armchair at home, follow the advice of the guide on the
+Venetian lagoon: "Half close your eyes----" and you will see Giambolo.
+
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+    THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
+      GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Books by the Same Author_
+
+      THE STRONGEST
+      LE GRAND PAN
+    AU FIL DES JOURS
+         ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Surprises of Life, by Georges Clemenceau
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40618 ***