Chapter XIV: Health to the King! 278 (5)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VIII

MY OLD WOMAN’S DEATH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IX

THE FIRE

15th of August.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I want to pick up the pieces.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you really going on?”

“Yes, I’m going on, Jojot.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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