A FISHING-TRIP AND AN OLD FRIEND
July 21st.
M. Jupille had written to tell me where I was to meet him on the Sunday,
giving me the most minute directions. I might take the train to Massy,
or to Bievres. However, I preferred to take the train to Sceaux and walk
from there, leaving Chatenay on my left, striking across the woods of
Verrieres toward the line of forts, coming out between Igny and
Amblainvilliers, and finally reaching a spot where the Bievre broadens
out between two wooded banks into a pool as clear as a spring and as full
of fish as a nursery-pond.
"Above all things, tell nobody where it is!" begged Jupille. "It is our
secret; I discovered it myself."
When I left Sceaux to meet Jupille, who had started before daybreak, the
sun was already high. There was not a cloud nor a breath of wind; the
sway of summer lay over all things. But, though the heat was broiling,
the walk was lovely. All about me was alive with voice or perfume.
Clouds of linnets fluttered among the branches, golden beetles crawled
upon the grass, thousands of tiny whirring wings beat the air--flies,
gnats, gadflies, bees--all chorusing the life--giving warmth of the day
and the sunshine that bathed and penetrated all nature. I halted from
time to time in the parched glades to seek my way, and again pushed
onward through the forest paths overarched with heavy-scented leafage,
onward over the slippery moss up toward the heights, below which the
Bievre stole into view.
There it lay, at my feet, gliding between banks of verdure which seemed a
season younger than the grass I stood on. I began to descend the slope,
knowing that M. Jupille was awaiting me somewhere in the valley. I broke
into a run. I heard the murmur of water in the hollows, and caught
glimpses of forget-me-not tufts in low-lying grassy corners. Suddenly a
rod outlined itself against the sky, between two trees. It was he, the
old clerk; he nodded to me and laid down his line.
"I thought you never were coming."
"That shows you don't know me. Any sport?"
"Not so loud! Yes, capital sport. I'll bait a line for you."
"And where is your friend, Monsieur Jupille?"
"There he is."
"Where?"
"Staring you in the face; can't you see him?".
Upon my word, I could see nobody, until he directed my gaze with his
fishing-rod, when I perceived, ten yards away, a large back view of white
trousers and brown, unbuckled waistcoat, a straw hat which seemed to
conceal a head, and a pair of shirt-sleeves hanging over the water.
This mass was motionless.
"He must have got a bite," said Jupille, "else he would have been here
before now. Go and see him."
Not knowing whom I was about to address, I gave a warning cough as I came
near him.
The unknown drew a loud breath, like a man who wakes with a start.
"That you, Jupille?" he said, turning a little way; "are you out of
bait?"
"No, my dear tutor, it is I."
"Monsieur Mouillard, at last!"
"Monsieur Flamaran! Jupille told the truth when he said I should be
surprised. Are you fond of fishing?"
"It's a passion with me. One must keep one or two for one's old age,
young man."
"You've been having sport, I hear."
"Well, this morning, between eight and nine, there were a few nibbles;
but since then the sport has been very poor. However, I'm very glad to
see you again, Mouillard. That essay of yours was extremely good."
The eminent professor had risen, displaying a face still red from his
having slept with his head on his chest, but beaming with good-will. He
grasped my hand with heartiness and vigor.
"Here's rod and line for you, Monsieur Mouillard, all ready baited,"
broke in Jupille. "If you'll come with me I'll show you a good place."
"No, no, Jupille, I'm going to keep him," answered M. Flamaran; "I
haven't uttered a syllable for three hours. I must let myself out a
little. We will fish side by side, and chat."
"As you please, Monsieur Flamaran; but I don't call that fishing."
He handed me the implement, and sadly went his way.
M. Flamaran and I sat down together on the bank, our feet resting on the
soft sand strewn with dead branches. Before us spread the little pool I
have mentioned, a slight widening of the stream of the Bievre, once a
watering-place for cattle. The sun, now at high noon, massed the trees'
shadow close around their trunks. The unbroken surface of the water
reflected its rays back in our eyes. The current was barely indicated by
the gentle oscillation of a few water-lily leaves. Two big blue
dragonflies poised and quivered upon our floats, and not a fish seemed to
care to disturb them.
"Well," said M. Flamaran, "so you are still managing clerk to Counsellor
Boule?"
"For the time."
"Do you like it?"
"Not particularly."
"What are you waiting for?"
"For something to turn up."
"And carry you back to Italy, I suppose?"
"Then you know I have just been there?"
"I know all about it. Charnot told me of your meeting, and your romantic
drive by moonlight. By the way, he's come back with a bad cold; did you
know that?"
I assumed an air of sympathy:
"Poor man! When did he get back?"
"The day before yesterday. Of course I was the first to hear of it, and
we spent yesterday evening together. It may surprise you, Mouillard, and
you may think I exaggerate, but I think Jeanne has come back prettier
than she went."
"Do you really think so?"
"I really do. That southern sun--look out, my dear Mouillard, your line
is half out of water--has brought back her roses (they're brighter than
ever, I declare), and the good spirits she had lost, too, poor girl. She
is cheerful again now, as she used to be. I was very anxious about her
at one time. You know her sad story?"
"Yes."
"The fellow was a scoundrel, my dear Mouillard, a regular scoundrel!
I never was in favor of the match, myself. Charnot let himself be drawn
into it by an old college friend. I told him over and over again, 'It's
Jeanne's dowry he's after, Charnot--I'm convinced of it. He'll treat
Jeanne badly and make her miserable, mark my words.' But I wasted my
breath; he wouldn't listen to a word. Anyhow, it's quite off now. But
it was no slight shock, I can tell you; and it gave me great pain to
witness the poor child's sufferings."
"You are so kind-hearted, Monsieur Flamaran!"
"It's not that, Mouillard; but I have known Jeanne ever since she was
born. I watched her grow up, and I loved her when she was still a little
mite; she's as good as my adoptive daughter. You understand me when I
say adoptive. I do not mean that there exists between us that legal bond
in imitation of nature which is permitted by our codes--'adoptio imitatur
naturam'; not that, but that I love her like a daughter--Sidonie never
having presented me with a daughter, nor with a son either, for that
matter."
A cry from Jupille interrupted M. Flamaran:
"Can't you hear it rattle?"
The good man was tearing to us, waving his arms like a madman, the folds
of his trousers flapping about his thin legs like banners in the wind.
We leaped to our feet, and my first idea, an absurd one enough, was that
a rattlesnake was hurrying through the grass to our attack.
I was very far from the truth. The matter really was a new line,
invented by M. Jupille, cast a little further than an ordinary one, and
rigged up with a float like a raft, carrying a little clapper. The fish
rang their own knell as they took the hook.
"It's rattling like mad!" cried Jupille, "and you don't stir! I
couldn't have thought it of you, Monsieur Flamaran."
He ran past us, brandishing a landing-net as a warrior his lance; he
might have been a youth of twenty-five. We followed, less keen and also
less confident than he. He was right, though; when he drew up his line,
the float of which was disappearing in jerks, carrying the bell along
with it beneath the water, he brought out a fair-sized jack, which he
declared to be a giant.
He let it run for some time, to tire it, and to prolong the pleasure of
playing it.
"Gentlemen," he cried, "it is cutting my finger off!"
A stroke from the landing-net laid the monster at our feet, its strength
all spent. It weighed rather under four pounds. Jupille swore to six.
My learned tutor and I sat down again side by side, but the thread of our
conversation had been broken past mending. I tried to talk of her, but
M. Flamaran insisted on talking of me, of Bourges, of his election as
professor, and of the radically distinct characteristics by which you can
tell the bite of a gudgeon from that of a stickleback.
The latter part of this lecture was, however, purely theoretical, for he
got up two hours before sunset without having hooked a fish.
"A good day, all the same," he said. "It's a good place, and the fish
were biting this morning. We'll come here again some day, Jupille; with
an east wind you ought to catch any quantity of gudgeons." He kept pace
beside me on our way home, but wearied, no doubt, with long sitting, with
the heat, and the glare from the water, fell into a reverie, from which
the incidents of the walk were unable to rouse him.
Jupille trotted before us, carrying his rod in one hand, a luncheon-
basket and a fish-bag in the other. He turned round and gave us a look
at each cross-road, smiled beneath his heavy moustache, and went on
faster than before. I felt sure that something out of the way was about
to happen, and that the silent quill-driver was tasting a quiet joke.
I had not guessed the whole truth.
At a turn of the road M. Flamaran suddenly pulled up, looked all around
him, and drew a deep breath.
"Hallo, Jupille! My good sir, where are you taking us? If I can believe
my eyes, this is the Chestnut Knoll, down yonder is Plessis Piquet, and
we are two miles from the station and the seven o'clock train!"
There was no denying it. A donkey emerged from the wood, hung with
tassels and bells, carrying in its panniers two little girls, whose
parents toiled behind, goad in hand. The woods had become shrubberies,
through which peeped the thatched roofs of rustic summerhouses, mazes,
artificial waterfalls, grottoes, and ruins; all the dread handiwork of
the rustic decorator burst, superabundant, upon our sight, with shy odors
of beer and cooking. Broken bottles strewed the paths; the bushes all
looked weary, harassed, and overworked; a confused murmur of voices and
crackers floated toward us upon the breeze. I knew full well from these
signs that we were nearing "ROBINSON CRUSOE," the land of rustic inns.
And, sure enough, here they all were: "THE OLD ROBINSON," "THE NEW
ROBINSON," "THE REAL ORIGINAL ROBINSON," "THE ONLY GENUINE ROBINSON,"
"ROBINSON's CHESTNUT GROVE," "ROBINSON'S PARADISE," each unique and each
authentic. All alike have thatched porches, sanded paths, transparencies
lighted with petroleum lamps, tinsel stars, summerhouses, arrangements
for open-air illumination and highly colored advertisements, in which are
set forth all the component elements of a "ROBINSON," such as shooting-
galleries, bowling-alleys, swings, private arbors, Munich beer, and
dinner in a tree.
"Jupille!" exclaimed M. Flamaran, "you have shipwrecked us! This is
Crusoe's land; and what the dickens do you mean by it?"
The old clerk, utterly discomfited, and wearing that hangdog look which
he always assumed at the slightest rebuke from Counsellor Boule, pulled a
face as long as his arm, went up to M. Flamaran and whispered a word in
his ear.
"Upon my word! Really, Jupille, what are you thinking of? And I a
professor, too! Thirty years ago it would have been excusable, but to-
day! Besides, Sidonie expects me home to dinner--"
He stopped for a moment, undecided, looking at his watch.
Jupille, who was eying him intently, saw his distinguished friend
gradually relax his frown and burst into a hearty laugh.
"By Jove! it's madness at my age, but I don't care. We'll renew our
youth for an hour or so. My dear Mouillard, Jupille has ordered dinner
for us here. Had I been consulted I should have chosen any other place.
Yet what's to be done? Hunger, friendship, and the fact that I can't
catch the train, combine to silence my scruples. What do you say?"
"That we are in for it now."
"So be it, then." And led by Jupille, still carrying his catch, we
entered THE ONLY GENUINE ROBINSON.
M. Flamaran, somewhat ill at ease, cast inquiring glances on the
clearings in the sgrubberies. I thought I heard stifled laughter behind
the trees.
"You have engaged Chestnut Number Three, gentlemen," said the proprietor.
"Up these stairs, please."
We ascended a staircase winding around the trunk. Chestnut Number 3 is a
fine old tree, a little bent, its sturdy lower branches supporting a
platform surrounded by a balustrade, six rotten wooden pillars, and a
thatched roof, shaped like a cocked hat, to shelter the whole. All the
neighboring trees contain similar constructions, which look from a little
distance like enormous nests. They are greatly in demand at the dinner
hour; you dine thirty feet up in the air, and your food is brought up by
a rope and pulley.
When M. Flamaran appeared on the platform he took off his hat, and leaned
with both hands on the railing to give a look around. The attitude
suggested a public speaker. His big gray head was conspicuous in the
light of the setting sun.
"He's going to make a speech!" cried a voice. "Bet you he isn't,"
replied another.
This was the signal. A rustling was heard among the leaves, and numbers
of inquisitive faces peeped out from all corners of the garden. A
general rattling of glasses announced that whole parties were leaving the
tables to see what was up. The waiters stopped to stare at Chestnut
Number 3. The whole population of Juan Fernandez was staring up at
Flamaran without in the least knowing the reason why.
"Gentlemen," said a voice from an arbor, "Professor Flamaran will now
begin his lecture."
A chorus of shouts and laughter rose around our tree.
"Hi, old boy, wait till we're gone!"
"Ladies, he will discourse to you on the law of husband and wife!"
"No, on the foreclosure of mortgages!"
"No, on the payment of debts!"
"Oh, you naughty old man! You ought to be shut up!"
M. Flamaran, though somewhat put out of countenance for the moment, was
seized with a happy inspiration. He stretched out an arm to show that he
was about to speak. He opened his broad mouth with a smile of fatherly
humor, and the groves, attentive, heard him thunder forth these words:
"Boys, I promise to give you all white marks if you let me dine in
peace!"
The last words were lost in a roar of applause.
"Three cheers for old Flamaran!"
Three cheers were given, followed by clapping of hands from various
quarters, then all was silence, and no one took any further notice of our
tree.
M. Flamaran left the railing and unfolded his napkin.
"You may be sure of my white marks, young men," he said, as he sat down.
He was delighted at his success as an orator, and laughed gayly.
Jupille, on the other hand, was as pale as if he had been in a street
riot, and seemed rooted to the spot where he stood.
"It's all right, Jupille; it's all right, man! A little ready wit is all
you need, dash my wig!"
The old clerk gradually regained his composure, and the dinner grew very
merry. Flamaran's spirits, raised by this little incident, never
flagged. He had a story for every glass of wine, and told them all with
a quiet humor of his own.
Toward the end of dinner, by the time the waiter came to offer us
"almonds and raisins, pears, peaches, preserves, meringues, brandy
cherries," we had got upon the subject of Sidonie, the pearl of Forez.
M. Flamaran narrated to us, with dates, how a friend of his one day
depicted to him a young girl at Montbrison, of fresh and pleasing
appearance, a good housekeeper, and of excellent family; and how he--
M. Flamaran--had forthwith started off to find her, had recognized her
before she was pointed out to him, fell in love with her at first sight,
and was not long in obtaining her affection in return. The marriage had
taken place at St. Galmier.
"Yes, my dear Mouillard," he added, as if pointing a moral, "thirty years
ago last May I became a happy man; when do you think of following my
example?"
At this point, Jupille suddenly found himself one too many, and vanished
down the corkscrew stair.
"We once spoke of an heiress at Bourges," M. Flamaran went on.
"Apparently that's all off?"
"Quite off."
"You were within your rights; but now, why not a Parisienne?"
"Yes, indeed; why not?"
"Perhaps you are prejudiced in some way against Parisiennes?"
"I? Not the least."
"I used to be, but I've got over it now. They have a charm of their own,
a certain style of dressing, walking, and laughing which you don't find
outside the fortifications. For a long time I used to think that these
qualities stood them in lieu of virtues. That was a slander; there are
plenty of Parisiennes endowed with every virtue; I even know a few who
are angels."
At this point, M. Flamaran looked me straight in the eyes, and, as I made
no reply, he added:
"I know one, at least: Jeanne Charnot. Are you listening?"
"Yes, Monsieur Flamaran."
"Isn't she a paragon?"
"She is."
"As sensible as she is tender-hearted?"
"So I believe."
"And as clever as she is sensible?"
"That is my opinion."
"Well, then, young man, if that's your opinion--excuse my burning my
boats, all my boats--if that's your opinion, I don't understand why--
Do you suppose she has no money?"
"I know nothing about her means."
"Don't make any mistake; she's a rich woman. Do you think you're too
young to marry?"
"No."
"Do you fancy, perhaps, that she is still bound by that unfortunate
engagement?"
"I trust she is not."
"I'm quite sure she is not. She is free, I tell you, as free as you.
Well, why don't you love her?"
"But I do love her, Monsieur Flamaran!"
"Why, then, I congratulate you, my boy!"
He leaned across the table and gave me a hearty grasp of the hand. He
was so agitated that he could not speak--choking with joyful emotion, as
if he had been Jeanne's father, or mine.
After a minute or so, he drew himself up in his chair, reached out, put a
hand on each of my shoulders and kept it there as if he feared I might
fly away.
"So you love her, you love her! Good gracious, what a business I've had
to get you to say so! You are quite right to love her, of course, of
course--I could not have understood your doing otherwise; but I must say
this, my boy, that if you tarry too long, with her attractions, you know
what will happen."
"Yes, I ought to ask for her at once."
"To be sure you ought."
"Alas! Monsieur Flamaran, who is there that I can send on such a mission
for me? You know that I am an orphan."
"But you have an uncle."
"We have quarrelled."
"You might make it up again, on an occasion like this."
"Out of the question; we quarrelled on her account; my uncle hates
Parisiennes."
"Damn it all, then! send a friend--a friend will do under the
circumstances."
"There's Lampron."
"The painter?"
"Yes, but he doesn't know Monsieur Charnot. It would only be one
stranger pleading for another. My chances would be small.
What I want--"
"Is a friend of both parties, isn't it? Well, what am I?"
"The very man!"
"Very well. I undertake to ask for her hand! I shall ask for the hand
of the charming Jeanne for both of us; for you, who will make her happy;
and for myself, who will not entirely lose her if she marries one of my
pupils, one of my favorite graduates--my friend, Fabien Mouillard.
And I won't be refused--no, damme, I won't!"
He brought down his fist upon the table with a tremendous blow which made
the glasses ring and the decanters stagger.
"Coming!" cried a waiter from below, thinking he was summoned.
"All right, my good fellow!" shouted M. Flamaran, leaning over the
railings. "Don't trouble. I don't want anything."
He turned again toward me, still filled with emotion, but somewhat calmer
than he had been.
"Now," said he, "let us talk, and do you tell me all."
And we began a long and altogether delightful talk.
A more genuine, a finer fellow never breathed than this professor let
loose from school and giving his heart a holiday--a simple, tender heart,
preserved beneath the science of the law like a grape in sawdust. Now he
would smile as I sang Jeanne's praises; now he would sit and listen to my
objections with a truculent air, tightening his lips till they broke
forth in vehement denial. "What! You dare to say! Young man, what are
you afraid of?" His overflowing kindness discharged itself in the
sincerest and most solemn asseverations.
We had left Juan Fernandez far behind us; we were both far away in that
Utopia where mind penetrates mind, heart understands heart. We heard
neither the squeaking of a swing beneath us, nor the shouts of laughter
along the promenades, nor the sound of a band tuning up in a neighboring
pavilion. Our eyes, raised to heaven, failed to see the night descending
upon us, vast and silent, piercing the foliage with its first stars. Now
and again a warm breath passed over us, blown from the woods; I tasted
its strangely sweet perfume; I saw in glimpses the flying vision of a
huge dark tulip, striped with gold, unfolding its petals on the moist
bank of a dyke, and I asked myself whether a mysterious flower had really
opened in the night, or whether it was but a new feeling, slowly budding,
unfolding, blossoming within my heart.