THE DEVIL’S POOL
[Illustration: (Frontispiece)]
THE DEVIL’S POOL
By
George Sand
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY
JANE MINOT SEDGWICK
AND
ELLERY SEDGWICK
[Illustration: (Ornament)]
WITH AN ETCHING BY E. ABOT
[Illustration: (Publisher colophon)]
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, & CO.
1901
Copyright, 1894, by
GEORGE H. RICHMOND & CO.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER
I THE TILLAGE OF THE SOIL
II FATHER MAURICE
III GERMAIN, THE SKILLED HUSBANDMAN
IV MOTHER GUILLETTE
V PETIT-PIERRE
VI ON THE HEATH
VII UNDERNEATH THE BIG OAKS
VIII THE EVENING PRAYER
IX DESPITE THE COLD
X BENEATH THE STARS
XI THE BELLE OF THE VILLAGE
XII THE MASTER
XIII THE OLD WOMAN
XIV THE RETURN TO THE FARM
XV MOTHER MAURICE
XVI LITTLE MARIE
APPENDIX
I A COUNTRY WEDDING
II THE WEDDING FAVORS
III THE WEDDING
IV THE CABBAGE
[Illustration: (Ornament)]
THE DEVIL’S POOL
THE AUTHOR TO THE READER
A la sueur de ton visaige,
Tu gagnerais ta pauvre vie.
Après long travail et usaige,
Voicy la _mort_ qui te convie.[1]
This quaint old French verse, written under one of Holbein’s
pictures, is profoundly melancholy. The engraving represents a
laborer driving his plow through the middle of a field. Beyond him
stretches a vast horizon, dotted with wretched huts; the sun is
sinking behind the hill. It is the end of a hard day’s work. The
peasant is old, bent, and clothed in rags. He is urging onward a
team of four thin and exhausted horses; the plowshare sinks into
a stony and ungrateful soil. One being only is active and alert
in this scene of toil and sorrow. It is a fantastic creature.
A skeleton armed with a whip, who acts as plowboy to the old
laborer, and running along through the furrow beside the terrified
horses, goads them on. This is the specter Death, whom Holbein
has introduced allegorically into that series of religious and
philosophic subjects, at once melancholy and grotesque, entitled
“The Dance of Death.”
In this collection, or rather this mighty composition, where Death,
who plays his part on every page, is the connecting link and
predominating thought, Holbein has called up kings, popes, lovers,
gamesters, drunkards, nuns, courtesans, thieves, warriors, monks,
Jews, and travelers,--all the people of his time and our own; and
everywhere the specter Death is among them, taunting, threatening,
and triumphing. He is absent from one picture only, where Lazarus,
lying on a dunghill at the rich man’s door, declares that the
specter has no terrors for him; probably because he has nothing to
lose, and his existence is already a life in death.
Is there comfort in this stoical thought of the half-pagan
Christianity of the Renaissance, and does it satisfy religious
souls? The upstart, the rogue, the tyrant, the rake, and all those
haughty sinners who make an ill use of life, and whose steps are
dogged by Death, will be surely punished; but can the reflection
that death is no evil make amends for the long hardships of the
blind man, the beggar, the madman, and the poor peasant? No! An
inexorable sadness, an appalling fatality brood over the artist’s
work. It is like a bitter curse, hurled against the fate of
humanity.
Holbein’s faithful delineation of the society in which he lived
is, indeed, painful satire. His attention was engrossed by crime
and calamity; but what shall we, who are artists of a later date,
portray? Shall we look to find the reward of the human beings of
to-day in the contemplation of death, and shall we invoke it as the
penalty of unrighteousness and the compensation of suffering?
No, henceforth, our business is not with death, but with life. We
believe no longer in the nothingness of the grave, nor in safety
bought with the price of a forced renunciation; life must be
enjoyed in order to be fruitful. Lazarus must leave his dunghill,
so that the poor need no longer exult in the death of the rich. All
must be made happy, that the good fortune of a few may not be a
crime and a curse. As the laborer sows his wheat, he must know that
he is helping forward the work of life, instead of rejoicing that
Death walks at his side. We may no longer consider death as the
chastisement of prosperity or the consolation of distress, for God
has decreed it neither as the punishment nor the compensation of
life. Life has been blessed by Him, and it is no longer permissible
for us to leave the grave as the only refuge for those whom we are
unwilling to make happy.
There are some artists of our own day, who, after a serious survey
of their surroundings, take pleasure in painting misery, the
sordidness of poverty, and the dunghill of Lazarus. This may belong
to the domain of art and philosophy; but by depicting poverty as
so hideous, so degraded, and sometimes so vicious and criminal,
do they gain their end, and is that end as salutary as they would
wish? We dare not pronounce judgment. They may answer that they
terrify the unjust rich man by pointing out to him the yawning pit
that lies beneath the frail covering of wealth; just as in the time
of the Dance of Death, they showed him his gaping grave, and Death
standing ready to fold him in an impure embrace. Now, they show
him the thief breaking open his doors, and the murderer stealthily
watching his sleep. We confess we cannot understand how we can
reconcile him to the human nature he despises, or make him sensible
of the sufferings of the poor wretch whom he dreads, by showing him
this wretch in the guise of the escaped convict or the nocturnal
burglar. The hideous phantom Death, under the repulsive aspect in
which he has been represented by Holbein and his predecessors,
gnashing his teeth and playing the fiddle, has been powerless to
convert the wicked and console their victims. And does not our
literature employ the same means as the artists of the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance?
The revelers of Holbein fill their glasses in a frenzy to dispel
the idea of Death, who is their cup-bearer, though they do not see
him. The unjust rich of our own day demand cannon and barricades to
drive out the idea of an insurrection of the people which Art shows
them as slowly working in the dark, getting ready to burst upon the
State. The Church of the Middle Ages met the terrors of the great
of the earth with the sale of indulgences. The government of to-day
soothes the uneasiness of the rich by exacting from them large sums
for the support of policemen, jailors, bayonets, and prisons.
Albert Durer, Michael Angelo, Holbein, Callot, and Goya have made
powerful satires on the evils of their times and countries, and
their immortal works are historical documents of unquestionable
value. We shall not refuse to artists the right to probe the wounds
of society and lay them bare to our eyes; but is the only function
of art still to threaten and appall? In the literature of the
mysteries of iniquity, which talent and imagination have brought
into fashion, we prefer the sweet and gentle characters, which can
attempt and effect conversions, to the melodramatic villains, who
inspire terror; for terror never cures selfishness, but increases
it.
We believe that the mission of art is a mission of sentiment and
love, that the novel of to-day should take the place of the parable
and the fable of early times, and that the artist has a larger and
more poetic task than that of suggesting certain prudential and
conciliatory measures for the purpose of diminishing the fright
caused by his pictures. His aim should be to render attractive the
objects he has at heart, and, if necessary, I have no objection
to his embellishing them a little. Art is not the study of
positive reality, but the search for ideal truth, and the “Vicar
of Wakefield” was a more useful and healthy book than the “Paysan
Perverti,” or the “Liaisons Dangereuses.”
Forgive these reflections of mine, kind reader, and let them stand
as a preface, for there will be no other to the little story I am
going to relate to you. My tale is to be so short and so simple,
that I felt obliged to make you my apologies for it beforehand, by
telling you what I think of the literature of terror.
I have allowed myself to be drawn into this digression for the sake
of a laborer; and it is the story of a laborer which I have been
meaning to tell you, and which I shall now tell you at once.
[1]
In toil and sorrow thou shalt eat
The bitter bread of poverty.
After the burden and the heat,
Lo! it is Death who calls for thee.
[Illustration: (Ornament)]
I
The Tillage of the Soil
I had just been looking long and sadly at Holbein’s plowman, and
was walking through the fields, musing on rustic life and the
destiny of the husbandman. It is certainly tragic for him to spend
his days and his strength delving in the jealous earth, that so
reluctantly yields up her rich treasures when a morsel of coarse
black bread, at the end of the day’s work, is the sole reward and
profit to be reaped from such arduous toil. The wealth of the soil,
the harvests, the fruits, the splendid cattle that grow sleek and
fat in the luxuriant grass, are the property of the few, and but
instruments of the drudgery and slavery of the many. The man of
leisure seldom loves, for their own sake, the fields and meadows,
the landscape, or the noble animals which are to be converted into
gold for his use. He comes to the country for his health or for
change of air, but goes back to town to spend the fruit of his
vassal’s labor.
On the other hand, the peasant is too abject, too wretched, and too
fearful of the future to enjoy the beauty of the country and the
charms of pastoral life. To him, also, the yellow harvest-fields,
the rich meadows, the fine cattle represent bags of gold; but
he knows that only an infinitesimal part of their contents,
insufficient for his daily needs, will ever fall to his share. Yet
year by year he must fill those accursed bags, to please his master
and buy the right of living on his land in sordid wretchedness.
Yet nature is eternally young, beautiful, and generous. She pours
forth poetry and beauty on all creatures and all plants that are
allowed free development. She owns the secret of happiness, of
which no one has ever robbed her. The happiest of men would be he
who, knowing the full meaning of his labor, should, while working
with his hands, find his happiness and his freedom in the exercise
of his intelligence, and, having his heart in unison with his
brain, should at once understand his own work and love that of
God. The artist has such delights as these in contemplating and
reproducing the beauties of nature; but if his heart be true and
tender, his pleasure is disturbed when he sees the miseries of
the men who people this paradise of earth. True happiness will
be theirs when mind, heart, and hand shall work in concert in
the sight of Heaven, and there shall be a sacred harmony between
God’s goodness and the joys of his creatures. Then, instead of the
pitiable and frightful figure of Death stalking, whip in hand,
across the fields, the painter of allegories may place beside the
peasant a radiant angel, sowing the blessed grain broadcast in the
smoking furrow.
The dream of a serene, free, poetic, laborious, and simple life
for the tiller of the soil is not so impossible that we should
banish it as a chimera. The sweet, sad words of Virgil: “Oh, happy
the peasants of the field, if they knew their own blessings!” is a
regret, but, like all regrets, it is also a prophecy. The day will
come when the laborer too may be an artist, and may at least feel
what is beautiful, if he cannot express it,--a matter of far less
importance. Do not we know that this mysterious poetic intuition
is already his, in the form of instinct and vague reverie? Among
those peasants who possess some of the comforts of life, and
whose moral and intellectual development is not entirely stifled
by extreme wretchedness, pure happiness that can be felt and
appreciated exists in the elementary stage; and, moreover, since
poets have already raised their voices out of the lap of pain
and of weariness, why should we say that the labor of the hands
excludes the working of the soul? Without doubt this exclusion is
the common result of excessive toil and of deep misery; but let it
not be said that when men shall work moderately and usefully there
will be nothing but bad workers and bad poets. The man who draws
in noble joy from the poetic feeling is a true poet, though he has
never written a verse all his life.
My thoughts had flown in this direction, without my perceiving that
my confidence in the capacity of man for education was strengthened
by external influences. I was walking along the edge of a field,
which some peasants were preparing to sow. The space was vast as
that in Holbein’s picture; the landscape, too, was vast and framed
in a great sweep of green, slightly reddened by the approach of
autumn. Here and there in the great russet field, slender rivulets
of water left in the furrows by the late rains sparkled in the
sunlight like silver threads. The day was clear and mild, and the
soil, freshly cleft by the plowshare, sent up a light steam. At the
other extremity of the field, an old man, whose broad shoulders and
stern face recalled Holbein’s plowman, but whose clothes carried
no suggestion of poverty, was gravely driving his plow of antique
shape, drawn by two placid oxen, true patriarchs of the meadow,
tall and rather thin, with pale yellow coats and long, drooping
horns. They were those old workers who, through long habit, have
grown to be _brothers_, as they are called in our country, and who,
when one loses the other, refuse to work with a new comrade, and
pine away with grief. People who are unfamiliar with the country
call the love of the ox for his yoke-fellow a fable. Let them come
and see in the corner of the stable one of these poor beasts, thin
and wasted, restlessly lashing his lean flanks with his tail,
violently breathing with mingled terror and disdain on the food
offered him, his eyes always turned toward the door, scratching
with his hoof the empty place at his side, sniffing the yokes and
chains which his fellow used to wear, and incessantly calling him
with melancholy lowings. The ox-herd will say: “There is a pair of
oxen gone; this one will work no more, for his brother is dead. We
ought to fatten him for the market, but he will not eat, and will
soon starve himself to death.”
The old laborer worked slowly, silently, and without waste of
effort His docile team were in no greater haste than he; but,
thanks to the undistracted steadiness of his toil and the judicious
expenditure of his strength, his furrow was as soon plowed as that
of his son, who was driving, at some distance from him, four less
vigorous oxen through a more stubborn and stony piece of ground.
My attention was next caught by a fine spectacle, a truly noble
subject for a painter. At the other end of the field a fine-looking
youth was driving a magnificent team of four pairs of young oxen,
through whose somber coats glanced a ruddy, glow-like flame. They
had the short, curly heads that belong to the wild bull, the same
large, fierce eyes and jerky movements; they worked in an abrupt,
nervous way that showed how they still rebelled against the yoke
and goad, and trembled with anger as they obeyed the authority so
recently imposed. They were what is called “newly yoked” oxen.
The man who drove them had to clear a corner of the field that
had formerly been given up to pasture, and was filled with old
tree-stumps; and his youth and energy, and his eight half-broken
animals, hardly sufficed for the Herculean task.
A child of six or seven years old, lovely as an angel, wearing
round his shoulders, over his blouse, a sheepskin that made him
look like a little Saint John the Baptist out of a Renaissance
picture, was running along in the furrow beside the plow, pricking
the flanks of the oxen with a long, light goad but slightly
sharpened. The spirited animals quivered under the child’s light
touch, making their yokes and head-bands creak, and shaking
the pole violently. Whenever a root stopped the advance of the
plowshare, the laborer would call every animal by name in his
powerful voice, trying to calm rather than to excite them; for
the oxen, irritated by the sudden resistance, bounded, pawed the
ground with their great cloven hoofs, and would have jumped aside
and dragged the plow across the fields, if the young man had not
kept the first four in order with his voice and goad, while the
child controlled the four others. The little fellow shouted too,
but the voice which he tried to make of terrible effect, was as
sweet as his angelic face. The whole scene was beautiful in its
grace and strength; the landscape, the man, the child, the oxen
under the yoke; and in spite of the mighty struggle by which the
earth was subdued, a deep feeling of peace and sweetness reigned
over all. Each time that an obstacle was surmounted and the plow
resumed its even, solemn progress, the laborer, whose pretended
violence was but a trial of his strength, and an outlet for his
energy, instantly regained that serenity which is the right of
simple souls, and looked with fatherly pleasure toward his child,
who turned to smile back at him. Then the young father would raise
his manly voice in the solemn and melancholy chant that ancient
tradition transmits, not indeed to all plowmen indiscriminately,
but to those who are most perfect in the art of exciting and
sustaining the spirit of cattle while at work. This song, which
was probably sacred in its origin, and to which mysterious
influences must once have been attributed, is still thought to
possess the virtue of putting animals on their mettle, allaying
their irritation, and of beguiling the weariness of their long,
hard toil. It is not enough to guide them skilfully, to trace a
perfectly straight furrow, and to lighten their labor by raising
the plowshare or driving it into the earth; no man can be a
consummate husbandman who does not know how to sing to his oxen,
and that is an art that requires taste and especial gifts.
To tell the truth, this chant is only a recitative, broken off and
taken up at pleasure. Its irregular form and its intonations that
violate all the rules of musical art make it impossible to describe.
But it is none the less a noble song, and so appropriate is it to
the nature of the work it accompanies, to the gait of the oxen, to
the peace of the fields, and to the simplicity of the men who sing
it, that no genius unfamiliar with the tillage of the earth, and
no man except an accomplished laborer of our part of the country,
could repeat it. At the season of the year when there is no work or
stir afoot except that of the plowman, this strong, sweet refrain
rises like the voice of the breeze, to which the key it is sung in
gives it some resemblance. Each phrase ends with a long trill, the
final note of which is held with incredible strength of breath, and
rises a quarter of a tone, sharping systematically. It is barbaric,
but possesses an unspeakable charm, and anybody, once accustomed to
hear it, cannot conceive of another song taking its place at the
same hour and in the same place, without striking a discord.
So it was that I had before my eyes a picture the reverse of that
of Holbein, although the scene was similar. Instead of a wretched
old man, a young and active one; instead of a team of weary and
emaciated horses, four yoke of robust and fiery oxen; instead of
death, a beautiful child; instead of despair and destruction,
energy and the possibility of happiness.
Then the old French verse, “À la sueur de ton visaige,” etc., and
Virgil’s “O fortunatos . . . agricolas,” returned to my mind,
and seeing this lovely child and his father, under such poetic
conditions, and with so much grace and strength, accomplish a task
full of such grand and solemn suggestions, I was conscious of deep
pity and involuntary respect. Happy the peasant of the fields! Yes,
and so too should I be in his place, if my arm and voice could
be endowed with sudden strength, and I could help to make Nature
fruitful, and sing of her gifts, without ceasing to see with my
eyes or understand with my brain harmonious colors and sounds,
delicate shades and graceful outlines; in short, the mysterious
beauty of all things. And above all, if my heart continued to
beat in concert with the divine sentiment that presided over the
immortal sublimity of creation.
But, alas! this man has never understood the mystery of beauty;
this child will never understand it. God forbid that I should not
think them superior to the animals which are subject to them, or
that they have not moments of rapturous insight that soothe their
toil and lull their cares to sleep. I see the seal of the Lord upon
their noble brows, for they were born to inherit the earth far more
truly than those who have bought and paid for it. The proof that
they feel this is that they cannot be exiled with impunity, that
they love the soil they have watered with their tears, and that the
true peasant dies of homesickness under the arms of a soldier far
from his native field. But he lacks some of my enjoyments, those
pure delights which should be his by right, as a workman in that
immense temple which the sky only is vast enough to embrace. He
lacks the consciousness of his sentiment. Those who condemned him
to slavery from his mother’s womb, being unable to rob him of his
vague dreams, took away from him the power of reflection.
Yet, imperfect being that he is, sentenced to eternal childhood, he
is nobler than the man in whom knowledge has stifled feeling. Do
not set yourselves above him, you who believe yourselves invested
with a lawful and inalienable right to rule over him, for your
terrible mistake shows that your brain has destroyed your heart,
and that you are the blindest and most incomplete of men! I love
the simplicity of his soul more than the false lights of yours; and
if I had to narrate the story of his life, the pleasure I should
take in bringing out the tender and touching side of it would be
greater than your merit in painting the degradation and contempt
into which he is cast by your social code.
I knew the young man and the beautiful child; I knew their history,
for they had a history. Everybody has his own, and could make the
romance of his life interesting, if he could but understand it.
Although but a peasant and a laborer, Germain had always been aware
of his duties and affections. He had related them to me clearly
and ingenuously, and I had listened with interest. After some time
spent in watching him plow, it occurred to me that I might write
his story, though that story were as simple, as straightforward,
and unadorned as the furrow he was tracing.
Next year that furrow will be filled and covered by a fresh one.
Thus disappear most of the footprints made by man in the field of
human life. A little earth obliterates them, and the furrows we
have dug succeed one another like graves in a cemetery. Is not the
furrow of the laborer of as much value as that of the idler, even
if that idler, by some absurd chance, have made a little noise in
the world, and left behind him an abiding name?
I mean, if possible, to save from oblivion the furrow of Germain,
the skilled husbandman. He will never know nor care, but I shall
take pleasure in my talk.
[Illustration: (Ornament)]
II
Father Maurice
“Germain,” said his father-in-law one day, “you must decide
about marrying again. It is almost two years now since you lost
my daughter, and your eldest boy is seven years old! You are
almost thirty, my boy, and you know that in our country a man is
considered too old to go to housekeeping again after that age;
you have three nice children, and thus far they have not proved a
burden to us at all. My wife and my daughter-in-law have looked
after them as well as they could, and loved them as they ought.
Here is Petit-Pierre almost grown up. He goads the oxen very
well; he knows how to look after the cattle; and he is strong
enough to drive the horses to the trough. So it is not he that
worries us. But the other two, love them though we do, God knows
the poor little innocents give us trouble enough this year; my
daughter-in-law is about to lie in, and she has yet another baby
to attend to. When the child we are expecting comes, she will not
be able to look after your little Solange, and above all your
Sylvain, who is not four years old, and who is never quiet day or
night. He has a restless disposition like yours; that will make
a good workman of him, but it makes a dreadful child, and my old
wife cannot run fast enough to save him when he almost tumbles
into the ditch, or when he throws himself in front of the tramping
cattle. And then with this other that my daughter-in-law is going
to bring into the world, for a month at least her next older child
will fall on my wife’s hands. Besides, your children worry us, and
give us too much to do; we hate to see children badly looked after,
and when we think of the accidents that may befall them, for want
of care, we cannot rest. So you need another wife, and I another
daughter-in-law. Think this over, my son. I have called it to your
mind before. Time flies, and the years will not wait a moment for
you. It is your duty to your children and to the rest of us, who
wish all well at home, to marry as soon as you can.”
“Very well, father,” answered the son-in-law, “if you really wish
it, I must do as you say. But I do not wish to hide it from you
that it will make me very sad, and that I hardly wish for anything
but to drown myself. We know who it is we lose, we never know whom
we find. I had a good wife, a pretty wife, sweet, brave, good to
her father and mother, good to her husband, good to her children,
good to toil in the fields and in the house, well fitted to
work,--in short, good for everything; and when you had given her to
me, and I took her, we did not place it among our promises that I
should go and forget about her if I had the misfortune to lose her.”
“What you say shows your good heart, Germain,” answered Father
Maurice. “I know that you loved my daughter and that you made her
happy, and that had you been able to satisfy Death by going in her
place, Catherine would be alive to-day, and you would be in the
graveyard. She deserved all your love, and if you are not consoled,
neither are we. But I do not speak to you of forgetting her: God
wished her to leave us, and we do not let a day go by without
telling him in our prayers and thoughts, and words and actions,
that we keep her memory and still sorrow for her loss. But if she
could speak to you from the other world, and let you know what she
wishes, she would tell you to find a mother for her little orphans.
So the question is to find a woman who will be worthy to take her
place. It will not be easy, but it is not impossible. And when
we shall find her for you, you will love her as you used to love
my daughter, because you are a good man, and because you will be
thankful to her for helping us and for loving your children.”
“Very well, Father Maurice, I shall do as you wish, as I have
always done.”
“It is only justice, my son, to say that you have always listened
to the friendly advice and good judgment of the head of the house.
So let us consult about your choice of a new wife. First, I don’t
advise you to take a young girl. That is not what you need. Youth
is careless, and, as it is hard work to bring up three children,
especially when they are of another bed, you must have a good soul,
wise and gentle, and well used to work. If your wife is not about
the same age as you, she will have no reason to accept such a duty.
She will find you too old and your children too young. She will be
complaining, and your children will suffer.”
“This is just what makes me uneasy. Suppose the poor little things
should be badly treated, hated, beaten?”
“God grant not,” answered the old man. “But bad women are more rare
with us than good, and we shall be stupid if we cannot pick out
somebody who will suit us.”
“That is true, father. There are good girls in our village. There
is Louise, Sylvaine, Claudie, Marguerite--yes, anybody you want.”
“Gently, gently, my boy. All these girls are too young, or too
poor, or too pretty; for surely we must think of that too, my son.
A pretty woman is not always as well behaved as another!”
“Then you wish me to take an ugly wife?” said Germain, a little
uneasy.
“No, not ugly at all, for this woman will bear you other children,
and there is nothing more miserable than to have children who are
ugly and weak and sickly. But a woman still fresh and in good
health, who is neither pretty nor ugly, would suit you exactly.”
“I am quite sure,” said Germain, smiling rather sadly, “that to get
such a woman as you wish, you must have her made to order. All the
more because you don’t wish her to be poor, and the rich are not
easy to get, particularly for a widower.”
“And suppose she were a widow herself, Germain? A widow without
children and with a good portion?”
“For the moment, I cannot think of anybody like this in our parish.”
“Nor I either. But there are others elsewhere.”
“You have somebody in mind, father. Then tell me, at once, who it
is.”
[Illustration: (Ornament)]
III
Germain, the Skilled Husbandman
“Yes, I have somebody in mind,” replied Father Maurice. “It is a
Leonard, the widow of a Guérin. She lives at Fourche.”
“I know neither the woman nor the place,” answered Germain,
resigned, but growing more and more melancholy.
“Her name is Catherine, like your dead wife’s.”
“Catherine? Yes, I shall be glad to have to pronounce that name,
Catherine; and yet if I cannot love one as much as the other, it
will pain me all the more. It will bring her to my mind more often.”
“I tell you, you will love her. She is a good soul, a woman with
a warm heart. I have not seen her for a long time. She was not an
ugly girl then. But she is no longer young. She is thirty-two. She
comes of a good family, honest people all of them, and for property
she has eight or ten thousand francs in land which she would sell
gladly in order to invest in the place where she settles. For
she, too, is thinking of marrying again, and I know that if your
character pleases her, she will not be dissatisfied with your
situation.”
“So you have made all the arrangements?”
“Yes, except that I have not had an opinion from either of you, and
that is what you must ask each other when you meet. The woman’s
father is a distant connection of mine, and he has been a good
friend to me. You know Father Leonard well?”
“Yes, I have seen you two talking at the market, and at the last
you lunched together. Then it was about her that he spoke to you so
long?”
“Certainly. He watched you selling your cattle and saw that you
drove a shrewd bargain, and that you were a good-looking fellow and
appeared active and intelligent; and when I told him what a good
fellow you were and how well you have behaved toward us, without
one word of vexation or anger during the eight years we have been
living and working together, he took it into his head to marry you
to his daughter. This suits me, too, I admit, when I think of her
good reputation and the honesty of her family and the prosperous
condition I know her affairs are in.”
“I see, Father Maurice, that you have an eye to money.”
“Of course I do; you have, too, have you not?”
“I do look toward it, if you wish, for your sake; but you know
that, for my own part, I don’t worry whether I gain or not in what
we make. I don’t understand about profit-sharing; I have no head
for that sort of thing. I understand the ground; I understand
cattle, horses, carts, sowing, threshing, and provender. As for
sheep, and vineyards, and vegetables, petty profits, and fine
gardening, you know that is your son’s business. I don’t have much
to do with it. As to money, my memory is short, and I should rather
give up everything than fight about what is yours and what is mine.
I should be afraid of making some mistake and claiming what does
not belong to me, and if business were not so clear and simple I
should never find my way in it.”
“So much the worse, my son; and this is the reason I wish you to
have a wife with a clear head to fill my place when I am gone. You
never wished to understand our accounts, and this might lead you
into a quarrel with my son, when you don’t have me any longer to
keep you in harmony and decide what is each one’s share.”
“May you live long, Father Maurice. But do not worry about what
will happen when you die. I shall never quarrel with your son. I
trust Jacques as I do you; and as I have no property of my own, and
all that might accrue to me comes from your daughter and belongs to
our children, I can rest easy, and you, too. Jacques would never
rob his sister’s children for the sake of his own, for he loves
them all equally.”
“You are right, Germain. Jacques is a good son, a good brother,
and a man who loves the truth. But Jacques may die before you,
before your children grow up; and in a family we must always
remember never to leave children without a head to look after them
and govern their disagreements; otherwise, the lawyer-people mix
themselves up in it, stir them up to fight, and make them eat up
everything in law-suits. So we ought not to think of bringing home
another person, man or woman, without remembering that some day or
other that person may have to control the behavior and business
of twenty or thirty children and grandchildren, sons-in-law and
daughters-in-law. We never know how big a family can grow, and
when a hive is so full that the bees must form new swarms, each
one wishes to carry off her share of the honey. When I took you
for my son, although my daughter was rich and you were poor, I
never reproached her for choosing you. I saw that you were a hard
worker, and I knew very well that the best fortune for people in
such a country as ours is a pair of arms and a heart like yours.
When a man brings these into a family, he brings enough. But with
a woman it is different. Her work indoors saves, but it does not
gain. Besides, now that you are a father, looking for a second
wife, you must remember that your new children will have no claim
on the property of your children by another wife; and if you should
happen to die they might suffer very much--at least, if your wife
had no money in her own right. And then the children which you
will add to our colony will cost something to bring up. If that
fell on us alone, we should surely take care of them without a
word of complaint; but the comfort of everybody would suffer, and
your eldest children would bear their share of hardship. When
families grow too large, if money does not keep pace, misery comes,
no matter how bravely you bear up. This is what I wished to say,
Germain; think it over, and try to make the widow Guérin like you;
for her discretion and her dollars will help us now and make us
feel easy about the future.”
“That is true, Father. I shall try to please her and to like her.”
“To do that you must go to find her, and see her.”
“At her own place? At Fourche? That is a great way from here, is
it not? And we scarcely have time to run off at this season of the
year.”
“When it is a question of a love-match you must make up your mind
to lose time, but when it is a sensible marriage of two people, who
take no sudden fancies and know what they want, it is very soon
decided. To-morrow is Saturday; you will make your day’s work a
little shorter than usual. You must start after dinner about two
o’clock. You will be at Fourche by nightfall. The moon rises early.
The roads are good, and it is not more than three leagues distant.
It is near Magnier. Besides, you will take the mare.”
“I had just as lief go afoot in this cool weather.”
“Yes, but the mare is pretty, and a suitor looks better when he
comes well mounted. You must put on your new clothes and carry a
nice present of game to Father Leonard. You will come from me and
talk with him, pass all of Sunday with his daughter, and come back
Monday morning with a yes or no.”
“Very well,” answered Germain calmly, and yet he did not feel very
calm.
Germain had always lived soberly, as industrious peasants do.
Married at twenty, he had loved but one woman in his life, and
after her death, impulsive and gay as his nature was, he had
never played nor trifled with another. He had borne a real sorrow
faithfully in his heart, and it was not without misgiving nor
without sadness that he yielded to his father-in-law; but that
father had always governed the family wisely, and Germain, entirely
devoted as he was to the common welfare and so, by consequence, to
the head of the house, who represented it, could not understand
that he might have wronged his own good sense and hurt the
interests of all. Nevertheless, he was sad. Few days went by when
he did not cry in secret, for his wife, and although loneliness
began to weigh on him, he was more afraid of entering into a new
marriage than desirous of finding a support in his sorrow. He had a
vague idea that love might have consoled him by coming to him of a
sudden, for this is the only way love can console. We never find it
when we seek it; it comes over us unawares.
This cold-blooded scheme of marriage that Father Maurice had opened
to him, this unknown woman he was to take for his bride, perhaps
even all that had been said to him of her virtue and good sense,
made him pause to think. And he went away musing as men do whose
thoughts are too few to divide into hostile factions, not scraping
up fine arguments for rebellion and selfishness but suffering from
a dull grief, submissive to ills from which there is no escape.
Meanwhile, Father Maurice had returned to the farm, while Germain,
between sunset and dark, spent the closing hour of the day in
repairing gaps the sheep had made in the hedge of a yard near the
farm-buildings. He lifted up the branches of the thorn-bushes
and held them in place with clods of earth, whilst the thrushes
chattered in the neighboring thicket and seemed to call to him to
hurry, for they were eager to come and see his work as soon as he
had gone.
[Illustration: (Ornament)]
IV
Mother Guillette
Father Maurice found at his house an old neighbor who had come to
talk with his wife, seeking at the same time to secure a few embers
to light her fire. Mother Guillette lived in a wretched hut two
gunshots away from the farm. Still she was a willing and an orderly
woman. Her poor dwelling was clean and neat, and the care with
which her clothes were mended showed that she respected herself in
the midst of her penury.
“You have come to fetch your evening fire, Mother Guillette,” said
the old man to her. “Is there anything else you want?”
“No, Father Maurice,” answered she; “nothing for the present. I am
no beggar, as you know, and I take care not to abuse the kindness
of my friends.”
“That is very true. Besides, your friends are always ready to do
you a service.”
“I was just talking to your wife, and I was asking her if Germain
had finally decided to marry again.”
“You are no gossip,” replied Father Maurice; “we can talk in your
presence without having any foolish tale-bearing to fear. So I will
tell my wife and you that Germain has made up his mind absolutely.
To-morrow morning he starts for the farm at Fourche.”
“Good enough!” cried Mother Maurice; “poor child! God grant he may
find a woman as good and true as he.”
“So he is going to Fourche?” remarked Mother Guillette; “how lucky
that is! It is exactly what I want. And since you were just asking
me if there were anything I wished for, I am going to tell you,
Father Maurice, how you can do me a service.”
“Tell me what it is; we like to help you.”
“I wish Germain would be so kind as to take my daughter along with
him.”
“Where? To Fourche?”
“No, not to Fourche, but to Ormeaux. She is to stay there the rest
of the year.”
“What!” exclaimed Mother Maurice, “are you going to separate from
your daughter?”
“She must go out to work and earn her living. I am sorry enough,
and she is too, poor soul. We could not make up our minds to part
Saint John’s Day, but now that Saint Martin’s is upon us, she
finds a good place as shepherdess at the farms at Ormeaux. On his
way home from the fair the other day, the farmer passed by here.
He caught sight of my little Marie tending her three sheep on the
common.
“‘You have hardly enough to do, my little girl,’ said he; ‘three
sheep are not enough for a shepherdess: would you like to take care
of a hundred? I will take you along. Our shepherdess has fallen
sick. She is going back to her family, and if you will be at our
farm before a week is over, you shall have fifty francs for the
rest of the year up to Saint John’s Day.’
“The child refused, but she could not help thinking it over and
telling me about it, when she came home in the evening, and found
me downhearted and worried about the winter, which was sure to be
hard and long; for this year the cranes and wild ducks were seen
crossing the sky a whole month before they generally do. We both
of us cried, but after a time we took heart. We knew that we could
not stay together, since it is hard enough for one person to get
a living from our little patch of ground. Then since Marie is old
enough,--for she is going on to sixteen,--she must do like the
rest, earn her own living and help her poor mother.”
“Mother Guillette,” said the old laborer, “if it were only fifty
francs you needed to help you out of your trouble, and save you
from sending away your daughter, I should certainly find them for
you, although fifty francs is no trifle for people like us. But in
everything we must consult common sense as well as friendship. To
be saved from want this year will not keep you from want in the
future, and the longer your daughter takes to make up her mind, the
harder you both will find it to part. Little Marie is growing tall
and strong. She has not enough at home to keep her busy. She might
get into lazy habits....”
“Oh, I am not afraid of that!” exclaimed Mother Guillette. “Marie
is as active as a rich girl at the head of a large family can be.
She never sits still with her arms folded for an instant, and
when we have no work to do, she keeps dusting and polishing our
old furniture until it shines like a mirror. The child is worth
her weight in gold, and I should much rather have her enter your
service as a shepherdess than go so far away to people I don’t
know. You would have taken her at Saint John’s Day; but now you
have hired all your hands, and we cannot think of that till Saint
John’s Day next year.”
“Yes, I consent with all my heart, Guillette. I shall be very glad
to take her. But in the mean time she will do well to learn her
work, and accustom herself to obey others.”
“Yes, that is true, no doubt. The die is cast. The farmer at
Ormeaux sent to ask about her this morning; we consented, and she
must go. But the poor child does not know the way, and I should
not like to send her so far alone. Since your son-in-law goes to
Fourche to-morrow, perhaps he can take her. It seems that Fourche
is close to her journey’s end. At least, so they tell me, for I
have never made the trip myself.”
“It is very near indeed, and my son will show her the way.
Naturally, he might even take her up behind him on the mare. That
will save her shoes. Here he comes for supper. Tell me, Germain,
Mother Guillette’s little Marie is going to become a shepherdess at
Ormeaux. Will you take her there on your horse?”
“Certainly,” answered Germain, who, troubled as he was, never felt
indisposed to do a kindness to his neighbor.
In our community a mother would not think of such a thing as to
trust a girl of sixteen to a man of twenty-eight. For Germain was
really but twenty-eight, and although according to the notions
of the country people he was considered rather old to marry, he
was still the best-looking man in the neighborhood. Toil had not
wrinkled and worn him as it does most peasants who have passed ten
years in tilling the soil. He was strong enough to labor for ten
more years without showing signs of age, and the prejudices of
her time must have weighed heavily on the mind of a young girl to
prevent her from seeing that Germain had a fresh complexion, eyes
sparkling and blue as skies in May, ruddy lips, fine teeth, and a
body well shaped and lithe as a young horse that has never yet left
his pasture.
But purity of manners is a sacred custom in some districts far
distant from the corrupted life of great cities, and amongst all
the households of Belair, the family of Maurice was known to be
honest and truth-loving. Germain was on his way to find a wife.
Marie was a child, too young and too poor to be thought of in this
light, and unless he were a heartless and a bad man he could not
entertain one evil thought concerning her. Father Maurice felt
no uneasiness at seeing him take the pretty girl on the crupper.
Mother Guillette would have thought herself doing him a wrong had
she asked him to respect her daughter as his sister. Marie embraced
her mother and her young friends twenty times, and then mounted the
mare in tears. Germain, sad on his own account, felt all the more
sympathy for her sorrow, and rode away with a melancholy air, while
all the people of the neighborhood waved good-by to Marie without a
thought of harm.
[Illustration: (Ornament)]
V
Petit-Pierre
The gray was young, good-looking, and strong. She carried her
double burden with ease, laying back her ears and champing her
bit like the high-spirited mare she was. Passing in front of the
pasture, she caught sight of her mother, whose name was the Old
Gray as hers was the Young Gray, and she whinnied in token of
good-by. The Old Gray came nearer the hedge, and striking her shoes
together she tried to gallop along the edge of the field in order
to follow her daughter; then seeing her fall into a sharp trot, the
mare whinnied in her turn and stood in an uneasy attitude, her nose
in the air and her mouth filled with grass that she had no thought
of eating.
“That poor beast always knows her offspring,” said Germain, trying
to keep Marie’s thoughts from her troubles. “That reminds me, I
never kissed Petit-Pierre before I started. The naughty boy was
not there. Last night he wished to make me promise to take him
along, and he wept for an hour in bed. This morning again, he tried
everything to persuade me. Oh, how sly and coaxing he is! But when
he saw that he could not gain his point, the young gentleman got
into a temper. He went off to the fields, and I have not seen him
all day.”
“I have seen him,” said little Marie, striving to keep back her
tears; “he was running toward the clearing with Soulas’ children,
and I felt sure that he had been away from home a long time, for
he was hungry and was eating wild plums and blackberries. I gave
him the bread I had for lunch, and he said, ‘Thank you, dear Marie;
when you come to our house, I will give you some cake.’ He is a
dear little child, Germain.”
“Yes, he is,” answered the laborer; “and there is nothing I would
not do for him. If his grandmother had not more sense than I, I
could not have helped taking him with me, when I saw him crying as
though his poor little heart would burst.”
“Then why did you not take him, Germain? He would have been very
little trouble. He is so good when you please him.”
“He would probably have been in the way in the place where I am
going. At least Father Maurice thought so. On the other hand, I
should have thought it well to see how they received him. For no
one could help being kind to such a nice child. But at home they
said that I must not begin by showing off all the cares of the
household. I don’t know why I speak of this to you, little Marie;
you can’t understand.”
“Oh, yes, I do; I know that you are going away to marry; my mother
spoke to me about it, and told me not to mention it to a soul,
either at home or at my destination, and you need not be afraid; I
shall not breathe a word about it.”
“You are very right. For the deed isn’t done yet. Perhaps I shall
not suit this woman.”
“I hope you will, Germain; why should you not suit her?”
“Who knows? I have three children, and that is a heavy burden for a
woman who is not their mother.”
“Very true. But are not your children like other children?”
“Do you think so?”
“They are lovely as little angels, and so well brought up that you
can’t find better children.”
“There’s Sylvain. He is none too obedient.”
“He is so very little. He can’t help being naughty. But he is very
bright.”
“He is bright it is true, and very brave. He is not afraid of cows
nor bulls, and if he were given his own way, he would be climbing
on horseback already with his elder brother.”
“Had I been in your place, I would have taken the eldest boy along.
Surely people would have liked you at once for having such a pretty
child.”
“Yes, if a woman is fond of children. But if she is not.”
“Are there women who don’t love children?”
“Not many, I think, but still there are some, and that is what
troubles me.”
“You don’t know this woman at all, then?”