Goethe has somewhere written: Whosoever would understand the poet and his
work should visit the poet's country.
Let us, then, the latest of many, make the pilgrimage which all those who
are fascinated by the enigma of nature will accomplish later, with the same
piety that has led so many and so fervent admirers to the dwelling of
Mistral at Maillane.
Starting from Orange and crossing the Aygues, a torrent whose muddy waters
are lost in the Rhône, but whose bed is dried by the July and August suns,
leaving only a desert of pebbles, where the Mason-bee builds her pretty
turrets of rock-work, we come presently to the Sérignaise country; an arid,
stony tract, planted with vines and olives, coloured a rusty red, or
touched here and there with almost a hue of blood; and here and there a
grove of cypress makes a sombre blot. To the north runs a long black line
of hills, covered with box and ilex and the giant heather of the south. Far
in the distance, to the east, the immense plain is closed in by the wall of
Saint-Amant and the ridge of the Dentelle, behind which the lofty Ventoux
rears its rocky, cloven bosom abruptly to the clouds. At the end of a few
miles of dusty road, swept by the powerful breath of the mistral, we
suddenly reach a little village. It is a curious little community, with its
central street adorned by a double row of plane-trees, its leaping
fountains, and its almost Italian air. The houses are lime-washed, with
flat roofs; and sometimes, at the side of some small or decrepit dwelling,
we see the unexpected curves of a loggia. At a distance the facade of the
church has the harmonious lines of a little antique temple; close at hand
is the graceful campanile, an old octagonal tower surmounted by a narrow
mitre wrought in hammered iron, in the midst of which are seen the black
profiles of the bells.
I shall never forget my first visit. It was in the month of August; and the
whole countryside was ringing with the song of the cicadae. I had applied
to a job-master of Orange, counting on him to take me thither; but he had
never driven any one to Sérignan, had hardly heard of Fabre, and did not
know where his house was. At length, however, we contrived to find it. At
the entrance of the little market-town, in a solitary corner, in the centre
of an enclosure of lofty walls, which were taller than the crests of the
pines and cypresses, his dwelling was hidden away. No sound proceeded from
it; but for the baying of the faithful Tom I do not think I should have
dared to knock on the great door, which turned slowly on its hinges. A pink
house with green shutters, half-hidden amid the sombre foliage, appears at
the end of an alley of lilacs, "which sway in the spring under the weight
of their balmy thyrsi." Before the house are the shady plane-trees, where
during the burning hours of August the cicada of the flowering ash, the
deafening cacan, concealed beneath the leaves, fills the hot atmosphere
with its eager cries, the only sound that disturbs the profound silence of
this solitude.
Before us, beyond a little wall of a height to lean upon, on an isolated
lawn, beneath the shade of great trees with interwoven boughs, a circular
basin displays its still surface, across which the skating Hydrometra
traces its wide circles. Then, suddenly, we see an opening into the most
extraordinary and unexpected of gardens; a wild park, full of strenuous
vegetation, which hides the pebbly soil in all directions; a chaos of
plants and bushes, created throughout especially to attract the insects of
the neighbourhood.
Thickets of wild laurel and dense clumps of lavender encroach upon the
paths, alternating with great bushes of coronilla, which bar the flight of
the butterfly with their yellow-winged flowers, and whose searching
fragrance embalms all the air about them.
It is as though the neighbouring mountain had one day departed, leaving
here its thistles, its dogberry-trees, its brooms, its rushes, its juniper-
bushes, its laburnums, and its spurges. There too grows the "strawberry
tree," whose red fruits wear so familiar an appearance; and tall pines, the
giants of this "pigmy forest." There the Japanese privet ripens its black
berries, mingled with the Paulownia and the Cratoegus with their tender
green foliage. Coltsfoot mingles with violets; clumps of sage and thyme mix
their fragrance with the scent of rosemary and a host of balsamic plants.
Amid the cacti, their fleshy leaves bristling with prickles, the periwinkle
opens its scattered blossoms, while in a corner the serpent arum raises its
cornucopia, in which those insects that love putrescence fall engulfed,
deceived by the horrible savour of its exhalations.
It is in the spring above all that one should see this torrent of verdure,
when the whole enclosure awakens in its festival attire, decked with all
the flowers of May, and the warm air, full of the hum of insects, is
perfumed with a thousand intoxicating scents. It is in the spring that one
should see the "Harmas," the open-air observatory, "the laboratory of
living entomology" (6/1.); a name and a spot which Fabre has made famous
throughout the world.
I enter the dining-room, whose wide, half-closed shutters allow only a
half-light to enter between the printed curtains. Rush-bottomed chairs, a
great table, about which seven persons daily take their places, a few poor
pieces of furniture, and a simple bookcase; such are all the contents. On
the mantel, a clock in black marble, a precious souvenir, the only present
which Fabre received at the time of his exodus from Avignon; it was given
by his old pupils, the young girls who used to attend the free lectures at
Saint-Martial's.
There, every afternoon, half lying on a little sofa, the naturalist has the
habit of taking a short siesta. This light repose, even without sleep, was
of old enough to restore his energies, exhausted by hours of labour.
Thenceforth he was once more alert, and ready for the remainder of the day.
But already he is on his feet, bareheaded, in his waistcoat, his silk
necktie carelessly fastened under the soft turned-down collar of his half-
open shirt, his gesture, in the shadowy chamber, full of welcome.
François Sicard, in his faultless medal and his admirable bust, has
succeeded with rare felicity in reproducing for posterity this rugged,
shaven face, full of laborious years; a peasant face, stamped with
originality, under the wide felt hat of Provence; touched with geniality
and benevolence, yet reflecting a world of energy. Sicard has fixed for
ever this strange mask; the thin cheeks, ploughed into deep furrows, the
strained nose, the pendent wrinkles of the throat, the thin, shrivelled
lips, with an indescribable fold of bitterness at the corners of the mouth.
The hair, tossed back, falls in fine curls over the ears, revealing a high,
rounded forehead, obstinate and full of thought. But what chisel, what
graver could reproduce the surprising shrewdness of that gaze, eclipsed
from time to time by a convulsive tremor of the eyelids! What Holbein, what
Chardin could render the almost extraordinary brilliance of those black
eyes, those dilated pupils: the eyes of a prophet, a seer; singularly wide
and deeply set, as though gazing always upon the mystery of things, as
though made expressly to scrutinize Nature and decipher her enigmas? Above
the orbits, two short, bristling eyebrows seem set there to guide the
vision; one, by dint of knitting itself above the magnifying-glass, has
retained an indelible fold of continual attention; the other, on the
contrary, always updrawn, has the look of defying the interlocutor, of
foreseeing his objections, of waiting with an ever-ready return-thrust.
Such is this striking physiognomy, which one who has seen it cannot forget.
There, in this "hermit's retreat," as he himself has defined it, the sage
is voluntarily sequestered; a true saint of science, an ascetic living only
on fruits, vegetables, and a little wine; so in love with retirement that
even in the village he was for a long time almost unknown, so careful was
he to go round instead of through it on his way to the neighbouring
mountain, where he would often spend whole days alone with wild nature.
It is in this silent Thebaïd, so far from the atmosphere of cities, the
vain agitations and storms of the world, that his life has been passed, in
unchanging uniformity; and here he has been able to pursue, with resolute
labour and incredible patience, that prodigious series of marvellous
observations which for nearly fifty years he has never ceased to
accumulate.
Let us indeed remember how much time has been required and what effort has
been expended to complete the long and patient inquiries which he had
hitherto accomplished; obliged, as he was, to allow himself to be
interrupted at any moment, and to postpone his observations often at the
most interesting moment, in order to undertake some enervating labour, or
the disagreeable and mechanical duties of his profession. Remember that his
first labours already dated from twenty-five years earlier, and at the
moment when we observe him in his solitude at Sérignan he had only just
painfully gathered together the material for his first book. What a
contrast to the thirty fruitful years that were to follow! Now nearly ten
volumes, no less overflowing with the richest material, were to succeed one
another at almost regular intervals--about one in every three years.
To be sure, he would have gathered his harvest in no matter what corner of
the world, provided he had found within his reach, in whatever sphere of
life he had been placed, any subject of inquiry whatever; such was
Rousseau, botanizing over the bunch of chickweed provided for his canary;
such was Bernardin Saint-Pierre, discovering a world in a strawberry-plant
which had sprouted by chance at the corner of his window. (6/2.) But the
field in which he had hitherto been able to glean was indeed barren. That
he was able, later on, to narrate the wonderful history of the Pelopaeus,
whose habits he had observed at Avignon, was due to the fact that this
curious insect had come to lodge with him, having chosen Fabre's chamber
for its dwelling. None the less he threw himself eagerly upon all such
scraps of information as happened to come under his notice; witness the
observations which he embodied in a memoir touching the phosphorescence of
certain earth-worms which, abounding in a little courtyard near his
dwelling, were so rare elsewhere that he was never again able to find them.
(6/3.) It was therefore fortunate, if not for himself, at least for his
genius, that he did not become, as he had wished, a professor in a faculty;
there, to be sure, he would have found a theatre worthy of his efforts, in
which he might even have demonstrated, in all its magnificence, his
incomparable gift of teaching; but it is probable too that he would have
been stranded in shoal waters; that in the official atmosphere of a city
his still more marvellous gifts of observation would scarcely have found
employment.
It was only by belonging fully to himself that he could fruitfully exercise
his talents. Necessary to every scholar, to every inquirer, to an open-air
observer like Fabre liberty and leisure were more than usually essential;
failing these he might never have accomplished his mission. How many lives
are wasted, how many minds expended in sheer loss, in default of this
sufficiency of leisure! How many scholars tied to the soil, how many
physicians absorbed by an exigent practice, who perhaps had somewhat to
say, have succeeded only in devising plans, for ever postponing their
realization to some miraculous tomorrow, which always recedes!
But we must not fall into illusions. How many might be tempted to imitate
him, hoping to see some unknown talent awaken or expand within them, only
to find themselves incapable of producing anything, and to consume
themselves in an insurmountable and barren ennui! One must be rich in one's
own nature, rich in will and in ability, to live apart and seek new paths
in solitude, and it is not without reason that the majority prefer the
turmoil of cities and the murmur of men to the silence of the country.
The atmosphere of a great capital, for instance, is singularly conducive to
work. Living constantly within the circle of light shed by the masters,
within reach of the laboratories and the great libraries, we are less
likely to go astray; we are stimulated by the contact of others; we profit
by their advice and experience; and it is easy to borrow ideas if we lack
them. Then there is the stimulant of self-respect, the sense of rivalry,
the eager desire to advance, to distinguish oneself, to shine, to attract
attention, to become in one's turn an arbiter, an object of wonder and
envy, without which stimulus many would merely have existed, and would
never have become what they are.
On the other hand, a man needs an intrinsic radio-activity, and a real
talent; and the aid, moreover, of exceptional circumstances, if fame is to
consent to come to him and take him by the hand in the depths of some
unknown Maillane, some obscure Sérignan; even, as in the case of Fabre, at
the end only of a long life.
But he, by a kind of fatality inherent in his nature, loved "to
circumscribe himself," according to the happy expression of Rousseau; and
he profited, rather than otherwise, by living entirely to himself; for he
had long been, indeed he always was, the man who, at twenty-five, writing
to his brother, had said, in speaking of his native countryside:
"For a impassioned botanist, it is a delightful country, in which I could
pass a month, two months, three months, a year even, alone, quite alone,
with no other companion than the crows and the jays which gossip among the
oak-trees; without being weary for a moment; there would be so many
beautiful fungi, orange, rosy, and white, among the mosses, and so many
flowers in the fields." (6/4.)
His work having brought him at last just enough to enable him to give
himself the pleasure of becoming, in his turn, a proprietor, he had
acquired, for a modest sum, this dilapidated dwelling and this deserted
spot of ground; barren land, given over to couch-grass, thistles, and
brambles; a sort of "accursed spot, to which no one would have confided
even a pinch of turnip-seed." A piece of water in front of the house
attracted all the frogs in the neighbourhood; the screech-owl mewed from
the tops of the plane-trees, and numerous birds, no longer disturbed by the
presence of man, had domiciled themselves in the lilacs and the cypresses.
A host of insects had seized upon the dwelling, which had long been
deserted.
He restored the house, and to some extent reduced confusion to order. In
the uncultivated and pebbly plain where the plough had been long a stranger
he established plants of a thousand varieties, and, the better to hide
himself, he had walls built to shut himself in.
Why was he drawn by preference to this village of Sérignan?--for he did not
go thither without making some inquiries as to the possibility of obtaining
shelter elsewhere, and the Carpentras cemetery had tempted him also; but
what had particularly seduced and drawn him thither was the nearness of the
mountain with its Mediterranean flora, so rich that it recalled the
Corsican maquis; full of beautiful fungi and varied insects, where, under
the flat stones exposed to the burning sun, the centipede burrowed and the
scorpion slept; where a special fauna abounded--of curious dung-beetles,
scarabaei, the Copris, the Minotaur, etc.--which only a little farther
north grow rapidly scarcer and then altogether disappear.
He had thus at last arrived in port; he had found his "Eden."
He had realized, "after forty years of desperate struggles," the dearest,
the most ardent, the longest cherished of all his desires. He could observe
at leisure "every day, every hour," his beloved insects; "under the blue
sky, to the music of the cigales." He had only to open his eyes and to see;
to lend an ear and hear; to enjoy the great blessing of leisure to his
heart's content.
Doffing the professor's frock-coat for the peasant's blouse, planting a
root of sweet basil in his "topper," and finally kicking it to pieces, he
snapped his fingers at his past life.
Liberated at last, far from all that could irritate or disturb him or make
him feel dependent, satisfied with his modest earnings, reassured by the
ever-increasing popularity of his little books, he had obtained entire
possession of his own body and mind, and could give himself without reserve
to his favourite subjects.
So, with Nature and her inexhaustible book before him, he truly commenced a
new life.
But would this life have been possible without the support and comfort of
those intimate feelings which are at the root of human nature? Man is
seldom the master of these feelings, and they, with reason or despite
reason, force themselves on his notice as the question of questions.
This delicate problem Fabre had to resolve after suffering a fresh grief.
Hardly had he commenced to enjoy the benefits of this profound peace, when
he lost his wife. At this moment his children were already grown up; some
were married and some ready to leave him; and he could not hope much longer
to keep his old father, the ex-café-keeper of Pierrelatte, who had come to
rejoin him; and who might be seen, even in his extreme old age, going forth
in all weathers and dragging his aged limbs along all the roads of
Sérignan. (6/5.) The son, moreover, had inherited from his father his
profound inaptitude for the practical business of life, and was equally
incapable of managing his interests and the economics of the house. This is
why, after two years of widowerhood, having already passed his sixtieth
year, although still physically quite youthful, he remarried. Careless of
opinion, obeying only the dictates of his own heart and mind, and following
also the intuitions of unerring instinct, which was superior to the
understanding of those who thought it their duty to oppose him, he married,
as Boaz married Ruth, a young woman, industrious, full of freshness and
life, already completely devoted to his service, and admirably fitted to
satisfy that craving for order, peace, quiet, and moral tranquillity, which
to him were above all things indispensable.
His new companion, moreover, was in all things faithful to her mission, and
it was thanks to the benefits of this union, as the future was to show,
that Fabre was in a position to pursue his long-delayed inquiries.
Three children, a son and two daughters, were born in swift succession, and
reconstituted "the family," which was very soon increased by the youngest
of his daughters by his first wife, who had not married; this was that
Aglaë, who so often helped her father with her childlike attentions, and,
"her cheek blooming with animation," collaborated in some of his most
famous observations (6/6.); an unobtrusive figure, a soul full of devotion
and resignation, heroic and tender. Having in vain ventured into the world,
she had returned to the beloved roof at Sérignan, unable to part from the
father she so admired and adored.
Later, when the shadow of age grew denser and heavier, the young wife and
the younger children of the famous poet-entomologist took part in his
labours also; they gave him their material assistance, their hands, their
eyes, their hearing, their feet; he in the midst of them was the
conceiving, reasoning, interpreting, and directing brain.
>From this time forward the biography of Fabre becomes simplified, and
remains a statement of his inner life. For thirty years he never emerged
from his horizon of mountains and his garden of shingle; he lived wholly
absorbed in domestic affections and the tasks of a naturalist. None the
less, he still exercised his vocation as teacher, for neither pure science
nor poetry was sufficient to nourish his mind, and he was still Professor
Fabre, untiringly pursuing his programme of education, although no longer
applying himself thereto exclusively.
This long active period was also the most silent period of his life,
although not an hour, not a minute of his many days was left unoccupied.
In the first few months at his new home he resumed his hymn to labour.
"You will learn in your turn," he writes to his son Émile, "you will learn,
I hope, that we are never so happy as when work does not leave us a
moment's repose. To act is to live." (6/7.)
The better to belong to himself, he eluded all invitations, even those from
his nearest or most intimate friends; he hated to go away even for a few
hours, preferring to enjoy in his own house their presence amidst his
habitual and delightful surroundings. Everything in this still unexplored
country was new to him. What would he do elsewhere, even in his beloved
Carpentras, whither his faithful friend and pupil Devillario, who had
formerly followed him in his walks around Avignon, would endeavour from
time to time to draw him? Devillario was a magistrate, a collector and
palaeontologist; his simple tastes, his wide culture, and his passion for
natural history would surely have decided Fabre to accept his invitations,
but that he forbade himself the pleasure. "I am afraid the hospitable
cutlet that awaits me at your table will have time to grow cold; I am up to
the neck in my work (6/8.)...But you, when you can, escape from your
courts, and we will philosophize at random, as is our custom when we can
manage to pass a few hours together. As for me, it is very doubtful whether
the temptation will seize me to come to Carpentras. A hermit of the Thebaïd
was no more diligent in his cell than I in my village home." (6/9.)