THE SURPRISES OF LIFE
BY GEORGES CLEMENCEAU
TRANSLATED BY
GRACE HALL
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MOKOUBAMBA'S FETISH 3
II. A DESCENDANT OF TIMON 19
III. MALUS VICINUS 31
IV. AUNT ROSALIE'S INHERITANCE 45
V. GIDEON IN HIS GRAVE 61
VI. SIMON, SON OF SIMON 73
VII. AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS 87
VIII. EVIL BENEFICENCE 101
IX. A MAD THINKER 113
X. BETTER THAN STEALING 125
XI. THE GRAY FOX 137
XII. THE ADVENTURE OF MY CURÉ 149
XIII. MASTER BAPTIST, JUDGE 161
XIV. THE BULLFINCH AND THE MAKER OF WOODEN SHOES 173
XV. ABOUT NESTS 185
XVI. A DOMESTIC DRAMA 197
XVII. SIX CENTS 209
XVIII. FLOWER O' THE WHEAT 221
XIX. JEAN PIOT'S FEAST 233
XX. THE TREASURE OF ST. BARTHOLEMEW 249
XXI. A HAPPY UNION 263
XXII. A WELL-ASSORTED COUPLE 275
XXIII. LOVERS IN FLORENCE 287
XXIV. A HUNTING ACCIDENT 301
XXV. GIAMBOLO 313
THE SURPRISES OF LIFE
I
MOKOUBAMBA'S FETISH
It may be that you knew Mokoubamba who became famous in Passy for his
labours as a reseater of rush-bottomed chairs, weaver of mats, of
baskets and hampers, mender of all things breakable, teller of tales,
entertainer of the passerby, lover of all haunts where poor mortality
resorts to eat and drink. He was an old Negro from the coast of Guinea,
very black as to skin, wholly white as to hair, with great velvety black
eyes and the jaws of a crocodile whence issued childlike laughter. He
used to honour me with his visits on his way home at evening when he had
not sold quite all his wares. With abundance of words and gestures, he
would explain to me how fortunate I was to need precisely the article of
which by an unforeseen and kindly chance he was the owner. And as he saw
that I delighted in his talk, he gave free rein to that spirited
eloquence which never failed to bring him more or less remuneration.
Our latest "reformers" having put intoxication by the juice of the grape
within reach of all, Mokoubamba died on the fourteenth of last July,
from having too copiously celebrated the taking of the Bastille. No more
will Passy see Mokoubamba, with his white _burnous_, his scarlet
_chechia_, his green boots, and his drum-major's staff. A genuine loss
to the truly Parisian picturesqueness of this quarter. As for me, how
should I not miss the rare companion who had seen so many lands,
consorted with so many sages, and collected so many strange teachings?
"Mokoubamba knows the whole earth," he was wont to say, candidly adding:
"Mokoubamba knows everything that man can know."
And the generosity of this primitive nature will be seen in the fact of
his not keeping his hoard of knowledge to himself, but lavishing it upon
all comers. He was equally willing to announce what the weather would be
on the morrow and what it had been on the day before. By means of
cabalistic signs on a very grimy bit of parchment he foretold any man's
destiny: a choice destiny, indeed, of whose felicities he was never
known to be niggardly.
The poor were informed that a rich inheritance awaited them, the rich
saw their fortunes increased by unlooked-for events, love knocked at the
door of the young, children came into the world who were to be the pride
of their families, the old, beloved for their own sakes, saw their
lives stretch out indefinitely: Mokoubamba kept a Paradise shop.
One day I made bold to call him to account for this, claiming that life
held in store for us disappointments, here and there, for the purpose of
giving an edge to our pleasures, and that there must from time to time
be a discrepancy between the sovereign bliss of which he so freely held
out the hope and the sum of realized joys.
"Life," replied the wise Mokoubamba, "is a procession of delights. As
soon as one has disappeared, another has started upon its way. It may be
a more or less long time in arriving, but no one will begrudge waiting
for it, and the waiting is often the best a man gets out of it."
For a chairmender this saying seemed to me fairly profound.
"Who taught you this?" I asked.
"A fakir from Benares from whom the heavens withheld no secrets."
"You have been in India?"
"I have been everywhere."
"Mokoubamba, my friend, yours is no ordinary life. Will you not tell me
something of it? The past interests me more than the future."
"If you will order them to give me coffee and cigarettes, and if I may
drink and smoke as long as I talk, you shall have my entire history."
I nodded in assent, and Mokoubamba, taking possession of my verandah,
squatted upon one of his own mats, inhaled the perfume of Arabia,
exhaled three puffs of curly blue smoke, and seemed to lose himself in
the search for a starting point.
"What was your first occupation?" I asked by way of helping him on.
"The easiest of all," said he, with a shamefaced air. "I began by being
a minister."
"Minister!" I cried in high surprise. "Minister to whom? Minister of
what?"
"Minister to the great King Matori. Down there--down there--beyond the
Niger."
"Truly! My compliments to His Excellency! And you say the profession
seemed an easy one to you? Your colleagues up here would scarcely agree
with you."
"I speak of what I have seen. In my country those who are the masters
are always in the right. Tell me if you know of a place on earth where
it is any different? I did not know how to do anything. I could not even
have braided a mat in those days. Well, then, all that I said was
admirable, and as soon as I had given an order it was considered the
best in the world. I was myself a Fetish, my mother having given me
birth on a day of rain after a long drought which had reduced our
villages to famine."
"And what were your functions?"
"The same as elsewhere. I was purveyor of provisions to the royal
household and I reserved a just share for myself. Matori loved me very
much. But I had enemies. They persuaded him that my Fetish was stronger
than his, and as he feared my power, he sold me to an English trader who
needed carriers for his ivory. It was a long journey to the coast. If a
man fell he was gently dispatched on the spot, so that he might not be
eaten alive by the beasts, and his load was distributed among the rest
of us. Without my Fetish I should have been left behind. I may add that
being beaten with a stick helped to keep up my courage."
"And what is your Fetish?"
"At that time I did not know, but I felt it without knowing. In time we
arrived among the English. I was not a slave. Oh, no! but I had been
'engaged,' and in order that I might better fill my 'engagement' they
fastened me, with many others, to the wall of a courtyard, by an iron
chain."
"Poor Mokoubamba!"
"I was not unhappy, for they fed me very well. They wished to have us in
good condition so as to get rid of us. It was there that I learned the
art of weaving reeds and rattan, and carving curious designs upon wood.
My neighbour, the man chained beside me, was a great sorcerer in his own
land. He could carve bamboo, he could cook; he was skilled in hammering
red-hot iron, in stitching leather, in dancing; he could call up
spirits. They took very good care of him. They did not sell him, of
course, since there existed no slavery, but they bartered him for two
dozen bottles of French brandy. There was a price for you! Matori had
handed me over for a single calabash of rum and a copper trumpet."
"Poor Mokoubamba!"
"Yes, you are right! It was a paltry price. I was humiliated by it for a
long time. But as my new master used to say, I must learn to overcome
the demon of pride."
"Your new master used to say that?"
"It was like this. I was quietly sitting at my chain one day, making a
large basket, when a man dressed in black, with an edge of white around
his neck, came near me and said: 'My brother, what have you done with
your soul?' I had learned a few words of English on the journey.
However, I asked my visitor to repeat his question. He repeated it again
and again, and I finally understood that he was talking about my Fetish,
and that he wished to know what I had done with it. I answered that it
was a sacred thing, and that I had it with me, but that I would
willingly employ it in his service if he would acquire me for a sum of
money. My answer had the good fortune to please him, it seems, for on
that very evening the excellent Reverend Ebenezer Jones installed me in
his parsonage. He taught me about his great Fetish, who did not much
differ from Matori's. Is not a Fetish always something that we do not
know and that works us either good or evil? We ask it for good, and it
does not always grant it. But as I was just saying, we go on expecting
it, and that keeps us in patience.
"Ebenezer Jones told me beautiful tales full of marvels, and he always
ended with the question: 'Dost thou believe?'
"How should I not have believed him? So good a man, who daily let me
have soup with meat in it. I was baptized by him with a fine ceremony.
Before long he was so pleased with me that he made me his sexton. I was
the edification of the faithful, everyone brought me gifts, and I was
able, unknown to the Right Reverend, to treat myself to a superior brand
of _tafia_.
"Ebenezer Jones travelled about the country preaching his Fetish, and I
accompanied him. I had ended by knowing his discourses by heart, and
often at gatherings I recited portions of them after he had finished
speaking. People understood me better than they did him, which was not
to be wondered at. My 'spiritual guide' owed to me most of the success
that made him famous in his own country. This lasted for nearly ten
years.
"One day, Ebenezer having been called back to London proposed that I
should follow him. I did it joyfully, and I must say that the six weeks
I spent in that capital were one long-drawn-out feast. I was exhibited
at the Missionary Society as a model among converts. At dessert I would
rise and speak of my complete happiness, which was but natural after so
good a meal. People wept with emotion, and so did I myself. In that
country the religious fervour of elderly gentlewomen is extraordinary.
Between puddings and mince pies, it was one stream of gifts of food.
Never have I eaten so well or drunk so much.
"There, however, I was surprised to find that the English no more than
the Negroes are all of one mind with regard to their Fetishes, which I
ought to have expected. In Africa, at a six days' journey from our
church, there was a Catholic Mission. I was careful never to go near it,
since Ebenezer had warned me that they worked evil spells there upon the
poor Negroes who let themselves be deceived.
"But one afternoon in London, I was accosted by a big devil of an Irish
priest who had heard of my religious zeal. He was greatly perturbed by
the glory which the Missionary Society owed to me. He had determined to
snatch me away from Ebenezer Jones. I let him take me home with him,
where I found a table abundantly spread. Meat, pies, and preserves, and
liqueurs, oh, such liqueurs! I was deeply shaken, and could not disguise
the fact from my new friend, Father Joseph O'Meara. He increased his
efforts, and so successfully explained to me the superiority of his
Fetishes over Ebenezer's that I was obliged to agree he was right. No
sooner had I uttered the word than he baptized me on the spot, gave me a
good bed to sleep in, and on the morrow celebrated my reconversion with
a ceremony even finer than the former one. There were Fetishes
everywhere surrounded by lights. Joseph O'Meara wept for joy and so did
I. That evening there was a magnificent banquet, ... just like the
others. They had taught me a speech, but as the generous potations had
slightly clouded my memory, I was able to utter but one sentence:
'Mokoubamba is very happy, very happy.'
"And that was no lie.
"The trouble was now that Ebenezer Jones, ashamed of having allowed
Mokoubamba to be stolen from him, wished to get me back. But Joseph
O'Meara was not the man to let any such trick be played upon him. I was
treated like a prince, and kept well in sight for fifteen glorious days.
Then it was explained to me that I must go to another country so as to
escape from the machinations of the 'Evil One,' which was the name of
Ebenezer's bad Fetish. I was consequently hurried off to a mission in
Bombay where the religion was very different. Here were priests who
fasted all day long. A moiety of rice, much dust, and as much warm water
as I cared to consume. This did not suit me in the least. I wandered
about the streets looking for some Fetish willing to take an interest in
me. There are all manner of people out there. I questioned concerning
their Fetishes a Parsee, a fire-worshipper who had nothing to cook in
his dish, and a Chinaman who considering my appetite told me that I
should be born again in the form of a shark. None of them showed any
care to convert me. A Mahomedan alone seemed disposed to win me over to
his Fetish, but he wished first to take from me a portion of something
which I at that time considered very desirable. That ended it.
"I travelled, weaving baskets and mats, even as I do to-day. I lived
very poorly. Everyone in that country cares above all things for his own
Fetish, and will not change it. There is no work there for Ebenezer
Jones or Joseph O'Meara. And yet their Fetishes leave the people in
great misery. They let them starve by the hundred thousand, yet no one
has the slightest idea of turning to those Fetishes through whom other
peoples live in abundance.
"I laid this question before a fakir of Benares who was said to possess
supreme wisdom. His Fetish was a wooden bowl behind which he squatted at
the roadside by way of adoration. Looking at the thing casually, you
would have seen in it nothing extraordinary. And yet that bowl had the
property of attracting money because of the belief established by the
fakir that it brought good luck to the giver. Indeed, I have found the
same thing true here in your country. But the mendicant fakir class of
India is here divided in two classes: the beggar by trade, to whom you
give nothing because he is not 'respectable,' and the professional fakir
to whom you give everything because your success may depend on his
favour.
"The man of Benares knew this and much besides. He became my friend
because of the very simplicity of my questions. At evening he would
bestow on me the alms of a bowl of rice. Often he let me spread my
litter in his reed hut. At night under the stars he taught me concerning
the creation, and imparted to me his knowledge of all things. It was he
who expounded to me the great mystery of Fetishes, since which I have
lived without care for the morrow. Later, a Parsee, a great grain
merchant, took me to your Algiers, and thence brought me here, where I
have remained. But all that I have seen of the world has but confirmed
my belief in the profound wisdom of the illustrious fakir of Benares."
"Good. But what did he tell you about Fetishes?"
"You see ... I have no more coffee...."
"There you are, and how about this little glass of brandy?"
"With pleasure. And anyway it can be summed up in one word. The fakir
told me that the universe is but one huge agglomeration of Fetishes.
There are as many as there are creatures alive. Some are strong and some
are weak. It is a great battle as to which shall come out on top. The
wicked are those who work evil on others to get the upper hand. The
good are those who use gentleness, persuasion, art. One had better be on
the side of the good unless one is stronger than they."
"I see. But was the fakir speaking of Fetishes or of men?"
"Ha-ha! You want to know all of it! Another little glass and you shall
have your answer. Excellent! I can refuse you nothing. Well, then, the
fakir affirmed that Fetish and man are one and the same thing, for every
man makes his Fetish according to the strength of his interest in
himself, and the will power he expends in satisfying it. That is why I
am not deceiving when I foretell a happy fortune for people. It but
strengthens their Fetish, their chance of happiness is increased, they
enjoy it in anticipation."
"Then, Mokoubamba, under varying forms and shifting denominations, you
maintain that the only Fetish to whom you have remained unalterably
faithful, and which has rewarded your fidelity by pulling you through
everything in the world----"
"Is Mokoubamba himself. There is the great secret. Meditate upon it,
like the fakir----"
"I shall meditate upon it, have no fear. But do you suppose this great
secret is known in Benares alone?"
"I have often asked myself that question. Judging by actions, everyone
seems perfectly aware of what he is about. But I have never known any
one except the fakir of Benares to state things as they are."
Thus spake Mokoubamba, reseater of rush-bottomed chairs in Passy, mender
of all things breakable, entertainer of the passerby, teller of fanciful
tales.
II
A DESCENDANT OF TIMON
Timon of Athens hated all men because he had once too greatly loved
them. To whom shall the fault be ascribed, to mankind, or to Timon of
Athens? The long-standing open question does not yet appear to have been
answered. The human race continues to lay the blame on its detractors,
and the descendants of Timon, who was above all a disappointed lover of
his kind, have not ceased to find good reasons for their censure.
The special descendant of Timon who trotted me on his knee when I was a
child was an old navy doctor retired from service after a severe wound
received at Navarino. If I close my eyes, the better to call up my
memories, there arises before me a long, gaunt silhouette surmounted by
a bald head, the entire figure running to length, which is, they say,
the mark of an immoderate idealism. I remember his small, mocking green
eyes, sunk behind the brush of his formidable eyebrows. The long, white
side-whiskers, the carefully shaven lips that would stretch to his ears
in a grin like Voltaire's, accompanied by a dry chuckle, have remained
alive in my memory, as have also his wide, incoördinate gestures, his
dry, harsh voice, and his biting, wrathful utterances.
I should find it impossible at this distance to trace the life history
of Doctor Jean du Pouët, known over the entire Plain, from Sainte
Hermine to Fontenay-le-Comte, under the familiar yet respectful title of
"The Doctor." All I can say is that the Doctor, hailing originally from
L'Aiguillon, a little port of the Vendée at the mouth of the Lay, had
sailed every sea, landed on every island, visited every coast of every
continent, and made his studies of all nations on earth from life, which
enabled him to criticise his neighbours at every turn by comparing them,
disastrously for them, with heaven knows what abominable savages, in
which comparison the latter were always found far superior, with regard
to the point under discussion, to the men of the Vendée, from the Plain,
the Woodland, and the Marsh, all put together.
It was in the very heart of the Plain, in the village of Ecoulandres,
that the "Doctor" had come to settle, brought there by an inheritance
from a cousin, who had left him lord and master of an old middle-class
dwelling with large tile-paved rooms in which hung panoplies of
tomahawks, javelins, bucklers, boomerangs, in warlike wreaths around
monstrous idols, whose barbaric names, impressively enumerated by the
traveller, aroused a holy terror in the soul of the peaceable tillers of
the soil.
A little wood of elms, a great curiosity in a region where not a tree is
to be seen, surrounded the domain. It was a thin copse, the layer of
soil making but a shallow covering to the underlying limestone. This did
not prevent our stern censor from taking a certain pride in his "grove,"
without its like to the furthermost boundary of the horizon. I must even
confess that the doctor, like any other true son of the Vendée, had a
very well-developed sense of landed proprietorship. Money ran through
his fingers, and no outstretched palm ever sought his help in vain. But
the possessive pronoun rose readily to his lips when talk turned upon
the land. "My dung," "my stones," "my nettles," he was wont to say. He
adored his Plain--"Green in springtime, in summer gold," where fleecy
crops rippled under the great blue canopy,--pierced along the horizon by
steeples suggestive of distant shipping. Flights of plovers in January
and ducks in September engaged the doctor's attention. He watched for
them from a murderous shooting shelter, and invented incredible ruses to
allure them nearer. The rest of his time was spent scouring the
countryside in a jolting rural trap, hastening to the bedside of the
sick, who sent for him on any and all occasions, but did not greatly
value his visits, as he never required payment, or administered to his
patients that accompanying dose of legitimate charlatanism which forms
the chief factor in so many cures.
For the doctor was above all things outspoken. I am unaware whether some
great disappointment had driven him to misanthropy, or whether he had
merely given way to the natural bent of his character. Whatever may have
been his soul's history, it is certain that he at every opportunity
exercised his fine capacity for indignation against mankind in general,
and with particular delight against the specimens of it who happened to
be present. Never any coarse rudeness, however, and absolutely never any
active ill will. He was not to be taken at his word, his pleasure
consisting merely in satanic thoughts, the cruel expression of which
sufficed for the satisfaction of his ferocity.
You should have heard him on the subject of love, of friendship, of
gratitude. It was his joy to demonstrate that every form of courtesy
concealed a lie, by which he was no more deceived than was the person
favouring him with it. It was no pleasure trip, coming to thank him for
having saved a sick man's life. The patient and his friends heard
startling things concerning the self-interest at bottom of their
thoughts.
"Are you so glad, then, not to get your inheritance?" he would say to a
son who came to tell him of his old father's complete return to health.
And he would cite living parallels, drawn from the life of neighbouring
villages, calling the characters by name, to demonstrate what a
foundation of selfishness was covered by the veneer of affection people
are so fond of exhibiting. The peasant would listen silently, wearing a
foolish grin, pretending to be stupid in order to escape the necessity
of answering, and admitting in the depth of his inmost heart that the
doctor read him like an open book, and that one could have no secrets
from that devil of a man.
His talk upon marriage, the family, religion, property, the judiciary,
the administration itself, was directed by the blackest psychology. But
his chief victim was the _curé_ of Ecoulandres, an old friend who did
not take abuse without virulent retaliation, which led to curious
fencing bouts between the two.
The truth is that the two men had a great liking for each other. Both of
them were remnants of the France of the eighteenth century, both
suffering from the same stab of disillusion which the Revolution and the
Empire had driven into their fondest dreams. The doctor found vent in
wrath, the Abbé in resignation. Fundamentally alike in their wounded
ideality, they sought each other out in the obstinate hope of agreeing,
yet met only to offend, and to spend their strength in painful and
useless strife, parting with bruised hearts and great oaths never to
meet again, only to rush together on the following day.
The Abbé Jaud, like his inseparable enemy, was of more than ordinary
height, and without the cassock clinging to his lean sides might at
fifty paces have been taken for him. The doctor's excuse for
frequenting the Abbé was that he could talk to him without stooping.
When the two tall silhouettes were outlined against the horizon at the
edge of the plain they might have been taken for one and the same man.
They were, in truth, one man in two persons.
In their last years death naturally formed the inexhaustible topic of
their conversation. The doctor had, he used to say, determined to die
before the Abbé, in order to force him to perform an act of supreme
hypocrisy by obliging him to bury with every formality the man who,
having proclaimed himself an atheist all his days, had refused with his
latest breath to put himself in order with the Church.
"One talks like that," said the Abbé. "When on the verge of the great
step, one changes one's mind."
"Mine will not change."
"Then, my dear Doctor, I shall be under the painful necessity of letting
you go unaccompanied to the grave."
"Not so. You will accompany me. You will mutter your Pater Nosters, let
me assure you. You will sprinkle my coffin with holy water. You will
sing psalms, clad in your finest stole. You will say a mass with all the
fallals, and you will not leave me until you have provided me with a
proper passport in due form."
"Cease blaspheming, or I must refuse to listen."
"A fine way to dispose of a difficulty! Do you know where I wish to be
buried by your good agency, Abbé? In the unconsecrated part of the
graveyard. Once upon a time the earth as well as the skies belonged to
you. You laid claims to this planet as your property, and no one had the
right to rot under ground save by your leave. Six feet of sod had to be
wrested from you by main force to bury Molière! To-day, at last, we have
taken back control over our earth. We have conquered the right to a
peaceful return to nothingness. And now, to foster the illusion of
getting even, and to shut yourselves to the very end in your secular
spirit, you have devised nothing better than to create an unhallowed
portion in the field of eternal rest. The other day, when I went there
to select a spot to my liking, did not a fool of a peasant say to me:
'You mustn't be buried there, Doctor, that corner is reserved for those
condemned to death.' To be 'condemned to death' seemed to that idiot the
utmost of horror. He does not realize that he--that they--that you--that
we are all in the same case, my poor Abbé. Well, I chose my spot. I had
a great stake driven there, so that there should be no mistake. Go and
have a look at it, Abbé, for it is there that you will with pomp and
ceremony, according to your rites, deposit me in unhallowed ground."
"That will never be, my dear Doctor."
"That will surely be, my dear Abbé."
A few months later, the doctor, after lying in wait for plovers on the
Plain (it was Christmas Eve, and he was then more than eighty years
old), returned home shivering with fever. A pleurisy set in on the
following day, and soon death was rapidly nearing.
The Abbé was by his bedside, as will have been surmised. When he saw
that there was no hope of recovery:
"Come, my dear friend," he began, having sent away the bystanders, "do
you not think it fitting, in this hour, to speak seriously of serious
things?"
"Hush," said the dying man, placing a thin, feverish finger on the
priest's lips. "We have said all there was to be said, and there is
nothing more to say. Take the key under my pillow--open that drawer--and
give me my will--the drawer on the left--hand me also a pen--I wish to
add a line."
The Abbé did as he was requested. The trembling hand wrote a few words,
then the head fell back on the pillow. The old man was dying. An hour
later Doctor Jean du Pouët had breathed his last.
The will when opened ran thus:
"I die in absolute unbelief, refusing to perform any act of faith. I
bequeathe my fortune, which amounts approximately to 100,000 francs, to
the church of Ecoulandres, for the purchase, under the direction of M.
the Abbé Jaud, of ornaments of the cult, as sumptuous as the sum
permits. This in the hope that the sight of such wealth in contrast
with their own poverty will awaken appropriate sentiment in the souls
of my fellow citizens. I desire to be buried in the unconsecrated part
of the cemetery, in the spot where six months ago I caused a stake to be
driven. If the Church should refuse me her prayers, the disposition
above described will be held null and void. In that case I name as my
sole legatee Toussaint Giraudeau, apothecary of Sainte Hermine, and
President of the Masonic Lodge named 'Fraternity.' I desire him to
distribute the inheritance as he shall think best among those Masonic
activities most especially directed against superstition and mummery."
Under the signature were added these words:
"I shall be dead within the hour. Nothing to change," and the name, in a
large, shaky handwriting, which, by the emphasis of the downward stroke
told, however, of an inflexible will.
The Abbé Jaud's first impulse was one of haughty refusal, but his second
was to go and consult his bishop, who made clear to him that highest
duty lay in presenting every obstacle to Free Masonry. He was obliged to
obey. The doctor in his grave had the last word, his face twisted with
sardonic laughter under the holy water sprinkled by the discomfited
Abbé.
The infants born before their time who filled in the cemetery of
Ecoulandres, "the corner reserved for those condemned to death," gained
this much by the event, that the earth they lay in was blessed. In that
respect, at least, one of the doctor's predictions was unfulfilled.
But the Abbé's real revenge, although he was perhaps unaware of it, was
that the sight of the magnificent golden chalices and monstrances
ornamented with precious stones, far from arousing rebellion in the
hearts of the poor, as the doctor had intended, only increased the
fervour of the faithful, and provoked the piety of the indifferent by
wonder at the splendour in which the power of the Invisible revealed
itself. Victory and defeat on both sides. Blows struck in the darkness
of the Unknown. And so passes the life of man.
III
MALUS VICINUS
Saint-juirs is the name of a village in the canton of Sainte Hermine.
Lying on the slope of a hill, it overlooks a fresh, grassy valley
planted with poplars and watered by a brook which has no recorded name.
A very modest Romanesque church laboriously hoists skyward a heavy stone
belfry amid a clump of elm and nut trees. The ruins of an old castle
degenerated from the dignity of a stronghold to the simple rank of a
country residence testifies that here, possibly, some notable event may
have taken place. But as the inhabitants have forgotten it, and have no
care to search it out, they live in absolute indifference to a thing
that is not their direct business. Their village appears to them like
all other villages, their church, their houses, their fields, their
beasts, like all other churches and houses and fields and beasts. They
only vaguely take in the idea of other countries on the earth. The
newspapers tell them of unknown lands and of strange doings; it all
seems to belong to some other world. What does it matter to them,
anyhow, since they have no intention of ever stirring, and since
nothing will ever happen to them? For them the past is without interest,
and the future does not mar the peace of their slumbers. The present
means the crops, the flocks, and the weather. For the things of Heaven
there is the _curé_, for the things of earth there are the mayor, the
notary, the customs officer, and the tax collector: a simplification of
life.
Markets and fairs purvey to the restless cravings of such as are curious
about outside happenings, but no inhabitant of Saint-Juirs would
entertain the absurd idea that any trace of an event worth relating was
to be found in his own village. Love itself is without drama, owing to
the lack of stiffness in rustic morals, which precludes excesses of
imagination by reducing to the proportions of newspaper items the
conjunctions natural to our kind. There are, doubtless, disputes in
Saint-Juirs as elsewhere, in connection with property rights, for
"thine" and "mine," which are the foundation of "social order," are
likewise a permanent cause of disorder among men. Trespassing in a
pasture, the use of a well, a right of way, the branch of a tree
reaching beyond a line, a hedge encroaching upon a ditch, result in
quarrels, lawsuits, and dissension in families, the importance of which
is no less to the small townspeople than was the feud between Capulets
and Montagues to Verona. Centuries pass, the man of the past and the man
of to-day meet on common ground in displaying the same old violence, to
which sometimes even the excuse of interests involved is wanting, as
happened when Benvolio drew his sword upon a burgher of Verona who had
taken the liberty to cough in the street, and thereby waked his dog
asleep in the sunshine.
The peaceful inhabitant of Saint-Juirs is a stranger to such vagaries.
Yet a Latin inscription above a door on the church square testifies to
the fact that a local scholar took to heart those neighbourly quarrels
to the point of wishing to leave some memory of them to posterity. A
plain stone door-frame gives access to a little garden surrounded by
high walls. Behind box hedges a house may be seen, rather broad than
high, built apparently as far back as the last century, and looking much
like other houses of the period. A servant comes out carrying a laundry
basket. A woman is sewing at the window. The door closes again. Nothing
more. Mechanically the eye travels back to the cracked stone whereon
stands deeply engraved the following wise epigraph: "Malus vicinus est
grande malum."
I have often passed by, and while freely granting that a bad neighbour
is indeed a great evil, have always wondered what epic strife was
recorded by this dolorous exclamation. Was the inscription the vengeance
of the impotent, the amiable irony of a philosopher, resigned to the
inevitable, or the triumphant cry of the unrighteous, eager to deceive
by blaming for his own fault the inoffensive being who had no choice
but to remain silent? I gazed at the house of God, twenty paces distant.
I wondered whether this ecclesiastical Latin might not be ascribed to
some man of the church. Who else would know the sacred language
sufficiently well to attain this degree of epigraphic platitude? Was
there not in the mildness of the method of revenge a flavour of the
seminary? A real man harassed by a bad neighbour would have responded by
blows in kind. A priest was more likely to strike back with a sentence
out of the breviary. So I reflected, questioning the unanswering stone,
and never dreaming that chance would one day bring me the solution of
the problem.
Chance knocked at my door a few years ago in the shape of a little
account book found in the study of a lawyer, my neighbour, and fallen
through inheritance into the possession of a friend of mine. It is a
manuscript copy-book of which only a dozen pages are covered by
accounts. On the parchment cover the two words "Malus vicinus" met my
eye. Turning over the blank pages I discovered that the little notebook
had been commenced at both ends--accounts at the front, and notes at the
back of the volume. I found various items of information concerning
births, deaths, and inheritances. At the beginning the date 1811. The
well-known names of several Saint-Juirs families passed under my eyes.
Then came the fateful title "Malus vicinus," followed by a long and
terribly tangled story. It was the secret of the door that was there
revealed to me. A priests' quarrel, as I had fancied.
The Abbé Gobert and the Abbé Rousseau, both natives of Saint-Juirs, had
been ordained upon leaving the seminary of Luçon, in about 1760. The
book contains nothing concerning their families. One may suppose them
both to have been of good middle-class origin. Each manifestly had "a
certain place in the sun." They were warm friends up to the time of
their ordination, which brought about inevitable separation. Abbé Gobert
was installed as vicar at Vieux Pouzauges whose _curé_ was to sit in the
Constituency among the partisans of the new order; Abbé Rousseau was
sent to Mortagne-sur-Sèvres, in the heart of what was destined to be the
territory of the Chouans.
Concerning their life up to the beginning of the Revolution we know
nothing, except that they remained on friendly terms. They often visited
each other. The walk from Pouzauges to Mortagne following the ridge of
the hills of the Woodland is one of the most picturesque in our lovely
western France, so rich in beautiful landscapes. Very pleasant are its
valleys, watered by crystalline brooks flowing musically over pebbly
beds; they are everywhere intersected by hedges behind which in serried
ranks rise shady thickets, inviolate sanctuary of rural peace. There
might the peasant be born and die with never the least knowledge of the
outer world. Thirty years ago specimens of the kind were still to be
found. If, however, you follow one of the road-cuts under the heavy,
overarching boughs and laboriously climb the steep rise amid granite
rocks and thick tufts of gorse mingling with brambles, which drape
themselves from one to another tree stump centuries old, you emerge
suddenly and as if miraculously into the very sky, whence all the earth
is visible. Northward as far as the Loire, where rise the towers of
Saint Peter's in Nantes, westward as far as the sea, stretches an
immense garden of verdure bathed in that translucent bluish light which
unites earth and sky and gives the sense of our planet launched in
infinite space. But to this day man and beast contemplate this
marvellous spectacle with the same indifferent eye.
In those days, the preaching of the Gospel to peasants still stupefied
from serfdom, by a clergy whose leaders prided themselves upon their
unbelief, in nowise resembled the stultifying mummeries of to-day. When
Abbé Gobert and Abbé Rousseau, arm in arm, stopped at some farmhouse for
noonday rest after a frugal meal, their free speech would doubtless
startle many a modern seminarist. Their views of the future were perhaps
not very different. The ardent liberalism of the good _curé_ of
Pouzauges could not have been unknown to his vicar, and how could the
latter, open as he was to the new ideas, have refrained from unbosoming
himself to his friend?
Meanwhile, every day witnessed the rising of the revolutionary tide.
Under a tranquil surface, unknown forces were gathering for the
devastating tempests soon to rage. Finally the hurricane broke loose,
and its tornadoes of fire and iron shook the quiet Woodland. There was
no time for reflection. Everyone was swept into the conflict without a
chance to know his own mind. Abbé Rousseau, belonging to the "White
Vendée," could not refuse to follow his boys when they asked him to
accompany them, declaring that they were "going to fight God's battle."
Abbé Gobert of the "Blue Vendée" found nothing to answer when his
compatriots told him that they refused to make common cause with the
foreigner against France, and that the Revolution was nothing more or
less than the fulfilment of the Gospels on earth, despite the Pharisees
of the ancient order, who while invoking the name of heaven appropriated
all earthly privileges.
The adventures of the two Abbés during the war are not set down in the
manuscript. There is mention of Abbé Rousseau being transferred to
Stofflet's army, but no comment. Further on a note of three short lines
in telegraphic style tells us that Abbé Gobert, "following his fatal
bent," secularized himself, took up arms, and was left for dead at the
taking of Fontenay. We are not told what saved him.
The writer of the little book now makes a jump to the Consulate, and we
learn that the "reëstablishment of the cult," at the Concordat, resulted
in the installation of Abbé Rousseau as officiating priest in his native
place of Saint-Juirs. Three years later, Gobert, then a "refugee in
Paris," where he "was writing for the newspapers," returned to his old
home, his fortune having been increased by an inheritance from his uncle
Jean Renaud, owner of the house now adorned by the Latin inscription.
Destiny, after having violently separated the two men and set them at
odds in a bitter war, now suddenly brought them together in their native
place, where they might have the opportunity for an honest searching of
their consciences, for justifications, and, before the end of life,
possibly, reconciliation.
On the day after his arrival Gobert came face to face with Abbé Rousseau
in the church square. He went straight to him, with hands outstretched.
The other, not having had time to put himself on guard, was unable to
withstand a friendly impulse. The eyes of each scrutinizingly questioned
the other, but every dangerous word was avoided. The Abbé, moreover, cut
short the interview with the excuse of being expected at the bedside of
a sick man. They had parted with the understanding that they should soon
see each other again, but two days later, Gobert, going up to the Abbé
who was passing, received a curt bow from him, unaccompanied by a word
of even perfunctory courtesy. It meant the end of friendly intercourse.
The meeting between the "annointed of the Lord" and the "unfrocked
priest" had created a scandal in the community of the faithful, and
Master Pierre Gaborit, President of the vestry board, had called his
_curé_ roundly to account. Could a chaplain of the King's armies afford
to be seen consorting with a tool of Satan, a renegade living amid the
filth of apostasy, a man who, the report ran, had danced the Carmagnole
at the foot of the scaffold?
The disconcerted Abbé listened, shaking his head.
"He was a good fellow, and a godly one, when I knew him formerly, at the
seminary. He is perhaps not as guilty as they say--I hoped to bring him
back into the fold----"
"One does not bring back the Devil," replied Gaborit, violently. "You do
not wish to be a stumbling block, do you, _Monsieur le Curé_?"
"No--no----" replied the Abbé, who already saw himself denounced,
excommunicated, damned.
From that day onward relations between the priest and his ancient
comrade limited themselves to a mutual raising of the hat, for the Abbé
never found the courage to ignore "the renegade," as Gaborit would have
wished him to. That is why the latter conceived the plan of forestalling
any eventual relapse into weakness by fostering between the man of God
and the man of the Devil every possible cause for enmity.
Abbé Rousseau owned the house next to Gobert's, and Gaborit had rented
it for his newly married son. A party wall, a common well, contiguous
fields and rights of way through them, were more than sufficient to give
rise to daily friction. After some resistance, Abbé Rousseau, under the
pretext that he could have "no dealings with Satan's emissary," let
himself be convinced that he must refuse all customary "rights" to the
"enemy." Gobert's remonstrances obtained no attention, and thereupon
followed lawsuits. A bucket of lime was thrown into his well. The trees
in his orchard were hacked with a bill hook. His hens disappeared.
Investigation by a bailiff ensued, and the arrival of the police, who
had first been to take instructions at the rectory. For a trifling
bribe, the servant of the "accused" permitted the "revolutionary" cow to
stray into the clerical hay field. This time Abbé Rousseau could do no
less than to denounce the crime from the pulpit. A somewhat distorted
version of the entire Revolution was rehearsed.
Gobert, who like Talleyrand, similarly unfrocked, would perhaps have
ended in the arms of the Church, had he been important enough to
stimulate the zeal of a Dupanloup, experienced more surprise than anger
at all these vexations. What surprised him most was to find that justice
was unjust. Having become a philosopher, however, he resigned himself.
Only the loss of his friend caused him grief. He ended by suspecting
Gaborit's manoeuvres, and several times sought opportunity for an
explanation with Abbé Rousseau himself, but was met by obstinate
silence.
It was then that, for the sake of reaching his former fellow student in
spite of everything, by a word in the language familiar to both, he had
had engraved on the lintel of his door the inscription which denounced
Gaborit as the cause of their common misfortune. Daily, as he came out
of his rectory, Abbé Rousseau could read the touching appeal which laid
his guilt upon another. But the "glory of God" never permitted him to
answer, as in the depth of his heart he would have liked to do.
He was the first to die. To the great scandal of all Gobert, "the
excommunicated," followed him to the grave. On the very next day he gave
orders to have the inscription removed, since it served no further
purpose. The masons were soon at work, and a clumsy blow had already
split the stone, when the ex-abbé was carried off suddenly by a
pernicious fever. Things remained as they may be seen at the present
day. Gobert went without church ceremonies to rest in the graveyard, not
far from his old friend. They are still neighbours, but good neighbours,
now, and for a long time!
IV
AUNT ROSALIE'S INHERITANCE
Mademoiselle Rosalie Rigal was by unanimous admission the most important
person in the village. And yet the hamlet of St. Martin-en-Pareds, in
the Woodland of the Vendée, boasts a former court notary who without
great difficulty was allowed to drop out of the profession, and a
retired sergeant of police who keeps the tobacconist's shop. Around
these dignitaries are grouped a few well-to-do farmers and a dozen or
more small landowners who, although obliged to work for a living, have a
sense of their importance in the State. When they speak of "my field,"
"my cow," "my fence," the ring of their voice expresses the elation of
the conqueror who in this infinite universe has set his clutch upon a
portion of the planet and has no intention of letting go.
No one is unaware that the chief joy of country people is to surround
themselves with hedges or walls, and to despise those who cannot do as
much. That their admiration, their esteem, their respect, go out
automatically to wealth is a trait they share with city people, which
spares us the necessity of a detailed psychological analysis. Who,
then, shall explain the unanimous deference with which St.
Martin-en-Pareds honoured Miss Rosalie Rigal?
The aged spinster--she was entering upon her seventieth year--possessed
nothing under the sun but a tiny cottage, not in very good repair, but
shining and spotless from front door steps to roof tiles, at the end of
a narrow little garden scarcely wider than the path to her door. Such a
domain was not calculated to attract to its mistress the admiring
attention of her fellow townsmen. The interior of the dwelling was
extremely modest. A large oaken bedstead with carved posts, a common
deal dining table, a few rush-bottomed chairs and Miss Rosalie's
armchair, were all the furniture of the room in which she lived. On the
walls were holy pictures. On the mantelpiece a tarnished bronze gilt
clock, representing a savage Turk carrying off on his galloping steed a
weeping Christian maiden, had as far back as any one could remember
pointed to a quarter before twelve.
At the window-door leading to the street and letting in the light of day
Miss Rosalie sat with her knitting from sun-up to sun-down. Hence arose
difficulties of entrance and exit. When a visitor appeared, Miss Rosalie
would call Victorine. The servant would come, help her mistress to rise,
as she did slowly and stiffly, move the armchair, settle the old woman
in it again, propping her with special cushions in stated places, move
the foot stool or the foot warmer, push out of the way the little stand
which served as a work table, and open the door with endless excuses for
the delay.
No fewer ceremonies were necessary than in seeking an audience with the
Sun-God. If Victorine were busy with the housework, she sometimes
obliged a caller to wait. Which gave Miss Rosalie's door step a
reputation as the most favourable spot in the entire canton for catching
cold.
In spite of these inconveniences visitors were not wanting. Foremost
among the assiduous ones were the notary and the _curé_. Monsieur
Loiseau, the retired notary, was the friend of the house. A stout man,
with a florid, smooth shaven face, and a head even smoother than his
chin, always in a good humour, always full of amusing stories, yet
concealing under his idle tales and his laughter a professional man's
concern with serious matters, as was betokened by the ever-present white
cravat, badge of his dignity, which added an official touch even to his
hunting costume and to the undress of his gardening or vintaging attire.