AND Mathieu and Marianne lived more than a score of years longer, and
Mathieu was ninety years old and Marianne eighty-seven, when their three
eldest sons, Denis, Ambroise, and Gervais, ever erect beside them,
planned that they would celebrate their diamond wedding, the seventieth
anniversary of their marriage, by a _fête_ at which they would assemble all
the members of the family at Chantebled.
It was no little affair. When they had drawn up a complete list, they
found that one hundred and fifty-eight children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren had sprung from Mathieu and Marianne, without
counting a few little ones of a fourth generation. By adding to the above
those who had married into the family as husbands and wives they would be
three hundred in number. And where at the farm could they find a room
large enough for the huge table of the patriarchal feast that they dreamt
of? The anniversary fell on June 2, and the spring that year was one of
incomparable mildness and beauty. So they decided that they would lunch
out of doors, and place the tables in front of the old pavilion, on the
large lawn, enclosed by curtains of superb elms and hornbeams, which gave
the spot the aspect of a huge hall of verdure. There they would be at
home, on the very breast of the beneficent earth, under the central and
now gigantic oak, planted by the two ancestors, whose blessed
fruitfulness the whole swarming progeny was about to celebrate.
Thus the festival was settled and organized amid a great impulse of love
and joy. All were eager to take part in it, all hastened to the triumphal
gathering, from the white-haired old men to the urchins who still sucked
their thumbs. And the broad blue sky and the flaming sun were bent on
participating in it also, as well as the whole estate, the streaming
springs and the fields in flower, giving promise of bounteous harvests.
Magnificent looked the huge horseshoe table set out amid the grass, with
handsome china and snowy cloths which the sunbeams flecked athwart the
foliage. The august pair, the father and mother, were to sit side by
side, in the centre, under the oak tree. It was decided also that the
other couples should not be separated, that it would be charming to place
them side by side according to the generation they belonged to. But as
for the young folks, the youths and maidens, the urchins and the little
girls, they, it was thought, might well be left to seat themselves as
their fancy listed.
Early in the morning those bidden to the feast began to arrive in bands;
the dispersed family returned to the common nest, swooping down upon it
from the four points of the compass. But alas! death's scythe had been at
work, and there were many who could not come. Departed ones slept, each
year more numerous, in the peaceful, flowery, Janville cemetery. Near
Rose and Blaise, who had been the first to depart, others had gone
thither to sleep the eternal sleep, each time carrying away a little more
of the family's heart, and making of that sacred spot a place of worship
and eternal souvenir. First Charlotte, after long illness, had joined
Blaise, happy in leaving Berthe to replace her beside Mathieu and
Marianne, who were heart-stricken by her death, as if indeed they were
for the second time losing their dear son. Afterwards their daughter
Claire had likewise departed from them, leaving the farm to her husband
Frédéric and her brother Gervais, who likewise had become a widower
during the ensuing year. Then, too, Mathieu and Marianne had lost their
son Grégoire, the master of the mill, whose widow Thérèse still ruled
there amid a numerous progeny. And again they had to mourn another of
their daughters, the kind-hearted Marguerite, Dr. Chambouvet's wife, who
sickened and died, through having sheltered a poor workman's little
children, who were affected with croup. And the other losses could no
longer be counted among them were some who had married into the family,
wives and husbands, and there were in particular many children, the tithe
that death always exacts, those who are struck down by the storms which
sweep over the human crop, all the dear little ones for whom the living
weep, and who sanctify the ground in which they rest.
But if the dear departed yonder slept in deepest silence, how gay was the
uproar and how great the victory of life that morning along the roads
which led to Chantebled! The number of those who were born surpassed that
of those who died. From each that departed, a whole florescence of living
beings seemed to blossom forth. They sprang up in dozens from the ground
where their forerunners had laid themselves to sleep when weary of their
work. And they flocked to Chantebled from every side, even as swallows
return at spring to revivify their old nests, filling the blue sky with
the joy of their return. Outside the farm, vehicles were ever setting
down fresh families with troops of children, whose sea of fair heads was
always expanding. Great-grandfathers with snowy hair came leading little
ones who could scarcely toddle. There were very nice-looking old ladies
whom young girls of dazzling freshness assisted to alight. There were
mothers expecting the arrival of other babes, and fathers to whom the
charming idea had occurred of inviting their daughters' affianced lovers.
And they were all related, they had all sprung from a common ancestry,
they were all mingled in an inextricable tangle, fathers, mothers,
brothers, sisters, fathers-in-law, mothers-in-law, brothers-in-law,
sisters-in-law, sons, daughters, uncles, aunts, and cousins, of every
possible degree, down to the fourth generation. And they were all one
family; one sole little nation, assembling in joy and pride to celebrate
that diamond wedding, the rare prodigious nuptials of two heroic
creatures whom life had glorified and from whom all had sprung! And what
an epic, what a Biblical numbering of that people suggested itself! How
even name all those who entered the farm, how simply set forth their
names, their ages, their degree of relationship, the health, the
strength, and the hope that they had brought into the world!
Before everybody else there were those of the farm itself, all those who
had been born and who had grown up there. Gervais, now sixty-two, was
helped by his two eldest sons, Leon and Henri, who between them had ten
children; while his three daughters, Mathilde, Leontine, and Julienne,
who were married in the district, in like way numbered between them
twelve. Then Frédéric, Claire's husband, who was five years older than
Gervais, had surrendered his post as a faithful lieutenant to his son
Joseph, while his daughters Angèle and Lucille, as well as a second son
Jules, also helped on the farm, the four supplying a troop of fifteen
children, some of them boys and some girls.
Then, of all those who came from without, the mill claimed the first
place. Thérèse, Grégoire's widow, arrived with her offspring, her son
Robert, who now managed the mill under her control, and her three
daughters, Geneviève, Aline, and Natalie, followed by quite a train of
children, ten belonging to the daughters and four to Robert. Next came
Louise, notary Mazaud's wife, and Madeleine, architect Herbette's wife,
followed by Dr. Chambouvet, who had lost his wife, the good Marguerite.
And here again were three valiant companies; in the first, four
daughters, of whom Colette was the eldest; in the second, five sons with
Hilary at the head of them; and in the third, a son and daughter only,
Sébastien and Christine; the whole, however, forming quite an army, for
there were twenty of Mathieu's great-grandchildren in the rear.
But Paris arrived on the scene with Denis and his wife Marthe, who headed
a grand _cortège_. Denis, now nearly seventy, and a great-grandfather
through his daughters Hortense and Marcelle, had enjoyed the happy rest
which follows accomplished labor ever since he had handed his works over
to his eldest sons Lucien and Paul, who were both men of more than forty,
and whose own sons were already on the road to every sort of fortune. And
what with the mother and father, the four children, the fifteen
grandchildren, and the three great-grandchildren, two of whom were yet in
swaddling clothes, this was really an invading tribe packed into five
vehicles.
Then the final entry was that of the little nation which had sprung from
Ambroise, who to his great grief had early lost his wife Andrée. His was
such a green old age that at sixty-seven he still directed his business,
in which his sons Léonce and Charles remained simple _employés_ like his
sons-in-law--the husbands of his daughters, Pauline and Sophie--who
trembled before him, uncontested king that he remained, obeyed by one and
all, grandfather of seven big bearded young men and nine strong young
women, through four of whom he had become a great-grandfather even before
his elder, the wise Denis. For this troop six carriages were required.
And the _défilé_ lasted two hours, and the farm was soon full of a happy,
laughing throng, holiday-making in the bright June sunlight.
Mathieu and Marianne had not yet put in an appearance. Ambroise, who was
the grand master of the ceremonies that day, had made them promise to
remain in their room, like sovereigns hidden from their people, until he
should go to fetch them. He desired that they should appear in all
solemnity. And when he made up his mind to summon them, the whole nation
being assembled together, he found his brother Benjamin on the threshold
of the house defending the door like a bodyguard.
He, Benjamin, had remained the one idler, the one unfruitful scion of
that swarming tribe, which had toiled and multiplied so prodigiously. Now
three-and-forty years of age, without a wife and without children, he
lived, it seemed, solely for the joy of the old home, as a companion to
his father and a passionate worshipper of his mother, who with the
egotism of love had set themselves upon keeping him for themselves alone.
At first they had not been opposed to his marrying, but when they had
seen him refuse one match after another, they had secretly felt great
delight. Nevertheless, as years rolled by, some unacknowledged remorse
had come to them amid their happiness at having him beside them like some
hoarded treasure, the delight of an avaricious old age, following a life
of prodigality. Did not their Benjamin suffer at having been thus
monopolized, shut up for their sole pleasure within the four walls of
their house? He had at all times displayed an anxious dreaminess, his
eyes had ever sought far-away things, the unknown land where perfect
satisfaction dwelt, yonder, behind the horizon. And now that age was
stealing upon him his torment seemed to increase, as if he were in
despair at finding himself unable to try the possibilities of the
unknown, before he ended a useless life devoid of happiness.
However, Benjamin moved away from the door, Ambroise gave his orders, and
Mathieu and Marianne appeared upon the verdant lawn in the sunlight. An
acclamation, merry laughter, affectionate clapping of hands greeted them.
The gay excited throng, the whole swarming family cried aloud: "Long live
the Father! Long live the Mother! Long life, long life to the Father and
the Mother!"
At ninety years of age Mathieu was still very upright and slim, closely
buttoned in a black frock-coat like a young bridegroom. Over his bare
head fell a snowy fleece, for after long wearing his hair cut short he
had now in a final impulse of coquetry allowed it to grow, so that it
seemed liked the _renouveau_ of an old but vigorous tree. Age might have
withered and worn and wrinkled his face, but he still retained the eyes
of his young days, large lustrous eyes, at once smiling and pensive,
which still bespoke a man of thought and action, one who was very simple,
very gay, and very good-hearted. And Marianne at eighty-seven years of
age also held herself very upright in her light bridal gown, still strong
and still showing some of the healthy beauty of other days. With hair
white like Mathieu's, and softened face, illumined as by a last glow
under her silky tresses, she resembled one of those sacred marbles whose
features time has ravined, without, however, being able to efface from
them the tranquil splendor of life. She seemed, indeed, like some
fruitful Cybele, retaining all firmness of contour, and living anew in
the broad daylight with gentle good humor sparkling in her large black
eyes.
Arm-in-arm close to one another, like a worthy couple who had come from
afar, who had walked on side by side without ever parting for seventy
long years, Mathieu and Marianne smiled with tears of joy in their eyes
at the whole swarming family which had sprung from their love, and which
still acclaimed them:
"Long live the Father! Long live the Mother! Long life, long life to the
Father and the Mother!"
Then came the ceremony of reciting a compliment and offering a bouquet. A
fair-haired little girl named Rose, five years of age, had been intrusted
with this duty. She had been chosen because she was the eldest child of
the fourth generation. She was the daughter of Angeline, who was the
daughter of Berthe, who was the daughter of Charlotte, wife of Blaise.
And when the two ancestors saw her approach them with her big bouquet,
their emotion increased, happy tears again gathered in their eyes, and
recollections faltered on their lips: "Oh! our little Rose! Our Blaise,
our Charlotte!"
All the past revived before them. The name of Rose had been given to the
child in memory of the other long-mourned Rose, who had been the first to
leave them, and who slept yonder in the little cemetery. There in his
turn had Blaise been laid, and thither Charlotte had followed them. Then
Berthe, Blaise's daughter, who had married Philippe Havard, had given
birth to Angeline. And, later, Angeline, having married Georges Delmas,
had given birth to Rose. Berthe and Philippe Havard, Angeline and Georges
Delmas stood behind the child. And she represented one and all, the dead,
the living, the whole flourishing line, its many griefs, its many joys,
all the valiant toil of creation, all the river of life that it typified,
for everything ended in her, dear, frail, fair-haired angel, with eyes
bright like the dawn, in whose depths the future sparkled.
"Oh! our Rose! our Rose!"
With a big bouquet between her little hands Rose had stepped forward. She
had been learning a very fine compliment for a fortnight past, and that
very morning she had recited it to her mother without making a single
mistake. But when she found herself there among all these people she
could not recollect a word of it. Still that did not trouble her, she was
already a very bold little damsel, and she frankly dropped her bouquet
and sprang at the necks of Mathieu and Marianne, exclaiming in her
shrill, flute-like voice: "Grandpapa, grandmamma, it's your _fête_, and I
kiss you with all my heart!"
And that suited everybody remarkably well. They even found it far better
than any compliment. Laughter and clapping of hands and acclamations
again arose. Then they forthwith began to take their seats at table.
This, however, was quite an affair, so large was the horse-shoe table
spread out under the oak on the short, freshly cut grass. First Mathieu
and Marianne, still arm in arm, went ceremoniously to seat themselves in
the centre with their backs towards the trunk of the great tree. On
Mathieu's left, Marthe and Denis, Louise and her husband, notary Mazaud,
took their places, since it had been fittingly decided that the husbands
and wives should not be separated. On the right of Marianne came
Ambroise, Thérèse, Gervais, Dr. Chambouvet, three widowers and a widow,
then another married couple, Madeleine and her husband, architect
Herbette, and then Benjamin alone. The other married folks afterwards
installed themselves according to the generation they belonged to; and
then, as had been decided, youth and childhood, the whole troop of young
people and little ones took seats as they pleased amid no little
turbulence.
What a moment of sovereign glory it was for Mathieu and Marianne! They
found themselves there in a triumph of which they would never have dared
to dream. Life, as if to reward them for having shown faith in her, for
having increased her sway with all bravery, seemed to have taken pleasure
in prolonging their existences beyond the usual limits so that their eyes
might behold the marvellous blossoming of their work. The whole of their
dear Chantebled, everything good and beautiful that they had there
begotten and established, participated in the festival. From the
cultivated fields that they had set in the place of marshes came the
broad quiver of great coming harvests; from the pasture lands amid the
distant woods came the warm breath of cattle and innumerable flocks which
ever increased the ark of life; and they heard, too, the loud babble of
the captured springs with which they had fertilized the now fruitful
moorlands, the flow of that water which is like the very blood of our
mother earth. The social task was accomplished, bread was won,
subsistence had been created, drawn from the nothingness of barren soil.
And on what a lovely and well-loved spot did their happy, grateful race
offer them that festival! Those elms and hornbeams, which made the lawn a
great hall of greenery, had been planted by themselves; they had seen
them growing day by day like the most peaceable and most sturdy of their
children. And in particular that oak, now so gigantic, thanks to the
clear waters of the adjoining basin through which one of the sources ever
streamed, was their own big son, one that dated from the day when they
had founded Chantebled, he, Mathieu, digging the hole and she, Marianne,
holding the sapling erect. And now, as that tree stood there, shading
them with its expanse of verdure, was it not like some royal symbol of
the whole family? Like that oak the family had grown and multiplied, ever
throwing out fresh branches which spread far over the ground; and like
that oak it now formed by itself a perfect forest sprung from a single
trunk, vivified by the same sap, strong in the same health, and full of
song, and breeziness, and sunlight.
Leaning against that giant tree Mathieu and Marianne became merged in its
sovereign glory and majesty, and was not their royalty akin to its own?
Had they not begotten as many beings as the tree had begotten branches?
Did they not reign there over a nation of their children, who lived by
them, even as the leaves above lived by the tree? The three hundred big
and little ones seated around them were but a prolongation of themselves;
they belonged to the same tree of life, they had sprung from their love
and still clung to them by every fibre. Mathieu and Marianne divined how
joyous they all were at glorifying themselves in making much of them; how
moved the elder ones, how turbulently merry the younger felt. They could
hear their own hearts beating in the breasts of the fair-haired urchins
who already laughed with ecstasy at the sight of the cakes and pastry on
the table. And their work of human creation was assembled in front of
them and within them, in the same way as the oak's huge dome spread out
above it; and all around they were likewise encompassed by the
fruitfulness of their other work, the fertility and growth of nature
which had increased even as they themselves multiplied.
Then was the true beauty which had its abode in Mathieu and Marianne made
manifest, that beauty of having loved one another for seventy years and
of still worshipping one another now even as on the first day. For
seventy years had they trod life's pathway side by side and arm in arm,
without a quarrel, without ever a deed of unfaithfulness. They could
certainly recall great sorrows, but these had always come from without.
And if they had sometimes sobbed they had consoled one another by
mingling their tears. Under their white locks they had retained the faith
of their early days, their hearts remained blended, merged one into the
other, even as on the morrow of their marriage, each having then been
freely given and never taken back. In them the power of love, the will of
action, the divine desire whose flame creates worlds, had happily met and
united. He, adoring his wife, had known no other joy than the passion of
creation, looking on the work that had to be performed and the work that
was accomplished as the sole why and wherefore of his being, his duty and
his reward. She, adoring her husband, had simply striven to be a true
companion, spouse, mother, and good counsellor, one who was endowed with
delicacy of judgment and helped to overcome all difficulties. Between
them they were reason, and health, and strength. If, too, they had always
triumphed athwart obstacles and tears, it was only by reason of their
long agreement, their common fealty amid an eternal renewal of their
love, whose armor rendered them invincible. They could not be conquered,
they had conquered by the very power of their union without designing it.
And they ended heroically, as conquerors of happiness, hand in hand, pure
as crystal is, very great, very handsome, the more so from their extreme
age, their long, long life, which one love had entirely filled. And the
sole strength of their innumerable offspring now gathered there, the
conquering tribe that had sprung from their loins, was the strength of
union inherited from them: the loyal love transmitted from ancestors to
children, the mutual affection which impelled them to help one another
and ever fight for a better life in all brotherliness.
But mirthful sounds arose, the banquet was at last being served. All the
servants of the farm had gathered to discharge this duty--they would not
allow a single person from without to help them. Nearly all had grown up
on the estate, and belonged, as it were, to the family. By and by they
would have a table for themselves, and in their turn celebrate the
diamond wedding. And it was amid exclamations and merry laughter that
they brought the first dishes.
All at once, however, the serving ceased, silence fell, an unexpected
incident attracted all attention. A young man, whom none apparently could
recognize, was stepping across the lawn, between the arms of the
horse-shoe table. He smiled gayly as he walked on, only stopping when he
was face to face with Mathieu and Marianne. Then in a loud voice he said:
"Good day, grandfather! good day, grandmother! You must have another
cover laid, for I have come to celebrate the day with you."
The onlookers remained silent, in great astonishment. Who was this young
man whom none had ever seen before? Assuredly he could not belong to the
family, for they would have known his name, have recognized his face?
Why, then, did he address the ancestors by the venerated names of
grandfather and grandmother? And the stupefaction was the greater by
reason of his extraordinary resemblance to Mathieu. Assuredly, he was a
Froment, he had the bright eyes and the lofty tower-like forehead of the
race. Mathieu lived again in him, such as he appeared in a
piously-preserved portrait representing him at the age of
seven-and-twenty when he had begun the conquest of Chantebled.
Mathieu, for his part, rose, trembling, while Marianne smiled divinely,
for she understood the truth before all the others.
"Who are you, my child?" asked Mathieu, "you, who call me grandfather,
and who resemble me as if you were my brother?"
"I am Dominique, the eldest son of your son Nicolas, who lives with my
mother, Lisbeth, in the vast free country yonder, the other France!"
"And how old are you?"
"I shall be seven-and-twenty next August, when, yonder, the waters of the
Niger, the good giant, come back to fertilize our spreading fields."
"And tell us, are you married, have you any children?"
"I have taken for my wife a French woman, born in Senegal, and in the
brick house which I have built, four children are already growing up
under the flaming sun of the Soudan."
"And tell us also, have you any brothers, any sisters?"
"My father, Nicolas, and Lisbeth, my mother, have had eighteen children,
two of whom are dead. We are sixteen, nine boys and seven girls."
At this Mathieu laughed gayly, as if to say that his son Nicolas at fifty
years of age had already proved a more valiant artisan of life than
himself.
"Well then, my boy," he said, "since you are the son of my son Nicolas,
come and embrace us to celebrate our wedding. And a cover shall be placed
for you; you are at home here."
In four strides Dominique made the round of the tables, then cast his
strong arms about the old people and embraced them--they the while
feeling faint with happy emotion, so delightful was that surprise, yet
another child falling among them, and on that day, as from some distant
sky, and telling them of the other family, the other nation which had
sprung from them, and which was swarming yonder with increase of
fruitfulness amid the fiery glow of the tropics.
That surprise was due to the sly craft of Ambroise, who merrily explained
how he had prepared it like a masterly _coup de théâtre_. For a week past
he had been lodging and hiding Dominique in his house in Paris; the young
man having been sent from the Soudan by his father to negotiate certain
business matters, and in particular to order of Denis a quantity of
special agricultural machinery adapted to the soil of that far-away
region. Thus Denis alone had been taken into the other's confidence.
When all those seated at the table saw Dominique in the old people's
arms, and learnt the whole story, there came an extraordinary outburst of
delight; deafening acclamations arose once more; and what with their
enthusiastic greetings and embraces they almost stifled the messenger
from the sister family, that prince of the second dynasty of the Froments
which ruled in the land of the future France.
Mathieu gayly gave his orders: "There, place his cover in front of us! He
alone will be in front of us like the ambassador of some powerful empire.
Remember that, apart from his father and mother, he represents nine
brothers and seven sisters, without counting the four children that he
already has himself. There, my boy, sit down; and now let the service
continue."
The feast proved a mirthful one under the big oak tree whose shade was
spangled by the sunbeams. Delicious freshness arose from the grass,
friendly nature seemed to contribute its share of caresses. The laughter
never ceased, old folks became playful children once more in presence of
the ninety and the eighty-seven years of the bridegroom and the bride.
Faces beamed softly under white and dark and sunny hair; the whole
assembly was joyful, beautiful with a healthy rapturous beauty; the
children radiant, the youths superb, the maidens adorable, the married
folk united, side by side. And what good appetites there were! What a gay
tumult greeted the advent of each fresh dish! And how the good wine was
honored to celebrate the goodness of life which had granted the two
patriarchs the supreme grace of assembling them all at their table on
such a glorious occasion! At dessert came toasts and health-drinking and
fresh acclamations. But, amid all the chatter which flew from one to the
other end of the table, the conversation invariably reverted to the
surprise at the outset: that triumphal entry of the brotherly ambassador.
It was he, his unexpected presence, all that he had not yet said, all the
adventurous romance which he surely personated, that fanned the growing
fever, the excitement of the family, intoxicated by that open-air gala.
And as soon as the coffee was served no end of questions arose on every
side, and he had to speak out.
"Well, what can I say?" he replied, laughing, to a question put to him by
Ambroise, who wished to know what he thought of Chantebled, where he had
taken him for a stroll during the morning. "I'm afraid that if I speak in
all frankness, you won't think me very complimentary. Cultivation, no
doubt, is quite an art here, a splendid effort of will and science and
organization, as is needed to draw from this old soil such crops as it
can still produce. You toil a great deal, and you effect prodigies. But,
good heavens! how small your kingdom is! How can you live here without
hurting yourselves by ever rubbing against other people's elbows? You are
all heaped up to such a degree that you no longer have the amount of air
needful for a man's lungs. Your largest stretches of land, what you call
your big estates, are mere clods of soil where the few cattle that one
sees look to me like lost ants. But ah! the immensity of our Niger; the
immensity of the plains it waters; the immensity of our fields, whose
only limit is the distant horizon!"
Benjamin had listened, quivering. Ever since that son of the great river
had arrived, he had continued gazing at him, with passion rising in his
dreamy eyes. And on hearing him speak in this fashion he could no longer
restrain himself, but rose, went round the table, and sat down beside
him.
"The Niger--the immense plains--tell us all about them," he said.
"The Niger, the good giant, the father of us all over yonder!" responded
Dominique. "I was barely eight years old when my parents quitted Senegal,
yielding to an impulse of reckless bravery and wild hope, possessed by a
craving to plunge into the Soudan and conquer as chance might will it.
There are many days' march among rocks and scrub and rivers from St.
Louis to our present farm, far beyond Djenny. And I no longer remember
the first journey. It seems to me as if I sprang from good father Niger
himself, from the wondrous fertility of his waters. He is gentle but
immense, rolling countless waves like the sea, and so broad, so vast,
that no bridge can span him as he flows from horizon to horizon. He
carries archipelagoes on his breast, and stretches out arms covered with
herbage like pasture land. And there are the depths where flotillas of
huge fishes roam at their ease. Father Niger has his tempests, too, and
his days of fire, when his waters beget life in the burning clasp of the
sun. And he has his delightful nights, his soft and rosy nights, when
peace descends on earth from the stars.... He is the ancestor, the
founder, the fertilizer of the Western Soudan, which he has dowered with
incalculable wealth, wresting it from the invasion of neighboring
Saharas, building it up of his own fertile ooze. It is he who every year
at regular seasons floods the valley like an ocean and leaves it rich,
pregnant, as it were, with amazing vegetation. Even like the Nile, he has
vanquished the sands; he is the father of untold generations, the
creative deity of a world as yet unknown, which in later times will
enrich old Europe.... And the valley of the Niger, the good giant's
colossal daughter. Ah! what pure immensity is hers; what a flight, so to
say, into the infinite! The plain opens and expands, unbroken and
limitless. Ever and ever comes the plain, fields are succeeded by other
fields stretching out of sight, whose end a plough would only reach in
months and months. All the food needed for a great nation will be reaped
there when cultivation is practised with a little courage and a little
science, for it is still a virgin kingdom such as the good river created
it, thousands of years ago. To-morrow this kingdom will belong to the
workers who are bold enough to take it, each carving for himself a domain
as large as his strength of toil can dream of; not an estate of acres,
but leagues and leagues of ploughland wavy with eternal crops.... And
what breadth of atmosphere there is in that immensity! What delight it is
to inhale all the air of that space at one breath, and how healthy and
strong the life, for one is no longer piled one upon the other, but one
feels free and powerful, master of that part of the earth which one has
desired under the sun which shines for all."
Benjamin listened and questioned, never satisfied. "How are you installed
there?" he asked. "How do you live? What are your habits? What is your
work?"
Dominique began to laugh again, conscious as he was that he was
astonishing, upsetting all these unknown relatives who pressed so close
to him, aglow with increasing curiosity. Women and old men had in turn
left their places to draw near to him; even children had gathered around,
as if to listen to a fine story.
"Oh! we live in republican fashion," said he; "every member of our
community has to help in the common fraternal task. The family counts
more or less expert artisans of all kinds for the rough work. My father
in particular has revealed himself to be a very skilful mason, for he had
to build a place for us when we arrived. He even made his own bricks,
thanks to some deposits of clayey soil which exist near Djenny. So our
farm is now a little village: each married couple will have its own
house. Then, too, we are not only agriculturists, we are fishermen and
hunters also. We have our boats; the Niger abounds in fish to an
extraordinary degree, and there are wonderful hauls at times. And even
the shooting and hunting would suffice to feed us; game is plentiful,
there are partridges and wild guinea-fowl, not to mention the flamingoes,
the pelicans, the egrets, the thousands of creatures who do not prey on
one another. Black lions visit us at times: eagles fly slowly over our
heads; at dusk hippopotami come in parties of three and four to gambol in
the river with the clumsy grace of negro children bathing. But, after
all, we are more particularly cultivators, kings of the plain, especially
when the waters of the Niger withdraw after fertilizing our fields. Our
estate has no limits; it stretches as far as we can labor. And ah! if you
could only see the natives, who do not even plough, but have few if any
appliances beyond sticks, with which they just scratch the soil before
confiding the seed to it! There is no trouble, no worry; the earth is
rich, the sun ardent, and thus the crop will always be a fine one. When
we ourselves employ the plough, when we bestow a little care on the soil
which teems with life, what prodigious crops there are, an abundance of
grain such as your barns could never hold! As soon as we possess the
agricultural machinery, which I have come to order here in France, we
shall need flotillas of boats in order to send you the overplus of our
granaries.... When the river subsides, when its waters fall, the crop
we more particularly grow is rice; there are, indeed, plains of rice,
which occasionally yield two crops. Then come millet and ground-beans,
and by and by will come corn, when we can grow it on a large scale. Vast
cotton fields follow one after the other, and we also grow manioc and
indigo, while in our kitchen gardens we have onions and pimentoes, and
gourds and cucumbers. And I don't mention the natural vegetation, the
precious gum-trees, of which we possess quite a forest; the butter-trees,
the flour-trees, the silk-trees, which grow on our ground like briers
alongside your roads.... Finally, we are shepherds; we own
ever-increasing flocks, whose numbers we don't even know. Our goats, our
bearded sheep may be counted by the thousand; our horses scamper freely
through paddocks as large as cities, and when our hunch-backed cattle
come down to the Niger to drink at that hour of serene splendor the
sunset, they cover a league of the river banks.... And, above
everything else, we are free men and joyous men, working for the delight
of living without restraint, and our reward is the thought that our work
is very great and good and beautiful, since it is the creation of another
France, the sovereign France of to-morrow."
From that moment Dominique paused no more. There was no longer any need
to question him, he poured forth all the beauty and grandeur in his mind.
He spoke of Djenny, the ancient queen city, whose people and whose
monuments came from Egypt, the city which even yet reigns over the
valley. He spoke of four other centres, Bamakoo, Niamina, Segu, and
Sansandig, big villages which would some day be great towns. And he spoke
particularly of Timbuctoo the glorious, so long unknown, with a veil of
legends cast over it as if it were some forbidden paradise, with its
gold, its ivory, its beautiful women, all rising like a mirage of
inaccessible delight beyond the devouring sands. He spoke of Timbuctoo,
the gate of the Sahara and the Western Soudan, the frontier town where
life ended and met and mingled, whither the camel of the desert brought
the weapons and merchandise of Europe as well as salt, that indispensable
commodity, and where the pirogues of the Niger landed the precious ivory,
the surface gold, the ostrich feathers, the gum, the crops, all the
wealth of the fruitful valley. He spoke of Timbuctoo the store-place, the
metropolis and market of Central Africa, with its piles of ivory, its
piles of virgin gold, its sacks of rice, millet, and ground-nuts, its
cakes of indigo, its tufts of ostrich plumes, its metals, its dates, its
stuffs, its iron-ware, and particularly its slabs of rock salt, brought
on the backs of beasts of burden from Taudeni, the frightful Saharian
city of salt, whose soil is salt for leagues around, an infernal mine of
that salt which is so precious in the Soudan that it serves as a medium
of exchange, as money more precious even than gold. And finally, he spoke
of Timbuctoo impoverished, fallen from its high estate, the opulent and
resplendent city of former times now almost in ruins, hiding remnants of
its treasures behind cracked walls in fear of the robbers of the desert;
but withal apt to become once more a city of glory and fortune, royally
seated as it is between the Soudan, that granary of abundance, and the
Sahara, the road to Europe, as soon as France shall have opened that
road, have connected the provinces of her new empire, and have founded
that huge new France of which the ancient fatherland will be but the
directing mind.
"That is the dream!" cried Dominique, "that is the gigantic work which
the future will achieve! Algeria, connected with Timbuctoo by the Sahara
railway line, over which electric engines will carry the whole of old
Europe through the far expanse of sand! Timbuctoo connected with Senegal
by flotillas of steam vessels and yet other railways, all intersecting
the vast empire on every side! New France connected with mother France,
the old land, by a wondrous development of the means of communication,
and founded, and got ready for the hundred millions of inhabitants who
will some day spring up there!... Doubtless these things cannot be
done in a night. The trans-Saharian railway is not yet laid down; there
are two thousand five hundred _kilomètres_[10] of bare desert to be crossed
which can hardly tempt railway companies; and a certain amount of
prosperity must be developed by starting cultivation, seeking and working
mines, and increasing exportations before a pecuniary effort can be
possible on the part of the motherland. Moreover, there is the question
of the natives, mostly of gentle race, though some are ferocious bandits,
whose savagery is increased by religious fanaticism, thus rendering the
difficulties of our conquest all the greater. Until the terrible problem
of Islamism is solved we shall always be coming in conflict with it. And
only life, long years of life, can create a new nation, adapt it to the
new land, blend diverse elements together, and yield normal existence,
homogeneous strength, and genius proper to the clime. But no matter! From
this day a new France is born yonder, a huge empire; and it needs our
blood--and some must be given it, in order that it may be peopled and be
able to draw its incalculable wealth from the soil, and become the
greatest, the strongest, and the mightiest in the world!"
[Footnote 10: About 1,553 English miles.]
Transported with enthusiasm, quivering at the thought of the distant
ideal at last revealed to him, Benjamin sat there with tears in his eyes.
Ah! the healthy life! the noble life! the other life! the whole mission
and work of which he had as yet but confusedly dreamt! Again he asked a
question: "And are there many French families there, colonizing like
yours?"
Dominique burst into a loud laugh. "Oh, no," said he, "there are
certainly a few colonists in our old possessions of Senegal, but yonder
in the Niger valley, beyond Djenny, there are, I think, only ourselves.
We are the pioneers, the vanguard, the riskers full of faith and hope.
And there is some merit in it, for to sensible stay-at-home folks it all
seems like defying common sense. Can you picture it? A French family
installed among savages, and unprotected, save for the vicinity of a
little fort, where a French officer commands a dozen native soldiers--a
French family, which is sometimes called upon to fight in person, and
which establishes a farm in a land where the fanaticism of some head
tribesman may any day stir up trouble. It seems so insane that folks get
angry at the mere thought of it, yet it enraptures us and gives us gayety
and health, and the courage to achieve victory. We are opening the road,
we are giving the example, we are carrying our dear old France yonder,
taking to ourselves a huge expanse of virgin land, which will become a
province. We have already founded a village which in a hundred years will
be a great town. In the colonies no race is more fruitful than the
French, though it seems to become barren on its own ancient soil. Thus we
shall swarm and swarm, and fill the world! So come then, come then, all
of you; since here you are set too closely, since you lack air in your
little fields and your overheated, pestilence-breeding towns. There is
room for everybody yonder; there are new lands, there is open air that
none has breathed, and there is a task to be accomplished which will make
all of you heroes, strong, sturdy men, well pleased to live! Come with
me. I will take the men, I will take all the women who are willing, and
you will carve for yourselves other provinces and found other cities for
the future glory and power of the great new France."
He laughed so gayly, he was so handsome, so spirited, so robust, that
once again the whole table acclaimed him. They would certainly not follow
him yonder, for all those married couples already had their own nests;
and all those young folks were already too strongly rooted to the old
land by the ties of their race--a race which after displaying such
adventurous instincts has now fallen asleep, as it were, at its own
fireside. But what a marvellous story it all was--a story to which big
and little alike, had listened in rapture, and which to-morrow would,
doubtless, arouse within them a passion for glorious enterprise far away!
The seed of the unknown was sown, and would grow into a crop of fabulous
magnitude.
For the moment Benjamin was the only one who cried amid the enthusiasm
which drowned his words: "Yes, yes, I want to live. Take me, take me with
you!"
But Dominique resumed, by way of conclusion: "And there is one thing,
grandfather, which I have not yet told you. My father has given the name
of Chantebled to our farm yonder. He often tells us how you founded your
estate here, in an impulse of far-seeing audacity, although everybody
jeered and shrugged their shoulders and declared that you must be mad.
And, yonder, my father has to put up with the same derision, the same
contemptuous pity, for people declare that the good Niger will some day
sweep away our village, even if a band of prowling natives does not kill
and eat us! But I'm easy in mind about all that, we shall conquer as you
conquered, for what seems to be the folly of action is really divine
wisdom. There will be another kingdom of the Froments yonder, another
huge Chantebled, of which you and my grandmother will be the ancestors,
the distant patriarchs, worshipped like deities.... And I drink to
your health, grandfather, and I drink to yours, grandmother, on behalf of
your other future people, who will grow up full of spirit under the
burning sun of the tropics!"
Then with great emotion Mathieu, who had risen, replied in a powerful
voice: "To your health! my boy. To the health of my son Nicolas, his
wife, Lisbeth, and all who have been born from them! And to the health of
all who will follow, from generation to generation!"
And Marianne, who had likewise risen, in her turn said: "To the health of
your wives, and your daughters, your spouses and your mothers! To the
health of those who will love and produce the greatest sum of life, in
order that the greatest possible sum of happiness may follow!"
Then, the banquet ended, they quitted the table and spread freely over
the lawn. There was a last ovation around Mathieu and Marianne, who were
encompassed by their eager offspring. At one and the same time a score of
arms were outstretched, carrying children, whose fair or dark heads they
were asked to kiss. Aged as they were, returning to a divine state of
childhood, they did not always recognize those little lads and lasses.
They made mistakes, used wrong names, fancied that one child was another.
Laughter thereupon arose, the mistakes were rectified, and appeals were
made to the old people's memory. They likewise laughed, the errors were
amusing, but it mattered little if they no longer remembered a name, the
child at any rate belonged to the harvest that had sprung from them.
Then there were certain granddaughters and great-granddaughters whom they
themselves summoned and kissed by way of bringing good luck to the babes
that were expected, the children of their children's children, the race
which would ever spread and perpetuate them through the far-off ages. And
there were mothers, also, who were nursing, mothers whose little ones,
after sleeping quietly during the feast, had now awakened, shrieking
their hunger aloud. These had to be fed, and the mothers merrily seated
themselves together under the trees and gave them the breast in all
serenity. Therein lay the royal beauty of woman, wife and mother;
fruitful maternity triumphed over virginity by which life is slain. Ah!
might manners and customs change, might the idea of morality and the idea
of beauty be altered, and the world recast, based on the triumphant
beauty of the mother suckling her babe in all the majesty of her
symbolism! From fresh sowings there ever came fresh harvests, the sun
ever rose anew above the horizon, and milk streamed forth endlessly like
the eternal sap of living humanity. And that river of milk carried life
through the veins of the world, and expanded and overflowed for the
centuries of the future.
The greatest possible sum of life in order that the greatest possible
happiness might result: that was the act of faith in life, the act of
hope in the justice and goodness of life's work. Victorious fruitfulness
remained the one true force, the sovereign power which alone moulded the
future. She was the great revolutionary, the incessant artisan of
progress, the mother of every civilization, ever re-creating her army of
innumerable fighters, throwing through the centuries millions after
millions of poor and hungry and rebellious beings into the fight for
truth and justice. Not a single forward step in history has ever been
taken without numerousness having urged humanity forward. To-morrow, like
yesterday, will be won by the swarming of the multitude whose quest is
happiness. And to-morrow will give the benefits which our age has
awaited; economic equality obtained even as political equality has been
obtained; a just apportionment of wealth rendered easy; and compulsory
work re-established as the one glorious and essential need.
It is not true that labor has been imposed on mankind as punishment for
sin, it is on the contrary an honor, a mark of nobility, the most
precious of boons, the joy, the health, the strength, the very soul of
the world, which itself labors incessantly, ever creating the future. And
misery, the great, abominable social crime, will disappear amid the
glorification of labor, the distribution of the universal task among one
and all, each accepting his legitimate share of duties and rights. And
may children come, they will simply be instruments of wealth, they will
but increase the human capital, the free happiness of a life in which the
children of some will no longer be beasts of burden, or food for
slaughter or for vice, to serve the egotism of the children of others.
And life will then again prove the conqueror; there will come the
renascence of life, honored and worshipped, the religion of life so long
crushed beneath the hateful nightmare of Roman Catholicism, from which on
divers occasions the nations have sought to free themselves by violence,
and which they will drive away at last on the now near day when cult and
power, and sovereign beauty shall be vested in the fruitful earth and the
fruitful spouse.
In that last resplendent hour of eventide, Mathieu and Marianne reigned
by virtue of their numerous race. They ended as heroes of life, because
of the great creative work which they had accomplished amid battle and
toil and grief. Often had they sobbed, but with extreme old age had come
peace, deep smiling peace, made up of the good labor performed and the
certainty of approaching rest while their children and their children's
children resumed the fight, labored and suffered, lived in their own
turn. And a part of Mathieu and Marianne's heroic grandeur sprang from
the divine desire with which they had glowed, the desire which moulds and
regulates the world. They were like a sacred temple in which the god had
fixed his abode, they were animated by the inextinguishable fire with
which the universe ever burns for the work of continual creation. Their
radiant beauty under their white hair came from the light which yet
filled their eyes, the light of love's power, which age had been unable
to extinguish. Doubtless, as they themselves jestingly remarked at times,
they had been prodigals, their family had been such a large one. But,
after all, had they not been right? Their children had diminished no
other's share, each had come with his or her own means of subsistence.
And, besides, 'tis good to garner in excess when the granaries of a
country are empty. Many such improvidents are needed to combat the
egotism of others at times of great dearth. Amid all the frightful loss
and wastage, the race is strengthened, the country is made afresh, a good
civic example is given by such healthy prodigality as Mathieu and
Marianne had shown.
But a last act of heroism was required of them. A month after the
festival, when Dominique was on the point of returning to the Soudan,
Benjamin one evening told them of his passion, of the irresistible
summons from the unknown distant plains, which he could but obey.
"Dear father, darling mother, let me go with Dominique! I have struggled,
I feel horrified with myself at quitting you thus, at your great age. But
I suffer too dreadfully; my soul is full of yearnings, and seems ready to
burst; and I shall die of shameful sloth, if I do not go."
They listened with breaking hearts. Their son's words did not surprise
them; they had heard them coming ever since their diamond wedding. And
they trembled, and felt that they could not refuse; for they knew that
they were guilty in having kept their last-born in the family nest after
surrendering to life all the others. Ah! how insatiable life was--it
would not so much as suffer that tardy avarice of theirs; it demanded
even the precious, discreetly hidden treasure from which, with jealous
egotism, they had dreamt of parting only when they might find themselves
upon the threshold of the grave.
Deep silence reigned; but at last Mathieu slowly answered: "I cannot keep
you back, my son; go whither life calls you.... If I knew, however,
that I should die to-night, I would ask you to wait till to-morrow."
In her turn Marianne gently said: "Why cannot we die at once? We should
then escape this last great pang, and you would only carry our memory
away with you."
Once again did the cemetery of Janville appear, the field of peace, where
dear ones already slept, and where they would soon join them. No sadness
tinged that thought, however; they hoped that they would lie down there
together on the same day, for they could not imagine life, one without
the other. And, besides, would they not forever live in their children;
forever be united, immortal, in their race?
"Dear father, darling mother," Benjamin repeated; "it is I who will be
dead to-morrow if I do not go. To wait for your death--good God! would
not that be to desire it? You must still live long years, and I wish to
live like you."
There came another pause, then Mathieu and Marianne replied together: "Go
then, my boy. You are right, one must live."
But on the day of farewell, what a wrench, what a final pang there was
when they had to tear themselves from that flesh of their flesh, all that
remained to them, in order to hand over to life the supreme gift it
demanded! The departure of Nicolas seemed to begin afresh; again came the
"never more" of the migratory child taking wing, given to the passing
wind for the sowing of unknown distant lands, far beyond the frontiers.
"Never more!" cried Mathieu in tears.
And Marianne repeated in a great sob which rose from the very depths of
her being: "Never more! Never more!"
There was now no longer any mere question of increasing a family, of
building up the country afresh, of re-peopling France for the struggles
of the future, the question was one of the expansion of humanity, of the
reclaiming of deserts, of the peopling of the entire earth. After one's
country came the earth; after one's family, one's nation, and then
mankind. And what an invading flight, what a sudden outlook upon the
world's immensity! All the freshness of the oceans, all the perfumes of
virgin continents, blended in a mighty gust like a breeze from the
offing. Scarcely fifteen hundred million souls are to-day scattered
through the few cultivated patches of the globe, and is that not indeed
paltry, when the globe, ploughed from end to end, might nourish ten times
that number? What narrowness of mind there is in seeking to limit mankind
to its present figure, in admitting simply the continuance of exchanges
among nations, and of capitals dying where they stand--as Babylon,
Nineveh, and Memphis died--while other queens of the earth arise,
inherit, and flourish amid fresh forms of civilization, and this without
population ever more increasing! Such a theory is deadly, for nothing
remains stationary: whatever ceases to increase decreases and disappears.
Life is the rising tide whose waves daily continue the work of creation,
and perfect the work of awaited happiness, which shall come when the
times are accomplished. The flux and reflux of nations are but periods of
the forward march: the great centuries of light, which dark ages at times
replace, simply mark the phases of that march. Another step forward is
ever taken, a little more of the earth is conquered, a little more life
is brought into play. The law seems to lie in a double phenomenon;
fruitfulness creating civilization, and civilization restraining
fruitfulness. And equilibrium will come from it all on the day when the
earth, being entirely inhabited, cleared, and utilized, shall at last
have accomplished its destiny. And the divine dream, the generous utopian
thought soars into the heavens; families blended into nations, nations
blended into mankind, one sole brotherly people making of the world one
sole city of peace and truth and justice! Ah! may eternal fruitfulness
ever expand, may the seed of humanity be carried over the frontiers,
peopling the untilled deserts afar, and increasing mankind through the
coming centuries until dawns the reign of sovereign life, mistress at
last both of time and of space!
And after the departure of Benjamin, whom Dominique took with him,
Mathieu and Marianne recovered the joyful serenity and peace born of the
work which they had so prodigally accomplished. Nothing more was theirs;
nothing save the happiness of having given all to life. The "Never more"
of separation became the "Still more" of life--life incessantly
increasing, expanding beyond the limitless horizon. Candid and smiling,
those all but centenarian heroes triumphed in the overflowing florescence
of their race. The milk had streamed even athwart the seas--from the old
land of France to the immensity of virgin Africa, the young and giant
France of to-morrow. After the foundation of Chantebled, on a disdained,
neglected spot of the national patrimony, another Chantebled was rising
and becoming a kingdom in the vast deserted tracts which life yet had to
fertilize. And this was the exodus, human expansion throughout the world,
mankind upon the march towards the Infinite.
_England._--_August 1898_--_May 1899._