The first thing next morning Genestas went to the stable, drawn thither
by the affection that every man feels for the horse that he rides.
Nicolle’s method of rubbing down the animal was quite satisfactory.
“Up already, Commandant Bluteau?” cried Benassis, as he came upon his
guest. “You hear the drum beat in the morning wherever you go, even in
the country! You are a regular soldier!”
“Are you all right?” replied Genestas, holding out his hand with a
friendly gesture.
“I am never really all right,” answered Benassis, half merrily, half
sadly.
“Did you sleep well, sir?” inquired Jacquotte.
“Faith, yes, my beauty; the bed as you made it was fit for a queen.”
Jacquotte’s face beamed as she followed her master and his guest,
and when she had seen them seat themselves at table, she remarked to
Nicolle:
“He is not a bad sort, after all, that officer gentleman.”
“I am sure he is not, he has given me two francs already.”
“We will begin to-day by calling at two places where there have been
deaths,” Benassis said to his visitor as they left the dining-room.
“Although doctors seldom deign to confront their supposed victims, I
will take you round to the two houses, where you will be able to make
some interesting observations of human nature; and the scenes to which
you will be a witness will show you that in the expression of their
feelings our folk among the hills differ greatly from the dwellers in
the lowlands. Up among the mountain peaks in our canton they cling to
customs that bear the impress of an older time, and that vaguely recall
scenes in the Bible. Nature has traced out a line over our mountain
ranges; the whole appearance of the country is different on either side
of it. You will find strength of character up above, flexibility and
quickness below; they have larger ways of regarding things among the
hills, while the bent of the lowlands is always towards the material
interests of existence. I have never seen a difference so strongly
marked, unless it has been in the Val d’Ajou, where the northern side is
peopled by a tribe of idiots, and the southern by an intelligent race.
There is nothing but a stream in the valley bottom to separate these two
populations, which are utterly dissimilar in every respect, as different
in face and stature as in manners, customs, and occupation. A fact
of this kind should compel those who govern a country to make very
extensive studies of local differences before passing laws that are to
affect the great mass of the people. But the horses are ready, let us
start!”
In a short time the two horsemen reached a house in a part of the
township that was overlooked by the mountains of the Grande Chartreuse.
Before the door of the dwelling, which was fairly clean and tidy, they
saw a coffin set upon two chairs, and covered with a black pall. Four
tall candles stood about it, and on a stool near by there was a shallow
brass dish full of holy water, in which a branch of green box-wood was
steeping. Every passer-by went into the yard, knelt by the side of the
dead, said a _Pater noster_, and sprinkled a few drops of holy water on
the bier. Above the black cloth that covered the coffin rose the green
sprays of a jessamine that grew beside the doorway, and a twisted vine
shoot, already in leaf, overran the lintel. Even the saddest ceremonies
demand that things shall appear to the best advantage, and in obedience
to this vaguely-felt requirement a young girl had been sweeping the
front of the house. The dead man’s eldest son, a young peasant
about twenty-two years of age, stood motionless, leaning against the
door-post. The tears in his eyes came and went without falling, or
perhaps he furtively brushed them away. Benassis and Genestas saw
all the details of this scene as they stood beyond the low wall; they
fastened their horses to one of the row of poplar trees that grew along
it, and entered the yard just as the widow came out of the byre. A woman
carrying a jug of milk was with her, and spoke.
“Try to bear up bravely, my poor Pelletier,” she said.
“Ah! my dear, after twenty-five years of life together, it is very hard
to lose your man,” and her eyes brimmed over with tears. “Will you pay
the two sous?” she added, after a moment, as she held out her hand to
her neighbor.
“There, now! I had forgotten about it,” said the other woman, giving her
the coin. “Come, neighbor, don’t take on so. Ah! there is M. Benassis!”
“Well, poor mother, how are you going on? A little better?” asked the
doctor.
“_Dame_!” she said, as the tears fell fast, “we must go on, all the
same, that is certain. I tell myself that my man is out of pain now. He
suffered so terribly! But come inside, sir. Jacques, set some chairs for
these gentlemen. Come, stir yourself a bit. Lord bless you! if you were
to stop there for a century, it would not bring your poor father back
again. And now, you will have to do the work of two.”
“No, no good woman, leave your son alone, we will not sit down. You have
a boy there who will take care of you, and who is quite fit to take his
father’s place.”
“Go and change your clothes, Jacques,” cried the widow; “you will be
wanted directly.”
“Well, good-bye, mother,” said Benassis.
“Your servant, gentlemen.”
“Here, you see, death is looked upon as an event for which every one is
prepared,” said the doctor; “it brings no interruption to the course of
family life, and they will not even wear mourning of any kind. No one
cares to be at the expense of it; they are all either too poor or too
parsimonious in the villages hereabouts, so that mourning is unknown
in country districts. Yet the custom of wearing mourning is something
better than a law or a usage, it is an institution somewhat akin to all
moral obligations. But in spite of our endeavors neither M. Janvier nor
I have succeeded in making our peasants understand the great importance
of public demonstrations of feeling for the maintenance of social
order. These good folk, who have only just begun to think and act for
themselves, are slow as yet to grasp the changed conditions which should
attach them to these theories. They have only reached those ideas which
conduce to economy and to physical welfare; in the future, if some one
else carries on this work of mine, they will come to understand the
principles that serve to uphold and preserve public order and justice.
As a matter of fact, it is not sufficient to be an honest man, you must
appear to be honest in the eyes of others. Society does not live by
moral ideas alone; its existence depends upon actions in harmony with
those ideas.
“In most country communes, out of a hundred families deprived by death
of their head, there are only a few individuals capable of feeling more
keenly than the others, who will remember the deaths for very long; in
a year’s time the rest will have forgotten all about it. Is not this
forgetfulness a sore evil? A religion is the very heart of a nation; it
expresses their feelings and their thoughts, and exalts them by giving
them an object; but unless outward and visible honor is paid to a God,
religion cannot exist; and, as a consequence, human ordinances lose all
their force. If the conscience belongs to God and to Him only, the body
is amenable to social law. Is it not therefore, a first step towards
atheism to efface every sign of pious sorrow in this way, to neglect to
impress on children who are not yet old enough to reflect, and on all
other people who stand in need of example, the necessity of obedience to
human law, by openly manifested resignation to the will of Providence,
who chastens and consoles, who bestows and takes away worldly wealth? I
confess that, after passing through a period of sneering incredulity,
I have come during my life here to recognize the value of the rites of
religion and of religious observances in the family, and to discern the
importance of household customs and domestic festivals. The family will
always be the basis of human society. Law and authority are first felt
there; there, at any rate, the habit of obedience should be learned.
Viewed in the light of all their consequences, the spirit of the family
and paternal authority are two elements but little developed as yet
in our new legislative system. Yet in the family, the commune, the
department, lies the whole of our country. The laws ought therefore to
be based on these three great divisions.
“In my opinion, marriages, the birth of infants, and the deaths of
heads of households cannot be surrounded with too much circumstance. The
secret of the strength of Catholicism, and of the deep root that it has
taken in the ordinary life of man, lies precisely in this--that it steps
in to invest every important event in his existence with a pomp that
is so naively touching, and so grand, whenever the priest rises to
the height of his mission and brings his office into harmony with the
sublimity of Christian doctrine.
“Once I looked upon the Catholic religion as a cleverly exploited mass
of prejudices and superstitions, which an intelligent civilization
ought to deal with according to its desserts. Here I have discovered its
political necessity and its usefulness as a moral agent; here, moreover,
I have come to understand its power, through a knowledge of the actual
thing which the word expresses. Religion means a bond or tie, and
certainly a cult--or, in other words, the outward and visible form of
religion is the only force that can bind the various elements of society
together and mould them into a permanent form. Lastly, it was also here
that I have felt the soothing influence that religion sheds over the
wounds of humanity, and (without going further into the subject) I have
seen how admirably it is suited to the fervid temperaments of southern
races.
“Let us take the road up the hillside,” said the doctor, interrupting
himself; “we must reach the plateau up there. Thence we shall look down
upon both valleys, and you will see a magnificent view. The plateau lies
three thousand feet above the level of the Mediterranean; we shall see
over Savoy and Dauphine, and the mountain ranges of the Lyonnais and
Rhone. We shall be in another commune, a hill commune, and on a farm
belonging to M. Gravier you will see the kind of scene of which I have
spoken. There the great events of life are invested with a solemnity
which comes up to my ideas. Mourning for the dead is vigorously
prescribed. Poor people will beg in order to purchase black clothing,
and no one refuses to give in such a case. There are few days in which
the widow does not mention her loss; she always speaks of it with tears,
and her grief is as deep after ten days of sorrow as on the morning
after her bereavement. Manners are patriarchal: the father’s authority
is unlimited, his word is law. He takes his meals sitting by himself at
the head of the table; his wife and children wait upon him, and those
about him never address him without using certain respectful forms of
speech, while every one remains standing and uncovered in his presence.
Men brought up in this atmosphere are conscious of their dignity; to my
way of thinking, it is a noble education to be brought up among
these customs. And, for the most part, they are upright, thrifty, and
hardworking people in this commune. The father of every family, when he
is old and past work, divides his property equally among his children,
and they support him; that is the usual way here. An old man of ninety,
in the last century, who had divided everything he had among his four
children, went to live with each in turn for three months in the year.
As he left the oldest to go to the home of a younger brother, one of
his friends asked him, ‘Well, are you satisfied with the arrangement?’
‘Faith! yes,’ the old man answered; ‘they have treated me as if I had
been their own child.’ That answer of his seemed so remarkable to an
officer then stationed at Grenoble, that he repeated it in more than one
Parisian salon. That officer was the celebrated moralist Vauvenargues,
and in this way the beautiful saying came to the knowledge of another
writer named Chamfort. Ah! still more forcible phrases are often struck
out among us, but they lack a historian worthy of them.”
“I have come across Moravians and Lollards in Bohemia and Hungary,” said
Genestas. “They are a kind of people something like your mountaineers,
good folk who endure the sufferings of war with angelic patience.”
“Men living under simple and natural conditions are bound to be almost
alike in all countries. Sincerity of life takes but one form. It is true
that a country life often extinguishes thought of a wider kind; but evil
propensities are weakened and good qualities are developed by it. In
fact, the fewer the numbers of the human beings collected together in a
place, the less crime, evil thinking, and general bad behavior will
be found in it. A pure atmosphere counts for a good deal in purity of
morals.”
The two horsemen, who had been climbing the stony road at a foot pace,
now reached the level space of which Benassis had spoken. It is a strip
of land lying round about the base of a lofty mountain peak, a bare
surface of rock with no growth of any kind upon it; deep clefts are
riven in its sheer inaccessible sides. The gray crest of the summit
towers above the ledge of fertile soil which lies around it, a domain
sometimes narrower, sometimes wider, and altogether about a hundred
acres in extent. Here, through a vast break in the line of the hills to
the south, the eye sees French Maurienne, Dauphine, the crags of Savoy,
and the far-off mountains of the Lyonnais. Genestas was gazing from this
point, over a land that lay far and wide in the spring sunlight, when
there arose the sound of a wailing cry.
“Let us go on,” said Benassis; “the wail for the dead has begun, that is
the name they give to this part of the funeral rites.”
On the western slope of the mountain peak, the commandant saw the
buildings belonging to a farm of some size. The whole place formed a
perfect square. The gateway consisted of a granite arch, impressive in
its solidity, which added to the old-world appearance of the buildings
with the ancient trees that stood about them, and the growth of plant
life on the roofs. The house itself lay at the farther end of the yard.
Barns, sheepfolds, stables, cowsheds, and other buildings lay on either
side, and in the midst was the great pool where the manure had been laid
to rot. On a thriving farm, such a yard as this is usually full of life
and movement, but to-day it was silent and deserted. The poultry was
shut up, the cattle were all in the byres, there was scarcely a sound of
animal life. Both stables and cowsheds had been carefully swept across
the yard. The perfect neatness which reigned in a place where everything
as a rule was in disorder, the absence of stirring life, the stillness
in so noisy a spot, the calm serenity of the hills, the deep shadow cast
by the towering peak--everything combined to make a strong impression on
the mind.
Genestas was accustomed to painful scenes, yet he could not help
shuddering as he saw a dozen men and women standing weeping outside the
door of the great hall. “_The master is dead!_” they wailed; the unison
of voices gave appalling effect to the words which they repeated twice
during the time required to cross the space between the gateway and the
farmhouse door. To this wailing lament succeeded moans from within the
house; the sound of a woman’s voice came through the casements.
“I dare not intrude upon such grief as this,” said Genestas to Benassis.
“I always go to visit a bereaved family,” the doctor answered, “either
to certify the death, or to see that no mischance caused by grief has
befallen the living. You need not hesitate to come with me. The scene is
impressive, and there will be such a great many people that no one will
notice your presence.”
As Genestas followed the doctor, he found, in fact, that the first room
was full of relations of the dead. They passed through the crowd and
stationed themselves at the door of a bedroom that opened out of
the great hall which served the whole family for a kitchen and a
sitting-room; the whole colony, it should rather be called, for the
great length of the table showed that some forty people lived in
the house. Benassis’ arrival interrupted the discourse of a tall,
simply-dressed woman, with thin locks of hair, who held the dead man’s
hand in hers in a way that spoke eloquently.
The dead master of the house had been arrayed in his best clothes, and
now lay stretched out cold and stiff upon the bed. They had drawn the
curtains aside; the thought of heaven seemed to brood over the quiet
face and the white hair--it was like the closing scene of a drama. On
either side of the bed stood the children and the nearest relations of
the husband and wife. These last stood in a line on either side; the
wife’s kin upon the left, and those of her husband on the right. Both
men and women were kneeling in prayer, and almost all of them were in
tears. Tall candles stood about the bed. The cure of the parish and his
assistants had taken their places in the middle of the room, beside the
bier. There was something tragical about the scene, with the head of the
family lying before the coffin, which was waiting to be closed down upon
him forever.
“Ah!” cried the widow, turning as she saw Benassis, “if the skill of
the best of men could not save you, my dear lord, it was because it was
ordained in heaven that you should precede me to the tomb! Yes, this
hand of yours, that used to press mine so kindly, is cold! I have lost
my dear helpmate for ever, and our household has lost its beloved head,
for truly you were the guide of us all! Alas! there is not one of those
who are weeping with me who has not known all the worth of your nature,
and felt the light of your soul, but I alone knew all the patience and
the kindness of your heart. Oh! my husband, my husband! must I bid you
farewell for ever? Farewell to you, our stay and support! Farewell to
you, my dear master! And we, your children,--for to each of us you gave
the same fatherly love,--all we, your children, have lost our father!”
The widow flung herself upon the dead body and clasped it in a tight
embrace, as if her kisses and the tears with which she covered it could
give it warmth again; during the pause, came the wail of the servants:
“_The master is dead!_”
“Yes,” the widow went on, “he is dead! Our beloved who gave us our
bread, who sowed and reaped for us, who watched over our happiness, who
guided us through life, who ruled so kindly among us. _Now_, I may speak
in his praise, and say that he never caused me the slightest sorrow; he
was good and strong and patient. Even while we were torturing him for
the sake of his health, so precious to us, ‘Let it be, children, it is
all no use,’ the dear lamb said, just in the same tone of voice with
which he had said, ‘Everything is all right, friends,’ only a few days
before. Ah! _grand Dieu_! a few days ago! A few days have been enough to
take away the gladness from our house and to darken our lives, to close
the eyes of the best, most upright, most revered of men. No one could
plow as he could. Night or day, he would go about over the mountains, he
feared nothing, and when he came back he had always a smile for his wife
and children. Ah! he was our beloved! It was dull here by the fireside
when _he_ was away, and our food lost all its relish. Oh! how will it be
now, when our guardian angel will be laid away under the earth, and we
shall never see him any more? Never any more, dear kinsfolk and friends;
never any more, my children! Yes, my children have lost their kind
father, our relations and friends have lost their good kinsman and
their trusty friend, the household has lost its master, and I have lost
everything!”
She took the hand of the dead again, and knelt, so that she might press
her face close to his as she kissed it. The servants’ cry, “_The master
is dead!_” was again repeated three times.
Just then the eldest son came to his mother to say, “The people from
Saint-Laurent have just come, mother; we want some wine for them.”
“Take the keys,” she said in a low tone, and in a different voice from
that in which she had just expressed her grief; “you are the master of
the house, my son; see that they receive the welcome that your father
would have given them; do not let them find any change.
“Let me have one more long look,” she went on. “But alas! my good
husband, you do not feel my presence now, I cannot bring back warmth to
you! I only wish that I could comfort you still, could let you know that
so long as I live you will dwell in the heart that you made glad, could
tell you that I shall be happy in the memory of my happiness--that
the dear thought of you will live on in this room. Yes, as long as God
spares me, this room shall be filled with memories of you. Hear my vow,
dear husband! Your couch shall always remain as it is now. I will sleep
in it no more, since you are dead; henceforward, while I live, it shall
be cold and empty. With you, I have lost all that makes a woman: her
master, husband, father, friend, companion, and helpmate: I have lost
all!”
“_The master is dead!_” the servants wailed. Others raised the cry, and
the lament became general. The widow took a pair of scissors that hung
at her waist, cut off her hair, and laid the locks in her husband’s
hand. Deep silence fell on them all.
“That act means that she will not marry again,” said Benassis; “this
determination was expected by many of the relatives.”
“Take it, dear lord!” she said; her emotion brought a tremor to her
voice that went to the hearts of all who heard her. “I have sworn to be
faithful; I give this pledge to you to keep in the grave. We shall thus
be united for ever, and through love of your children I will live on
among the family in whom you used to feel yourself young again. Oh! that
you could hear me, my husband! the pride and joy of my heart! Oh! that
you could know that all my power to live, now you are dead, will yet
come from you; for I shall live to carry out your sacred wishes and to
honor your memory.”
Benassis pressed Genestas’ hand as an invitation to follow him, and they
went out. By this time the first room was full of people who had come
from another mountain commune; all of them waited in meditative silence,
as if the sorrow and grief that brooded over the house had already
taken possession of them. As Benassis and the commandant crossed the
threshold, they overheard a few words that passed between one of the
newcomers and the eldest son of the late owner.
“Then when did he die?”
“Oh!” exclaimed the eldest son, a man of five-and-twenty years of age,
“I did not see him die. He asked for me, and I was not there!” His voice
was broken with sobs, but he went on: “He said to me the night before,
‘You must go over to the town, my boy, and pay our taxes; my funeral
will put that out of your minds, and we shall be behindhand, a thing
that has never happened before.’ It seemed the best thing to do, so
I went; and while I was gone, he died, and I never received his last
embrace. I have always been at his side, but he did not see me near him
at the last in my place where I had always been.”
“_The master is dead!_”
“Alas! he is dead, and I was not there to receive his last words and
his latest sigh. And what did the taxes matter? Would it not have been
better to lose all our money than to leave home just then? Could all
that we have make up to me for the loss of his last farewell. No. _Mon
Dieu!_ If _your_ father falls ill, Jean, do not go away and leave him,
or you will lay up a lifelong regret for yourself.”
“My friend,” said Genestas, “I have seen thousands of men die on the
battlefield; death did not wait to let their children bid them farewell;
take comfort, you are not the only one.”
“But a father who was such a good man!” he replied, bursting into fresh
tears.
Benassis took Genestas in the direction of the farm buildings.
“The funeral oration will only cease when the body has been laid in its
coffin,” said the doctor, “and the weeping woman’s language will grow
more vivid and impassioned all the while. But a woman only acquires
the right to speak in such a strain before so imposing an audience by a
blameless life. If the widow could reproach herself with the smallest
of shortcomings, she would not dare to utter a word; for if she did, she
would pronounce her own condemnation, she would be at the same time her
own accuser and judge. Is there not something sublime in this custom
which thus judges the living and the dead? They only begin to wear
mourning after a week has elapsed, when it is publicly worn at a meeting
of all the family. Their near relations spend the week with the widow
and children, to help them to set their affairs in order and to console
them. A family gathering at such a time produces a great effect on the
minds of the mourners; the consideration for others which possesses men
when they are brought into close contact acts as a restraint on violent
grief. On the last day, when the mourning garb has been assumed, a
solemn banquet is given, and their relations take leave of them. All
this is taken very seriously. Any one who was slack in fulfilling his
duties after the death of the head of a family would have no one at his
own funeral.”
The doctor had reached the cowhouse as he spoke; he opened the door and
made the commandant enter, that he might show it to him.
“All our cowhouses have been rebuilt after this pattern, captain. Look!
Is it not magnificent?”
Genestas could not help admiring the huge place. The cows and oxen stood
in two rows, with their tails towards the side walls, and their heads
in the middle of the shed. Access to the stalls was afforded by a fairly
wide space between them and the wall; you could see their horned heads
and shining eyes through the lattice work, so that it was easy for the
master to run his eyes over the cattle. The fodder was placed on some
staging erected above the stalls, so that it fell into the racks below
without waste of labor or material. There was a wide-paved space down
the centre, which was kept clean, and ventilated by a thorough draught
of air.
“In the winter time,” Benassis said, as he walked with Genestas down the
middle of the cowhouse, “both men and women do their work here together
in the evenings. The tables are set out here, and in this way the people
keep themselves warm without going to any expense. The sheep are housed
in the same way. You would not believe how quickly the beasts fall into
orderly ways. I have often wondered to see them come in; each knows her
proper place, and allows those who take precedence to pass in before
her. Look! there is just room enough in each stall to do the milking
and to rub the cattle down; and the floor slopes a little to facilitate
drainage.”
“One can judge of everything else from the sight of this cowhouse,” said
Genestas; “without flattery, these are great results indeed!”
“We have had some trouble to bring them about,” Benassis answered; “but
then, see what fine cattle they are!”
“They are splendid beasts certainly; you had good reason to praise them
to me,” answered Genestas.
“Now,” said the doctor, when he had mounted his horse and passed under
the gateway, “we are going over some of the newly cleared waste, and
through the corn land. I have christened this little corner of our
Commune, ‘La Beauce.’”
For about an hour they rode at a foot pace across fields in a state of
high cultivation, on which the soldier complimented the doctor; then
they came down the mountain side into the township again, talking
whenever the pace of their horses allowed them to do so. At last they
reached a narrow glen, down which they rode into the main valley.
“I promised yesterday,” Benassis said to Genestas, “to show you one of
the two soldiers who left the army and came back to us after the fall of
Napoleon. We shall find him somewhere hereabouts, if I am not mistaken.
The mountain streams flow into a sort of natural reservoir or tarn up
here; the earth they bring down has silted it up, and he is engaged in
clearing it out. But if you are to take any interest in the man, I must
tell you his history. His name is Gondrin. He was only eighteen years
old when he was drawn in the great conscription of 1792, and drafted
into a corps of gunners. He served as a private soldier in Napoleon’s
campaigns in Italy, followed him to Egypt, and came back from the East
after the Peace of Amiens. In the time of the Empire he was incorporated
in the Pontoon Troop of the Guard, and was constantly on active service
in Germany, lastly the poor fellow made the Russian campaign.”
“We are brothers-in-arms then, to some extent,” said Genestas; “I have
made the same campaigns. Only an iron frame would stand the tricks
played by so many different climates. My word for it, those who are
still standing on their stumps after marching over Italy, Egypt,
Germany, Portugal, and Russia must have applied to Providence and taken
out a patent for living.”
“Just so, you will see a solid fragment of a man,” answered Benassis.
“You know all about the Retreat from Moscow; it is useless to tell you
about it. This man I have told you of is one of the pontooners of the
Beresina; he helped to construct the bridge by which the army made the
passage, and stood waist-deep in water to drive in the first piles.
General Eble, who was in command of the pontooners, could only find
forty-two men who were plucky enough, in Gondrin’s phrase, to tackle
that business. The general himself came down to the stream to hearten
and cheer the men, promising each of them a pension of a thousand francs
and the Cross of the Legion of Honor. The first who went down into the
Beresina had his leg taken off by a block of ice, and the man himself
was washed away; but you will better understand the difficulty of the
task when you hear the end of the story. Of the forty-two volunteers,
Gondrin is the only one alive to-day. Thirty-nine of them lost their
lives in the Beresina, and the two others died miserably in a Polish
hospital.
“The poor fellow himself only returned from Wilna in 1814, to find the
Bourbons restored to power. General Eble (of whom Gondrin cannot speak
without tears in his eyes) was dead. The pontooner was deaf, and his
health was shattered; and as he could neither read nor write, he found
no one left to help him or to plead his cause. He begged his way to
Paris, and while there made application at the War Office, not for the
thousand francs of extra pension which had been promised to him, nor yet
for the Cross of the Legion of Honor, but only for the bare pension due
to him after twenty-two years of service, and I do not know how many
campaigns. He did not obtain his pension or his traveling expenses;
he did not even receive his arrears of pay. He spent a year in making
fruitless solicitations, holding out his hands in vain to those whom he
had saved; and at the end of it he came back here, sorely disheartened
but resigned to his fate. This hero unknown to fame does draining work
on the land, for which he is paid ten sous the fathom. He is accustomed
to working in a marshy soil, and so, as he says, he gets jobs which no
one else cares to take. He can make about three francs a day by clearing
out ponds, or draining meadows that lie under water. His deafness makes
him seem surly, and he is not naturally inclined to say very much, but
there is a good deal in him.
“We are very good friends. He dines with me on the day of Austerlitz,
on the Emperor’s birthday, and on the anniversary of the disaster at
Waterloo, and during the dessert he always receives a napoleon to pay
for his wine very quarter. Every one in the Commune shares in my feeling
of respect for him; if he would allow them to support him, nothing would
please them better. At every house to which he goes the people follow my
example, and show their esteem by asking him to dine with them. It is a
feeling of pride that leads him to work, and it is only as a portrait of
the Emperor that he can be induced to take my twenty-franc piece. He has
been deeply wounded by the injustice that has been done to him; but I
think regret for the Cross is greater than the desire for his pension.
“He has one great consolation. After the bridges had been constructed
across the Beresina, General Eble presented such of the pontooners
as were not disabled to the Emperor, and Napoleon embraced poor
Gondrin--perhaps but for that accolade he would have died ere now. This
memory and the hope that some day Napoleon will return are all that
Gondrin lives by. Nothing will ever persuade him that Napoleon is dead,
and so convinced is he that the Emperor’s captivity is wholly and solely
due to the English, that I believe he would be ready on the slightest
pretext to take the life of the best-natured alderman that ever traveled
for pleasure in foreign parts.”
“Let us go on as fast as possible!” cried Genestas. He had listened
to the doctor’s story with rapt attention, and now seemed to recover
consciousness of his surroundings. “Let us hurry! I long to see that
man!”
Both of them put their horses to a gallop.
“The other soldier that I spoke of,” Benassis went on, “is another of
those men of iron who have knocked about everywhere with our armies.
His life, like that of all French soldiers, has been made up of bullets,
sabre strokes, and victories; he has had a very rough time of it, and
has only worn the woolen epaulettes. He has a fanatical affection for
Napoleon, who conferred the Cross upon him on the field of Valontina. He
is of a jovial turn of mind, and like a genuine Dauphinois, has always
looked after his own interests, has his pension, and the honors of the
Legion. Goguelat is his name. He was an infantry man, who exchanged into
the Guard in 1812. He is Gondrin’s better half, so to speak, for the two
have taken up house together. They both lodge with a peddler’s widow,
and make over their money to her. She is a kind soul, who boards them
and looks after them, and their clothes as if they were her children.
“In his quality of local postman, Goguelat carries all the news of the
countryside, and a good deal of practice acquired in this way has made
him an orator in great request at up-sittings, and the champion teller
of stories in the district. Gondrin looks upon him as a very knowing
fellow, and something of a wit; and whenever Goguelat talks about
Napoleon, his comrade seems to understand what he is saying from the
movement of his lips. There will be an up-sitting (as they call it)
in one of my barns to-night. If these two come over to it, and we can
manage to see without being seen, I shall treat you to a view of the
spectacle. But here we are, close to the ditch, and I do not see my
friend the pontooner.”
The doctor and the commandant looked everywhere about them; Gondrin’s
soldier’s coat lay there beside a heap of black mud, and his
wheelbarrow, spade, and pickaxe were visible, but there was no sign of
the man himself along the various pebbly watercourses, for the wayward
mountain streams had hollowed out channels that were almost overgrown
with low bushes.
“He cannot be so very far away. Gondrin! Where are you?” shouted
Benassis.
Genestas first saw the curling smoke from a tobacco pipe rise among the
brushwood on a bank of rubbish not far away. He pointed it out to the
doctor, who shouted again. The old pontooner raised his head at this,
recognized the mayor, and came towards them down a little pathway.
“Well, old friend,” said Benassis, making a sort of speaking-trumpet
with his hand. “Here is a comrade of yours, who was out in Egypt, come
to see you.”
Gondrin raised is face at once and gave Genestas a swift, keen, and
searching look, one of those glances by which old soldiers are wont at
once to take the measure of any impending danger. He saw the red ribbon
that the commandant wore, and made a silent and respectful military
salute.
“If the Little Corporal were alive,” the officer cried, “you would have
the Cross of the Legion of Honor and a handsome pension besides, for
every man who wore epaulettes on the other side of the river owed his
life to you on the 1st of October 1812. But I am not the Minister of
War, my friend,” the commandant added as he dismounted, and with a
sudden rush of feeling he grasped the laborer’s hand.
The old pontooner drew himself up at the words, he knocked the ashes
from his pipe, and put it in his pocket.
“I only did my duty, sir,” he said, with his head bent down; “but others
have not done their duty by me. They asked for my papers! Why, the
Twenty-ninth Bulletin, I told them, must do instead of my papers!”
“But you must make another application, comrade. You are bound to have
justice done you in these days, if influence is brought to bear in the
right quarter.”
“Justice!” cried the veteran. The doctor and the commandant shuddered at
the tone in which he spoke.
In the brief pause that followed, both the horsemen looked at the man
before them, who seemed like a fragment of the wreck of great armies
which Napoleon had filled with men of bronze sought out from among three
generations. Gondrin was certainly a splendid specimen of that seemingly
indestructible mass of men which might be cut to pieces but never gave
way. The old man was scarcely five feet high, wide across the shoulders,
and broad-chested; his face was sunburned, furrowed with deep wrinkles,
but the outlines were still firm in spite of the hollows in it, and
one could see even now that it was the face of a soldier. It was a
rough-hewn countenance, his forehead seemed like a block of granite;
but there was a weary expression about his face, and the gray hairs
hung scantily about his head, as if life were waning there already.
Everything about him indicated unusual strength; his arms were covered
thickly with hair, and so was the chest, which was visible through the
opening of his coarse shirt. In spite of his almost crooked legs, he
held himself firm and erect, as if nothing could shake him.
“Justice,” he said once more; “there will never be justice for the like
of us. We cannot send bailiffs to the Government to demand our dues for
us; and as the wallet must be filled somehow,” he said, striking his
stomach, “we cannot afford to wait. Moreover, these gentry who lead snug
lives in government offices may talk and talk, but their words are not
good to eat, so I have come back here again to draw my pay out of the
commonalty,” he said, striking the mud with his spade.
“Things must not be left in that way, old comrade,” said Genestas. “I
owe my life to you, and it would be ungrateful of me if I did not lend
you a hand. I have not forgotten the passage over the bridges in the
Beresina, and it is fresh in the memories of some brave fellows of my
acquaintance; they will back me up, and the nation shall give you the
recognition you deserve.”
“You will be called a Bonapartist! Please do not meddle in the matter,
sir. I have gone to the rear now, and I have dropped into my hole here
like a spent bullet. But after riding on camels through the desert,
and drinking my glass by the fireside in Moscow, I never thought that I
should come back to die here beneath the trees that my father planted,”
and he began to work again.
“Poor old man!” said Genestas, as they turned to go. “I should do the
same if I were in his place; we have lost our father. Everything seems
dark to me now that I have seen that man’s hopelessness,” he went on,
addressing Benassis; “he does not know how much I am interested in him,
and he will think that I am one of those gilded rascals who cannot feel
for a soldier’s sufferings.”
He turned quickly and went back, grasped the veteran’s hand, and spoke
loudly in his ear:
“I swear by the Cross I wear--the Cross of Honor it used to be--that I
will do all that man can do to obtain your pension for you; even if I
have to swallow a dozen refusals from the minister, and to petition the
king and the dauphin and the whole shop!”
Old Gondrin quivered as he heard the words. He looked hard at Genestas
and said, “Haven’t you served in the ranks?” The commandant nodded. The
pontooner wiped his hand and took that of Genestas, which he grasped
warmly and said:
“I made the army a present of my life, general, when I waded out into
the river yonder, and if I am still alive, it is all so much to the
good. One moment! Do you care to see to the bottom of it? Well, then,
ever since _somebody_ was pulled down from his place, I have ceased
to care about anything. And, after all,” he went on cheerfully, as he
pointed to the land, “they have made over twenty thousand francs to me
here, and I am taking it out in detail, as _he_ used to say!”
“Well, then, comrade,” said Genestas, touched by the grandeur of this
forgiveness, “at least you shall have the only thing that you cannot
prevent me from giving to you, here below.” The commandant tapped his
heart, looked once more at the old pontooner, mounted his horse again,
and went his way side by side with Benassis.
“Such cruelty as this on the part of the government foments the strife
between rich and poor,” said the doctor. “People who exercise a little
brief authority have never given a serious thought to the consequences
that must follow an act of injustice done to a man of the people. It is
true that a poor man who needs must work for his daily bread cannot long
keep up the struggle; but he can talk, and his words find an echo in
every sufferer’s heart, so that one bad case of this kind is multiplied,
for every one who hears of it feels it as a personal wrong, and the
leaven works. Even this is not so serious, but something far worse comes
of it. Among the people, these causes of injustice bring about a chronic
state of smothered hatred for their social superiors. The middle class
becomes the poor man’s enemy; they lie without the bounds of his moral
code, he tells lies to them and robs them without scruple; indeed, theft
ceases to be a crime or a misdemeanor, and is looked upon as an act of
vengeance.
“When an official, who ought to see that the poor have justice done
them, uses them ill and cheats them of their due, how can we expect the
poor starving wretches to bear their troubles meekly and to respect the
rights of property? It makes me shudder to think that some understrapper
whose business it is to dust papers in a government office, has pocketed
Gondrin’s promised thousand francs of pension. And yet there are folk
who, never having measured the excess of the people’s sufferings, accuse
the people of excess in the day of their vengeance! When a government
has done more harm than good to individuals, its further existence
depends on the merest accident, the masses square the account after
their fashion by upsetting it. A statesman ought always to imagine
Justice with the poor at her feet, for justice was only invented for the
poor.”
When they had come within the compass of the township, Benassis saw
two people walking along the road in front of them, and turned to his
companion, who had been absorbed for some time in thought.
“You have seen a veteran soldier resigned to his life of wretchedness,
and now you are about to see an old agricultural laborer who is
submitting to the same lot. The man there ahead of us has dug and sown
and toiled for others all his life.”
Genestas looked and saw an old laborer making his way along the road, in
company with an aged woman. He seemed to be afflicted with some form
of sciatica, and limped painfully along. His feet were encased in a
wretched pair of sabots, and a sort of wallet hung over his shoulder.
Several tools lay in the bottom of the bag; their handles, blackened
with long use and the sweat of toil, rattled audibly together; while the
other end of the wallet behind his shoulder held bread, some walnuts,
and a few fresh onions. His legs seemed to be warped, as it were, his
back was bent by continual toil; he stooped so much as he walked that
he leaned on a long stick to steady himself. His snow-white hair escaped
from under a battered hat, grown rusty by exposure to all sorts of
weather, and mended here and there with visible stitches of white
thread. His clothes, made of a kind of rough canvas, were a mass of
patches of contrasting colors. This piece of humanity in ruins lacked
none of the characteristics that appeal to our hearts when we see ruins
of other kinds.
His wife held herself somewhat more erect. Her clothing was likewise a
mass of rags, and the cap that she wore was of the coarsest materials.
On her back she carried a rough earthen jar by means of a thong passed
through the handles of the great pitcher, which was round in shape and
flattened at the sides. They both looked up when they heard the horses
approaching, saw that it was Benassis, and stopped.
The man had worked till he was almost past work, and his faithful
helpmate was no less broken with toil. It was painful to see how the
summer sun and the winter’s cold had blackened their faces, and
covered them with such deep wrinkles that their features were hardly
discernible. It was not their life history that had been engraven on
their faces; but it might be gathered from their attitude and bearing.
Incessant toil had been the lot of both; they had worked and suffered
together; they had had many troubles and few joys to share; and now,
like captives grown accustomed to their prison, they seemed to be too
familiar with wretchedness to heed it, and to take everything as it
came. Yet a certain frank light-heartedness was not lacking in their
faces; and on a closer view, their monotonous life, the lot of so many
a poor creature, well-nigh seemed an enviable one. Trouble had set its
unmistakable mark on them, but petty cares had left no traces there.
“Well, my good Father Moreau, I suppose there is no help for it, and you
must always be working?”
“Yes, M. Benassis, there are one or two more bits of waste that I
mean to clear for you before I knock off work,” the old man answered
cheerfully, and light shone in his little black eyes.
“Is that wine that your wife is carrying? If you will not take a rest
now, you ought at any rate to take wine.”
“I take a rest? I should not know what to do with myself. The sun and
the fresh air put life into me when I am out of doors and busy grubbing
up the land. As to the wine, sir, yes, that is wine sure enough, and it
is all through your contriving I know that the Mayor at Courteil lets us
have it for next to nothing. Ah, you managed it very cleverly, but, all
the same, I know you had a hand in it.”
“Oh! come, come! Good-day, mother. You are going to work on that bit of
land of Champferlu’s to-day of course?”
“Yes, sir; I made a beginning there yesterday evening.”
“Capital!” said Benassis. “It must be a satisfaction to you, at times,
to see this hillside. You two have broken up almost the whole of the
land on it yourselves.”
“Lord! yes, sir,” answered the old woman, “it has been our doing! We
have fairly earned our bread.”
“Work, you see, and land to cultivate are the poor man’s consols. That
good man would think himself disgraced if he went into the poorhouse or
begged for his bread; he would choose to die pickaxe in hand, out in
the open, in the sunlight. Faith, he bears a proud heart in him. He has
worked until work has become his very life; and yet death has no terrors
for him! He is a profound philosopher, little as he suspects it. Old
Moreau’s case suggested the idea to me of founding an almshouse for the
country people of the district; a refuge for those who, after working
hard all their lives, have reached an honorable old age of poverty.
“I had by no means expected to make the fortune which I have acquired
here; indeed, I myself have no use for it, for a man who has fallen
from the pinnacle of his hopes needs very little. It costs but little to
live, the idler’s life alone is a costly one, and I am not sure that the
unproductive consumer is not robbing the community at large. There was
some discussion about Napoleon’s pension after his fall; it came to his
ears, and he said that five francs a day and a horse to ride was all
that he needed. I meant to have no more to do with money when I came
here; but after a time I saw that money means power, and that it is in
fact a necessity, if any good is to be done. So I have made arrangements
in my will for turning my house into an almshouse, in which old people
who have not Moreau’s fierce independence can end their days. Part of
the income of nine thousand francs brought in by the mill and the rest
of my property will be devoted to giving outdoor relief in hard winters
to those who really stand in need of it.
“This foundation will be under the control of the Municipal Council,
with the addition of the cure, who is to be president; and in this way
the money made in the district will be returned to it. In my will I have
laid down the lines on which this institution is to be conducted; it
would be tedious to go over them, it is enough to say that I have a fund
which will some day enable the Commune to award several scholarships for
children who show signs of promise in art or science. So, even after
I am gone, my work of civilization will continue. When you have set
yourself to do anything, Captain Bluteau, something within you urges you
on, you see, and you cannot bear to leave it unfinished. This craving
within us for order and for perfection is one of the signs that point
most surely to a future existence. Now, let us quicken our pace, I have
my round to finish, and there are five or six more patients still to be
visited.”
They cantered on for some time in silence, till Benassis said laughingly
to his companion, “Come now, Captain Bluteau, you have drawn me out and
made me chatter like a magpie, and you have not said a syllable about
your own history, which must be an interesting one. When a soldier has
come to your time of life, he has seen so much that he must have more
than one adventure to tell about.”
“Why, my history has been simply the history of the army,” answered
Genestas. “Soldiers are all after one pattern. Never in command, always
giving and taking sabre-cuts in my place, I have lived just like anybody
else. I have been wherever Napoleon led us, and have borne a part
in every battle in which the Imperial Guard has struck a blow; but
everybody knows all about these events. A soldier has to look after his
horse, to endure hunger and thirst at times, to fight whenever there is
fighting to be done, and there you have the whole history of his life.
As simple as saying good-day, is it not? Then there are battles in which
your horse casts a shoe at the outset, and lands you in a quandary; and
as far as you are concerned, that is the whole of it. In short, I have
seen so many countries, that seeing them has come to be a matter of
course; and I have seen so many men die, that I have come to value my
own life at nothing.”
“But you yourself must have been in danger at times, and it would be
interesting to hear you tell of your personal adventures.”
“Perhaps,” answered the commandant.
“Well, then, tell me about the adventure that made the deepest
impression upon you. Come! do not hesitate. I shall not think that
you are wanting in modesty even if you should tell me of some piece of
heroism on your part; and when a man is quite sure that he will not be
misunderstood, ought he not to find a kind of pleasure in saying, ‘I did
thus’?”
“Very well, then, I will tell you about something that gives me a pang
of remorse from time to time. During fifteen years of warfare it never
once happened that I killed a man, save in legitimate defence of self.
We are drawn up in a line, and we charge; and if we do not strike down
those before us, they will begin to draw blood without asking leave, so
you have to kill if you do not mean to be killed, and your conscience is
quite easy. But once I broke a comrade’s back; it happened in a singular
way, and it has been a painful thing to me to think of afterwards--the
man’s dying grimace haunts me at times. But you shall judge for
yourself.
“It was during the retreat from Moscow,” the commandant went on.
“The Grand Army had ceased to be itself; we were more like a herd of
over-driven cattle. Good-bye to discipline! The regiments had lost sight
of their colors, every one was his own master, and the Emperor (one need
not scruple to say it) knew that it was useless to attempt to exert his
authority when things had gone so far. When we reached Studzianka,
a little place on the other side of the Beresina, we came upon human
dwellings for the first time after several days. There were barns and
peasants’ cabins to destroy, and pits full of potatoes and beetroot;
the army had been without victual, and now it fairly ran riot, the first
comers, as you might expect, making a clean sweep of everything.
“I was one of the last to come up. Luckily for me, sleep was the one
thing that I longed for just then. I caught sight of a barn and went
into it. I looked round and saw a score of generals and officers of
high rank, all of them men who, without flattery, might be called great.
Junot was there, and Narbonne, the Emperor’s aide-de-camp, and all the
chiefs of the army. There were common soldiers there as well, not one of
whom would have given up his bed of straw to a marshal of France. Some
who were leaning their backs against the wall had dropped off to sleep
where they stood, because there was no room to lie down; others lay
stretched out on the floor--it was a mass of men packed together so
closely for the sake of warmth, that I looked about in vain for a nook
to lie down in. I walked over this flooring of human bodies; some of the
men growled, the others said nothing, but no one budged. They would
not have moved out of the way of a cannon ball just then; but under the
circumstances, one was not obliged to practise the maxims laid down by
the Child’s Guide to Manners. Groping about, I saw at the end of
the barn a sort of ledge up above in the roof; no one had thought of
scrambling up to it, possibly no one had felt equal to the effort. I
clambered up and ensconced myself upon it; and as I lay there at full
length, I looked down at the men huddled together like sheep below. It
was a pitiful sight, yet it almost made me laugh. A man here and
there was gnawing a frozen carrot, with a kind of animal satisfaction
expressed in his face; and thunderous snores came from generals who lay
muffled up in ragged cloaks. The whole barn was lighted by a blazing
pine log; it might have set the place on fire, and no one would have
troubled to get up and put it out.
“I lay down on my back, and, naturally, just before I dropped off, my
eyes traveled to the roof above me, and then I saw that the main beam
which bore the weight of the joists was being slightly shaken from east
to west. The blessed thing danced about in fine style. ‘Gentlemen,’
said I, ‘one of our friends outside has a mind to warm himself at
our expense.’ A few moments more and the beam was sure to come down.
‘Gentlemen! gentlemen!’ I shouted, ‘we shall all be killed in a minute!
Look at the beam there!’ and I made such a noise that my bed-fellows
awoke at last. Well, sir, they all stared up at the beam, and then those
who had been sleeping turned round and went off to sleep again, while
those who were eating did not even stop to answer me.
“Seeing how things were, there was nothing for it but to get up and
leave my place, and run the risk of finding it taken by somebody else,
for all the lives of this heap of heroes were at stake. So out I go.
I turn the corner of the barn and come upon a great devil of a
Wurtemberger, who was tugging at the beam with a certain enthusiasm.
‘Aho! aho!’ I shouted, trying to make him understand that he must
desist from his toil. ‘_Gehe mir aus dem Gesicht, oder ich schlag dich
todt!_--Get out of my sight, or I will kill you,’ he cried. ‘Ah! yes,
just so, _Que mire aous dem guesit_,’ I answered; ‘but that is not the
point.’ I picked up his gun that he had left on the ground, and broke
his back with it; then I turned in again, and went off to sleep. Now you
know the whole business.”
“But that was a case of self-defence, in which one man suffered for
the good of many, so you have nothing to reproach yourself with,” said
Benassis.
“The rest of them thought that it had only been my fancy; but fancy or
no, a good many of them are living comfortably in fine houses to-day,
without feeling their hearts oppressed by gratitude.”
“Then would you only do people a good turn in order to receive that
exorbitant interest called gratitude?” said Benassis, laughing. “That
would be asking a great deal for your outlay.”
“Oh, I know quite well that all the merit of a good deed evaporates at
once if it benefits the doer in the slightest degree,” said Genestas.
“If he tells the story of it, the toll brought in to his vanity is a
sufficient substitute for gratitude. But if every doer of kindly actions
always held his tongue about them, those who reaped the benefits would
hardly say very much either. Now the people, according to your system,
stand in need of examples, and how are they to hear of them amid this
general reticence? Again, there is this poor pontooner of ours, who
saved the whole French army, and who was never able to tell his tale to
any purpose; suppose that he had lost the use of his limbs, would the
consciousness of what he had done have found him in bread? Answer me
that, philosopher!”
“Perhaps the rules of morality cannot be absolute,” Benassis answered;
“though this is a dangerous idea, for it leaves the egoist free to
settle cases of conscience in his own favor. Listen, captain; is not the
man who never swerves from the principles of morality greater than he
who transgresses them, even through necessity? Would not our veteran,
dying of hunger, and unable to help himself, be worthy of rank with
Homer? Human life is doubtless a final trial of virtue as of genius, for
both of which a better world is waiting. Virtue and genius seem to me
to be the fairest forms of that complete and constant surrender of self
that Jesus Christ came among men to teach. Genius sheds its light in the
world and lives in poverty all its days, and virtue sacrifices itself in
silence for the general good.”
“I quite agree with you, sir,” said Genestas; “but those who dwell on
earth are men after all, and not angels; we are not perfect.”
“That is quite true,” Benassis answered. “And as for errors, I myself
have abused the indulgence. But ought we not to aim, at any rate, at
perfection? Is not virtue a fair ideal which the soul must always keep
before it, a standard set up by Heaven?”
“Amen,” said the soldier. “An upright man is a magnificent thing, I
grant you; but, on the other hand, you must admit that virtue is a
divinity who may indulge in a scrap of gossip now and then in the
strictest propriety.”
The doctor smiled, but there was a melancholy bitterness in his tone as
he said, “Ah! sir, you regard things with the lenience natural to those
who live at peace with themselves; and I with all the severity of one
who sees much that he would fain obliterate in the story of his life.”
The two horsemen reached a cottage beside the bed of the torrent, the
doctor dismounted and went into the house. Genestas, on the threshold,
looked over the bright spring landscape that lay without, and then at
the dark interior of the cottage, where a man was lying in bed. Benassis
examined his patient, and suddenly exclaimed, “My good woman, it is no
use my coming here unless you carry out my instructions! You have been
giving him bread; you want to kill your husband, I suppose? Botheration!
If after this you give him anything besides the tisane of couch-grass,
I will never set foot in here again, and you can look where you like for
another doctor.”
“But, dear M. Benassis, my old man was starving, and when he had eaten
nothing for a whole fortnight----”
“Oh, yes, yes. Now will you listen to me. If you let your husband eat a
single mouthful of bread before I give him leave to take solid food, you
will kill him, do you hear?”
“He shall not have anything, sir. Is he any better?” she asked,
following the doctor to the door.
“Why, no. You have made him worse by feeding him. Shall I never get
it into your stupid heads that you must not stuff people who are being
dieted?”
“The peasants are incorrigible,” Benassis went on, speaking to Genestas.
“If a patient has eaten nothing for two or three days, they think he is
at death’s door, and they cram him with soup or wine or something. Here
is a wretched woman for you that has all but killed her husband.”
“Kill my husband with a little mite of a sop in wine!”
“Certainly, my good woman. It amazes me that he is still alive after the
mess you cooked for him. Mind that you do exactly as I have told you.”
“Yes, dear sir, I would far rather die myself than lose him.”
“Oh! as to that I shall soon see. I shall come again to-morrow evening
to bleed him.”
“Let us walk along the side of the stream,” Benassis said to Genestas;
“there is only a footpath between this cottage and the next house where
I must pay a call. That man’s little boy will hold our horses.”
“You must admire this lovely valley of ours a little,” he went on;
“it is like an English garden, is it not? The laborer who lives in the
cottage which we are going to visit has never got over the death of one
of his children. The eldest boy, he was only a lad, would try to do a
man’s work last harvest-tide; it was beyond his strength, and before the
autumn was out he died of a decline. This is the first case of really
strong fatherly love that has come under my notice. As a rule, when
their children die, the peasant’s regret is for the loss of a useful
chattel, and a part of their stock-in-trade, and the older the child,
the heavier their sense of loss. A grown-up son or daughter is so much
capital to the parents. But this poor fellow really loved that boy of
his. ‘Nothing cam comfort me for my loss,’ he said one day when I came
across him out in the fields. He had forgotten all about his work, and
was standing there motionless, leaning on his scythe; he had picked up
his hone, it lay in his hand, and he had forgotten to use it. He has
never spoken since of his grief to me, but he has grown sad and silent.
Just now it is one of his little girls who is ill.”
Benassis and his guest reached the little house as they talked. It stood
beside a pathway that led to a bark-mill. They saw a man about forty
years of age, standing under a willow tree, eating bread that had been
rubbed with a clove of garlic.
“Well, Gasnier, is the little one doing better?”
“I do not know, sir,” he said dejectedly, “you will see; my wife is
sitting with her. In spite of all your care, I am very much afraid that
death will come to empty my home for me.”
“Do not lose heart, Gasnier. Death is too busy to take up his abode in
any dwelling.”
Benassis went into the house, followed by the father. Half an hour later
he came out again. The mother was with him this time, and he spoke
to her, “You need have no anxiety about her now; follow out my
instructions; she is out of danger.”
“If you are growing tired of this sort of thing,” the doctor said to the
officer, as he mounted his horse, “I can put you on the way to the town,
and you can return.”
“No, I am not tired of it, I give you my word.”
“But you will only see cottages everywhere, and they are all alike;
nothing, to outward seeming, is more monotonous than the country.”
“Let us go on,” said the officer.
They rode on in this way for several hours, and after going from one
side of the canton to the other, they returned towards evening to the
precincts of the town.
“I must just go over there,” the doctor said to Genestas, as he pointed
out a place where a cluster of elm-trees grew. “Those trees may possibly
be two hundred years old,” he went on, “and that is where the woman
lives, on whose account the lad came to fetch me last night at dinner,
with a message that she had turned quite white.”
“Was it anything serious?”
“No,” said Benassis, “an effect of pregnancy. It is the last month
with her, a time at which some women suffer from spasms. But by way of
precaution, I must go in any case to make sure that there are no further
alarming symptoms; I shall see her through her confinement myself. And,
moreover, I should like to show you one of our new industries; there is
a brick-field here. It is a good road; shall we gallop?”
“Will your animal keep up with mine?” asked Genestas. “Heigh! Neptune!”
he called to his horse, and in a moment the officer had been carried
far ahead, and was lost to sight in a cloud of dust, but in spite of the
paces of his horse he still heard the doctor beside him. At a word from
Benassis his own horse left the commandant so far behind that the latter
only came up with him at the gate of the brick-field, where the doctor
was quietly fastening the bridle to the gate-post.
“The devil take it!” cried Genestas, after a look at the horse, that was
neither sweated nor blown. “What kind of animal have you there?”
“Ah!” said the doctor, “you took him for a screw! The history of this
fine fellow would take up too much time just now; let it suffice to
say that Roustan is a thoroughbred barb from the Atlas mountains, and a
Barbary horse is as good as an Arab. This one of mine will gallop up the
mountain roads without turning a hair, and will never miss his footing
in a canter along the brink of a precipice. He was a present to me, and
I think that I deserved it, for in this way a father sought to repay
me for his daughter’s life. She is one of the wealthiest heiresses in
Europe, and she was at the brink of death when I found her on the road
to Savoy. If I were to tell you how I cured that young lady, you would
take me for a quack. Aha! that is the sound of the bells on the horses
and the rumbling of a wagon; it is coming along this way; let us see,
perhaps that is Vigneau himself; and if so, take a good look at him!”
In another moment the officer saw a team of four huge horses, like those
which are owned by prosperous farmers in Brie. The harness, the little
bells, and the knots of braid in their manes, were clean and smart. The
great wagon itself was painted bright blue, and perched aloft in it
sat a stalwart, sunburned youth, who shouldered his whip like a gun and
whistled a tune.
“No,” said Benassis, “that is only the wagoner. But see how the master’s
prosperity in business is reflected by all his belongings, even by the
carter’s wagon! Is it not a sign of a capacity for business not very
often met with in remote country places?”
“Yes, yes, it all looks very smart indeed,” the officer answered.
“Well, Vigneau has two more wagons and teams like that one, and he has a
small pony besides for business purposes, for he does trade over a wide
area. And only four years ago he had nothing in the world! Stay, that is
a mistake--he had some debts. But let us go in.”
“Is Mme. Vigneau in the house?” Benassis asked of the young wagoner.