As Benassis finished his story, he was struck by the troubled expression
of the officer’s face. It touched him to have been so well understood.
He was almost ready to reproach himself for having distressed his
visitor. He spoke:
“But these troubles of mine, Captain Bluteau----”
“Do not call me Captain Bluteau,” cried Genestas, breaking in upon
the doctor, and springing to his feet with sudden energy, a change of
position that seemed to be prompted by inward dissatisfaction of some
kind. “There is no such person as Captain Bluteau.... I am a scoundrel!”
With no little astonishment, Benassis beheld Genestas pacing to and fro
in the salon, like a bumble-bee in quest of an exit from the room which
he has incautiously entered.
“Then who are you, sir?” inquired Benassis.
“Ah! there now!” the officer answered, as he turned and took his stand
before the doctor, though he lacked courage to look at his friend. “I
have deceived you!” he went on (and there was a change in his voice). “I
have acted a lie for the first time in my life, and I am well punished
for it; for after this I cannot explain why I came here to play the spy
upon you, confound it! Ever since I have had a glimpse of your soul,
so to speak, I would far sooner have taken a box on the ear whenever I
heard you call me Captain Bluteau! Perhaps you may forgive me for this
subterfuge, but I shall never forgive myself; I, Pierre Joseph Genestas,
who would not lie to save my life before a court-martial!”
“Are you Commandant Genestas?” cried Benassis, rising to his feet. He
grasped the officer’s hand warmly, and added: “As you said but a short
time ago, sir, we were friends before we knew each other. I have been
very anxious to make your acquaintance, for I have often heard M.
Gravier speak of you. He used to call you, ‘one of Plutarch’s men.’”
“Plutarch? Nothing of the sort!” answered Genestas. “I am not worthy
of you; I could thrash myself. I ought to have told you my secret in a
straightforward way at the first. Yet, now! It is quite as well that I
wore a mask, and came here myself in search of information concerning
you, for now I know that I must hold my tongue. If I had set about this
business in the right fashion it would have been painful to you, and God
forbid that I should give you the slightest annoyance.”
“But I do not understand you, commandant.”
“Let the matter drop. I am not ill; I have spent a pleasant day, and
I will go back to-morrow. Whenever you come to Grenoble, you will find
that you have one more friend there, who will be your friend through
thick and thin. Pierre Joseph Genestas’ sword and purse are at your
disposal, and I am yours to the last drop of my blood. Well, after all,
your words have fallen on good soil. When I am pensioned off, I will
look for some out-of-the-way little place, and be mayor of it, and try
to follow your example. I have not your knowledge, but I will study at
any rate.”
“You are right, sir; the landowner who spends his time in convincing
a commune of the folly of some mistaken notion of agriculture, confers
upon his country a benefit quite as great as any that the most skilful
physician can bestow. The latter lessens the sufferings of some few
individuals, and the former heals the wounds of his country. But you
have excited my curiosity to no common degree. Is there really something
in which I can be of use to you?”
“Of use?” repeated the commandant in an altered voice.
“_Mon Dieu!_ I was about to ask you to do me a service which is all but
impossible, M. Benassis. Just listen a moment! I have killed a good many
Christians in my time, it is true; but you may kill people and keep a
good heart for all that; so there are some things that I can feel and
understand, rough as I look.”
“But go on!”
“No, I do not want to give you any pain if I can help it.”
“Oh! commandant, I can bear a great deal.”
“It is a question of a child’s life, sir,” said the officer, nervously.
Benassis suddenly knitted his brows, but by a gesture he entreated
Genestas to continue.
“A child,” repeated the commandant, “whose life may yet be saved by
constant watchfulness and incessant care. Where could I expect to find
a doctor capable of devoting himself to a single patient? Not in a town,
that much was certain. I had heard you spoken of as an excellent man,
but I wished to be quite sure that this reputation was well founded. So
before putting my little charge into the hands of this M. Benassis of
whom people spoke so highly, I wanted to study him myself. But now----”
“Enough,” said the doctor; “so this child is yours?”
“No, no, M. Benassis. To clear up the mystery, I should have to tell you
a long story, in which I do not exactly play the part of a hero; but you
have given me your confidence and I can readily give you mine.”
“One moment, commandant,” said the doctor. In answer to his summons,
Jacquotte appeared at once, and her master ordered tea. “You see,
commandant, at night when every one is sleeping, I do not sleep.... The
thought of my troubles lies heavily on me, and then I try to forget
them by taking tea. It produces a sort of nervous inebriation--a kind
of slumber, without which I could not live. Do you still decline to take
it?”
“For my own part,” said Genestas, “I prefer your Hermitage.”
“By all means. Jacquotte,” said Benassis, turning to his housekeeper,
“bring in some wine and biscuits. We will both of us have our night-cap
after our separate fashions.”
“That tea must be very bad for you!” Genestas remarked.
“It brings on horrid attacks of gout, but I cannot break myself of the
habit, it is too soothing; it procures for me a brief respite every
night, a few moments during which life becomes less of a burden....
Come. I am listening; perhaps your story will efface the painful
impressions left by the memories that I have just recalled.”
Genestas set down his empty glass upon the chimney-piece. “After the
Retreat from Moscow,” he said, “my regiment was stationed to recruit for
a while in a little town in Poland. We were quartered there, in fact,
till the Emperor returned, and we bought up horses at long prices. So
far so good. I ought to say that I had a friend in those days. More
than once during the Retreat I had owed my life to him. He was a
quartermaster, Renard by name; we could not but be like brothers
(military discipline apart) after what he had done for me. They billeted
us on the same house, a sort of shanty, a rat-hole of a place where a
whole family lived, though you would not have thought there was room to
stable a horse. This particular hovel belonged to some Jews who carried
on their six-and-thirty trades in it. The frost had not so stiffened the
old father Jew’s fingers but that he could count gold fast enough; he
had thriven uncommonly during our reverses. That sort of gentry lives in
squalor and dies in gold.
“There were cellars underneath (lined with wood of course, the whole
house was built of wood); they had stowed their children away down
there, and one more particularly, a girl of seventeen, as handsome as a
Jewess can be when she keeps herself tidy and has not fair hair. She was
as white as snow, she had eyes like velvet, and dark lashes to them like
rats’ tails; her hair was so thick and glossy that it made you long
to stroke it. She was perfection, and nothing less! I was the first to
discover this curious arrangement. I was walking up and down outside
one evening, smoking my pipe, after they thought I had gone to bed. The
children came in helter-skelter, tumbling over one another like so
many puppies. It was fun to watch them. Then they had supper with their
father and mother. I strained my eyes to see the young Jewess through
the clouds of smoke that her father blew from his pipe; she looked like
a new gold piece among a lot of copper coins.
“I had never reflected about love, my dear Benassis, I had never had
time; but now at the sight of this young girl I lost my heart and head
and everything else at once, and then it was plain to me that I had
never been in love before. I was hard hit, and over head and ears in
love. There I stayed smoking my pipe, absorbed in watching the Jewess
until she blew out the candle and went to bed. I could not close my
eyes. The whole night long I walked up and down the street smoking my
pipe and refilling it from time to time. I had never felt like that
before, and for the first and last time in my life I thought of
marrying.
“At daybreak I saddled my horse and rode out into the country, to
clear my head. I kept him at a trot for two mortal hours, and all but
foundered the animal before I noticed it----”
Genestas stopped short, looked at his new friend uneasily, and said,
“You must excuse me, Benassis, I am no orator; things come out just
as they turn up in my mind. In a room full of fine folk I should feel
awkward, but here in the country with you----”
“Go on,” said the doctor.
“When I came back to my room I found Renard finely flustered. He thought
I had fallen in a duel. He was cleaning his pistols, his head full of
schemes for fastening a quarrel on any one who should have turned me
off into the dark.... Oh! that was just the fellow’s way! I confided my
story to Renard, showed him the kennel where the children were; and, as
my comrade understood the jargon that those heathens talked, I begged
him to help me to lay my proposals before her father and mother, and to
try to arrange some kind of communication between me and Judith. Judith
they called her. In short, sir, for a fortnight the Jew and his wife
so arranged matters that we supped every night with Judith, and for a
fortnight I was the happiest of men. You understand and you know how it
was, so I shall not wear out your patience; still, if you do not smoke,
you cannot imagine how pleasant it was to smoke a pipe at one’s ease
with Renard and the girl’s father and one’s princess there before one’s
eyes. Oh! yes, it was very pleasant!
“But I ought to tell you that Renard was a Parisian, and dependent on
his father, a wholesale grocer, who had educated his son with a view to
making a notary of him; so Renard had come by a certain amount of book
learning before he had been drawn by the conscription and had to bid his
desk good-bye. Add to this that he was the kind of man who looks well
in a uniform, with a face like a girl’s, and a thorough knowledge of the
art of wheedling people. It was HE whom Judith loved; she cared about
as much for me as a horse cares for roast fowls. Whilst I was in the
seventh heaven, soaring above the clouds at the bare sight of Judith, my
friend Renard (who, as you see, fairly deserved his name) arrived at an
understanding with the girl, and to such good purpose, that they were
married forthwith after the custom of her country, without waiting for
permission, which would have been too long in coming. He promised her,
however, that if it should happen that the validity of this marriage was
afterwards called in question, they were to be married again according
to French law. As a matter of fact, as soon as she reached France, Mme.
Renard became Mlle. Judith once more.
“If I had known all this, I would have killed Renard then and there,
without giving him time to draw another breath; but the father, the
mother, the girl herself, and the quartermaster were all in the plot
like thieves in a fair. While I was smoking my pipe, and worshiping
Judith as if she had been one of the saints above, the worthy Renard was
arranging to meet her, and managing this piece of business very cleverly
under my very eyes.
“You are the only person to whom I have told this story. A disgraceful
thing, I call it. I have always asked myself how it is that a man who
would die of shame if he took a gold coin that did not belong to him,
does not scruple to rob a friend of happiness and life and the woman he
loves. My birds, in fact, were married and happy; and there was I, every
evening at supper, moonstruck, gazing at Judith, responding like some
fellow in a farce to the looks she threw to me in order to throw dust in
my eyes. They have paid uncommonly dear for all this deceit, as you will
certainly think. On my conscience, God pays more attention to what goes
on in this world than some of us imagine.
“Down come the Russians upon us, the country is overrun, and the
campaign of 1813 begins in earnest. One fine morning comes an order;
we are to be on the battlefield of Lutzen by a stated hour. The Emperor
knew quite well what he was about when he ordered us to start at once.
The Russians had turned our flank. Our colonel must needs get himself
into a scrape, by choosing that moment to take leave of a Polish lady
who lived outside the town, a quarter of a mile away; the Cossack
advanced guard just caught him nicely, him and his picket. There was
scarcely time to spring into our saddles and draw up before the town so
as to engage in a cavalry skirmish. We must check the Russian advance if
we meant to draw off during the night. Again and again we charged, and
for three hours did wonders. Under cover of the fighting the baggage
and artillery set out. We had a park of artillery and great stores of
powder, of which the Emperor stood in desperate need; they must reach
him at all costs.
“Our resistance deceived the Russians, who thought at first that we
were supported by an army corps; but before very long they learned their
error from their scouts, and knew that they had only a single regiment
of cavalry to deal with and the invalided foot soldiers in the depot.
On finding it out, sir, they made a murderous onslaught on us towards
evening; the action was so hot that a good few of us were left on the
field. We were completely surrounded. I was by Renard’s side in the
front rank, and I saw how my friend fought and charged like a demon; he
was thinking of his wife. Thanks to him, we managed to regain the town,
which our invalids had put more or less in a state of defence, but it
was pitiful to see it. We were the last to return--he and I. A body of
Cossacks appeared in our way, and on this we rode in hot haste. One
of the savages was about to run me through with a lance, when Renard,
catching a sight of his manoeuvre, thrust his horse between us to
turn aside the blow; his poor brute--a fine animal it was, upon my
word--received the lance thrust and fell, bringing down both Renard and
the Cossack with him. I killed the Cossack, seized Renard by the arm,
and laid him crosswise before me on my horse like a sack of wheat.
“‘Good-bye, captain,’ Renard said; ‘it is all over with me.’
“‘Not yet,’ I answered; ‘I must have a look at you.’ We had reached the
town by that time; I dismounted, and propped him up on a little straw
by the corner of the house. A wound in the head had laid open the brain,
and yet he spoke!... Oh! he was a brave man.
“‘We are quits,’ he said. ‘I have given you my life, and I had taken
Judith from you. Take care of her and of her child, if she has one. And
not only so--you must marry her.’
“I left him then and there sir, like a dog; when the first fury of anger
left me, and I went back again--he was dead. The Cossacks had set fire
to the town, and the thought of Judith then came to my mind. I went in
search of her, took her up behind me in the saddle, and, thanks to my
swift horse, caught up the regiment which was effecting its retreat. As
for the Jew and his family, there was not one of them left, they had all
disappeared like rats; there was no one but Judith in the house, waiting
alone there for Renard. At first, as you can understand, I told her not
a word of all that had happened.
“So it befell that all through the disastrous campaign of 1813 I had a
woman to look after, to find quarters for her, and to see that she was
comfortable. She scarcely knew, I think, the straits to which we were
reduced. I was always careful to keep her ten leagues ahead of us as
we drew back towards France. Her boy was born while we were fighting
at Hanau. I was wounded in the engagement, and only rejoined Judith at
Strasburg; then I returned to Paris, for, unluckily, I was laid up all
through the campaign in France. If it had not been for that wretched
mishap, I should have entered the Grenadier Guards, and then the Emperor
would have promoted me. As it was, sir, I had three broken ribs and
another man’s wife and child to support! My pay, as you can imagine, was
not exactly the wealth of the Indies. Renard’s father, the toothless
old shark, would have nothing to say to his daughter-in-law; and the old
father Jew had made off. Judith was fretting herself to death. She cried
one morning while she was dressing my wound.
“‘Judith,’ said I, ‘your child has nothing in this world----’
“‘Neither have I!’ she said.
“‘Pshaw!’ I answered, ‘we will send for all the necessary papers, I will
marry you; and as for the child, I will look on him as mine----’ I could
not say any more.
“Ah, my dear sir, what would not one do for the look by which Judith
thanked me--a look of thanks from dying eyes; I saw clearly that I had
loved, and should love her always, and from that day her child found
a place in my heart. She died, poor woman, while the father and mother
Jews and the papers were on the way. The day before she died, she found
strength enough to rise and dress herself for her wedding, to go through
all the usual performance, and set her name to their pack of papers;
then, when her child had a name and a father, she went back to her bed
again; I kissed her hands and her forehead, and she died.
“That was my wedding. Two days later, when I had bought the few feet of
earth in which the poor girl is laid, I found myself the father of an
orphan child. I put him out to nurse during the campaign of 1815. Ever
since that time, without letting any one know my story, which did not
sound very well, I have looked after the little rogue as if he were my
own child. I don’t know what became of his grandfather; he is wandering
about, a ruined man, somewhere or other between Russia and Persia.
The chances are that he may make a fortune some day, for he seemed to
understand the trade in precious stones.
“I sent the child to school. I wanted him to take a good place at the
Ecole Polytechnique and to see him graduate there with credit, so of
late I have had him drilled in mathematics to such good purpose that the
poor little soul has been knocked up by it. He has a delicate chest. By
all I can make out from the doctors in Paris, there would be some hope
for him still if he were allowed to run wild among the hills, if he
was properly cared for, and constantly looked after by somebody who was
willing to undertake the task. So I thought of you, and I came here to
take stock of your ideas and your ways of life. After what you have told
me, I could not possibly cause you pain in this way, for we are good
friends already.”
“Commandant,” said Benassis after a moment’s pause, “bring Judith’s
child here to me. It is doubtless God’s will to submit me to this final
trial, and I will endure it. I will offer up these sufferings to God,
whose Son died upon the cross. Besides, your story has awakened tender
feelings; does not that auger well for me?”
Genestas took both of Benassis’ hands and pressed them warmly, unable
to check the tears that filled his eyes and coursed down his sunburned
face.
“Let us keep silence with regard to all this,” he said.
“Yes, commandant. You are not drinking?”
“I am not thirsty,” Genestas answered. “I am a perfect fool!”
“Well, when will you bring him to me?”
“Why, to-morrow, if you will let me. He has been at Grenoble these two
days.”
“Good! Set out to-morrow morning and come back again. I shall wait for
you in La Fosseuse’s cottage, and we will all four of us breakfast there
together.”
“Agreed,” said Genestas, and the two friends as they went upstairs bade
each other good-night. When they reached the landing that lay between
their rooms, Genestas set down his candle on the window ledge and turned
towards Benassis.
“_Tonnerre de Dieu!_” he said, with outspoken enthusiasm; “I cannot let
you go without telling you that you are the third among christened men
to make me understand that there is Something up there,” and he pointed
to the sky.
The doctor’s answer was a smile full of sadness and a cordial grasp of
the hand that Genestas held out to him.
Before daybreak next morning Commandant Genestas was on his way. On his
return, it was noon before he reached the spot on the highroad between
Grenoble and the little town, where the pathway turned that led to La
Fosseuse’s cottage. He was seated in one of the light open cars with
four wheels, drawn by one horse, that are in use everywhere on the
roads in these hilly districts. Genestas’ companion was a thin,
delicate-looking lad, apparently about twelve years of age, though in
reality he was in his sixteenth year. Before alighting, the officer
looked round about him in several directions in search of a peasant who
would take the carriage back to Benassis’ house. It was impossible
to drive to La Fosseuse’s cottage, the pathway was too narrow. The
park-keeper happened to appear upon the scene, and helped Genestas
out of his difficulty, so that the officer and his adopted son were at
liberty to follow the mountain footpath that led to the trysting-place.
“Would you not enjoy spending a year in running about in this lovely
country, Adrien? Learning to hunt and to ride a horse, instead of
growing pale over your books? Stay! look there!”
Adrien obediently glanced over the valley with languid indifference;
like all lads of his age, he cared nothing for the beauty of natural
scenery; so he only said, “You are very kind, father,” without checking
his walk.
The invalid listlessness of this answer went to Genestas’ heart; he said
no more to his son, and they reached La Fosseuse’s house in silence.
“You are punctual, commandant!” cried Benassis, rising from the wooden
bench where he was sitting.
But at the sight of Adrien he sat down again, and seemed for a while to
be lost in thought. In a leisurely fashion he scanned the lad’s sallow,
weary face, not without admiring its delicate oval outlines, one of the
most noticeable characteristics of a noble head. The lad was the living
image of his mother. He had her olive complexion, beautiful black eyes
with a sad and thoughtful expression in them, long hair, a head too
energetic for the fragile body; all the peculiar beauty of the Polish
Jewess had been transmitted to her son.
“Do you sleep soundly, my little man?” Benassis asked him.
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me see your knees; turn back your trousers.”
Adrien reddened, unfastened his garters, and showed his knee to the
doctor, who felt it carefully over.
“Good. Now speak; shout, shout as loud as you can.” Adrien obeyed.
“That will do. Now give me your hands.”
The lad held them out; white, soft, and blue-veined hands, like those of
a woman.
“Where were you at school in Paris?”
“At Saint Louis.”
“Did your master read his breviary during the night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you did not go straight off to sleep?”
As Adrien made no answer to this, Genestas spoke. “The master is a
worthy priest; he advised me to take my little rascal away on the score
of his health,” he told the doctor.
“Well,” answered Benassis, with a clear, penetrating gaze into Adrien’s
frightened eyes, “there is a good chance. Oh, we shall make a man of him
yet. We will live together like a pair of comrades, my boy! We will
keep early hours. I mean to show this boy of yours how to ride a horse,
commandant. He shall be put on a milk diet for a month or two, so as to
get his digestion into order again, and then I will take out a shooting
license for him, and put him in Butifer’s hands, and the two of them
shall have some chamois-hunting. Give your son four or five months
of out-door life, and you will not know him again, commandant! How
delighted Butifer will be! I know the fellow; he will take you over into
Switzerland, my young friend; haul you over the Alpine passes and up the
mountain peaks, and add six inches to your height in six months; he
will put some color into your cheeks and brace your nerves, and make you
forget all these bad ways that you have fallen into at school. And after
that you can go back to your work; and you will be a man some of these
days. Butifer is an honest young fellow. We can trust him with the
money necessary for traveling expenses and your hunting expeditions. The
responsibility will keep him steady for six months, and that will be a
very good thing for him.”
Genestas’ face brightened more and more at every word the doctor spoke.
“Now, let us go in to breakfast. La Fosseuse is very anxious to see
you,” said Benassis, giving Adrien a gentle tap on the cheek.
Genestas took the doctor’s arm and drew him a little aside. “Then he is
not consumptive after all?” he asked.
“No more than you or I.”
“Then what is the matter with him?”
“Pshaw!” answered Benassis; “he is a little run down, that is all.”
La Fosseuse appeared on the threshold of the door, and Genestas noticed,
not without surprise, her simple but coquettish costume. This was not
the peasant girl of yesterday evening, but a graceful and well-dressed
Parisian woman, against whose glances he felt that he was not proof.
The soldier turned his eyes on the table, which was made of walnut wood.
There was no tablecloth, but the surface might have been varnished,
it was so well rubbed and polished. Eggs, butter, a rice pudding, and
fragrant wild strawberries had been set out, and the poor child had put
flowers everywhere about the room; evidently it was a great day for
her. At the sight of all this, the commandant could not help looking
enviously at the little house and the green sward about it, and watched
the peasant girl with an air that expressed both his doubts and
his hopes. Then his eyes fell on Adrien, with whom La Fosseuse was
deliberately busying herself, and handing him the eggs.
“Now, commandant,” said Benassis, “you know the terms on which you are
receiving hospitality. You must tell La Fosseuse ‘something about the
army.’”
“But let the gentleman first have his breakfast in peace, and then,
after he has taken a cup of coffee----”
“By all means, I shall be very glad,” answered the commandant; “but it
must be upon one condition: you will tell us the story of some adventure
in your past life, will you not, mademoiselle?”
“Why, nothing worth telling has ever happened to me, sir,” she answered,
as her color rose. “Will you take a little more rice pudding?” she
added, as she saw that Adrien’s plate was empty.
“If you please, mademoiselle.”
“The pudding is delicious,” said Genestas.
“Then what will you say to her coffee and cream?” cried Benassis.
“I would rather hear our pretty hostess talk.”
“You did not put that nicely, Genestas,” said Benassis. He took La
Fosseuse’s hand in his and pressed it as he went on: “Listen, my child;
there is a kind heart hidden away beneath that officer’s stern exterior,
and you can talk freely before him. We do not want to press you to talk,
do not tell us anything unless you like: but if ever you can be listened
to and understood, poor little one, it will be by the three who are with
you now at this moment. Tell us all about your love affairs in the
old days, that will not admit us into any of the real secrets of your
heart.”
“Here is Mariette with the coffee,” she answered, “and as soon as you
are all served, I will tell about my ‘love affairs’ very willingly. But
M. le Commandant will not forget his promise?” she added, challenging
the officer with a shy glance.
“That would be impossible, mademoiselle,” Genestas answered
respectfully.
“When I was sixteen years old,” La Fosseuse began, “I had to beg my
bread on the roadside in Savoy, though my health was very bad. I used to
sleep at Echelles, in a manger full of straw. The innkeeper who gave me
shelter was kind, but his wife could not abide me, and was always saying
hard things. I used to feel very miserable; for though I was a beggar,
I was not a naughty child; I used to say my prayers every night and
morning, I never stole anything, and I did as Heaven bade me in begging
for my living, for there was nothing that I could turn my hands to, and
I was really unfit for work--quite unable to handle a hoe or to wind
spools of cotton.
“Well, they drove me away from the inn at last; a dog was the cause of
it all. I had neither father nor mother nor friends. I had met with no
one, ever since I was born, whose eyes had any kindness in them for me.
Morin, the old woman who had brought me up, was dead. She had been very
good to me, but I cannot remember that she ever petted me much; besides,
she worked out in the fields like a man, poor thing; and if she fondled
me at times, she also used to rap my fingers with the spoon if I ate the
soup too fast out of the porringer we had between us. Poor old woman,
never a day passes but I remember her in my prayers! If it might please
God to let her live a happier life up there than she did here below!
And, above all things, if she might only lie a little softer there, for
she was always grumbling about the pallet-bed that we both used to
sleep upon. You could not possibly imagine how it hurts one’s soul to be
repulsed by every one, to receive nothing but hard words and looks that
cut you to the heart, just as if they were so many stabs of a knife. I
have known poor old people who were so used to these things that they
did not mind them a bit, but I was not born for that sort of life. A
‘No’ always made me cry. Every evening I came back again more unhappy
than ever, and only felt comforted when I had said my prayers. In all
God’s world, in fact, there was not a soul to care for me, no one to
whom I could pour out my heart. My only friend was the blue sky. I have
always been happy when there was a cloudless sky above my head. I used
to lie and watch the weather from some nook among the crags when the
wind had swept the clouds away. At such times I used to dream that I was
a great lady. I used to gaze into the sky till I felt myself bathed in
the blue; I lived up there in thought, rising higher and higher yet,
till my troubles weighed on me no more, and there was nothing but
gladness left.
“But to return to my ‘love affairs.’ I must tell you that the
innkeeper’s spaniel had a dear little puppy, just as sensible as a human
being; he was quite white, with black spots on his paws, a cherub of a
puppy! I can see him yet. Poor little fellow, he was the only creature
who ever gave me a friendly look in those days; I kept all my tidbits
for him. He knew me, and came to look for me every evening. How he used
to spring up at me! And he would bite my feet, he was not ashamed of my
poverty; there was something so grateful and so kind in his eyes that it
brought tears into mine to see it. ‘That is the one living creature that
really cares for me!’ I used to say. He slept at my feet that winter.
It hurt me so much to see him beaten, that I broke him of the habit of
going into houses, to steal bones, and he was quite contented with my
crusts. When I was unhappy, he used to come and stand in front of me,
and look into my eyes; it was just as if he said, ‘So you are sad, my
poor Fosseuse?’
“If a traveler threw me some halfpence, he would pick them up out of the
dust and bring them to me, clever little spaniel that he was! I was
less miserable so long as I had that friend. Every day I put away a few
halfpence, for I wanted to get fifteen francs together, so that I might
buy him of Pere Manseau. One day his wife saw that the dog was fond of
me, so she herself took a sudden violent fancy to him. The dog, mind
you, could not bear her. Oh, animals know people by instinct! If you
really care for them, they find it out in a moment. I had a gold coin,
a twenty-franc piece, sewed into the band of my skirt; so I spoke to M.
Manseau: ‘Dear sir, I meant to offer you my year’s savings for your dog;
but now your wife has a mind to keep him, although she cares very little
about him, and rather than that, will you sell him to me for twenty
francs? Look, I have the money here.’
“‘No, no, little woman,’ he said; ‘put up your twenty francs. Heaven
forbid that I should take their money from the poor! Keep the dog; and
if my wife makes a fuss about it, you must go away.’
“His wife made a terrible to-do about the dog. Ah! _mon Dieu_! any one
might have thought the house was on fire! You never would guess the
notion that next came into her head. She saw that the little fellow
looked on me as his mistress, and that she could only have him against
his will, so she had him poisoned; and my poor spaniel died in my
arms.... I cried over him as if he had been my child, and buried him
under a pine-tree. You do not know all that I laid in that grave. As I
sat there beside it, I told myself that henceforward I should always be
alone in the world; that I had nothing left to hope for; that I should
be again as I had been before, a poor lonely girl; that I should never
more see a friendly light in any eyes. I stayed out there all through
the night, praying God to have pity on me. When I went back to the
highroad I saw a poor little child, about ten years old, who had no
hands.
“‘God has heard me,’ I thought. I had prayed that night as I had never
prayed before. ‘I will take care of the poor little one; we will beg
together, and I will be a mother to him. Two of us ought to do better
than one; perhaps I should have more courage for him than I have for
myself.’
“At first the little boy seemed to be quite happy, and, indeed, he would
have been hard to please if he had not been content. I did everything
that he wanted, and gave him the best of all that I had; I was his slave
in fact, and he tyrannized over me, but that was nicer than being alone,
I used to think! Pshaw! no sooner did the little good-for-nothing know
that I carried a twenty-franc piece sewed into my skirtband than he cut
the stitches, and stole my gold coin, the price of my poor spaniel! I
had meant to have masses said with it.... A child without hands, too!
Oh, it makes one shudder! Somehow that theft took all the heart out of
me. It seemed as if I was to love nothing but it should come to some
wretched end.
“One day at Echelles, I watched a fine carriage coming slowly up the
hillside. There was a young lady, as beautiful as the Virgin Mary, in
the carriage, and a young man, who looked like the young lady. ‘Just
look,’ he said; ‘there is a pretty girl!’ and he flung a silver coin to
me.
“No one but you, M. Benassis, could understand how pleased I was
with the compliment, the first that I had ever had: but, indeed, the
gentleman ought not to have thrown the money to me. I was in a flutter;
I knew of a short cut, a footpath among the rocks, and started at once
to run, so that I reached the summit of the Echelles long before the
carriage, which was coming up very slowly. I saw the young man again;
he was quite surprised to find me there; and as for me, I was so pleased
that my heart seemed to be throbbing in my throat. Some kind of instinct
drew me towards him. After he had recognized me, I went on my way again;
I felt quite sure that he and the young lady with him would leave
the carriage to see the waterfall at Couz, and so they did. When they
alighted, they saw me once more, under the walnut-trees by the wayside.
They asked me many questions, and seemed to take an interest in what I
told them about myself. In all my life I had never heard such pleasant
voices as they had, that handsome young man and his sister, for she was
his sister, I am sure. I thought about them for a whole year afterwards,
and kept on hoping that they would come back. I would have given two
years of my life only to see that traveler again, he looked so nice.
Until I knew M. Benassis these were the greatest events of my life.
Although my mistress turned me away for trying on that horrid ball-dress
of hers, I was sorry for her, and I have forgiven her, for candidly, if
you will give me leave to say so, I thought myself the better woman of
the two, countess though she was.”
“Well,” said Genestas, after a moment’s pause, “you see that Providence
has kept a friendly eye on you, you are in clover here.”
At these words La Fosseuse looked at Benassis with eyes full of
gratitude.
“Would that I was rich!” came from Genestas. The officer’s exclamation
was followed by profound silence.
“You owe me a story,” said La Fosseuse at last, in coaxing tones.
“I will tell it at once,” answered Genestas. “On the evening before the
battle of Friedland,” he went on, after a moment, “I had been sent with
a despatch to General Davoust’s quarters, and I was on the way back to
my own, when at a turn in the road I found myself face to face with the
Emperor. Napoleon gave me a look.
“‘You are Captain Genestas, are you not?’ he said.
“‘Yes, your Majesty.’
“‘You were out in Egypt?’
“‘Yes, your Majesty.’
“‘You had better not keep to the road you are on,’ he said; ‘turn to the
left, you will reach your division sooner that way.’
“That was what the Emperor said, but you would never imagine how kindly
he said it; and he had so many irons in the fire just then, for he was
riding about surveying the position of the field. I am telling you this
story to show you what a memory he had, and so that you may know that he
knew my face. I took the oath in 1815. But for that mistake, perhaps I
might have been a colonel to-day; I never meant to betray the Bourbons,
France must be defended, and that was all I thought about. I was a Major
in the Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard; and although my wound still
gave me trouble, I swung a sabre in the battle of Waterloo. When it
was all over, and Napoleon returned to Paris, I went too; then when he
reached Rochefort, I followed him against his orders; it was some sort
of comfort to watch over him and to see that no mishap befell him on the
way. So when he was walking along the beach he turned and saw me on duty
ten paces from him.
“‘Well, Genestas,’ he said, as he came towards me, ‘so we are not yet
dead, either of us?’
“It cut me to the heart to hear him say that. If you had heard him,
you would have shuddered from head to foot, as I did. He pointed to the
villainous English vessel that was keeping the entrance to the Harbor.
‘When I see _that_,’ he said, ‘and think of my Guard, I wish that I had
perished in that torrent of blood.’
“Yes,” said Genestas, looking at the doctor and at La Fosseuse, “those
were his very words.
“‘The generals who counseled you not to charge with the Guard, and
who hurried you into your traveling carriage, were not true friends of
yours,’ I said.
“‘Come with me,’ he cried eagerly, ‘the game is not ended yet.’
“‘I would gladly go with your Majesty, but I am not free; I have a
motherless child on my hands just now.’
“And so it happened that Adrien over there prevented me from going to
St. Helena.
“‘Stay,’ he said, ‘I have never given you anything. You are not one
of those who fill one hand and then hold out the other. Here is the
snuff-box that I have used though this last campaign. And stay on in
France; after all, brave men are wanted there! Remain in the service,
and keep me in remembrance. Of all my army in Egypt, you are the last
that I have seen still on his legs in France.’ And he gave me a little
snuff-box.
“‘Have “_Honneur et patrie_” engraved on it,’ he said; ‘the history of
our last two campaigns is summed up in those three words.’
“Then those who were going out with him came up, and I spent the rest
of the morning with them. The Emperor walked to and fro along the beach;
there was not a sign of agitation about him, though he frowned from
time to time. At noon, it was considered hopeless for him to attempt to
escape by sea. The English had found out that he was at Rochefort; he
must either give himself up to them, or cross the breadth of France
again. We were wretchedly anxious; the minutes seemed like hours! On the
one hand there were the Bourbons, who would have shot Napoleon if he had
fallen into their clutches; and on the other, the English, a dishonored
race: they covered themselves with shame by flinging a foe who asked for
hospitality away on a desert rock, that is a stain which they will never
wash away. Whilst they were anxiously debating, some one or other among
his suite presented a sailor to him, a Lieutenant Doret, who had a
scheme for reaching America to lay before him. As a matter of fact, a
brig from the States and a merchant vessel were lying in the harbor.
“‘But how could you set about it, captain?’ the Emperor asked him.
“‘You will be on board the merchant vessel, Sire,’ the man answered.
‘I will run up the white flag and man the brig with a few devoted
followers. We will tackle the English vessel, set fire to her, and board
her, and you will get clear away.’
“‘We will go with you!’ I cried to the captain. But Napoleon looked at
us and said, ‘Captain Doret, keep yourself for France.’
“It was the only time I ever saw Napoleon show any emotion. With a
wave of his hand to us he went in again. I watched him go on board the
English vessel, and then I went away. It was all over with him, and he
knew it. There was a traitor in the harbor, who by means of signals gave
warning to the Emperor’s enemies of his presence. Then Napoleon fell
back on a last resource; he did as he had been wont to do on the
battlefield: he went to his foes instead of letting them come to him.
Talk of troubles! No words could ever make you understand the misery of
those who loved him for his own sake.”
“But where is his snuff-box?” asked La Fosseuse.
“It is in a box at Grenoble,” the commandant replied.
“I will go over to see it, if you will let me. To think that you have
something in your possession that his fingers have touched!... Had he a
well-shaped hand?”
“Very.”
“Can it be true that he is dead? Come, tell me the real truth?”
“Yes, my dear child, he is dead; there is no doubt about it.”
“I was such a little girl in 1815. I was not tall enough to see anything
but his hat, and even so I was nearly crushed to death in the crowd at
Grenoble.”
“Your coffee and cream is very nice indeed,” said Genestas. “Well,
Adrien, how do you like this country? Will you come here to see
mademoiselle?”
The boy made no answer; he seemed afraid to look at La Fosseuse.
Benassis never took his eyes off Adrien; he appeared to be reading the
lad’s very soul.
“Of course he will come to see her,” said Benassis. “But let us go home
again, I have a pretty long round to make, and I shall want a horse.
I daresay you and Jacquotte will manage to get on together whilst I am
away.”
“Will you not come with us?” said Genestas to La Fosseuse.
“Willingly,” she answered; “I have a lot of things to take over for Mme.
Jacquotte.”
They started out for the doctor’s house. Her visitors had raised La
Fosseuse’s spirits; she led the way along narrow tracks, through the
loneliest parts of the hills.
“You have told us nothing about yourself, Monsieur l’Officier,” she
said. “I should have liked to hear you tell us about some adventure in
the wars. I liked what you told us about Napoleon very much, but it made
me feel sad.... If you would be so very kind----”
“Quite right!” Benassis exclaimed. “You ought to tell us about some
thrilling adventure during our walk. Come, now, something really
interesting like that business of the beam in Beresina!”
“So few of my recollections are worth telling,” said Genestas. “Some
people come in for all kinds of adventures, but I have never managed to
be the hero of any story. Oh! stop a bit though, a funny thing did once
happen to me. I was with the Grand Army in 1805, and so, of course, I
was at Austerlitz. There was a great deal of skirmishing just before Ulm
surrendered, which kept the cavalry pretty fully occupied. Moreover, we
were under the command of Murat, who never let the grass grow under his
feet.
“I was still only a sub-lieutenant in those days. It was just at the
opening of the campaign, and after one of these affairs, that we took
possession of a district in which there were a good many fine estates;
so it fell out that one evening my regiment bivouacked in a park
belonging to a handsome chateau where a countess lived, a young and
pretty woman she was. Of course, I meant to lodge in the house, and
I hurried there to put a stop to pillage of any sort. I came into the
salon just as my quartermaster was pointing his carbine at the countess,
his brutal way of asking for what she certainly could not give the
ugly scoundrel. I struck up his carbine with my sword, the bullet
went through a looking-glass on the wall, then I dealt my gentleman a
back-handed blow that stretched him on the floor. The sound of the shot
and the cries of the countess fetched all her people on the scene, and
it was my turn to be in danger.
“‘Stop!’ she cried in German (for they were going to run me through the
body), ‘this officer has saved my life!’
“They drew back at that. The lady gave me her handkerchief (a fine
embroidered handkerchief, which I have yet), telling me that her house
would always be open to me, and that I should always find a sister and
a devoted friend in her, if at any time I should be in any sort of
trouble. In short, she did not know how to make enough of me. She was
as fair as a wedding morning and as charming as a kitten. We had dinner
together. Next day, I was distractedly in love, but next day I had to be
at my place at Guntzburg, or wherever it was. There was no help for it,
I had to turn out, and started off with my handkerchief.
“Well, we gave them battle, and all the time I kept on saying to myself,
‘I wish a bullet would come my way! _Mon Dieu_! they are flying thick
enough!’
“I had no wish for a ball in the thigh, for I should have had to stop
where I was in that case, and there would have been no going back to the
chateau, but I was not particular; a nice wound in the arm I should have
liked best, so that I might be nursed and made much of by the princess.
I flung myself on the enemy, like mad; but I had no sort of luck, and
came out of the action quite safe and sound. We must march, and there
was an end of it; I never saw the countess again, and there is the whole
story.”
By this time they had reached Benassis’ house; the doctor mounted
his horse at once and disappeared. Genestas recommended his son to
Jacquotte’s care, so the doctor on his return found that she had taken
Adrien completely under her wing, and had installed him in M. Gravier’s
celebrated room. With no small astonishment, she heard her master’s
order to put up a simple camp-bed in his own room, for that the lad was
to sleep there, and this in such an authoritative tone, that for once in
her life Jacquotte found not a single word to say.
After dinner the commandant went back to Grenoble. Benassis’ reiterated
assurances that the lad would soon be restored to health had taken a
weight off his mind.
Eight months later, in the earliest days of the following December,
Genestas was appointed to be lieutenant-colonel of a regiment stationed
at Poitiers. He was just thinking of writing to Benassis to tell him of
the journey he was about to take, when a letter came from the doctor.
His friend told him that Adrien was once more in sound health.
“The boy has grown strong and tall,” he said; “and he is wonderfully
well. He has profited by Butifer’s instruction since you saw him last,
and is now as good a shot as our smuggler himself. He has grown brisk
and active too; he is a good walker, and rides well; he is not in the
least like the lad of sixteen who looked like a boy of twelve eight
months ago; any one might think that he was twenty years old. There is
an air of self-reliance and independence about him. In fact he is a man
now, and you must begin to think about his future at once.”
“I shall go over to Benassis to-morrow, of course,” said Genestas to
himself, “and I will see what he says before I make up my mind what to
do with that fellow,” and with that he went to a farewell dinner given
to him by his brother officers. He would be leaving Grenoble now in a
very few days.
As the lieutenant-colonel returned after the dinner, his servant handed
him a letter. It had been brought by a messenger, he said, who had
waited a long while for an answer.
Genestas recognized Adrien’s handwriting, although his head was swimming
after the toasts that had been drunk in his honor; probably, he thought,
the letter merely contained a request to gratify some boyish whim, so
he left it unopened on the table. The next morning, when the fumes of
champagne had passed off, he took it up and began to read.
“My dear father----”
“Oh! you young rogue,” was his comment, “you know how to coax whenever
you want something.”
“Our dear M. Benassis is dead----”
The letter dropped from Genestas’ hands; it was some time before he
could read any more.
“Every one is in consternation. The trouble is all the greater
because it came as a sudden shock. It was so unexpected. M.
Benassis seemed perfectly well the day before; there was not a
sign of ill-health about him. Only the day before yesterday he
went to see all his patients, even those who lived farthest away;
it was as if he had known what was going to happen; and he spoke
to every one whom he met, saying, ‘Good-bye, my friends,’ each
time. Towards five o’clock he came back just as usual to have
dinner with me. He was tired; Jacquotte noticed the purplish flush
on his face, but the weather was so very cold that she would not
get ready a warm foot-bath for him, as she usually did when she
saw that the blood had gone to his head. So she has been wailing,
poor thing, through her tears for these two days past, ‘If I had
_only_ given him a foot-bath, he would be living now!’
“M Benassis was hungry; he made a good dinner. I thought that he
was in higher spirits than usual; we both of us laughed a great
deal, I had never seen him laugh so much before. After dinner,
towards seven o’clock, a man came with a message from Saint
Laurent du Pont; it was a serious case, and M. Benassis was
urgently needed. He said to me, ‘I shall have to go, though I
never care to set out on horseback when I have hardly digested my
dinner, more especially when it is as cold as this. It is enough
to kill a man!’
“For all that, he went. At nine o’clock the postman Goguelat,
brought a letter for M. Benassis. Jacquotte was tired out, for it
was her washing-day. She gave me the letter and went off to bed.
She begged me to keep a good fire in our bedroom, and to have some
tea ready for M. Benassis when he came in, for I am still sleeping
in the little cot-bed in his room. I raked out the fire in the
salon, and went upstairs to wait for my good friend. I looked at
the letter, out of curiosity, before I laid it on the
chimney-piece, and noticed the handwriting and the postmark. It
came from Paris, and I think it was a lady’s hand. I am telling
you about it because of things that happened afterwards.
“About ten o’clock, I heard the horse returning, and M. Benassis’
voice. He said to Nicolle, ‘It is cold enough to-night to bring
the wolves out. I do not feel at all well.’ Nicolle said, ‘Shall I
go and wake Jacquotte?’ And M. Benassis answered, ‘Oh! no, no,’
and came upstairs.
“I said, ‘I have your tea here, all ready for you,’ and he smiled
at me in the way that you know, and said, ‘Thank you, Adrien.’
That was his last smile. In a moment he began to take off his
cravat, as though he could not breathe. ‘How hot it is in here!’
he said and flung himself down in an armchair. ‘A letter has come
for you, my good friend,’ I said; ‘here it is;’ and I gave him the
letter. He took it up and glanced at the handwriting. ‘Ah! _mon
Dieu_!’ he exclaimed, ‘perhaps she is free at last!’ Then his head
sank back, and his hands shook. After a little while he set the
lamp on the table and opened the letter. There was something so
alarming in the cry he had given that I watched him while he read,
and saw that his face was flushed, and there were tears in his
eyes. Then quite suddenly he fell, head forwards. I tried to raise
him, and saw how purple his face was.
“‘It is all over with me,’ he said, stammering; it was terrible
to see how he struggled to rise. ‘I must be bled; bleed me!’ he
cried, clutching my hand.... ‘Adrien,’ he said again, ‘burn
this letter!’ He gave it to me, and I threw it on the fire. I
called for Jacquotte and Nicolle. Jacquotte did not hear me, but
Nicolle did, and came hurrying upstairs; he helped me to lay M.
Benassis on my little bed. Our dear friend could not hear us any
longer when we spoke to him, and although his eyes were open, he
did not see anything. Nicolle galloped off at once to fetch the
surgeon, M. Bordier, and in this way spread the alarm through the
town. It was all astir in a moment. M. Janvier, M. Dufau, and all
the rest of your acquaintance were the first to come to us. But
all hope was at an end, M. Benassis was dying fast. He gave no
sign of consciousness, not even when M. Bordier cauterized the
soles of his feet. It was an attack of gout, combined with an
apoplectic stroke.
“I am giving you all these details, dear father, because I know
how much you cared for him. As for me, I am very sad and full of
grief, for I can say to you that I cared more for him than for any
one else except you. I learned more from M. Benassis’ talk in the
evenings than ever I could have learned at school.
“You cannot imagine the scene next morning when the news of his
death was known in the place. The garden and the yard here were
filled with people. How they sobbed and wailed! Nobody did any
work that day. Every one recalled the last time that they had seen
M. Benassis, and what he had said, or they talked of all that he
had done for them; and those who were least overcome with grief
spoke for the others. Every one wanted to see him once more, and
the crowd grew larger every moment. The sad news traveled so fast
that men and women and children came from ten leagues round; all
the people in the district, and even beyond it, had that one
thought in their minds.
“It was arranged that four of the oldest men of the commune should
carry the coffin. It was a very difficult task for them, for the
crowd was so dense between the church and M. Benassis’ house.
There must have been nearly five thousand people there, and almost
every one knelt as if the Host were passing. There was not nearly
room for them in the church. In spite of their grief, the crowd
was so silent that you could hear the sound of the bell during
mass and the chanting as far as the end of the High Street; but
when the procession started again for the new cemetery, which M.
Benassis had given to the town, little thinking, poor man, that he
himself would be the first to be buried there, a great cry went
up. M. Janvier wept as he said the prayers; there were no dry eyes
among the crowd. And so we buried him.
“As night came on the people dispersed, carrying sorrow and
mourning everywhere with them. The next day Gondrin and Goguelat,
and Butifer, with others, set to work to raise a sort of pyramid
of earth, twenty feet high, above the spot where M. Benassis lies;
it is being covered now with green sods, and every one is helping
them. These things, dear father, have all happened in three days.
“M. Dufau found M. Benassis’ will lying open on the table where he
used to write. When it was known how his property had been left,
affection and regret for his loss became even deeper if possible.
And now, dear father, I am writing for Butifer (who is taking this
letter to you) to come back with your answer. You must tell me
what I am to do. Will you come to fetch me, or shall I go to you
at Grenoble? Tell me what you wish me to do, and be sure that I
shall obey you in everything.
“Farewell, dear father, I send my love, and I am your affectionate
son,
“ADRIEN GENESTAS.”
“Ah! well, I must go over,” the soldier exclaimed.
He ordered his horse and started out. It was one of those still December
mornings when the sky is covered with gray clouds. The wind was too
light to disperse the thick fog, through which the bare trees and damp
house fronts seemed strangely unfamiliar. The very silence was gloomy.
There is such a thing as a silence full of light and gladness; on a
bright day there is a certain joyousness about the slightest sound, but
in such dreary weather nature is not silent, she is dumb. All sounds
seemed to die away, stifled by the heavy air.
There was something in the gloom without him that harmonized with
Colonel Genestas’ mood; his heart was oppressed with grief, and thoughts
of death filled his mind. Involuntarily he began to think of the
cloudless sky on that lovely spring morning, and remembered how bright
the valley had looked when he passed through it for the first time; and
now, in strong contrast with that day, the heavy sky above him was a
leaden gray, there was no greenness about the hills, which were still
waiting for the cloak of winter snow that invests them with a certain
beauty of its own. There was something painful in all this bleak and
bare desolation for a man who was traveling to find a grave at his
journey’s end; the thought of that grave haunted him. The lines of dark
pine-trees here and there along the mountain ridges against the sky
seized on his imagination; they were in keeping with the officer’s
mournful musings. Every time that he looked over the valley that lay
before him, he could not help thinking of the trouble that had befallen
the canton, of the man who had died so lately, and of the blank left by
his death.
Before long, Genestas reached the cottage where he had asked for a cup
of milk on his first journey. The sight of the smoke rising above the
hovel where the charity-children were being brought up recalled vivid
memories of Benassis and of his kindness of heart. The officer made up
his mind to call there. He would give some alms to the poor woman for
his dead friend’s sake. He tied his horse to a tree, and opened the door
of the hut without knocking.
“Good-day, mother,” he said, addressing the old woman, who was sitting
by the fire with the little ones crouching at her side. “Do you remember
me?”
“Oh! quite well, sir! You came here one fine morning last spring and
gave us two crowns.”
“There, mother! that is for you and the children.”
“Thank you kindly, sir. May Heaven bless you!”
“You must not thank me, mother,” said the officer; “it is all through M.
Benassis that the money had come to you.”
The old woman raised her eyes and gazed at Genestas.
“Ah! sir,” she said, “he has left his property to our poor countryside,
and made all of us his heirs; but we have lost him who was worth more
than all, for it was he who made everything turn out well for us.”
“Good-bye, mother! Pray for him,” said Genestas, making a few playful
cuts at the children with his riding-whip.
The old woman and her little charges went out with him; they watched him
mount his horse and ride away.
He followed the road along the valley until he reached the bridle-path
that led to La Fosseuse’s cottage. From the slope above the house he saw
that the door was fastened and the shutters closed. In some anxiety he
returned to the highway, and rode on under the poplars, now bare and
leafless. Before long he overtook the old laborer, who was dressed in
his Sunday best, and creeping slowly along the road. There was no bag of
tools on his shoulder.
“Good-day, old Moreau!”
“Ah! good-day, sir.... I mind who you are now!” the old fellow exclaimed
after a moment. “You are a friend of monsieur, our late mayor! Ah! sir,
would it not have been far better if God had only taken a poor rheumatic
old creature like me instead? It would not have mattered if He had taken
me, but HE was the light of our eyes.”
“Do you know how it is that there is no one at home up there at La
Fosseuse’s cottage?”
The old man gave a look at the sky.
“What time is it, sir? The sun has not shone all day,” he said.
“It is ten o’clock.”
“Oh! well, then, she will have gone to mass or else to the cemetery. She
goes there every day. He has left her five hundred livres a year and
her house for as long as she lives, but his death has fairly turned her
brain, as you may say----”
“And where are you going, old Moreau?”
“Little Jacques is to be buried to-day, and I am going to the funeral.
He was my nephew, poor little chap; he had been ailing for a long while,
and he died yesterday morning. It really looked as though it was M.
Benassis who kept him alive. That is the way! All these younger ones
die!” Moreau added, half-jestingly, half-sadly.
Genestas reined in his horse as he entered the town, for he met Gondrin
and Goguelat, each carrying a pickaxe and shovel. He called to them,
“Well, old comrades, we have had the misfortune to lose him----”
“There, there, that is enough, sir!” interrupted Goguelat, “we know that
well enough. We have just been cutting turf to cover his grave.”
“His life will make a grand story to tell, eh?”
“Yes,” answered Goguelat, “he was the Napoleon of our valley, barring
the battles.”
As they reached the parsonage, Genestas saw a little group about the
door; Butifer and Adrien were talking with M. Janvier, who, no doubt,
had just returned from saying mass. Seeing that the officer made as
though he were about to dismount, Butifer promptly went to hold the
horse, while Adrien sprang forward and flung his arms about his father’s
neck. Genestas was deeply touched by the boy’s affection, though no sign
of this appeared in the soldier’s words or manner.
“Why, Adrien,” he said, “you certainly are set up again. My goodness!
Thanks to our poor friend, you have almost grown into a man. I shall not
forget your tutor here, Master Butifer.”
“Oh! colonel,” entreated Butifer, “take me away from here and put me
into your regiment. I cannot trust myself now that M. le Maire is gone.
_He_ wanted me to go for a soldier, didn’t he? Well, then, I will do
what he wished. He told you all about me, and you will not be hard on
me, will you, M. Genestas?”
“Right, my fine fellow,” said Genestas, as he struck his hand in
the other’s. “I will find something to suit you, set your mind at
rest----And how is it with you, M. le Cure?”
“Well, like every one else in the canton, colonel, I feel sorrow for
his loss, but no one knows as I do how irreparable it is. He was like an
angel of God among us. Fortunately, he did not suffer at all; it was a
painless death. The hand of God gently loosed the bonds of a life that
was one continual blessing to us all.”
“Will it be intrusive if I ask you to accompany me to the cemetery? I
should like to bid him farewell, as it were.”
Genestas and the cure, still in conversation, walked on together.
Butifer and Adrien followed them at a few paces distance. They went in
the direction of the little lake, and as soon as they were clear of the
town, the lieutenant-colonel saw on the mountain-side a large piece of
waste land enclosed by walls.
“That is the cemetery,” the cure told him. “He is the first to be buried
in it. Only three months before he was brought here, it struck him that
it was a very bad arrangement to have the churchyard round the church;
so, in order to carry out the law, which prescribes that burial grounds
should be removed a stated distance from human dwellings, he himself
gave this piece of land to the commune. We are burying a child, poor
little thing, in the new cemetery to-day, so we shall have begun by
laying innocence and virtue there. Can it be that death is after all
a reward? Did God mean it as a lesson for us when He took these two
perfect natures to Himself? When we have been tried and disciplined in
youth by pain, in later life by mental suffering, are we so much nearer
to Him? Look! there is the rustic monument which has been erected to his
memory.”
Genestas saw a mound of earth about twenty feet high. It was bare as
yet, but dwellers in the district were already busily covering the
sloping sides with green turf. La Fosseuse, her face buried in her
hands, was sobbing bitterly; she was sitting on the pile of stones in
which they had planted a great wooden cross, made from the trunk of a
pine-tree, from which the bark had not been removed. The officer read
the inscription; the letters were large, and had been deeply cut in the
wood.
D. O. M.
HERE LIES
THE GOOD MONSIEUR BENASSIS
THE FATHER OF US ALL
PRAY FOR HIM.
“Was it you, sir,” asked Genestas, “who----?”
“No,” answered the cure; “it is simply what is said everywhere, from
the heights up there above us down to Grenoble, so the words have been
carved here.”
Genestas remained silent for a few moments. Then he moved from where he
stood and came nearer to La Fosseuse, who did not hear him, and spoke
again to the cure.
“As soon as I have my pension,” he said, “I will come to finish my days
here among you.”
ADDENDUM
The following personage appears in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Murat, Joachim, Prince
The Vendetta
The Gondreville Mystery
Colonel Chabert
Domestic Peace