THE EMIGRANT.
It was late afternoon when Toussaint Lumineau returned to La
Fromentiere. It had rained heavily all day. On the hearth in the
house-place the largest pot was boiling full of potatoes for the men's
supper, and to give food for the pigs. Sitting by the fireside
Mathurin and the farm-servant, kept indoors by the inclement weather,
were warming themselves and waiting for news. The cripple who had been
very gloomy, and in a state of nervous excitement since Andre's
departure, had not spoken a word the whole afternoon. Rousille could
be heard folding linen and arranging it in piles in the cupboard of
the adjacent room.
The farmer ascended the house steps and opened the door.
Simultaneously the thought came into the minds of the three awaiting
him: "What did they say? Will they come back? Did they let you go away
without even a promise to return?" But no one dared to ask him.
With a curt greeting to his household the farmer went straight to his
bedside, and began silently changing his Sunday garb for his working
clothes. The best coat, new hat, shoes, were all laid away. The answer
must have been unsatisfactory. An awkward silence reigned in the room;
as the minutes went on Mathurin's irritation increased. Bent almost
double in the chimney-corner, his face drawn, he, the eldest son, felt
hurt at being treated like a servant or a woman. Why not have taken
him apart? A sign would have sufficed. Why not have given it him?
His ill temper broke forth when his father, having changed his
clothes, said peremptorily:
"Rousille, you will come with me and the man into the barn to make
baskets. You, Mathurin, for once will take your sister's place, and
watch the pot."
"So you think me of no use at all?" said the cripple.
Contrary to his usual habit, which was to give reasons and modify
orders, the farmer, raising his voice, made answer:
"I am sole master here. Come, Rousille!" Followed by his daughter and
the man, he crossed the yard in the front of the house, went into the
barn, and threw open the double doors that separated it from the cart
shed. There was the wine press, the red tilbury; and ranged against
the walls were wheelbarrows, hen-coops, ladders, rafters, and poles;
in the middle of the circle formed by this medley was a sandy space,
where the fowls came to scratch and cover themselves with sand. The
farmer sat down upon a joist beside a vat in which a bundle of osiers
were steeping, his face turned towards the farmhouse. Rousille
kneeling close to him, her back to the light, drew the twigs from the
water one by one, peeled them with her pocket-knife and handed them to
her father. He, taking the white stems, twisted them round the already
prepared framework of the baskets. In a corner the man was chopping
poles of chestnut wood with a hedge-bill. The rain came down faster
than ever, the air grew colder and more penetrating, spreading a veil
of mist between the barn and the house. A fantastic twilight, coming
from one knew not whither, uncertain as the rain and driven by the
wind, cast a faint glimmer upon the workers. The ducks were quacking
merrily in the Marais; sparrows were chirping in the gutters of the
roof. Not a word passed between the father, his daughter, and the man.
Toussaint Lumineau was looking at Rousille--looking at her more often
and attentively than was his wont; his thought was: "She is all that
is left to me." At times he stopped plaiting, the white osier remained
motionless, and his hand sank nerveless to his side. Then it was that
the remembrance of his other children was passing, like the rain, in a
torrent over his soul. In the depths of his heart the father would
cry, "Francois! Andre!" He tried to picture South America as he had
seen it on map. Where was his youngest son now in the great wide
world? Was he in a town, or wandering along unknown roads, or on the
great ocean that sucks in so many victims? Toussaint Lumineau strove
to get to him, but the effort was vain. All the scenes his imagination
could picture were lost in the unknown.
At that same hour, far away, the heart of a young man was recalling
with all the faithfulness of familiar scenes, La Fromentiere and its
elms, his father, Rousille, Mathurin, the meadows of the Marais and
all the country round. It was the son of whom the old man was thinking
with such poignant regret; he, whom all three in the barn were vainly
trying to follow in their inexperience of travel.
Tired after a night passed in the train, and in going from one agent's
office to the other, a stranger and unknown, Andre was sitting on a
bundle of sheep-skins in the docks of a great seaport, awaiting the
hour of embarkation in a steamer that was to bear him away to the new
country. In front of him the waters of the River Scheldt dashed up
against the quay; emerging from the fog on one side they formed a kind
of half circle, to be lost in deeper fog on the other, their broad
expanse covered with shipping. Andre's weary eyes followed the moving
panorama of sailing vessels, steamers, coasting and fishing boats all
standing out grey in the fog and the fading light of day, now massed
together, now disentangling and gliding away each to its own
destination.
More often he looked beyond to the low-lying land round which the
river curved, meadows half under water, deserted, immeasurable,
seeming to float on the pale waters. How they reminded him of the
province he had left! How they spoke to him! Neither the rolling of
trucks, nor the whistle of commanding officers, nor the voices of the
thousands of men of all nations unloading their ships round about him
could draw away his thoughts. Nor did he feel any interest in the
great city that extended behind him, and whence at times, amid the
noise and bustle of the quay, came the sound of peals of bells such as
he had never yet heard. But the time was drawing near. He knew this by
the increasing agitation within him. The tramp of an approaching body
of people made him turn his head; they were emigrants coming out of
the sheds where they had been penned in by the agents, forming a long
grey stream, seen through the mist. They come nearer, the foremost
making their way through the casks and piles of sacks heaped upon the
quay, and crossing the muddy gangway, hasten to secure the best places
between decks; others follow, a confused mass of men, women, and
children. Young and old are hard to distinguish; like tears, all look
alike; all have the same sad look in their eyes; all are wearing
their oldest clothes for the voyage: shapeless coats, jerseys, old
mantles, kerchiefs over the women's heads, patched petticoats, odd
garments in which they have worked and toiled many a day. They rub
against Andre Lumineau, sitting on the bundle of skins, and pay no
heed to him. They do not speak to one another, but in their hurried
progress families form into distinct groups; mothers holding their
children by the hand and shielding them from the wind, fathers with
elbows extended protecting them from the pressure. All are carrying
something: a bundle of clothing, a loaf of bread, a handbag tied
together with string. All have made the same pause at the same place.
As they turn in from the streets through the dock gates, they
straighten themselves and stretch out their necks to look across, ever
in the same direction, to the plains of the Scheldt, where a golden
shimmer through the fog denotes the quarter of the setting sun; and,
as though it were their own, they gaze upon a solitary little clock
tower which rises out of the misty distance. Then they turn into the
docks, find which is their boat, the steam already up, the windlass at
work, the bridge black with emigrants. And their courage fails, they
are afraid; many among them would fain turn back. But for them there
is no turning back, they must embark, their tickets tremble in their
shaking hands. In spirit only they return to the old country, to the
poverty they have anathematized and now regret; to the deserted
rooms, the suburbs, the factories, the country sides where once was
"home." Pale and nerveless the living stream suffers itself to be
swept on, and embarks.
For a long time Andre Lumineau looked on without joining the crowd. He
was seeking a fellow-countryman. Seeing none, he at last put himself
in line with the others; he was wearing his military cloak, the
buttons of which had been changed, and was carrying the black
portmanteau that five days ago reposed in the hayloft of Fromentiere.
His neighbours glanced at him with indifference, accepting him without
remark.
Among them he crossed the quay, mounted the gangway, and stepped on
board, the ship already swaying with the motion of the river. Then
while others in the throng who had friends or relations with them were
walking the decks in groups, or examining the machinery, or inspecting
the cabins, he leaned over the side of the boat at the stern trying to
distinguish the river and the grey meadow land, for memories were
rushing thickly upon him, and his courage was nigh to deserting him.
But doubtless the fog had deepened, for he saw nothing.
Beside him, hunched up upon the seat, was an old woman with still
fresh complexion, wrapped in a black cloak with a cape to it, her coif
fastened with a pair of gold pins, and rocking a child in her arms.
Andre took no notice of her. But she, unable to fix her eyes anywhere
in the bustle and confusion of a ship on the point of departure,
raised them every now and then to the stranger standing beside her,
who so surely was thinking of the home he was leaving. Perhaps she had
a son of the same age. The feeling of pity grew in her and albeit,
well knowing that her neighbour would not understand her language, the
old woman said:
"U heeft pyn."
After she had repeated it several times he understood by the word
"pain" and the intonation with which it was said, that the woman
asked, "You are in sorrow?" and answered:
"Yes, madame."
The old mother took Driot's hand in her soft shrivelled one, all cold
and damp with the fog, and stroked it tenderly, and the young Vendeen
broke down utterly and wept, thinking of bygone caresses from his old
mother, who, too, had worn a white coif and gold pins on grand
occasions.
* * * * *
Mist and fog were sweeping over the Marais of La Vendee, as over the
plains of the Scheldt, driven by gusts of wind.
At times an expression of anguish crossed the face of Toussaint
Lumineau as he followed with his eyes the quivering points of the
osiers Rousille held out to him, as though they had been the masts of
ships labouring in the ocean. At other times he would look long and
lingeringly at his one remaining child, and Rousille knew that she was
fair to look upon. A violent squall struck the elm-trees, stripping
them clear of leaves, and beating their branches against the roof of
La Fromentiere. The rainspouts, the tiles, the rafters and walls, the
very lizards in the barn groaned and creaked together--and the
storm-cry groaned, wildly and madly, over the Marais.
Three hundred leagues away the melancholy whistle of a sirene awoke
the echoes, the screw of a huge steamer parted the waters of the river
and drew away slowly from shore, as though yet half inert and
drifting. No sooner did the emigrants, outcasts of the old world, poor
and hopelessly miserable, feel themselves afloat, than they were
terrified. The thoughts of all on board flew back to their deserted
homes. It was in the darkness of night that Andre Lumineau went forth.
* * * * *
The farmer threw back a handful of osiers into the vat, saying:
"Let us go in. My old hands can work no longer."
But he did not stir. The man, alone, ceased chopping the poles of
chestnut wood, and left the barn. Rousille, seeing that her father
made no movement to rise, stayed where she was.