COLAS BREUGNON
BY
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Author of “Jean-Christophe”
TRANSLATED BY
KATHERINE MILLER
“There is life in the old dog yet”
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1919
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
The Quinn & Boden Company
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAMWAY NEW JERSEY
To
SAINT MARTIN OF GAUL
PATRON SAINT OF CLAMECY
“St. Martin gaily drinks his fill
and lets the stream flow to the mill.”
_xvith cent. Proverb_
TO THE READER
The readers of “Jean-Christophe” certainly never expected this
new volume, but they cannot be more surprised than I am myself.
I had sketched out other works,--a play and a novel on subjects
of the day, in somewhat the same tragic key as “Jean-Christophe,”
but I had to break off abruptly, throwing aside all my notes and
well-planned scenes, for this trifling work which only came into my
head the day before. This book is a reaction from the constraint of
“Jean-Christophe,” which, like an outgrown cuirass, fitted well enough
at first, but had become too tight for me; I felt an absolute need
of something gay, in the true Gallic spirit--even perhaps verging on
impropriety.
On returning to my native place for the first time since my youth, the
renewed contact with the soil of Burgundy woke a past within me which I
had believed silent forever; and roused all the Colas Breugnons under
my skin, so that I was forced to speak for them--as if their tongues
had not wagged enough in their lifetime!
They took advantage of the circumstance that one of their descendants
chanced to have the pen of a ready writer (something that they
had always coveted) and turned me into their secretary. To my
protestations, “Now, Grandad, you had your day, it is my turn to
speak now,” they only answered: “Young one, you can talk when we have
finished. In the first place you have nothing more interesting to say,
so sit down, and listen with all your ears: you might do that much for
the old man; when you stand where I am now you will know that silence
is the worst of death.”
How could I help writing what was dictated to me? Now it is all over
and I am free again--at least I suppose so--and can take up the thread
of my own thoughts, if some one of these old chatter-boxes does not
take it into his head to start up from the tomb and impart to me his
message to posterity.
I am afraid that the society of my Colas Breugnon will not amuse my
readers as much as the author; but they must take the book for what
it is; something perfectly frank and straightforward which has no
idea of transforming or explaining the world either politically, or
metaphysically. He is just a true Frenchman, who laughs because he is
well and hearty and life is sweet to him.
One cannot escape the Maid of Orleans at the beginning of a French
story, so, as she used to say, “Take kindly to it”!
ROMAIN ROLLAND.
May, 1914.
PREFACE AFTER THE WAR
When the War broke out this book was already printed and ready to
appear, so I have left it untouched. The grandchildren of Colas
Breugnon have just emerged as heroes and victims of a bloody epic, only
to show an unquenchable flame to the world. Let me hope that the people
of Europe, full of courage in spite of their sufferings, may find some
solace in these reflections of “a little lamb caught between the wolf
and the shepherd.”
R. R.
November, 1918.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD TO THE READER v
I THE LARK OF CANDLEMAS-DAY 3
II THE SIEGE; OR, THE LAMB, THE SHEPHERD, AND THE WOLF 21
III THE VICAR OF BRÈVES 50
IV THE IDLER 75
V BELETTE 103
VI BIRDS OF PASSAGE; OR, THE SERENADE AT ASNOIS 136
VII THE PLAGUE 152
VIII MY OLD WOMAN’S DEATH 169
IX THE FIRE 181
X THE RIOT 200
XI A PRACTICAL JOKE 227
XII OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES 245
XIII PLUTARCH’S LIVES 262
XIV HEALTH TO THE KING! 278
COLAS BREUGNON
COLAS BREUGNON
I
THE LARK OF CANDLEMAS-DAY
Thanks be to St. Martin, business is bad, so there is no use in
breaking one’s back; and Lord knows I have worked hard enough in my
time to take a little rest and comfort here at my table, with a bottle
of wine on my right hand, the ink-well on the left, and a new quire of
paper before me.
“Your good health, old boy!” I say to myself, “I am to have a talk with
you now.” Downstairs I can hear my wife raging while the wind roars
outside and I am told there are threatenings of war. Well, let them
be!--How jolly it is to be alone face to face with the best fellow in
the world (I am talking of course of my other self, of you, Colas, with
your old red phiz, and queer grin, with your long Burgundian nose all
askew like a hat on one ear). Tell me if you can why it is so good to
see you like this, just our two selves; to look closely at your elderly
countenance, touching lightly, as it were, on the wrinkles, and to
drink a bumper of old remembrance from the bottom of my heart which is
like a deep well, worse luck! It is pleasant enough to dream, but still
better to pin one’s dreams down to paper! However, I am no visionary,
but wide-awake, full of fun and clear-sighted, with no idle fancies in
my head. I only tell what I have seen, done, and said; and for whom
do I write? Certainly not for fame; for I am no fool, and know what I
amount to, the Lord be praised!
I write for my grandchildren? Little will be left of all my scribblings
in ten years, as the old woman is jealous of them, and burns whatever
she can lay hands on. For whom, then? Why, for my other self, of
course, for our good pleasure.--I am sure I should burst if I did not
write! Truly I am not for nothing the child of my grandfather, who
could not sleep unless he had put down on the edge of his pillow the
number of flagons he had emptied. I feel I must talk, and here in
Clamecy I have had my fill of word contests. I must break loose, like
the fellow who shaved King Midas. I know my tongue runs away with me;
and it would be at the risk of my neck if I were heard; but what’s
the odds! without its dangers life would be flat enough. I am like
our big white oxen, and love to chew the cud of the day’s food. How
good it is to taste, feel, and handle all one has thought, observed,
or picked up; to smack one’s lips, to relish, as one tells it over to
one’s self, something one snapped up hastily--it seems to melt in one’s
mouth, and slip down softly; and how good it is to glance around one’s
little world and say, “All this is mine, here I am lord and master, no
frost or cold can nip me; here reigns no king, no pope! Not even my old
shrew!” But now I must take an account of this world of mine.
The first and best of my possessions is myself. Colas Breugnon, a good
Burgundian, plain and straightforward, with a well-rounded waistcoat.
I am not exactly in my first youth--fifty last birthday,--but well
set-up, my teeth still good, and my sight as clear as a fish’s. My
beard still sprouts vigorously, but is undoubtedly grayish, and I can’t
help regretting the fair hair of my youth, and would not say no, if
you offered to set my clock back twenty or thirty years. But after
all ten lusters are a fine thing. The youngsters may laugh, but how
many of them could have paraded up and down France as I have done, for
all these years? Lord! how much sun and rain have hit this old back!
I have been roasted, soaked, and warmed over dozens of times and my
body, like a cracked leather sack, is full of joy and sorrow, spite and
good-humor, wisdom and folly, hay and straw, figs and grapes, fruit
ripe and unripe, roses and haws--what I have seen, felt and known,
owned and lived, all jumbled together in the game-bag, and what fun to
dive into it;--but hold on, Colas! We will go into that tomorrow, we
shall never be done if we take it up today, so just now we will draw up
the inventory of all property belonging to me.
I own a house, a wife, four boys, and a girl (thank God she is
married!), eighteen grandchildren, a gray donkey, a dog, six hens,
and a pig.--So, I may be called rich. I want to look closely at these
treasures, so I must put on my glasses, for, to tell the truth, the
latter items exist only in memory. Wars have swept over them, soldiers
of the enemy and friends too, so the pig was long ago salted down, the
ass foundered, the cellar emptied, and the fowls plucked. I have the
wife still, by Heavens! It is not easy to forget my happiness when I
hear that squalling tongue,--she’s a fine old bird, and mine to the
last feather. The whole town envies Breugnon, the old scamp. Come on
then, gentlemen, speak up, if you would like to have her! She is a
saving, active, sober, good woman, with all the virtues, but they do
not seem to fatten her, and I must confess, fellow-sinner, that I like
one plump little frailty better than all the seven bony virtues. Well,
since it is the will of God, let us be good for lack of something
better. Hear her rushing about; her bones seem to be everywhere. She
goes poking and climbing, sulking, scolding, grumbling, growling from
garret to cellar; dirt and tranquillity flee at her approach. Nearly
thirty years ago we were married. Devil take me if I know why! I was
smitten with another girl who jilted me, and my wife doted on me
because I cared nothing for her. At that time she was small, dark and
pale, with hard bright eyes which seemed to eat into me as two drops of
acid burn steel; but she loved and _loved_ me fit to kill herself! Men
are such fools, that by dint of running after me (through pity, vanity
too, because I was tired of it all, and because I wanted to get rid of
her; a fine way I took to do it!) I became her husband; Johnnie the
fool, who kept out of the rain when he jumped in the pool. Ever since,
she and all the cardinal virtues dwell in my house, but she would like
to get even with me, sweet creature that she is! to make up for the
love she threw at me. She wants to stir me up; but it can’t be done,
I like my ease too much, and I am not such a fool as to make myself
unhappy for a word more or less. Let the rain come down, my voice
echoes the thunder and I only laugh when she screams. Why shouldn’t she
scream if she likes it? Why should I keep a woman from such a simple
pleasure when I do not want to kill her? Women and silence do not dwell
together; so let her sing her song, and I will sing mine. As long as
she does not try to shut my mouth (and she will not attempt that, if
she is wise) she may warble as she likes, each to his own music.
We may not have been exactly in tune, but none the less we played some
pretty pieces together; a girl and four boys, all good and well-built
regardless of expense, but of the lot the only one in whom I see my own
flesh is my girl, Martine, the little witch! What a time I had with
her before I got her safely married! She has settled down now, though
I don’t count too much on it, but it is no longer my business to look
after her and trot about at her heels; my son-in-law can take his turn.
She and I always wrangle whenever we meet, but at bottom we understand
each other as no one else does; she is a good sort, cautious even when
she seems most reckless, good too, if there is fun in it; for boredom
is to her worse than wickedness. She does not mind trouble, for that
means effort, which is joy, and she loves life and has an eye for what
is good. My blood runs in her veins, the only trouble is I gave her too
much of it.
The boys are not quite so successful. There was an undue share of the
mother in them and the dough did not rise; two out of the four are
bigots like her, and what is worse their bigotries are antagonistic,
for one is always running after priests’ skirts, while the other is
a Huguenot. I cannot think how I came to hatch out such a couple of
ducks. My third son is a soldier, and has to fight, when he is not
loafing about, God knows where! and the fourth is just a nonentity; a
little sheepish, insignificant shopkeeper--it makes me yawn to think of
him, but when the whole of us are seated round the table, each with a
fork in his fist, then I feel indeed that we are all of one breed, all
of one mind; and well worth looking at, our jaws going like clockwork,
bread and wine disappearing down the trapdoor.
You have heard of the furniture, now let us talk of the house itself,
which is like another daughter to me, for I built it with my own hands
bit by bit, and some parts over and over again, on the banks of the
Beuvron, which flows along slowly smooth and green, full of grass, mud
and slime, just where the suburbs begin on the other side of the bridge
which is like a crouching hound with the water licking below. Directly
in front the tower of St. Martin rises light and proud, its edges like
an embroidered skirt. They tell us the steps leading to Paradise are
dark and steep; so are those of Old Rome leading up to the carved
doorway. My shell, my niche is outside the walls, and the result of
that is that when from the top of St. Martin’s tower they spy an enemy
in the plain the town shuts its gates, and the enemy comes to me;--I
could get along without that sort of visit, though I like conversation
as a general thing. So I leave the key under the door, and get out,
but when I come back it sometimes happens that both door and key have
disappeared, leaving only the four walls, and then I have to rebuild.
My friends say to me, “Stupid! to take all this trouble for the enemy.
Come out of your mole-hill into the town where you will be safe.”
But I always answer, “I know when I am well off. Perhaps I should be
safer behind a thick wall, but what could I see there? the wall, and
nothing else.” That would bore me to death, for I need elbow room;
and I like to spread myself out along my river bank, and when I am in
my little garden, with nothing to do, I love to watch the reflections
in the still water, the bubbles the fish make on the surface and the
long-tressed weeds stirring at the bottom. I fish there too, or even
wash my clothes, and empty my pots in it. Good or bad, here I have
always been, it is too late for me to change; and, after all, nothing
can happen worse than what has happened before. Even if the house is
burned down again (for you never can tell), I do not propose to build
for all eternity, but here where I have taken root it is not easy to
pull me up. I have rebuilt twice, if necessary I can do it ten times
more; not that I look upon it as an amusement, but it would be still
less amusing to change, and I should be like a man stripped of his
skin; there would be no use in offering me a fine new white one; I know
it would not fit; it would wrinkle on me or I should burst it. On the
whole I prefer the old one.
Now let us add it all up: Wife, children, house; have I reckoned up all
my goods? I have kept the best to the last, my trade. I am a carpenter
and woodworker, belonging to the brotherhood of St. Anne, and when we
have a procession I am the one who carries the staff with the device of
a compass on a lyre, and there you may see God’s grandmother teaching
the little Mary to read, a Virgin full of grace no bigger than your
thumb. Armed with hatchet, chisel, and auger, with my plane at hand,
I rule over knotted oak and smooth walnut from my workbench, and the
result rests with me--and with my customer’s pocket. Many shapes lie
hidden there! To rouse Beauty sleeping in the wood, her lover must
penetrate to the heart of it, but the loveliness which is unveiled
under my plane has no unrealities. You know those slim Dianas of the
early Italians, straight behind and before?--a good Burgundy piece
is better yet, bronzed, strong, covered like a grapevine with fruit;
a fine bulging cupboard, a carved wardrobe, such as Master Hugues
Tambin wrought fantastically. I dress my houses with panels, and
moldings, and winding staircases in long twists and my furniture is
like trained fruit trees, full and robust, sprouting from the wall,
made for the very spot where I place it. The best of all is when I can
fix on my wood something I see smiling in my mind’s eye, a gesture, a
movement, a bending back or swelling breast, flowery curves, garlands
and grotesques, or when I catch the face of some passerby on the wing
and pin it to my plank. The finest thing I ever turned out, the choir
stalls in the Church of Montreal, show two men at table drinking and
laughing with a jug between them, and two lions snarling over a bone.
I did that to please myself and the vicar. To work after a good drink,
and drink after good work, is my idea of a fine life!... I see all
sorts of useless grumblers around me; they say I have picked out a
queer time to shout in, that we are in a sad state now; but no state
is sad, there are only dreary people, and I am not one of them, the
Lord be praised! Men ill-treat you and rob you?--so it ever shall be.
I would wager my neck that centuries from now our great-grandnephews
will be equally keen to claw and scratch each other’s eyes. No doubt
they will have thought of forty new ways to do the trick better than
we, but I bet they cannot find out a new way to drink, and I defy them
to do better in that line than I. Who knows what those fellows will
be up to in four hundred years? The Curé of Meudon had an herb, the
wonderful Pantagruelion; maybe thanks to that our descendants will
visit the glimpses of the moon, the forge of the thunder, and the
sluices of the rain; perhaps stay a while in Heaven to sport with the
gods. Good enough! I’ll go with them. Are they not the fruit of my
loins, and seed of my own sowing? The future is yours, my sons--but
I like it better where I am, it is safer on the whole, and how can I
be sure that wine will be as good in four centuries from now? My wife
reproaches me because I am too fond of a spree, but I own that I can’t
bear to lose a trick. I take what the gods provide, good food, good
drink, pretty plump pleasures, and then those soft tender downy things
that a man enjoys in a day dream, that divine do-nothing state where
all things are possible, where you are young, handsome, triumphant,
with the world at your feet, and you work miracles, hear the grass
grow and talk with trees, beasts, and gods. There is one old chum that
never goes back on me, my other self, my friend,--my work. How good it
is to stand before the bench with a tool in my hand and then saw and
cut, plane, shave, curve, put in a peg, file, twist and turn the strong
fine stuff, which resists yet yields--soft smooth walnut, as soft
to my fingers as fairy flesh; the rosy bodies or brown limbs of our
wood-nymphs which the hatchet has stripped of their robe. There is no
pleasure like the accurate hand, the clever big fingers which can turn
out the most fragile works of art, no pleasure like the thought which
rules over the forces of the world, and writes the ordered caprices of
its rich imagination on wood, iron, and stone. I am king of a magic
realm; my field yields me its flesh, my vine its blood, and to serve
my art the elves of the sap push out the fair limbs of the trees,
lengthen and fatten them until they are polished fit for my caresses.
My hands are docile workmen, directed by their foreman, my old brain
here, and he plays the game as I like it, for is he not my servant too?
Was ever man better served than I? I’m a true little king, and really
must drink my majesty’s health, and that of my faithful subjects, for
I am not ungrateful. Blessed be the day when I saw the light! How many
glorious things there are on this round ball, things which smile at
you, and taste sweet. Life is good, by the Lord! I always hunger for
more, no matter how much I stuff myself; but I am afraid that I shall
make myself sick; sometimes, I give you my word, my mouth fairly waters
before the feast spread for me by the earth and the sun.
But while I am boasting, old boy, the sun has gone, and left my little
world all chilled. That beastly old winter has pushed his way into
my very room, so that the pen trembles in my stiff fingers; there is
actually ice in my glass, and my nose is blue. Detestable color! it
makes me think of graveyards. I hate anything pale.--Hullo, wake up!
St. Martin is ringing his chimes; it is Candlemas today. “When the days
begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen,” does it indeed? then
we must do likewise, we will go out and meet it face to face. It is
cold, and no mistake; my cheeks sting with the frost needles, and the
north wind lies in wait at the corner to catch me by the beard, but I
am beginning to warm up, thank the Lord! and my complexion is once more
brilliant. I like the ring of the hard ground under my feet, it makes
me as merry as a grig, but what ails all these folks that they are so
pinched and wretched-looking?
“Well, Mrs. Neighbor, what has put you out? It’s the wind, hey,
rumpling up your skirts? I don’t blame him, young rascal! I wish I
were young myself; he knows the right spot--greedy scamp! he picks out
the toothsome morsels. Have patience, old girl; live and let live. And
where are you running, as if the devil were after you? To church? God
will always get the better of Satan. Those who weep will rejoice, and
frost will burn. Now you are laughing yourself? good, good; I am on the
run for church too, yes I am off to Mass like you, only it will not be
said by the Curé,--Mass in the fields is what I mean.”
I stop at my daughter’s first to get my little Glodie, for we walk
together every day. Best little friend that she is to me! my lambling,
my little chirping frog, just five years old; as wide-awake as a mouse
and keen as mustard. She comes running to meet me, for she knows I
always have a lot of new stories for her, it is hard to say which she
loves most;--so we go on hand in hand.
“Come along, darling, to meet the lark.”
“What lark?”
“It is Candlemas. Did you never hear that today the lark comes back to
us out of the skies?”
“What did he do up there?”
“He went to look for fire.”
“What fire?”
“Fire to make sunshine, fire to boil the kettle.”
“Did the fire fly away then?”
“Why yes, on All Saints’ Day. In November every year it leaves us to go
and warm up the stars.”
“And how do we get him back again?”
“We send three little birds to fetch him.”
“Oh, do tell me!”
There she is trotting along the road, all warmly snuggled in a jacket
of soft white wool, looking like a little robin in her red hood. She
doesn’t mind the cold, not she! but her fat cheeks are like rosy
apples, and her little nose runs.
“Ah, this little candle needs the snuffers, is that because of
Candlemas? and the lights in Heaven?”
“Oh, Grandfather, do tell about the three little birds.”
“Three little birds set off on a journey, three bold companions;
the Wren, the Red-Breast, and their friend the Lark; Wren, brisk as
quicksilver and proud as Artaban, soon spied a bright spark floating
in the air. He snapped at it, crying, ‘I have it! I, I, I!’ The others
joined in the same cry, but as Wren flew down he screamed, ‘Fire! I
am burning!’ He rolled the hot morsel from one corner of his beak to
the other, and at last his tongue was peeling, and he could bear no
more, so he spit it out and hid it under his little wings. Did you ever
notice the red spots, and his frizzled feathers?--Red-Breast rushed
to help him. He seized the spark of fire and put it carefully on his
soft waistcoat, but the fine waistcoat got red and redder and poor
Red-Breast screamed, ‘Enough--my clothes are burning.’ Then came the
Lark, the brave little friend, catching the spark which was flying
off to Heaven, and quick, prompt, and swift as an arrow she fell to
the earth; then with her little beak she buried the bright spark of
sunshine in the frozen ground, and, oh, how glad it was to feel it!”
My story came to an end, and it was Glodie’s turn to tell one; then
when we got outside the town, I took her on my back as we climbed the
hill. The sky is gray and the snow creaks under our wooden shoes; the
delicate little skeletons of the trees and bushes are all wadded with
white, and the smoke mounts up straight from the cottage chimneys slow
and blue. There is no sound but the chirp of my little frog,--but here
we are at the top. Below at our feet lies my town, wrapped about by the
lazy Yonne and the trifling Beuvron, like silver ribbons, covered with
snow, frozen, chilled and shivering, yet somehow it warms my heart only
to look at the place.
City of bright reflections and rolling hills, the soft lines of tilled
slopes surround you like the twisted straw of a nest. The undulations
of five or six ranges of wooded mountains in the distance are faintly
blue like the sea, but it is not the perfidious element which overthrew
Ulysses and his fleet. Here are no storms, no ambuscades; all is calm,
save that here and there a breath seems to swell the breast of a hill.
From the crest of one wave to the other, the roads run deliberately
straight, leaving, as it were, a wake behind them, and beyond the edge
of the waters, far away the spires of St. Marie Madeleine of Vézelay
rise like masts. Close by, in a bend of the Yonne, you can see the
rocks of Basseville sticking up through the underbrush like boars’
tusks, and in the center of the circle of hills the town, carelessly
adorned, leans over the water with her gardens, her buildings, her
rags, and her jewels. Here is filth; but here also is the harmony of
her long limbs, and her head crowned with the pierced tower. You see
the snail admires his shell. The chimes of the church float up from the
valley and their pure voices spread like a crystal flood through the
thin clear air. As I stand happily drinking in the music, suddenly a
ray of sunshine breaks through the gray mantle which hides the sky, and
Glodie claps her hands, crying:
“Grandad, I hear him--the lark, the lark!” Her dear little fresh voice
made me laugh as I kissed her and said:
“I hear him too, my sweet little spring Lark!”
II
THE SIEGE
OR
THE LAMB, THE SHEPHERD, AND THE WOLF
“Three lambs of Chamoux can put to flight
Any wolf who comes in the night.”
My cellar will soon be empty, for the soldiers whom our lord the Duke
of Nevers sent to defend us have tapped my last cask, so there is no
time to be lost. I must drink with them. Taken in the right spirit, I
do not object to being ruined, and it is not by any means the first
time, but God send it may be the last! The soldiers, good fellows that
they are, felt worse than I did when I told them that the liquor was
running low. Some of my neighbors take such things tragically, but
that is not my way. I have been too often to the play in the course of
my life to be impressed by clowns. Since I was born into this world,
how many of these masqueraders I have seen! Swiss, German, Gascons,
Lorrainers; all dogs of war, with harness on their back and arms at
their side; victual swallowers, hungry hounds, always ready to devour
us fellows. No one can tell for what they are fighting. Today it is for
the King; tomorrow for the League; now for the Black-beetles; now for
the Protestants; but one side is as good as another. The best of them
is not worth the powder it would take to shoot them. What difference
does it make to us which robber ruffles it at court? And as for the
way they appeal to Heaven, ye gods and little fishes! The Lord is old
enough to know what to do. If your hide itches, scratch yourself. God
is not left-handed that He should need you, and He acts as He pleases.
But the worst of all is when they make it out that I too must try to
pull the wool over His eyes! With all due reverence, Lord, I can say
without boasting, You and I meet several times in the twenty-four
hours; that is, if the good old French saying is true, “He who can
good wine afford has a chance to see the Lord!” But these frauds say
something else that would never enter my head. They say that I know
Thee like a brother; that I am to carry out Thy will; but Thou wilt do
me the justice to admit that if I leave Heaven in peace I only ask that
it will do as much for me. Each of us has enough to do to keep his own
house in order, Thou in Thy big world, and I in my little one. Since
Thou hast made me free, Lord, Thou shouldst be free also! But these
fools want me to mix myself up in Thy concerns, to speak in Thy name,
to decide how men are to take Thy Sacraments, and if they do otherwise,
to declare them my enemies and Thine. Mine indeed! By no means; I have
none; for all men are my friends. Let them fight, then, if it likes
them, I am out of the game;--that is if they will let me alone, but
that is just what the rascals will not do. If I will not be the enemy
of one of them they will both set on me, so between two fires I must be
hit. Here goes then! I will get to fighting myself, for I would rather
on the whole be first anvil and then hammer, than anvil all the time.
I wish some one would tell me why such brutes came into the world?
marauders, politicians, great nobles, who bleed our France while they
blow her trumpet and stick their fingers in her pocket. They are not
content to devour our own substance, but they must needs attack the
stores of others. They threaten Germany, cast the eye of longing on
Italy, and even poke their noses into the harem of the Grand Turk! They
would like to absorb half the earth, they who would not know enough to
grow cabbages on it! Never mind, old boy, do not let us fret over it,
since all is for the best as it is until the happy day when we can
make it better in the shortest possible time. It is a poor beast that
is of no use, and I heard a story once about the good Lord;--(Pardon,
Almighty, my head is full of Thee today)--He was walking with Peter in
one of our suburbs, Béyant,[1] and a woman sat cooling her heels on her
doorstep. She looked so bored that our Father, out of the goodness of
His heart, drew a hundred fleas from his pocket and threw them to her,
saying, “There is something to amuse yourself with, my daughter!” The
woman roused herself to see what she could catch, and every time she
caught one of the beasts she laughed for joy.
Through this same charity, no doubt, Heaven has bestowed on us those
big two-legged beasts who shear our wool. They keep us busy, so let us
be joyful. Vermin is a sign of health, they say, (and our masters are
certainly vermin), so I say again, be joyful, my friends, for if that
is true no one is healthier than we are. Let me whisper a word in your
ear; we shall have the best of it if we are patient; cold and frost,
good-for-nothings at court or in camp, will have their day. They too
will pass, but the good ground remains and we are there to enrich it.
One crop will put all to rights, meanwhile let us suck up the bottom
of my cask, if only to make room for the vintage of next year.
* * * * *
My daughter, Martine, said to me one day, “You are a braggart. To
hear you one would think that you only work with your mouth, idling,
gossiping like a bell-clapper, yawning, and staring; you pretend to
live only for feasting, and are ready to drink up the sea; yet really
you cannot be happy one day without work. You want people to think you
are careless, wasteful, and idle as a cock-chafer; you pretend not
to count what goes into your purse nor what comes out of it, but it
would make you ill if your day was not marked off hour by hour like a
striking clock, and you know to a penny what you have spent since last
Easter, and the man does not live who ever got ahead of you. Dear old
stupid head, innocent lamb that he is! ‘Three lambs of Chamoux can put
to flight any wolf who comes in the night.’”
I laughed, but did not answer Madame Saucy-Tongue. Besides, the child
is right, though she ought not to say so, but a woman only hides what
she knows nothing about. It is true that she understands me, for did I
not make her?
Come, Colas Breugnon, you may as well confess you commit many follies,
but you are not a fool. Like every one else, by Jove, you have a
simpleton up your sleeve who shows when you like, but he is tucked
away out of sight when you need a clear head and free hands. Like all
Frenchmen, you have the sense of reason and order so firmly fixed in
your noddle that you can let yourself go safely. The only danger is
for those poor fools who look at you with an open mouth and try to
imitate you. Fine speeches, sounding verse, daring projects, are all
enjoyable. They exalt and kindle the soul. But _we_ only burn up our
chips, and leave the big logs in order on the wood-pile. My reason sits
at ease and looks on at the freaks of my imagination, and all for my
own amusement. The world is my theater, and without stirring from my
seat, I am the play; I can applaud Matamore or Francatrippa; I witness
tourneys and royal processions, I shout “At him again!” when a man gets
his head cracked all for our good pleasure, and to add to it, I pretend
to take part in the farce and to believe in it only just enough to
keep up the joke. No more, you may be sure. That is the way to listen
to fairy tales and not to them only! There is Some One up there above
the clouds for whom we have a great respect when the procession passes
through our streets with cross and banner, chanting the _Oremus_; we
drape the walls of our houses with white--but between ourselves?--Shut
up, chatterer, you go too far! Be deaf, Lord, to my folly, and accept
my humble service.
The end of February.
An ass having eaten the grass in the meadow, said, “There is no further
need to watch it,” and so went to eat (I mean watch) in another field
near by. The garrison of the Duke of Nevers left us today. I was really
proud of our cookery when I looked at them, for they were as fat as
seals. We parted with smiles in our hearts and on our lips; they with
the kindest wishes for the next season, hoping our crops would be good
and our vines safe from the frost.
“Work hard, dear uncle,” said my guest, the Sergeant Fiacre Bolacre,
(it is his pet name for me and one which I deserve, for that relation
gives a good ration.) “Go prune your vines, no matter how much trouble
it costs you, and next St. Martin’s Day we will come back to drink the
wine.” Gallant fellows! Always ready to help an honest man with his
bottle.
Now that they are gone, what a weight is off our shoulders! The
neighbors are carefully uncovering their little hiding places. They
have gone about for the last few days with long faces complaining
of hunger as if a wolf were gnawing at their vitals, and now from
the straw of the garret, or the earth of the cellar, they have dug
out something to feed the beast. Those who bewailed their destitute
state the loudest, the worst beggars of them all, found means to tuck
their best wine away in some corner. I don’t know how it happened, but
scarcely had my guest, Fiacre Bolacre, left me, (I went with him to
the end of the Jews’ quarter,) when I suddenly remembered a small cask
of Chablis left by mistake under the dunghill in a good warm place. Of
course this upset me dreadfully! You can easily understand that, but
when harm is done, if it is well done, one must bear it as best one
can, and I bear it well. “Bolacre, my dear nephew, you don’t know what
nectar you have lost, ah-h! It is not all loss to you though, my good
friend, for here’s your health in it!”
We all began visiting from house to house, showing what we had found
in our cellars, congratulating each other, and winking like the Roman
Augurs. We spoke also of our injuries and losses; (losses of our
lasses,) and as sometimes the misfortunes of one’s neighbors are an
amusing consolation, we all inquired solicitously for the health of
Vincent Pluviaut’s wife. (By an extraordinary chance, after a body of
troops has passed through the town this brave Frenchwoman usually has
to let out her belt.)
We congratulated Pluviaut, and praised him for his public services in
these trying times, and by way of a joke, meaning no harm, I gave him
a friendly tap, telling him he was lucky to have a house full now that
all the others were empty. Every one laughed, of course, but not too
loud, just enough to be heard, but Pluviaut did not much like it, and
told me I had better look after my own wife. “Ah,” said I, “as far as
she is concerned I may sleep in peace. No one is likely to rob me of my
treasure.” And, do you know, they all agreed with me!
Feast days will soon be upon us, so, though somewhat short of means,
we must live up to our reputation and that of the town. What would
the world say if Shrove-Tuesday caught Clamecy without its justly
celebrated meat-balls? You can hear the grease frying, and sniff the
delicious fragrance in the streets. The flapjacks fairly hop from the
pan for my little Glodie! Now the drums go “rub-a-dub,” and the flutes
“twee-wee,” as amid cheers and shouts the “Gentlemen from Judæa” come
on their car to visit “Rome.”[2] First appears the band; then the
halberdiers, and the crowd actually falls back before the great noses
they wear. Some are shaped like trumpets, or lances, there are snouts
like hunting-horns or pea-shooters, noses stuck full of spikes, like
a chestnut burr, or with a bird perched on the tip. They hustle the
passers-by, and tickle the ribs of the squealing girls; and at last
comes the Nose King, scattering all before him like a battering-ram
with his great proboscis which rests on a gun-carriage like a bombard.
Then comes the car of Lent, Emperor of the Fish-eaters. Their masks
are pale green, skinny, and chilled-looking. They shiver under hoods,
or heads of fishes. One has a perch, or a carp, in each hand; another
brandishes a gudgeon stuck on a fork; a third wears a hat like a pike’s
head, with a roach dangling from its mouth, and little fishes falling
all around. It is enough to give a man a surfeit. Some stick their
fingers into their jaws and try to force down eggs too big to swallow.
To right and left, high up on the car, are masks of owls and monks and
fishermen dangling their lines over the heads of urchins, who jump up
like goats to catch at what may be sweetmeats or perhaps only dirt
rolled in sugar. Behind is a dancing devil, dressed like a cook, waving
a saucepan and big spoon. Six souls of the damned stick their grinning
heads through the rungs of a ladder behind the car, and the devil keeps
thrusting his spoonful of disgusting stew at them.
Hurrah! Here come the conquerors, heroes of the day! On a throne
built of hams, under a canopy of smoked tongues, comes the queen of
the Meat-Balls, crowned with saveloys, while her pudding fingers play
coquettishly with the sausages around her neck. She is escorted by her
aids, black and white puddings, and little Clamecy balls. They make a
fine appearance, as their Colonel Riflandouille leads them to victory,
armed with fat and greasy spits and larding needles. I like best of all
those dignified old fellows with bellies like a great soup-pot, or with
a body made of bread crust, bearing gifts like the Magi: a pig’s head,
a bottle of black wine, or mustard from Dijon. Now to the sound of
brass cymbals, skimmers, and dishpans, comes the King of Dupes, mounted
on a donkey, and greeted with shouts of laughter. It is our friend,
Vincent Pluviaut, who has been elected. Riding backwards, a turban
on his head, a goblet in his hand, he is listening to his body-guard
of horned imps, who prance along with pitchforks or rods on their
shoulders, shouting out in good plain French the tale of his glory. He
is too wise to betray his pride and tosses off a bumper with a careless
air, but when they pass a house as distinguished as his own, he cries,
“Here’s your good health, Brother!” as he raises his glass.
The procession ends with lovely Spring; a young girl, fresh and
smiling, with smooth brow and fair curling locks crowned with yellow
primroses, and wearing across her slender breast a chain of green
catkins plucked from the young nut trees. The pouch by her side and
the basket in her hands are brimming with good things. Her delicate
eyebrows arch over her wide blue eyes; her sharp little teeth show
as she opens her mouth like a round “O” to sing in her treble pipe
about the swallow who will soon be here again. Four white oxen draw
her chariot, and by her side are plump maids, well-developed, rounded
and graceful, and little girls at the awkward age, sticking out like
young trees in all directions. Something is lacking to each one; they
are no beauties as yet, but toothsome morsels for the wolf in future
none the less. Some carry migratory birds in cages, and some dip their
hands in the basket of Spring and shower treasures on the crowd; cakes,
sweetmeats and surprises, out of which fall hats and vests, mottoes
telling your fortune, lovers’ couplets, horns of plenty, or of ill-luck.
When they come to the market-place, near the tower, the maids jump from
the car and dance with the clerks and students, while Shrove-Tuesday,
Lent, and King Pluviaut continue their triumphal progress, pausing
every few feet to chaff the people, or toss off a glass,
“Let your goblets chink--
Drink, Drink, Drink!
Shall we go without it?
No!
See the bottom of your glass
Or we shall write you down an ass!”
After all, too much soaking is bad for one’s tongue and one’s wit, so
I leave friend Vincent and his escort drawing more corks, and make for
the open fields. The day is really too fine to waste between walls.
My old friend Chamaille, the vicar, has come up from his village in a
little donkey-cart to dine with the Archdeacon of St. Martin. As he
asked me to go with him for part of the way back, we climb into the
tail of the cart, little Glodie and I, and off goes the donkey! She is
so small that I suggest we shall take her up on the seat between us.
As the road stretches out long and white, the sun looks drowsy, as
if he meant to warm his own chimney corner more than ours. The donkey
drowses also and stops as if to think, so the vicar shouts indignantly,
in his great voice like a bell, “Madelon!” Donkey jumps, stirs her
spindle-shanks, zigzags from one rut to another, then stops again to
meditate, regardless of our objurgations. “Beast of ill-omen, if you
had not the sign of the Cross on your back, I would break this stick on
you,” roars the vicar, all the time basting her flanks with his cane.
We stopped to rest ourselves at the inn, just where the road turns to
go down to the white hamlet of Armes which lies looking at its fair
reflection in the water. Near by in the field we see some girls dancing
round an old nut tree whose great withered branches stretch toward
the pale sky. They have been carrying Shrove-Tuesday pancakes to the
magpies. “Come and dance too!” they cry.
“Look, Glodie, look at the magpie ’way up there; look at her white
breast over the edge of the nest! She is peeping out to see what she
can see, and she has made her little house open all around so that
nothing can escape her sharp eye and her chattering tongue. The wind
blows through it, so that she is wet and cold, but as long as she sees
all that goes on, she is satisfied. Now she is out of humor and seems
to say, ‘Rude people, be off with your presents. Do you think if I
wanted your cakes I could not pick them up in your very houses? There
is no fun in eating things that are given to you; stolen dainties are
the only ones I relish.’”
“Grandad, why do they give her pancakes all tied up with ribbons? Why
do they bring good-wishes to that old pilferer?”
“Because, darling, in this world it is better to be on good terms with
evildoers.”
“What’s that, Colas Breugnon? What idea are you putting in the child’s
head?” growled the vicar.
“I am not holding it up for her admiration. I only tell her that is
what every one does, you yourself, vicar, among the first. Don’t
stare at me like that, you know when you have a parishioner who knows
everything, sees everything, pokes her nose into everything, and is as
full of spite as a nut is full of meat you would stuff her mouth with
cakes, if that would keep her quiet.”
“Lord, if that were enough,” sighed the vicar. “I am really not fair to
old magpie, she is better than some women, and her tongue is sometimes
of use!”
“What is it good for, Grandfather?”
“She screams when the wolf is near.”
And at these words, all of a sudden the bird begins to cry, swear, and
blaspheme. She flaps her wings, flies, and pours out abuse toward I
don’t know who or what down in the valley near Armes. At the edge of
the wood her feathered companions, Charlot the jay, and the crow Colas,
answer sharply in the same irritated key. The villagers laugh and cry,
“Wolf!” No one believes it, but still they think they will go and look
(it is good to trust, but better to know), and what do you think they
see? A band of armed men coming up the hill at a trot. We know them
only too well; they are those rascals, the soldiers of Vézelay, who
knowing our town is off its guard, think they will catch the bird on
its nest. (Not this old magpie, however.)
We did not stop to look at them, as you may well believe! Every man
for himself, was the cry, and we all tumbled over each other. We took
to our heels by the road, across the fields; some on all fours, and
some sliding on the hinder side of their anatomy. We three jumped into
the donkey-cart; and, as if she understood it all, off went Madelon
like an arrow from the bow. The vicar forgot in his excitement the
consideration due to a donkey which has a cross marked on its back, and
belabored her with all his might. We rushed along through a crowd of
people screaming like blackbirds, and entered Clamecy first by a head,
covered with dust and glory, but with the rest of the fugitives hard
on our heels. Madelon scarcely touched the ground as we flew through
Béyant at full gallop, the cart bouncing, the vicar beating, and
shouting at the top of his lungs, “The enemy is upon us!”
People laughed at first as they saw us flying past them, but it did
not take them long to catch the idea, and the town was soon like an
ant-heap when you thrust a stick into it. Every one got to work,
running in and out. Men armed themselves; women packed up their
goods, piling things into baskets and wheelbarrows; and all the folks
in the suburbs, abandoning their homes, fled to the shelter of the
town walls. The masquers rushed to the ramparts, still wearing their
costumes, masks, horns, claws, and paunches; some as Gargantua, some as
Beelzebub, armed with gaffs and harpoons; and so when the advance guard
of Vézelay reached the walls, the drawbridges were raised, and only
some poor devils remained on the other side of the moat, who having
nothing to lose made no effort to save it, and poor old King Pluviaut,
deserted by his escort, full as a tick, like the Patriarch Noah, sat
snoring on his beast, holding on by the tail.
Here is where you can see the advantage of having Frenchmen for your
enemies. Germans, Swiss, or English, do their thinking through their
fists, and are so thickheaded that it takes them till Christmas to
understand what was told them on All Saints’ Day. I would not have
given a button for poor Pluviaut’s chance with such people as these.
They would have thought we were playing a joke on them, but no
words are necessary between us. If we come from Lorraine, Touraine,
Champagne, or Bretagne, geese from Beauce, asses from Beaune, or
rabbits from Vézelay, a good joke hits us all in the right spot, no
matter how much we may pound and beat each other. When they caught
sight of our old Silenus, their whole camp burst out laughing. They
laughed all over their faces, with their throats, with all their
hearts, and even their stomachs, and by St. Rigobert! to see the way
they laughed set us off too, all along our line. Like Ajax, and Hector
the Trojan, we hurled gay defiance at each other across the moat. Our
remarks, however, had much more snap than theirs. If I were not so
busy, I would write them down, but if you can put up with it, I mean
to include them in a collection I have been making for the last dozen
years of the best jokes, quips, and witticisms that I have heard, said,
or read, in the course of my pilgrimage through this vale of tears. I
would not lose it for a kingdom. It makes me crack my old sides only to
think of it. There now! I have made a great blot on my paper.
When the noise had subsided, it was time to fight; (nothing is so
restful when one has been talked to death), but neither side was keen
for it. Their surprise had failed, and we were well protected. They did
not care much about scrambling up our walls (you may break your bones
at that game) but something had to be done at any cost; it did not
matter much what, so a little powder was burned, some petards let off
at random, from which the sparrows were the only sufferers. We sat with
our backs to the wall inside the parapet, waiting while their plums
flew over our heads for the right moment to discharge our own without
taking aim, (there is no sense in exposing one’s self too much).