the Duke and King, and yet insist on having our own way--for there is
no denying that we are a stiff-necked generation--and this being done,
the town seemed to pick up its spirits after the trials it had passed
through, and we were once more all good friends together. We would
wink and slap each other on the back, when we met, and say that people
had better let us alone, as the good tricks were not yet all out of the
bag: and so in this way the memory of our misfortunes died away and was
forgotten.
XII
OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES
October.
After much delay I was finally obliged to settle down somewhere; I kept
putting it off on the pretense that I wanted to look carefully over the
ground, but I had to come to it at last, much against my will. At first
the whole town was open to me, and my friends were eager to offer me a
bed for a night or two; every one naturally pitied a man whose hearth
was a heap of cold cinders, and wanted to give him what help they
could; “at first” I say, but as the recollection of our disasters faded
away, people began once more to draw back into their shells,--except
poor victims like me who had no shells left to draw into.
My children would have been shocked at the bare idea of my living at
the inn; such a thing was never heard of among good Clamecyans of our
sort, and, though it was not exactly a matter of feeling with my sons,
there was the terrible question to be considered--“What would people
say?” There was no hurry, of course, on their part or on mine; we both
tried to put off the evil day, for I am altogether too outspoken to be
at my ease in bigoted households such as theirs, so we dodged around
the question in a most uncomfortable state of mutual embarrassment.
Martine got us out of our dilemma by insisting that I must come to her,
for she really does love and want me;--but there was my son-in-law.
Naturally there was no reason why he should wish to have me as a
permanent member of his household, and so there we all were! This made
me feel as if my poor old bones were being put up for sale, and I kept
out of their way as much as possible, while on their side they watched
me with a suspicious eye.
I took refuge for a short time on the slopes of Beaumont in that little
hut where I had been so sick with the plague in July; for the joke
of it was that though the mob had burned my healthy house they left
standing the worthless shed where Death and I had slept together, and
now that he had no more terrors for me it was really a pleasure to go
back to the poor little place with its trampled floor, still littered
with the empty bottles of my somewhat funereal orgy.
The place was uninhabitable in winter, as I knew well enough; the door
was half off its hinges, the window panes cracked, and the roof leaked
like a sieve; but tomorrow can take care of the things of itself,
and today, at least, there was no prospect of rain, so I put off all
thought of the future till the week after next. “It will be time enough
to cross the bridge when I come to it,” thought I, “and perhaps the
world will come to an end between now and then. I should be vexed
enough if I heard the Angel Gabriel blowing his horn just after I had
swallowed such a bitter pill; no, I like to drink my pleasure fresh out
of the barrel, but disagreeable things can always stand till they get
stale.”
Well, there I waited, holding my troubles at arm’s length, but I did
not give myself up exclusively to meditation. Behind my locked gates, I
dug in my garden, covered up all the roots snugly against the winter,
raked away the fallen leaves from the paths, and, generally, made the
place tidy; then there was a little tree on which still hung a few red
and yellow pears, and my delight was to lie on the sunny bank and let
the sweet juice slip gently down my throat.
I only went to town when it was absolutely necessary to replenish my
store of provisions and news, and when I was there I carefully avoided
my sons, having given out that I had gone on a journey. They may
not have thought this story literally true, but it would have been
disrespectful to contradict a report started by their father, so we
kept on playing our little game of hide-and-go-seek until Martine upset
it all.
We had not taken her sufficiently into our calculations, and, like
most of her sex, she had no idea of playing fair, and being besides
thoroughly up to all my tricks, she found me without much trouble. She
is anyhow a great stickler for duty, family feeling, and all that sort
of thing. One evening when I was working in the garden, I caught sight
of my daughter coming up the hill; I made one jump into the house, and,
locking the door, lay down against the wall. In a minute or two I heard
her steps, and then she tried the door, shook it, knocked, and called
out to me; I lay there like a dead leaf, holding my breath, though I
had a tickling in my throat and wanted dreadfully to cough. (I don’t
know why, but it always happens like that.) It was not so easy to get
rid of her, however; she kept battering at the door and window, and
calling, “Father, let me in! I know you are there; let me in!”
“What a minx it is!” I said to myself. “I should have no chance at all
if that door gave way.”
I had half a mind to open it myself and give her a good hug, but I
hate to yield about anything, so I lay still and after a little while
she got tired and stopped her pounding; then I could hear her walking
slowly down the path. I came out of my corner and began to laugh, and
cough and laugh again till I was nearly choking, and when I got over
the fit, and stopped to wipe my eyes, I heard a voice behind me saying,
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
It nearly knocked me flat, but I turned my head and there on top of the
wall was Martine looking at me.
“I’ve got you now, you old joker!” she cried.
“I’m caught, sure enough,” said I, and we both laughed to our hearts’
content.
As soon as I had let her in she stood sternly before me, then grabbed
me by the beard. “Say you’re sorry,” she cried.
You know how it is at confession; you repent, meaning to do it again
the next opportunity, so I replied meekly, “_Mea culpa!_”
But she kept pulling me to and fro, declaring that it was a disgrace
for an old white-beard like me to have no more sense than a baby;
finally she gave me a last pull and tap on the cheek, and threw her
arms round my neck saying, “Why didn’t you come to me, Father, when
you know how much I want you?”
“My dear little girl, I will explain all about it.”
“You can explain as we go along, you are coming home with me this
minute.”
“Martine, you must give me time to pack up my things.”
“I’ll do your packing,” cried she, and with that she threw an old cloak
over my shoulders, jammed my hat on my head, picked up my bundle, and
told me to come along. I sat down on the step and said there was no
hurry, which made her furiously angry.
“Why do you object to coming to my house?” said she.
“I don’t object, I know sooner or later I shall have to do it.”
“That’s a pretty way to talk,” said she. “I don’t believe you care
anything about me!”
“You know very well how much I love you, darling! but you are dearer to
me in my own house, than in an outsider’s!”
“Do you mean to say I am an outsider?”
“You are half one, you see!”
“Nothing of the sort! I am just myself, as you know perfectly well; his
wife, of course, just as he is my husband, and I go his way as long as
he goes mine, but you can set your mind at rest, he will be perfectly
charmed to have you in the house, or else I will know the reason why!”
“I’ve had plenty of lodgers of that sort,” said I, “when our Lord of
Nevers billeted them on us, but I had rather not be one my own self.”
“You will have to learn,” said she. “Come, I am waiting.”
“Agreed; but on condition that you will take me in on my own terms.”
“You are a perfect old tyrant! but there, I promise!”
“On your honor?”
“Yes, yes, now that’s enough talking, I won’t wait another minute,” and
she seized my arm in such a grip that I had to go willy-nilly.
When we got to her house, she showed me with pride the room she had
arranged for me behind the shop, all warm and comfortable and directly
under her eye, as if I were a child of a year old. I was touched to see
how the dear girl had made up the bed with her best linen sheets and
comforter, and had put a nosegay on the table; it made me laugh too
when I thought how furious she would be. “This won’t do at all,” said
I, so though vexed enough she showed me the other rooms downstairs, but
I would have none of them, and finally chose a little nook under the
mansarded roof.
In spite of everything she could say, I declared that she might take
it or leave it, that if she would not let me have the room I liked, I
would go back to my hut, so she had to give in, but every day and all
day long she kept at me about it.
“That’s not a fit place for you, Father, the other room is much more
comfortable,--why in the world don’t you like it?”
“Because I don’t,” I would say and then she would go into a rage, and
swear that I would drive her crazy, that she knew why I behaved so, it
was just because I was too stuffy and proud to be beholden to any of my
children, even to her.
“I should like to box your ears!” she would cry, and then I would tell
her that would be the only way to make me accept something from her
gratis.
“You don’t love me, Daddy.”
“Now, my little girl, my own sweet baby!”
“Let me alone! Don’t you dare to touch me! You can’t make up to me like
that, old fraud that you are! And all the time you are just laughing at
me. I can see your mouth twitching.”
“You’re laughing yourself, Martine,” and I put my finger on her cheek,
which broke into a smile.
“All the same, I am really angry,” said she, “even if you do make me
laugh with your nonsense, but in my heart I think you are a horrid old
thing! You have lost your house and you are too stuck-up to let your
daughter help you; it is nothing but wicked pride, and you have no
right to behave so!”
“It is the only right that is left to me,” said I.
But that did not end the matter and there was never any lack of sharp
words between two people like us, who both of us had a fine edge to our
tongues; but, luckily, a joke could always make us laugh in the midst
of our discussions and so the storm would blow over.
One evening when her tongue had been going like a clapper, and I had
long ceased to listen, I told her at last it was time to stop, and wait
for the rest till the next day.
“Very well then,” she said. “Good-night! But won’t you change your
mind, old Peacock?”
“Listen, dear, I am proud as a peacock, if you choose to say so, but,
frankly now, in my place what would you do?”
“Pretty much the same thing.”
“Well, then, you see! Now give me a kiss for good-night.”
She did kiss me but I could hear her muttering to herself that it was
hard luck for her to have two such wooden heads in one family.
“Well, pound the other one as much as you please, but leave me in
peace.”
“He will get his share, never fear, and you too,” she answered; and
then the next day it began all over again, so that I really thought on
the whole I had more than was due to me.
For the first few days I was in clover, and every one petted and
spoiled me; even Florimond, who overwhelmed me with attentions greater
than I desired or deserved, for I saw that Martine was keeping her
eye on him. Glodie was always twittering around me; I had the most
comfortable chair; I was helped first at table, and when I spoke every
one listened in respectful silence.
It was all perfectly delightful, but I felt that I could not stand much
more; it made me restless, and I kept going up and down stairs all day
long to and from my garret. This, naturally, got on everybody’s nerves,
and Martine, who is by no means the most patient of women, was nearly
beside herself when she heard the stairs creak for the hundredth time
under my feet. If it had been summer, I should have gone out and roamed
about the country, but as it was I had to do my roaming indoors. It was
a cold early autumn, the fields were damp and misty, and it rained
from morning till night; so I was shut up in the house, and not my
house, Heaven help me!
I hated all the furniture and ornaments, for Florimond’s taste in such
things is stupid and pretentious, and it made me so uncomfortable that
my fingers fairly itched to move things round, or alter them, but of
course, that would never do with the master of the house standing by,
and the slightest criticism was a mortal offense. In the dining-room
there was a ewer decorated with a simpering lady, her tiresome lover
and two cooing doves which made me ill whenever I looked at it. I told
Florimond it made the victuals stick in my throat, and begged him
to take it away at mealtimes; but his notion of art was ornamented
confectionery and he greatly admired this piece, so he refused, as, of
course, he had a perfect right to do; but the faces I made amused the
whole household.
What was to be done? Laugh at me for an old fool? By all means; but
at night, in my garret, when the rain was on the roof, I turned and
twisted in my bed, not daring to shake the house by walking up and
down with my heavy tread. One night as I sat up there, bare-legged,
meditating on these things, a thought came into my head that sooner or
later, by hook or by crook, I must rebuild my house, and after that I
felt happier; but I kept my little plan to myself and did not breathe a
word of it to my children, for I knew what they would say.
“Where was the money to come from?”
Alas! we are no longer in the times of Orpheus and Amphion, when stones
built themselves into walls as if to the sound of music; there is no
such charm to raise them now unless it be the chink of money bags, and
that was always faint with me and now completely inaudible.
I resolved to have recourse to my friend Paillard, though, if the truth
were told, he had never offered to lend me money; but since I took a
sincere pleasure in asking him, why should he not find equal delight in
giving me what I needed?
Arguing in this way, I took advantage of a comparatively fine day and
went to Dornecy. Everything spoke of sadness; the dark hovering clouds,
the muddy ground, the damp gusts of wind swooping like the wings of a
great bird, tearing the yellow leaves from the trees and scattering
them over the fields.
Paillard could hardly wait to let me get out my first sentence before
he interrupted me to complain of the hard times, the falling off of
his business, the bad debts he had, lack of money, et cetera, till I
pulled him up short by asking him if he would like me to lend him a
penny piece?
It would be hard to say which of us was the more irritated and hurt
by this little passage at arms, but we kept up the conversation for a
while longer, talking in a stiff unnatural way of the weather and the
crops. I could see that he was sorry for his meanness; the poor old
boy is good-hearted at bottom and genuinely attached to me, and I knew
that he would have been delighted to lend me money, if he had been
certain that he would lose nothing by it, and what is more he would
have yielded if I had pressed the point; but he was not to blame, after
all; he had centuries of miserly blood in his veins, and though there
may be small householders in his position who are also open-handed,--I
say there is a legend that such people do exist,--when you lay a finger
on the purse of a man like that, his first instinct is to say “No!”
At that very moment Paillard would have loved to reconsider his
refusal, but here my pride came in, and I would make no further
advances; my friend ought to have been glad to help me out of my
difficulties, and if he thought otherwise, so much the worse for him!
There we sat sulky and unhappy; he asked if I would not stay to lunch,
but I refused somewhat curtly, though I could see it nearly broke his
heart, and he followed me to the door with a hang-dog expression; but
as my foot was on the threshold, something came over me; I put my arm
around his old neck and embraced him; he did the same to me, and there
we stood without a word for a minute or two.
At last he said timidly, “Colas, I could let you have a little.”
“Say no more about it,” I answered, for I am an obstinate devil.
“Well,” he said, “you will at least stay to luncheon?”
So we sat down and ate heartily enough, but nothing would have induced
me to borrow of him now; I am made like that, and if I suffered for it
this time, why so of course did he.
The question for me now was how to rebuild my house without money or
workmen,--but when I get an idea in my head!
I ruminated over it as I walked back to Clamecy, and the first thing
I did was to go over the ruins of my house, carefully sorting out
everything that might be of use, from the half-burnt beams to the rusty
hinges and black tottering walls.
One day I stole off to Chevroches to see what I could find in the
quarries among the great stone blocks like the bones of our earth with
their red veins. On my way through the forest, I am afraid I helped
some old oaks to sink into their final repose; an illegal act perhaps,
but one would not get far in this world if one only did what the law
allows. The wood belonged to the town, and therefore to me, in part
at least, and of course I should not have dreamed of taking more than
my just share; but the thing was, how to get it home? And here the
neighbors came to my assistance. One lent me his cart, another his
oxen, and a third his tools, or rather his hands, which cost nothing.
A man will lend anything in these parts, except his wife or his money,
and I feel that way myself, for money means the future; it is hope, all
that we have, the rest is only the present, which scarcely belongs to
us.
At last Robinet and I began to put up the first scaffolding, but by
that time it was cold weather, and every one thought I was out of my
mind. I was urged to wait at least until spring, while my children made
such a pother that my life was a burden to me.
In spite of all this I persisted in going on with my work, partly
because I like to rub people up the wrong way, and then, though of
course I knew that I could not build a house all by myself in the
depths of winter, I really meant only to put up a mere shed, a sort
of rabbit hutch, where I could live alone. I am sociable enough, but
I like to choose my own time and place, and I am also a talker, but
sometimes Breugnon seems to me the best companion in the world, and I
would walk ten miles to get at him. It was, therefore, for the sake
of enjoying my own charming society that I was obstinately bent on
building, in spite of the opinion of the world and the remonstrances of
my children.
Unluckily, I was not to have the last word, for, one frosty morning at
the end of October, when the roofs of the town and the pavements were
all covered with a thin glare of ice, I slipped on one of the rungs of
my ladder and the next thing I knew I was lying on the ground.
“He has killed himself!” cried poor Binet, as he ran to pick me up.
“I did it on purpose,” said I and tried to rise, but I could not stand
as my ankle was broken.
They fetched a stretcher and carried me home, Martine and most of
her neighbors by my side, wringing their hands and bewailing my sad
fate. It was like an Entombment by an early master, with the Marys
surrounding the body and making noise enough to wake Him.
I pretended to be unconscious so as to escape the flood of pity and
reproaches, but though I lay still, with my head thrown back, and my
beard pointing to Heaven, within me I was in a proper rage, in spite of
this calm exterior.
XIII
PLUTARCH’S LIVES
October 30th.
I was much depressed by my accident, as may be imagined. If only the
Lord had been pleased to break any other bone in my body, I thought,
but here I was pinned by the leg! It is true that I should have
grumbled somewhat if I had broken an arm or a rib; but now, I was ready
to curse Him for His cruelty; (Praise be to His Holy Name!) and to
swear that He had picked out the very thing that would vex me the most.
He knows well that my hard-won liberty, child not of gods, but of
men, is to me as the breath of my nostrils; dearer than gold and
silver, food and drink; and that is why He must laugh to Himself when
He sees me lying here on my back like a beetle, staring at the beams
and spider’s webs of my garret ceiling. All the same, there is some
fight left in me, though I am tied and trussed up here like a fowl on
the spit. My body cannot stir an inch, it is true; but how about the
spirit? My free fancies fly away on strong wings, with not a broken
bone among them; and he had need to be swift who would catch and stop
them.
For the first day or two I was in an execrable humor, and made good use
of my tongue as the only weapon I had with which to hit out at every
one, right and left; so that it was hardly safe to come near me. The
worst of all was that in my heart I knew that my accident was entirely
my own fault; and what made it harder to bear was that every one I saw
dinned the same thing into my ears; telling me that a man of my age had
no business to be climbing up ladders, like a fly on a wall; reminding
me that I had had ample warning, and lamenting that I had such an
obstinate nature that good advice was thrown away on me. The moral
drawn, of course, was that I richly deserved my fate.
All this naturally was extremely consoling to me,--as if it was not bad
enough to be in my miserable condition, without being told that I was a
fool into the bargain. Martine and her husband, and all my friends and
neighbors seemed to have agreed among themselves to harp on the same
string whenever they came to see me, while I had to lie and listen to
it all, like a helpless wild creature caught in a trap; until I lost
all patience one day, when even my little Glodie began to sing the same
tune: “You were a naughty Grandad to climb up ladders!”
I tore my nightcap off my head and threw it at her. “Get out of this,
you little beast!” I yelled; and then I was alone, and found that,
after all, I did not like that much better.
After a while my daughter proposed, like the good girl that she is, to
carry my mattress down into the room behind the shop; but I was just
perverse enough to say no, again, because I had said it before; though
by this time I was dying to give in. On the other hand, I hated to have
strangers see me in such a state, and then Martine kept at me like a
fly, (or a woman,) and could not understand that she talked too much
about it, and so injured her own cause. I knew also that if I yielded
I should never hear the last of it; so I told her to let me alone, and
that is what it finally came to: they all went away and left me to
myself, as I had wished; so surely I had nothing to complain of.
I had not been willing to tell my real reason, which was, that being
a dependent in that house, I hated to give any more trouble than was
necessary; but for a man who wanted people to love him, the stupidest
thing I could have done was to drive them all away from me; for
they took me at my word and soon forgot me,--“Out of sight, out of
mind,”--and no one came to see me any more, not even Glodie, though I
could hear her laughing downstairs, and smiled at the sound of it; and
then sighed, because I could not go and join in the fun as I used to do.
“Ungrateful little puss,” I thought, but I knew that I should have
done the same in her place, so I blew a kiss towards the stairs. “Have
a good time, my pretty one!”--Job lay on his dunghill, you know, and
railed at his fate, and I was somewhat in the same position by this
time.
One day while I was thus agreeably occupied, old Paillard came in; he
had a package in his hand, and sat down awkwardly enough, on the foot
of my bed; while I received him in a rather crusty manner. He began
to talk of one thing and another, but I contradicted every word he
said; till at last he was completely put out of countenance, and sat
there, clearing his throat, and tapping on the footboard of the bed. I
begged him to stop, in an icy tone, and after that he simply did not
dare to move a finger. I could hardly help laughing, and thought: “He
reproaches himself because he knows that if he had lent me money, I
should not have tried to build the wall, and so break my leg. If it had
not been for his meanness, none of all this would have happened.” And
he did not know what to say, and I would not speak, we kept silence for
some time, till at last I broke out, “Why don’t you say something? Any
one would think that I was actually at the last gasp; but there’s no
use in sitting staring at me like a stuck pig! If you can’t talk, go
home! You do not go to see sick people just to hold your tongue; and
for goodness’ sake stop fiddling with that book, or whatever it is you
have got there!”