“I can see that the sight of me puts you out, but I thought--I had
brought you this book,--_Lives of Celebrated Men_, by Plutarch; it
is translated by Jacques Amyot, Bishop of Auxerre;--would you like
it?--it might amuse you. It would perhaps be some consolation or
companionship!” I could see that his mind was not quite made up, for it
was like drawing teeth for him to lend his books, which he cherished
even more dearly than his ducats.
If any one dared touch one of the precious volumes in his library,
he was like a lover who sees rude hands laid on the lady of his
affections. I was touched and softened by the greatness of the
sacrifice, and held out my hand to my old comrade, telling him how
grateful I was for his kindness to such a brute as I had shown myself
to be; and I took the book from his reluctant fingers.
“Take good care of it,” said he.
“Make your mind easy, it shall lie under my pillow,” and with this
reassuring reply I let him depart.
Plutarch of Cheronæus was a stout little volume, as broad as it was
long, of about thirteen hundred closely printed pages; the words all
heaped one upon another, like corn in a bin. “There is three years’
provender there, for three donkeys,” thought I. At the head of each
chapter were round medallion portraits of the illustrious subjects
of the memoirs, surrounded by wreaths of laurel; these diverted me
extremely; they only lacked a bunch of parsley in their mouths to be
complete.
“What are all these Greeks and Romans to me?” I thought. “We are
living, and they are long since dead, and can teach me nothing but what
I knew before; that man is a wicked creature, but agreeable enough;
that age improves wine, and spoils women; that in all countries,
the big fishes swallow the little ones, and the weak jeer at their
oppressors.--These Romans are terrible fellows to make long speeches;
and I am not by any means opposed to eloquence; only I want to warn
these gentlemen that turn and turn about is fair play.”
Fluttering the leaves with a condescending air, I threw my eyes along
the pages, as an angler draws his line along a stream, and hang me
if I did not hook something at the very first cast. No one ever saw
better fishing; the cork went under as soon as it touched the water;
and such fish as I pulled up! Gold and silver, some with shining scales
like jewels, scattering a shower of sparks around them; jumping and
twisting, too, with quivering fins, and flapping tails. To think of my
saying that they were dead!
From that day, the world might have come to an end without my knowing
what had happened; my eye was fastened on my fishing line, waiting for
a bite. What monster am I now to draw from the deep? Ha! look at this
splendid fellow, with his white belly and his coat of mail, changeable
green and blue, all shining in the sun. Honestly, the best part of my
life, (days, weeks, or years,--I kept no count of them,) was spent
then: and God be thanked! who gave us eyes, through which the wonderful
visions in books can reach our brains. Give us only those closely
packed little black marks, between the borders of the white page, and
from their sight the magician conjures up long-dispersed armies, ruined
cities, great orators of Rome, fierce enemies, heroes and the beauties
that beguile them, the winds that blow, the sparkling sea, the hot
eastern sun, and the snows of winter.
Here I can see imperial Cæsar, pale and thin, reclining in his litter
surrounded by his grim old soldiers; or that guzzler, Antony, with
his dishes and cups, on his way to some green nook, where he and his
parasites can stuff and swill to their hearts’ content; devouring eight
roasted boars at one sitting. Then Pompey passes, stiff and formal,
with Flora whom he loves;--Poliorcites decked with a gold mantle,
embroidered with the sun, moon and stars; and Artaxerxes, like a great
bull among his herd of four hundred women.
Now comes Alexander, beautiful as the god Bacchus, whose dress he
wears, returning in his triumph from India. See him high in a great
car drawn by eight horses and covered with rich carpets and garlands
of green leaves; hear the strains of flutes and hautboys as he feasts
and drinks with his generals, all of them crowned with flowers: women
leaping about him in the dance, and his great army at his back. Wasn’t
it marvelous? Then there was Queen Cleopatra, Lamia the flute-player,
and Statira, who was so beautiful that it hurt your eyes to look
at her! In spite of Antony, Alexander, and Artaxerxes, all these
enchantresses are mine, now at my pleasure. I can enter their bowers,
drink with Thaïs, embrace Roxana, and carry Cleopatra away in my arms
wrapped in her carpet. It is possible for me even to imitate Antiochus,
who was in love with his mother-in-law, although that is a singular
idea to my notion.
I go out to exterminate the Gauls; I come, I see, I conquer; and the
best of it all is that it does not cost me one single drop of blood!
Then, too, my riches are beyond counting; each story is a caravel,
laden with the treasures of the East or Barbary; bringing precious
metals, old wines, strange beasts, and captured slaves of the rarest
beauty:--such breasts, such ivory limbs! All this is mine, these
empires rose, flourished and disappeared, only to give me pleasure.
I feel as if I were at a Carnival, where in turn I can wear every
man’s mask and disguise, even to putting on his skin, and with it his
thoughts and passions. Thus I am at once the music, and the dancer, the
book and old Plutarch, who was inspired to write it in a most fortunate
hour.
How good it is to let the rhythm of words and phrases carry you off,
dancing and laughing, into space, free from all trammels of the body.
This mind, this thought of ours is God Himself. Praise be to His Holy
Spirit!--Sometimes I pause in the midst of the story to imagine how
it will turn out, and then compare my own fancy with the image which
nature or art had created. In the case of art, I am so sharp that I
can generally guess right; and then how I laugh at my own cleverness!
But the old witch, life, is often too much for me!--her resources are
beyond our feeble comprehension. There is only one part of the tale
which she never troubles herself to vary; all her stories end in the
same way--wit, war, love--you know what happens to them--they disappear
into the darkness; and on this one point she certainly does repeat
herself.
She is like a naughty child, breaking her toys when she is tired of
them, till I am provoked to blame her for being so destructive, and
snatch the pieces out of her hands; but it is too late; they are broken
past repair; and all that I can do, is to cherish what is left, as
Glodie rocks the remains of her doll in her arms.
At each revolution of the dial this Death comes nearer and nearer, like
a beautiful refrain: “Strike hour! ring bells, ding dong ding.” Now, I
fancy myself Cyrus, Emperor of Persia, Conqueror of Asia; hear what I
say:--“Friend, envy me not the small space of earth, which covers my
poor body.”--I stand beside Alexander as he reads this epitaph and
trembles, for in it he seems to hear his own voice rising from the tomb.
Now that you are dead, great Cyrus and Alexander, how near you both
seem to me; do I dream? or are they really there? I pinch myself to
find out if I am awake, yes, there on the table by my side are two
coins which I dug up in my vineyard last year, with the profiles of
bearded Commodus dressed as Hercules, and Crispina Augusta, with her
heavy chin and her shrewish nose.--“This is no dream,” say I; “for here
is Rome between my thumb and forefinger.”
My greatest pleasure was to lose myself in reflections on moral issues;
to raise once more, questions long settled by force; should I cross the
Rubicon,--or not? I could never make up my mind! I fought Brutus and
Cæsar in turn; changed my opinion and argued on either side with so
much eloquence that I could not tell what I believed. In this way the
subject takes possession of you, as you give and take, strike out and
hit back, till at last you are transfixed by your own blade! Did you
ever hear of such an idea? But it all comes of reading Plutarch, with
his smooth tongue, and pleasant way of calling you “my friend”! He gets
you first on one side and then on the other; and has as many points of
view as he has stories to tell you; so that the hero I love best is
always the last one that I have read about.
We are all chained to Fortune’s car; her triumphs over history are
greater than Pompey’s, as her wheel turns, never resting for a moment.
She has as many phases as the moon, says Menelaus, in the words
Sophocles puts into his mouth; and for those who are still in her first
quarter, that is a comforting reflection.
I would sometimes say to myself: “What does all this matter, Breugnon?
What to you are the glories of Rome, and the crimes and follies of
these old rascals? You have your own faults and troubles to think of,
why go out of your way to worry over those of people who have been dead
and gone for eighteen hundred years? To a sober middle-class citizen
of Clamecy, Cæsar, Antony, and their light-o’-love, Cleopatra, these
Persian princes who murdered their sons and married their daughters,
were extremely depraved people; the most virtuous thing they ever did
was to die; so peace to their ashes!--but how can a respectable man
find pleasure in reading about such insanities? Think of Alexander,
who spent the treasures of a nation on the burial of his beautiful
favorite, Ephestion. Are you not shocked by such extravagance?--It is
bad enough to murder a lot of people, for men are savage beasts; but
when it comes to wasting so much good money, that these tyrants had
never earned, how can you smile at such wickedness? It is really absurd
to see you sitting up with your eyes wide open, as proud as if you
yourself had been fool enough to scatter these millions to the wind.
Surely the worst idiot of all is he who delights in the follies of
others!”
After a discourse of this kind, the other side of me would make answer:
“Colas, you talk like a printed book, but, none the less, I would give
my right hand for these things which you call nonsense; and I find more
life in the shadows of the men who died two thousand years ago, than in
those who move and breathe today. I feel that I know and love them, and
would consent to let Alexander kill me as he did Clytus, if afterward
he would come and weep over my body. It is all real to me; my heart is
in my throat when I see Cæsar in the Senate-house, his back against a
pillar like a stag at bay, the conspirators’ knives searching for his
life; and I am in ecstasy when Cleopatra floats by me in her gilded
barge, surrounded by Nereids and young pages, naked and beautiful as
the day. The perfumed breeze blows across my face, and I open my big
nostrils, the better to inhale the delicious fragrance.”
When at the end Antony is drawn up to the loophole in the tower,
bleeding, half dead; and his love, struggling with the heavy weight,
can hardly pull him in;--I really cannot bear it, and sob like a child!
What is it that moves me thus, and binds me to these men and women as
if to those of my own blood? except the fact that we are truly of one
family, we are Man, each and all of us.
I pity people from the bottom of my heart who know nothing of the
profound pleasure of books; they are like disinherited children, but
they do not know it, and boast that the present is enough for them.
Blind geese! who can see no farther than the end of their noses! Not
that I mean to deny the merits of the present; that would come with an
ill grace from one like me, who have always kept my hands and my mouth
open for anything good. No, those who find fault with the present are
ignorant, or else they have a poor digestion: I understand a man who
clasps all that he can reach to his heart, but there are those who
reach nothing worth while:--he who contents himself with little is of
small value; and I have always preferred to take the most that I could
get in life.
In Adam’s time the present was all very well; there were no clothes to
wear, and only one woman in the world; but life is fuller now, coming
as we do at the end of a long line of ancestors, heirs to all that they
have amassed, and we should be fools indeed to neglect the harvests of
the past, on the pretext that we can gather others.
I often dwell on the thought of Adam. He and I are really the same
person, only I am older and bigger; the same tree, but with more
branches. I feel every stroke of the woodman’s axe to my remotest leaf;
all the joys and sorrows of the world are mine; I laugh with them that
rejoice, and weep with them that weep; and this is especially true of
the world of books; there, more than in my own life, I feel the bond
that unites men, from prince to peasant.
Soon of us all there will remain only a few ashes, and the flame which
rises, one yet infinitely multiplied, from our inmost souls towards
Heaven. There with its thousand tongues it will sing forever the glory
of the Omnipotent Creator.
* * * * *
So I lie dreaming in my garret, while outside the wind falls with the
fading light, and the chill wings of the snow brush across the window
panes. As the shadows darken my eyes can no longer distinguish the book
in my hand, but with my face on the page the human scent comes to my
nostrils; is it I, or the story that is dying away into the night,
that comes, that is here? I am in the forest, my prey eludes me in
the long vistas, as I seem to stop and listen with a beating heart to
the flight and the pursuit: my eyes slowly close, but they can pierce
through the darkness; I am not asleep, the planets are looking at me
through the window, I can almost touch the glass, and across the black
arch without flashes one shooting star, then another,--a rain of jewels
this November night; and I think of Cæsar and his comet,--perhaps that
is the trail of his blood up yonder!
At dawn I am still there dreaming. It is Sunday; I hear the church
bells, and their sound fills the whole house from cellar to garret
with its vibrations, giving new life to my vagrant fancies, which
spread themselves over poor old Paillard’s book. To my ear my dim
little chamber resounds to the feet of armies, the wheels of chariots,
and the tramp of war-steeds. The windows shake, my ears and my
heart thrill with the sound, and I open my mouth to cry: “Ave Cæsar
Imperator!”--when Florimond, who has come up and is looking out of the
window, says with a loud yawn: “There is not a single soul to be seen
in the street this morning,--it is as dull as ditch-water!”
XIV
HEALTH TO THE KING!
St. Martin’s Day,
November 11th.
The air was delightfully soft and warm when I woke this morning; it
seemed like a gentle touch on my cheek, or a kitten rubbing itself
against me. It flowed in a golden stream through the window; the sky
had raised her cloudy eyelids, and looked at me with her pale blue
eyes, while a faint ray of sunshine smiled from the opposite roof.
I felt dreamy and languid and like a boy again,--old fool that I am!
But I have stopped growing old and am now retracing my steps as fast
as I can; pretty soon I shall be an infant in arms once more. My
heart was filled with sweet visions,--like good Roger who yearned for
Alcine,--you remember? I was in such a tender humor that I could not
have been persuaded to harm a fly, and any child could have played with
me.
I thought I was alone, but all at once I caught sight of Martine in the
corner; I had not noticed when she came in, for she had said nothing,
contrary to her habit, but just sat down and took up her sewing without
even looking in my direction. I felt on such good terms with all the
world that I wanted to share my pleasure, so just for the sake of being
amiable, I said, “Why did they ring the great bell this morning?”
“It is St. Martin’s Day, Father,” said she, surprised at the question.
To think that I should have so lost myself in dreams as to forget the
god of our town and herself! Among all the new friends in Plutarch, I
could see in my mind’s eye this old one, as good as any of the rest of
them, dividing his long cloak with his sword, as his legend tells us.
“How could I forget St. Martin?” cried I.
“I don’t know indeed,” said Martine, “except that these days you don’t
seem to remember anything in earth or Heaven but that stupid book of
yours.”
This made me laugh, for I had often noticed that she cast a malevolent
eye on old Plutarch when she came in the morning and found him in my
bed; women seldom have a real love for books; they see in them either
lovers or rivals. When they themselves read they always have an uneasy
sense of infidelity, and that is why they cannot bear to see us
absorbed in books, which they feel to be a sort of treachery.
“It is St. Martin’s own fault,” said I, “he never comes to see me
nowadays, though he has half his cloak to wear, and so I forgot all
about him. Out of sight out of mind! You must keep yourself before
people’s eyes, you know, my daughter, if you want to be remembered.”
“There is no need to tell me that; I don’t let folks forget me.”
“True enough, you are easy to see and hear as a general thing, but this
morning you were as still as a mouse; I miss our usual quarrel, come
over here and begin.”
She would not even turn her head, but answered, “I have given up, there
is no use talking to you!”
I looked at her as she sat stitching away with her mouth obstinately
set; she really looked sad, so I began to be sorry that I had got the
better of her. “Come here, dear, and give me a kiss; I may forget
Martin, but never his namesake. Come, I have a present here for you.”
“You have some trick up your sleeve.”
“No, no, on my word, come and see what I have for you.”
“I am too busy.”
“Unnatural child, you are too busy to kiss your old father?”
She came reluctantly and stood near the bed, and I held out my arms to
her.
“I don’t see any present,” said she.
“You have it now, I meant myself.”
“A pretty present you would be!”
“Ugly or pretty, I am yours entirely now to do with as you please.”
“Will you sleep downstairs?”
“Anywhere you choose to put me.”
“Will you do as you are told and let me love you and scold you when you
need it?”
“I am your slave from this hour!”
“You dear bad old thing!” she cried. “I am going to get even with you
now, for all your obstinacy!”
Then she hugged and cuffed me, shaking me about like a doll, and,
without waiting a minute, called Florimond and his white-capped
assistants who carried me feet first down the narrow stair and put me
down in the big bed in the bright room, and there Martine and Glodie
tucked me up and fussed about me, telling me over and over again that
now that they had me downstairs I should see what good care they would
take of me.
Do you know I really enjoyed it? And, having given in to my daughter
completely, strangely enough I find that it is I who really direct and
manage the whole household.
Martine spends the greater part of the day in my room now and we
have long talks about one time in particular when _I_ sat by _her_
bedside, because it was she who was laid up with a sprained foot. The
naughty little cat had jumped out of the window one night to meet her
sweetheart; I caught her, and in spite of the sprain, I gave her a good
trouncing; she laughs at it now and says I did not hurt enough, but in
those days it was impossible to keep her in order no matter what you
did; she always managed to slip through my fingers, but she kept her
head nevertheless and some one else lost his, we must suppose, as he is
now her husband. She laughs and sighs over those old days, and says it
is all over now; that there are no more jokes for her; and then we talk
of Florimond. She does justice to his good qualities, like the sensible
woman that she is, but admits that he does not amuse her; marriage,
however, is not intended for an amusement.
“No one knows that better than you do, Father, but we must make the
best of what we have. You might as well try to draw water out of a
sieve as to look for love in a husband, but I am not one to cry my
eyes out for what I cannot have; I am not so badly off, and contented
enough on the whole; but I can’t help thinking how different things are
now from what I used to expect. How far our youthful dreams are from
the things we come to accept in later years! I don’t know if it is sad
or ridiculous, but when I remember all the hopes and fears, vows and
flames, and for what? To make some man’s pot boil. After all, it is as
much as most of us deserve, but if any one had told me so, once upon a
time!--Well, there is always some fun to be got out of it. Laughter is
a sauce that would make anything taste good, and that has never been
lacking to you and me, Daddy; we can always laugh when we have made
fools of ourselves.”
Such as it was, you can be sure we did not deny ourselves that
consolation, and had many a joke, too, at the expense of other people.
Sometimes we would fall silent; she occupied with her work and I with
my book; but we kept up a little murmur like a brook which flows
underground till it can leap out again into the sunshine; an idea would
come into Martine’s head which made her burst out laughing, and then
our tongues would run on again faster than ever.
I should have been glad to introduce Plutarch to Martine, and make
her appreciate all his beauties, and enjoy my interesting and pathetic
manner of reading aloud, but I had no sort of success; she did not like
Greece or Rome any more than a fish would like apples for his dinner.
Sometimes she would listen for a few moments, just from politeness,
but she could not keep her mind on it, or rather her thoughts were
elsewhere, flying up, down and all around, so that at the most exciting
part of the narrative when I was working up to my effect, with a
trembling voice, she would interrupt me, calling out to Glodie, or to
Florimond at the other end of the house. This vexed me, of course, but
I had to give it up, and resign myself to the fact that woman rarely
shares our visions with us. She is half of us, but which half? The
upper, of course, but suppose it should be the other? One thing is very
sure, whatever the sexes have in common, it is not their brain, for
each has its own, like a case full of baubles; or rather, they are like
two sprouts from the same stem with one root between them--the heart.
I have a great many visitors these days, old graybeard as I am, ruined
and lame into the bargain; all the pretty young housewives of the
neighborhood gather round my bed, ostensibly to bring me the news,
or to ask to have something mended. It does not matter what excuse
they make for coming, they forget all about it as soon as they are
inside the door; it is like the market, where each one has her place;
Guillemine the bright-eyed, Huguette with her straight nose, clever
Jacquotte, Margueron, Alizon, and all the rest of them, and the old man
in the middle, snug under his down comforter. Such gossiping and such a
clack of tongues, with their gay laughter ringing out like bells--mine
is the big deep one. I know a lot of good stories which hit the girls
in the right spot, and they laugh sometimes till they roll on the
floor, and you can hear them across the street.
Florimond was actually jealous of my popularity, and wanted me to tell
him the secret of my success. I said that it was an open secret; I was
young, that was all; but he said rather spitefully that he knew that it
was because I had such a bad reputation, as women always like a rake.
“True enough,” said I, “you know how boys admire an old soldier, when
he comes back from the field of glory, and in the same way the ladies
like Colas because they understand each other; they think he has fought
in the campaigns of Love, and may perhaps live to fight another day.”
“Did any one ever hear such an old wretch?” cried Martine, “to be
talking of making love at his time of life!”
“Why not? Now that you have put the idea into my head, I have a great
mind to marry again.”
“Much good may it do you! But, after all, boys will be boys!”
December 6th.
St. Nicholas Day,
I got out of bed this morning to do honor to the anniversary, and
they rolled my great armchair between the table and the window, set a
foot-warmer under my feet, and placed a little desk before me, with a
socket for the candle.