When winter came Francis said to his friends:
"Blessings upon you for you are of God. But in my heart I am uneasy
for the cry of the geese that are flying southward tells that a famine
is near at hand, and that it is not in the purposes of Heaven to make
the earth kind for you. Praised be the hidden designs of the Lord!"
The country around them, in fact, became a barren waste. The sky let
drip a yellow light from its sack-like clouds bulging with snow. All
the fruits of the hedges had withered, and all those of the orchards
were dead. And the seeds had left their husks to enter into the bosom
of the earth.
..."Praised be the hidden designs of the Lord," said Francis.
"Perhaps it is His wish that you leave me, and each of you go your own
way in quest of nourishment. Therefore separate from me since I cannot
go with each one of you, if your instincts lead you to different
lands. For you are living and have need of nourishment, while I am
risen from the dead and am here by the grace of God, free from all
corporeal needs, a spirit as it were who had the privilege of guiding
you to this day. But whatever knowledge I have is growing less, and
I no longer know how to provide for you. If you wish to leave me, let
the tongue of each be loosed, and freely let each speak."
The first to speak was the Wolf.
He raised his muzzle toward Francis. His shaggy tail was swept by the
wind. He coughed. Misery had long been his garb. His wretched fur made
him seem like a dethroned king. He hesitated, and cast his eye upon
each one of his companions in turn. At last his voice came from his
throat, hoarse like that of the eternal snow. And when he opened his
jaws one could measure his endless privations by the length of his
teeth. And his expression was so wild that one could not tell whether
he was about to bite his master or to caress him.
He said:
"Oh honey without sting! Oh brother of the poor! Oh Son of God! How
could even I leave you? My life was evil, and you have filled it with
joy. During the nights it was my fate to lie in wait listening to
the breath of the dogs, the herdsmen, and the fires, until the right
moment came to bury my fangs in the throat of sleeping lambs. You
taught me, Oh Blessed One, the sweetness of orchards. And even at this
moment when my belly was hollow with hunger for flesh, it was your
love for me that nourished me. Often, indeed, my hunger has been a
joy to me when I could place my head on your sandal for I suffer this
hunger that I may follow you, and gladly I would die for your love."
And the doves cooed.
They stopped in their shivering flight together among the branches
of a barren tree. They could not make up their minds to speak. Each
moment it seemed as though they were about to begin, when in sudden
fright they again filled the listening forest with their sobbing white
caresses. They trembled like young girls who mingle their tears and
their arms. They spoke together as if they had but a single voice:
"Oh Francis, you are more lovely than the light of the glow-worm
gleaming in the moss, gentler than the brook which sings to us while
we hang our warm nest in the fragrant shade of the young poplars. What
matter that the hoarfrost and famine would banish us from your side
and drive us far away to more fruitful lands? For your sake we will
love hoarfrost and famine. For the sake of your love we will give up
the things we crave. And if we must die of the cold, Oh our Master, it
will be with heart against heart."
And one of the dogs with the spiked collars advanced. It was the
spaniel, Rabbit's friend. Like the wolf she had already suffered
bitterly with hunger and her teeth chattered. Her ears were wrinkled
even when she raised them, and her straggly tail which looked like
tufts of cotton she held out rigid and motionless. Her eyes of the
color of yellow raspberries were fixed on Francis with the ardor of
absolute Faith. And her two companions, who trustfully were getting
ready to listen to her, lowered their heads in sign of their ignorance
and goodwill. They were shepherd dogs, who had never heard anything
but the sob of the sheep-bells, the bleating of the flocks and the
lash-like crack of the lightning on the summits, and, proud and happy,
they waited while the little spaniel bore witness.
She took a step forward. But not a sound came from her throat. She
licked the hand of Francis, and then lay down at his feet.
And the ewe bleated.
Her bleats were so full of sadness that it seemed as if she were
already exhaling her soul toward death at the very thought of leaving
Francis. As she stood there in silence, her lamb, seized by some
strange melancholy, was suddenly heard, crying like a child.
And the ewe spoke:
"Neither the placidity of grassy meadows toned down by the mists of
the dawn, nor the sweet woods of the mountains dotted by the fog
with the pearls of its silvery sweat, nor the beds of straw of the
smoke-filled cabins, are in any way comparable to the pasture-grounds
of your heart. Rather than leave you we should prefer the bloody and
loathful slaughter-house, and the rocking of the cart on which we are
carried thither with our legs tied and our flanks and cheeks on the
boards. Oh Francis, it would be like unto death to us to lose you, for
we love you."
And while the sheep spoke the owl and the hawks, perched near one
another, remained motionless, their eyes full of anguish and their
wings pressed close to their sides lest they fly away.
The last one to speak was Rabbit.
Clothed in his fur of the color of stubble and earth he seemed like a
god of the fields. In the midst of the wintry waste he was like a clod
of earth of the summer time. He made one think of a road-mender or
a rural postman. Tucked up in the windings of his flapping ears he
carried with himself the agitation of all sounds. One of the ears,
extended toward the ground, listened to the crackling of the frost,
while the other, open to the distance, gathered in the blows of an axe
with which the dead forest resounded.
"Surely, Oh Francis," he said, "I can be satisfied with the mossgrown
bark which has grown tender beneath the caress of the snows and which
wintry dawns have made fragrant. More than once have I satisfied
my hunger with it during these disastrous days when the briars have
turned into rose-colored crystals, and when the agile wagtail utters
its shrill cry toward the larvae which its beak can no longer reach
beneath the ice along the banks. I shall continue to gnaw these barks.
For, Oh Francis, I do not wish to die with these gentle friends who
are in their agony, but rather I wish to live beside you and obtain my
sustenance from the bitter fiber of the trees."
* * * * *
Therefore because the country of each of them was a different land
where each could dwell only by himself, Rabbit's companions chose not
to separate, but to die together in this land harrowed by winter.
One evening the doves which had become like dead leaves fell from the
branch on which they were perched, and the wolf closed his eyes on
life, his muzzle resting on the sandal of Francis. For two days his
neck had been so weak that it could no longer support his head, and
his spine had become like the branch of a bramble bespattered with
mud, shivering in the wind. His master kissed him on the forehead.
Then the lamb, the sheep-dogs, the hawks, the owl, and the ewe gave up
their souls, and finally also the little spaniel whom Rabbit in vain
had sought to keep warm. She passed away wagging her tail, and
it grieved stubble-colored Rabbit so much that it took until the
following day before he could touch the bark of the oaks again.
* * * * *
And in the midst of the world's desolation Francis prayed, his
forehead on his clenched hand, just as in an excess of sorrow a poet
feels his soul escaping him once more.
Then he addressed him of the cleft lip.
"Oh Rabbit, I hear a voice which tells me that you must lead these
(and he pointed to the bodies of the animals) to Eternal Blessedness.
Oh Rabbit, there is a Paradise for beasts, but I know it not. No man
will ever enter it. Oh Rabbit, you must guide thither these friends,
whom God has given me and whom he has taken away. You are wise among
all, and to your prudence I commit these friends."
The words of Francis rose toward the brightening sky. The hard azure
of winter gradually became limpid. And under this returning gladness,
it seemed as if the graceful spaniel were about to raise her supple,
silken ears again. "Oh my friends who are dead," said Francis, "are
you really dead, since I alone am conscious of your death? What proof
can you give to sleep that you are not merely slumbering? Is the fruit
of the clematis asleep or is it dead when the wind no longer ruffles
the lightness of its tendrils? Perhaps, Oh wolf, it is merely that
there is no longer sufficient breath from on high for you to raise
your flanks; and for you, doves, to make you expand like a sigh;
and for you, sheep, to cause your lamentations by their sweetness to
augment even the sweetness of flooded pastures; and for you, owl, to
reawaken your sobbing, the plaint of the amorous night itself; and for
you, hawks, to rise soaring from the earth; and for you, sheep-dogs,
to have your barking mingle once more with the sound of the sluices;
and for you, spaniel, to have exquisite understanding born again, that
you may play with Rabbit again?"
* * * * *
Suddenly Rabbit made a leap into the azure from the molehill where
he had lain down, and did not drop back. And lightly as if he were
passing over a meadow of blue clover he made a second bound into
space, into the realm of the angels.
He had hardly completed this second leap when he saw the little
spaniel by his side, and joyously he asked her:
"Aren't you really dead, then?"
And skipping toward him she replied:
"I do not understand what you are saying to me. My noonday sleep
to-day was peaceful and bright."
Then Rabbit saw that the other animals were following him into the
void, while Francis was journeying along another heavenly pathway,
indicating to the wolf by means of signs with his hand to put his
trust in Rabbit. And the wolf with docility and peace in his heart
felt Faith come over him again. He continued on his way with his
friends, after a long look toward his master, and knowing that for
those who are chosen there is something divine even in the final
adieu.
* * * * *
They left winter behind them. They were astonished at passing through
these meadows which formerly were so inaccessible and so far above
their heads. But the need of gaining Paradise gave them a firm footing
in the sky.
By the paths of the seraphim, along the trellises of light, over the
milky ways where the comet is like a sheaf of grain, Rabbit guided his
companions. Francis had entrusted them to him, and had given him to
them as guide because he knew Rabbit's prudence. And had he not on
many occasions given his master proofs of this quality of discretion
which is the beginning of wisdom? When Francis met him and begged
him to follow, had he not waited until Francis held out a handful of
flowering grass and let him nibble at it? And when all his companions
let themselves die of hunger for love of one another, had not he with
his down-trodden heels continued to gnaw the bitter bark of the trees?
Therefore it seemed that this prudence would not fail him even in
heaven. If they lost their way he would find the right road again. He
would know how not to get lost, and how not to collide with either the
sun or the moon. He would have the skill to avoid the shooting-stars
which are as dangerous as stones thrown from a sling. He would find
the way by the heavenly sign-posts on which were marked the number of
miles that had been left behind, as well as the names of the celestial
hamlets.
The regions traversed by Rabbit and his companions were ravishing
and filled them with ecstasy. This was all the more the case because
contrary to man, they had never suspected the beauties of the sky;
they had been able to look only sidewise and not upward, this being
the exclusive right of the king of animals.
So it came that Short-tail, the Wolf, the Ewe, the Lamb, the Birds,
the Sheep-Dogs, the Spaniel, discovered that the sky was as beautiful
as the earth. And all except Rabbit, who was sometimes troubled by
the problems of direction, enjoyed an unalloyed pleasure in this
pilgrimage toward God. In place of the heavenly fields, which only a
short while ago seemed inaccessible above their heads, the earth now
became in its turn slowly inaccessible beneath their feet. And as
they moved further and further away from it, this earth became a new
heavenly canopy for them. The blue of the oceans formed their clouds
of foam, and the candles of the shops sprinkled like stars the expanse
of the night.
Gradually they approached the regions which Francis had promised them.
Already the rose-red clovers of the setting suns and the luminous
fruits of the darkness which were their food grew larger and fuller
and melted in their souls into the sweets of paradise.
The leaves and ardent pulp of the fruits filled their blood with some
strange summer-like power, a palpitating joy which made their hearts
beat faster as they came nearer and nearer the marvels that were to be
theirs.
* * * * *
At last they came to the abode of the beasts, who had attained eternal
bliss. It was the first Paradise, that of the dogs.
For some time already they had heard barking. Bending down toward the
trunk of a decayed oak they saw a mastiff sitting in a hollow as in
a niche. His disdainful and yet placid glance told them that his mind
was disordered. It was the dog of Diogenes, to whom God had accorded
solitude in this tub, hollowed out of a very tree itself. With
indifference he watched the dogs with the spiked collars pass by.
Then to their great astonishment he left his moss-grown kennel for
a moment, and, since his leash had become undone, tied himself fast
again using his mouth as aid. He reëntered his den of wood, and said:
"_Here each one takes his pleasure where he finds it_."
And, in fact, Rabbit and his companions saw dogs in quest of imaginary
travelers who had lost their way. They dared descent into deep abysses
to find those who had met with accident, bearing to them the bouillon,
meat, and brandy contained in the small casks hanging from their
collars.
Others flung themselves into icy waters, always hoping, but always in
vain, that they might rescue a shipwrecked sailor. When they regained
the shore they were shivering, stunned, yet happy in their futile
devotion, and ready to fling themselves in again.
Others persistently begged for a couple of old bones at the thresholds
of deserted cottages along the road, waiting for kicks, and their eyes
were filled with an inexpressible melancholy.
There was also a scissors-grinder's dog, who with tongue hanging out,
was joyfully turning the wheel-work which made the stone revolve, even
though no knife was held against it in the process of sharpening. But
his eyes shone with the unquestioning faith in a duty fulfilled; he
ceased not to labor except to catch his breath, and then he labored
again.
Then there was a sheep-dog, who, ever faithful, sought to bring back
to a fold ewes that were evermore straying. He was pursuing them on
the bank of a brook which gleamed on the edge of a grassy hill.
From this green hill and from out of the under-woods a pack of hounds
broke forth. They had hunted the hinds and gazelles of their dreams
all the day long. Their baying which lingered about the ancient scents
sounded like the happy bells on a flowery Easter morning.
Not far from here the sheep-dogs and the little spaniel established
their home. But when the latter wished to bid Rabbit a tender farewell
she saw that Long-Ear had slipped away on hearing the dogs of the
chase.
And it was without him that the hawks, the owl, the doves, the wolf,
and the ewes had to continue their flight or their progress. They
understood very well that he, a rabbit of little faith, would not know
how to die like them. Instead of being saved by God, he preferred to
save himself.
* * * * *
The second Paradise was that of the birds. It lay in a fresh grove,
and their songs flooded the leaves of the alders and made them
tremble. And from the alders the songs flowed onward into the river
which became so imbued with music that it played on the rushes.
At a distance a hill stretched out; it was all covered with springtime
and shade. Its sides were of incomparable softness. It was fragrant
with solitude. The odor of nocturnal lilacs mingled with that which
came from the heart of dark roses whence the hot white sun quenches
its thirst.
Now, suddenly, at intervals, the song of the nightingale was heard
expanding; it was as if stars of crystal had fallen upon the waves
and broken there. There was no other sound but the song of the
nightingale. Over the whole expanse of the silent hill nothing was
heard but the song of the nightingale. Night was merely the sobbing of
the nightingale.
Then in the groves dawn appeared, all rose-red because it was naked
amid the choirs of birds who still sang from a full throat for their
wings were heavy with love and morning dew. The quails in the grain
were not yet calling. The tom-tits with their black heads made a noise
in the thicket of fig-trees like the sound of pebbles moved by water.
A wood-pecker rent the azure with its cry, and then flew toward the
old, white-flowered apple-trees. It had almost the appearance of a
handful of grass torn from the golden meadows with a clover-flower as
its head.
The three hawks and the owl entered into these places abounding in
flowers, and not a single redbreast and not a single gold-finch and
not a single linnet was frightened by them. The birds of prey sat on
their perches with an arrogant and sad air, and kept their eyes fixed
on the sun; now and then they beat their steely wings against their
mottled, keel-like breasts.
The owl sought out the shadows of the hill, so that hidden in some
solitary cavern and happy in its darkness and wisdom, it might listen
to the plaint of the nightingale.
But the most wonderful shelter of all was that chosen by the doves.
They sat among the olive-trees, that were stirred by the evening
breeze. In this garden young girls dwelled, who were permitted to
enter here because of their animal-like grace. They included all the
young girls who sighed and were like to honey-suckle; all the young
girls who languish with all the doves that weep. And all the doves
were included here, those from Venice, whose wings were like cooling
fans to the boredom of the wives of the doges, as well as those
of Iberia whose lips had the orange and tobacco-yellow color of
fisherwomen and their provocative allurement. Here were all the doves
of dreams, and all the dreaming doves: the dove that drew Beatrice
heavenward and to which Dante gave a grain of corn; and the one which
the disenchanted Quitteria heard in the night. Here was the dove which
sobbed on Virginia's shoulder, when during the night she sought
in vain to calm the fires of her love in the spring underneath a
cocoanut-palm. And here too was the dove to which the heavy-hearted
maiden at the waning of summer, in the orchard among the ripening
peaches, confides passionate messages that it may bear them along in
its flight into the unknown.
And there were the doves of old parsonages shrouded in roses, and
those which Jocelyn with his incense-fragrant hand fed as he dreamed
of Laurence. And there was the dove which is given to the dying little
girl, and that which in certain regions is placed upon the burning
brow of the sick, and the blinded dove whose voice is so filled
with pain that it lures the flight of its passing sisters toward
the huntsman's ambush, and the dove, the gentlest of all, who brings
comfort to the forgotten old poet in his garret.
* * * * *
The third paradise was that of the sheep.
It lay in the heart of an emerald valley watered by streams, and
beneath their sun-bathed crystal the grass was of a marvelous green.
And nearby was a lake, iridescent like mother-of-pearl and the
feathers of a peacock; it was azure and glistened like mica, and
seemed to be the breast of humming-birds and the wing of butterflies.
Here after they had licked the pure white salt from the golden-grained
granite, the sheep dreamed their long dream, and their tufts of thick
wool overlapped like the leaves of great branches covered with snow.
This landscape was so pure and of such dreamlike clarity that it had
whitened the eye-lashes of the lambs, and had entered into their eyes
of gold. And the atmosphere was so transparent that it seemed one
could see in the depth of the water clearly revealed the outlines of
the yellow-striped summits of limestone. Flowers of frost, of sky, and
of blood were woven into the carpets of the forests of beech and fir.
After having passed over them the breeze went forth again even more
softly, more fragrant, more ice-like in its purity.
Like a blue flood the marvelous cone-like trees, interwoven with
silvery lichens, stretched upward. Waterfalls as if suspended from
the rocky crags, scattered in a smoke-like spray. And suddenly the
heavenly flocks sent forth their bleating toward God, and the ecstatic
bells wept for the shadow of the ferns. And the dark water of the
grottoes broke in the light.
Lying amid the wild laurel the lamb of the Gospel became visible
again. Its paw rested under its nose, and was still bleeding. The
roads over which it had passed had been hard, but soon it would be
fully restored by the slightly acid sweetness of the myrtles. Even now
it was quivering as it listened to its scattered companions.
On entering this Paradise to dwell therein the sheep of Francis saw
the lamb of Jean de la Fontaine amid the forget-me-nots which were
of the mirror-like color of the waves. It no longer disputed with
the wolf of the fable. It drank, and the water did not become turbid
thereat. The untamed spring over which the two hundred year old ivy
seemed to have thrown a shadow of bitterness, streamed on amid
the grass with its broken waves in which were mirrored the snowy
tremblings of the lamb.
And high on the slopes of the _happy valleys_ they saw the sheep of
those heroes that Cervantes tells about, all of whom were sick at
heart for the love of one and the same girl and left their city to
lead the life of shepherds in a far-away country. These sheep had
the gentlest of voices, like hearts that secretly love their own
sufferings. They drank from the wild thyme the always new, burning
tears which their bucolic poets had let fall like dew from the cups of
their eyes.
At the horizon of this Paradise there rose a confused murmur like
that of the Ocean. It consisted of the broken sobbing of flutes
or clarinets, of cries reechoed from the abysses, of the baying of
restless dogs, and of the fall of a moss-covered stone into the
void. It was the tumult of the waterfalls high above the noise of the
torrents. It was like the voice of a people on the march toward the
promised land, toward the grapes without name, toward the fiery spikes
of grain; and mingled with this sound was the braying of pregnant
she-asses, that were laden with heavy containers of milk and the
mantles of the herdsmen and salt and cheeses which were brittle like
chalk.
* * * * *
The fourth Paradise in its almost indescribable barrenness was that of
the wolves.
At the summit of a treeless mountain, in the desolation of the wind,
beneath a penetrating fog, they felt the voluptuous joy of martyrdom.
They sustained themselves with their hunger. They experienced a bitter
joy in feeling that they were abandoned, that never for more than an
instant--and then only under the greatest suffering--had they been
able to renounce their lust for blood. They were the disinherited,
possessed of the dream that could never be realized. For a long time
they had not been able to approach the heavenly lambs whose white
eyelashes winked in the green light. And as none of these animals ever
died, they could no longer lie in wait for the body which the shepherd
threw to the eternal laughter of the torrent.
And the wolves were resigned. Their fur, bald as the rock, was
pitiable. A sort of miserable grandeur reigned in this strange abode.
One felt that this destitution was so tragic and so inexorable that
one would have tenderly kissed the forehead of these poor flesh-eating
beasts even had one surprised them in slaying the lambs. The beauty
of this Paradise in which the friend of Francis now found his home was
that of desolation and hopeless despair.
And beyond this region the heaven of the beasts stretched on to
infinity.