THE OLD RAT AND HIS YOUNG PUPIL.
_Trotter._ [_Looking in at the window._] Master, may I come in?
_Gnawer._ What! by the window? can’t you find the door? But I forgot,
you rats of the modern school never do as others do. Come, let us
dine, the things have been waiting long enough.
_Trotter._ Master, it is no fault of mine if, instead of crawling
under the door, I was obliged to make a long journey round and come
over the roof.
_Gnawer._ [_Laughing._] Nor mine that I know of. [_He helps
himself._] Try a little of this grilled nut; it is delicious!
_Trotter._ [_Gloomily._] I suppose it is my fate.
_Gnawer._ Again prating about fate. Can’t you leave fate alone?
_Trotter._ Master, fate is never tired of persecuting us. Is it
not fate that has filled the hole you cut with such labour at the
bottom of the door? so that your friends and neighbours might find no
difficulty in visiting you.
_Gnawer._ And you really think that fate filled up the hole?
_Trotter._ What else could it be, tutor?
_Gnawer._ It was Toinon. [_He helps him._] This lard is delicious.
There is no one save Toinon has such good lard.
_Trotter._ But who is Toinon, tutor?
_Gnawer._ The mistress of the house, daughter of Babolin. The most
charming woman, oh! and such a worker. She toils at sewing from
morning till night.
_Trotter._ And pray what interest can she have in stopping up holes?
_Gnawer._ What interest? [_Laughing._] Taste this cheddar. Why, her
legs to be sure; Toinon hates draughts. Besides, she is a charming
girl, who makes crumbs when eating, and always leaves the cupboard
door open. She will make an excellent wife. I wish I could marry her.
_Trotter._ [_With bitterness._] You?
_Gnawer._ [_Good-naturedly._] Yes, I wish I could marry her—to a
youth she loves. It would give me the greatest pleasure to make two
such beings happy. Who can prevent me? {100}
_Trotter._ Reflect, master; you are but a miserable rat, and yet you
speak of rendering human beings happy. We are of a despised race.
There is nothing so mean in the eyes of men as rats. “Poor as a rat”
is a common phrase with them.
_Gnawer._ Your temper is soured, my boy. Let us walk to aid
digestion. The fresh air may clear your mind of these notions. Did
you ever come across the songs of Béranger? He says that the poor, or
rats, if you prefer it, have for their portion probity, wisdom, and
happiness. A celebrated Scotch poet has even spoken of mice and men
in the same line—
“The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men
Gang aft a-gley.”
That line recalls some incidents that have come under my personal
notice, where the wisdom of the rat proved superior to the schemes of
men.
_Trotter._ Yes; it is all very well talking, nevertheless, the
fact remains. We are a doomed race. Romantic ideas, however well
expressed, will never feed the poor, or rats, when dying from hunger.
_Gnawer._ Yes; who is in the habit of dying from hunger? Are you? Did
you die yesterday? Are you dying to-day?
_Trotter._ [_Aside in a mysterious tone._] Who knows? [_Aloud._] If
I do not die, others do. Have you forgotten Ratapon and his numerous
family? They suffered for several days from hunger: taking heart,
they asked their neighbours for help; but the first they came to, a
big fat porker, whose sty was full of corn and vegetables——
_Gnawer._ Well, I know what happened to them as well as you do.
Roused by their cries, Mr. Pig looked over the wall, and addressing
them in a surly tone, said, “What is all this noise? What do you
vagrants want?” “Your charity, my lord.” “Be off instantly. How dare
you interrupt me in the middle of my dinner?”
_Trotter._ That was all that came of it; only, next morning the
bodies of Ratapon and his family were found scattered over the
country. Want and despair had killed them.
_Gnawer._ Want and despair! You are drawing on your imagination, my
boy. It was simply poison—some balls of lard-and-arsenic which they
greedily swallowed without waiting to send them to the parish analyst.
_Trotter._ What more simple, more soothing than death? Is it not
{101} our lot? Are we not menaced with cats, poison, and traps every
day of our lives?
_Gnawer._ Yet we—some of us—reach a happy and honoured old age.
_Trotter._ Yes; nevertheless, it seems to me that every hour of our
life is full of misery.
[Illustration]
_Gnawer._ A thousand evils and misfortunes overcome are preferable to
the event that deprives one of life. {102}
_Trotter._ Better for fools, but the courageous rat has no love for a
life full of torments, and casts it from him.
_Gnawer._ Ah, so you contemplate suicide? and would withal be
accounted a wise and courageous rat. It is a gay thought to toss
lightly away the life you lack the courage to defend and protect.
_Trotter._ This is no time for jesting; I am sick of life, and I give
it up.
_Gnawer._ Believe me, you are wrong. Life is not a bad thing. It
has its hours of joy and hours of sorrow. I myself have more than
once seen our last foe face to face, and yet I live. The traps made
by man are not so cleverly constructed that one may not escape from
them, and the cat’s claws are not always fatal. If my poor father
were living, he would tell you how by patience and perseverance a
rat may draw himself out of even the most perilous situations. I was
still very young when one day the smell of a nice piece of bacon led
him into one of those traps, vulgarly called rat-traps. We all met
around his prison, and imitating our poor mother, wept and clamoured
for his release. My father, calm, dignified, and self-possessed even
in misfortunes, said, “Stop your crying and work, every mother’s
son of you. The enemy may be hidden only a few steps off. Those
traps invented by the perversity of man are simple enough. The
door hangs on a lever” (my father had finished his education by
devouring a dry scientific encyclopædia; he therefore knew a little
of everything). “It is said that a lever and a weight might lift
the world. If by applying weight to this lever you can give me back
my liberty, you shall have achieved a nobler work. All of you climb
to the top of my prison and hang on to the long end of the lever.”
Executing his orders promptly, we succeeded in raising the door and
saving my father. Suddenly, with a terrible spring, a furious Tom
cat leaped upon us. “Fly!” cried my father, whose courage remained
unshaken—“fly! I alone will face the enemy.” A fierce struggle
ensued, in which my father, severely wounded, lost his tail, but not
his life. Soon after he regained our domestic hole, and while we
licked the blood from his wounds, he smilingly said to us, “You see,
my children, danger is like drifting wood—portentous in the distance,
paltry when it has drifted past.”
_Trotter._ [_Coolly._] That is just my sentiment; I have no dread of
danger, I could face anything. {103}
At this moment a noise is heard like a pebble on the window, Trotter
is about to flee, Gnawer prevents him.
[Illustration]
_Gnawer._ Ah, my friend, where is your boasted courage? You {104}
begin to face danger by running away. Calm yourself, I know this
signal. It is Toinon’s lover throwing stones at the window. We may
remain here. Lovers are dangerous to no one, they only think of
themselves.