The Discovery
The breakfast was long, as the meals usually are at a _table d'hôte_.
Christiane, who was not familiar with all the faces of those present,
chatted with her father and her brother. Then she went up to her room
to take a rest till the time for blasting the rock.
She was ready long before the hour fixed, and made the others start
along with her so that they might not miss the explosion. Just outside
the village, at the opening of the glen, stood, as they had heard, a
high knoll, almost a mountain, which they proceeded to climb under a
burning sun, following a little path through the vine-trees. When they
reached the summit the young woman uttered a cry of astonishment at the
sight of the immense horizon displayed before her eyes. In front of
her stretched a limitless plain, which immediately gave her soul the
sensation of an ocean. This plain, overhung by a veil of light blue
vapor, extended as far as the most distant mountain-ridges, which
were scarcely perceptible, some fifty or sixty kilometers away. And
under the transparent haze of delicate fineness, which floated above
this vast stretch, could be distinguished towns, villages, woods, vast
yellow squares of ripe crops, vast green squares of herbage, factories
with long, red chimneys and blackened steeples and sharp-pointed
structures, with the solidified lava of dead volcanoes.
"Turn around," said her brother.
She turned around. And behind she saw the mountain, the huge mountain
indented with craters. This was the entrance to the foundation on which
Enval stood, a great expanse of greenness in which one could scarcely
trace the hidden gash of the gorge. The trees in a waving mass scaled
the high slope as far as the first crater and shut out the view of
those beyond. But, as they were exactly on the line that separated
the plains from the mountain, the latter stretched to the left toward
Clermont-Ferrand, and, wandering away, unrolled over the blue sky their
strange mutilated tops, like monstrous blotches--extinct volcanoes,
dead volcanoes. And yonder--over yonder, between two peaks--could be
seen another, higher still, more distant still, round and majestic, and
bearing on its highest pinnacle something of fantastic shape resembling
a ruin. This was the Puy de Dome, the king of the mountains of
Auvergne, strong and unwieldy, wearing on its head, like a crown placed
thereon by the mightiest of peoples, the remains of a Roman temple.
Christiane exclaimed: "Oh! how happy I shall be here!"
And she felt herself happy already, penetrated by that sense of
well-being which takes possession of the flesh and the heart, makes you
breathe with ease, and renders you sprightly and active when you find
yourself in a spot which enchants your eyes, charms and cheers you,
seems to have been awaiting you, a spot for which you feel that you
were born.
Some one called out to her: "Madame, Madame!" And, at some distance
away, she saw Doctor Honorat, recognizable by his big hat. He rushed
across to them, and conducted the family toward the opposite side of
the hill, over a grassy slope beside a grove of young trees, where
already some thirty persons were waiting, strangers and peasants
mingled together.
Beneath their feet, the steep hillside descended toward the Riom road,
overshadowed by willows that sheltered the shallow river; and in the
midst of a vineyard at the edge of this stream rose a sharp-pointed
rock before which two men on bended knees seemed to be praying. This
was the scene of action.
The Oriols, father and son, were attaching the fuse. On the road, a
crowd of curious spectators had stationed themselves, with a line of
people lower down in front, among whom village brats were scampering
about.
Doctor Honorat chose a convenient place for Christiane to sit down, and
there she waited with a beating heart, as if she were going to see the
entire population blown up along with the rock.
The Marquis, Andermatt, and Paul Bretigny lay down on the grass at the
young woman's side, while Gontran remained standing. He said, in a
bantering tone:
"My dear doctor, you must be much less busy than your
brother-practitioners, who apparently have not an hour to spare to
attend this little _fête_?"
Honorat replied in a good-humored tone:
"I am not less busy; only my patients occupy less of my time. And again
I prefer to amuse my patients rather than to physic them."
He had a quiet manner which greatly pleased Gontran. Other persons now
arrived, fellow-guests at the _table d'hôte_--the ladies Paille, two
widows, mother and daughter; the Monecus, father and daughter; and a
very small, fat, man, who was puffing like a boiler that had burst,
M. Aubry-Pasteur, an ex-engineer of mines, who had made a fortune in
Russia.
M. Pasteur and the Marquis were on intimate terms. He seated himself
with much difficulty after some preparatory movements, circumspect and
cautious, which considerably amused Christiane. Gontran sauntered away
from them, in order to have a look at the other persons whom curiosity
had attracted toward the knoll.
Paul Bretigny pointed out to Christiane Andermatt the views, of which
they could catch glimpses in the distance. First of all, Riom made
a red patch with its row of tiles along the plain; then Ennezat,
Maringues, Lezoux, a heap of villages scarcely distinguishable, which
only broke the wide expanse of verdure with a somber indentation here
and there, and, further down, away down below, at the base of the
mountains, he pretended that he could trace out Thiers.
He said, in an animated fashion: "Look, look! Just in front of my
finger, exactly in front of my finger. For my part, I can see it quite
distinctly."
She could see nothing, but she was not surprised at his power of
vision, for he looked like a bird of prey, with his round, piercing
eyes, which appeared to be as powerful as telescopes. He went on:
"The Allier flows in front of us, in the middle of that plain, but it
is impossible to perceive it. It is very far off, thirty kilometers
from here."
She scarcely took the trouble to glance toward the place which he
indicated, for she had riveted her eyes on the rock and given it
her entire attention. She was saying to herself that presently this
enormous stone would no longer exist, that it would disappear in
powder, and she felt herself seized with a vague pity for the stone,
the pity which a little girl would feel for a broken plaything. It had
been there so long, this stone; and then it was imposing--it had a
picturesque look. The two men, who had by this time risen, were heaping
up pebbles at the foot of it, and digging with the rapid movements of
peasants working hurriedly.
The crowd gathered along the road, increasing every moment, had pushed
forward to get a better view. The brats brushed against the two
diggers, and kept rushing and capering round them like young animals
in a state of delight; and from the elevated point at which Christiane
was sitting, these people looked quite small, a crowd of insects, an
anthill in confusion.
The buzz of voices ascended, now slight, scarcely noticeable, then more
lively, a confused mixture of cries and human movements, but scattered
through the air, evaporated already--a dust of sounds, as it were. On
the knoll likewise the crowd was swelling in numbers, incessantly
arriving from the village, and covering up the slope which looked down
on the condemned rock.
They were distinguished from each other, as they gathered together,
according to their hotels, their classes, their castes. The most
clamorous portion of the assemblage was that of the actors and
musicians, presided over and generaled by the conductor, Petrus Martel
of the Odéon, who, under the circumstances, had given up his incessant
game of billiards.
With a Panama flapping over his forehead, a black alpaca jacket
covering his shoulders and allowing his big stomach to protrude in
a semicircle, for he considered a waistcoat useless in the open
country, the actor, with his thick mustache, assumed the airs of a
commander-in-chief, and pointed out, explained, and criticised all the
movements of the two Oriols. His subordinates, the comedian Lapalme,
the young premier Petitnivelle, and the musicians, the _maestro_ Saint
Landri, the pianist Javel, the huge flautist Noirot, the double-bass
Nicordi, gathered round him to listen. In front of them were seated
three women, sheltered by three parasols, a white, a red, and a blue,
which, under the sun of two o'clock, formed a strange and dazzling
French flag. These were Mademoiselle Odelin, the young actress; her
mother,--a mother that she had hired out, as Gontran put it,--and the
female attendant of the coffee-room, three ladies who were habitual
companions. The arrangement of these three parasols so as to suit the
national colors was an invention of Petrus Martel, who, having noticed
at the commencement of the season the blue and the white in the hands
of the ladies Odelin, had made a present of the red to the coffee-room
attendant.
Quite close to them, another group excited interest and observation,
that of the chefs and scullions of the hotels, to the number of
eight, for there was a war of rivalry between the kitchen-folk, who
had attired themselves in linen jackets to make an impression on
the bystanders, extending even to the scullery-maids. Standing all
in a group they let the crude light of day fall on their flat white
caps, presenting, at the same time, the appearance of fantastic
staff-officers of lancers and a deputation of cooks.
The Marquis asked Doctor Honorat: "Where do all these people come from?
I never would have imagined Enval was so thickly populated!"
"Oh! they come from all parts, from Chatel-Guyon, from Tournoel,
from La Roche-Pradière, from Saint-Hippolyte. For this affair has
been talked of a long time in the country, and then Père Oriol is a
celebrity, an important personage on account of his influence and his
wealth, besides a true Auvergnat, remaining still a peasant, working
himself, hoarding, piling up gold on gold, intelligent, full of ideas
and plans for his children's future."
Gontran came back, excited, his eyes sparkling.
He said, in a low tone: "Paul, Paul, pray come along with me; I'm going
to show you two pretty girls; yes, indeed, nice girls, you know!"
The other raised his head, and replied: "My dear fellow, I'm in very
good quarters here; I'll not budge."
"You're wrong. They are charming!" Then, in a louder tone: "But
the doctor is going to tell me who they are. Two little girls of
eighteen or nineteen, rustic ladies, oddly dressed, with black silk
dresses that have close-fitting sleeves, some kind of uniform dresses,
convent-gowns--two brunettes----"
Doctor Honorat interrupted him: "That's enough. They are Père Oriol's
daughters, two pretty young girls indeed, educated at the Benedictine
Convent at Clermont, and sure to make very good matches. They are two
types, but simply types of our race, of the fine race of women of
Auvergne, Marquis. I will show you these two little lasses----"
Gontran here slyly interposed: "You are the medical adviser of the
Oriol family, doctor?"
The other appreciated this sly question, and simply responded with a
"By Jove, I am!" uttered in a tone of the utmost good-humor.
The young man went on: "How did you come to win the confidence of this
rich patient?"
"By ordering him to drink a great deal of good wine." And he told
a number of anecdotes about the Oriols. Moreover, he was distantly
related to them, and had known them for a considerable time. The old
fellow, the father, quite an original, was very proud of his wine; and
above all he had one vine-garden, the produce of which was reserved
for the use of the family, solely for the family and their guests.
In certain years they happened to empty the casks filled with the
growth of this aristocratic vineyard, but in other years they scarcely
succeeded in doing so. About the month of May or June, when the father
saw that it would be hard to drink all that was still left, he would
proceed to encourage his big son, Colosse, and would repeat: "Come on,
son, we must finish it." Then they would go on pouring down their
throats pints of red wine from morning till night. Twenty times during
every meal, the old chap would say in a grave tone, while he held the
jug over his son's glass: "We must finish it." And, as all this liquor
with its mixture of alcohol heated his blood and prevented him from
sleeping, he would rise up in the middle of the night, draw on his
breeches, light a lantern, wake up Colosse, and off they would go to
the cellar, after snatching a crust of bread each out of the cupboard,
in order to steep it in their glasses, filled up again and again out
of the same cask. Then, when they had swallowed so much wine that they
could feel it rolling about in their stomachs, the father would tap the
resounding wood of the cask to find out whether the level of the liquor
had gone down.
The Marquis asked: "Are these the same people that are working at the
hillock?"
"Yes, yes, exactly."
Just at that moment the two men hurried off with giant strides from
the rock charged with powder, and all the crowd that surrounded them
down below began to run away like a retreating army. They fled in the
direction of Riom and Enval, leaving behind them by itself the huge
rock on the top of the hillock covered with thin grass and pebbles,
for it divided the vineyard into two sections, and its immediate
surroundings had not been grubbed up yet.
The crowd assembled on the slope above, now as dense as that below,
waited in trembling expectancy; and the loud voice of Petrus Martel
exclaimed:
"Attention! the fuse is lit!"
Christiane shivered at the thought of what was about to happen, but the
doctor murmured behind her back:
"Ho! if they left there all the fuse I saw them buying, we'll have ten
minutes of it!"
All eyes were fixed on the stone, and suddenly a dog, a little black
dog, a kind of pug, was seen approaching it. He ran round it, began
smelling, and no doubt, discovered a suspicious odor, for he commenced
yelping as loudly as ever he could, his paws stiff, the hair on his
back standing on end, his tail sticking out, and his ears erect.
A burst of laughter came from the spectators, a cruel burst of
laughter; people expressed a hope that he would not keep riveted to the
spot up to the time of the blast. Then voices called out to him to make
him come back; some men whistled to him; they tried to hit him with
stones to prevent him from going on the whole way. But the pug did not
budge an inch, and kept barking furiously at the rock.
Christiane began to tremble. A horrible fear of seeing the animal
disemboweled took possession of her; all her enjoyment was at an end.
She cried repeatedly, with nerves unstrung, stammering, vibrating all
over with anguish:
"Oh! good heavens! Oh! good heavens! it will be killed. I don't want to
look at it! I don't want to look at it! I will not wait to see it! Come
away!"
Paul Bretigny, who had been sitting by her side, arose, and, without
saying one word, began to descend toward the hillock with all the
speed of which his long legs were capable.
Cries of terror escaped from many lips; a panic agitated the crowd; and
the pug, seeing this big man coming toward him, took refuge behind the
rock. Paul pursued him; the dog ran off to the other side; and, for a
minute or two, they kept rushing round the stone, now to right, now
to left, as if they were playing a game of hide and seek. Seeing at
last that he could not overtake the animal, the young man proceeded to
reascend the slope, and the dog, seized once more with fury, renewed
his barking.
Vociferations of anger greeted the return of the imprudent youth, who
was quite out of breath, for people do not forgive those who excite
terror in their breasts. Christiane was suffocating with emotion, her
two hands pressed against her palpitating heart. She had lost her head
so completely that she sobbed: "At least you are not hurt?" while
Gontran cried angrily:
"He is mad, that idiot; he never does anything but tomfooleries of this
kind. I never met a greater donkey!"
But the soil was now shaking; it rose in air. A formidable detonation
made the entire country all around vibrate, and for a full minute
thundered over the mountain, while all the echoes repeated it, like so
many cannon-shots.
Christiane saw nothing but a shower of stones falling, and a high
column of light clay sinking in a heap. And immediately afterward the
crowd from above rushed down like a wave, uttering wild shouts. The
battalion of kitchen-drudges came racing down in the direction of the
knoll, leaving behind them the regiment of theatrical performers, who
descended more slowly, with Petrus Martel at their head. The three
parasols forming a tricolor were nearly carried away in this descent.
And all ran, men, women, peasants, and villagers. They could be seen
falling, getting up again, starting on afresh, while in long procession
the two streams of people, which had till now been kept back by fear,
rolled along so as to knock against one another and get mixed up on the
very spot where the explosion had taken place.
"Let us wait a while," said the Marquis, "till all this curiosity is
satisfied, so that we may go and look in our turn."
The engineer, M. Aubry-Pasteur, who had just arisen with very great
difficulty, replied:
"For my part, I am going back to the village by the footpaths. There is
nothing further to keep me here."
He shook hands, bowed, and went away.
Doctor Honorat had disappeared. The party talked about him, and the
Marquis said to his son:
"You have only known him three days, and all the time you have been
laughing at him. You will end by offending him."
But Gontran shrugged his shoulders: "Oh! he's a wise man, a good
sceptic, that doctor. I tell you in reply that he will not bother
himself. When we are both alone together, he laughs at all the world
and everything, commencing with his patients and his waters. I will
give you a free thermal course if you ever see him annoyed by my
nonsense."
Meanwhile, there was considerable agitation further down around the
site of the vanished hillock. The enormous crowd, swelling, rising up,
and sinking down like billows, broke out into exclamations, manifestly
swayed by some emotion, some astonishing occurrence which nobody had
foreseen. Andermatt, ever eager and inquisitive, was repeating:
"What is the matter with them now? What can be the matter with them?"
Gontran announced that he was going to find out, and walked off.
Christiane, who had now sunk into a state of indifference, was
reflecting that if the igniting substance had been only a little
shorter, it would have been sufficient to have caused the death of
their foolish companion or led to his being mutilated by the blasting
of the rock, and all because she was afraid of a dog losing its life.
She could not help thinking that he must, indeed, be very violent and
passionate--this man--to expose himself to such a risk in this way
without any good reason for it--simply owing to the fact that a woman
who was a stranger to him had given expression to a desire.
People could be observed running along the road toward the village. The
Marquis now asked, in his turn: "What is the matter with them?" And
Andermatt, unable to stand it any longer, began to run down the side of
the hill. Gontran, from below, made a sign to him to come on.
Paul Bretigny asked: "Will you take my arm, Madame?" She took his arm,
which seemed to her as immovable as iron, and, as her feet glided
along the warm grass, she leaned on it as she would have leaned on a
baluster with a sense of absolute security. Gontran, who had just come
back after making inquiries, exclaimed: "It is a spring. The explosion
has made a spring gush out!"
And they fell in with the crowd. Then, the two young men, Paul and
Gontran, moving on in front, scattered the spectators by jostling
against them, and without paying any heed to their gruntings, opened a
way for Christiane and her father. They walked through a chaos of sharp
stones, broken, and blackened with powder, and arrived in front of a
hole full of muddy water which bubbled up and then flowed away toward
the river over the feet of the bystanders. Andermatt was there already,
having effected a passage through the multitude by insinuating ways
peculiar to himself, as Gontran used to say, and was watching with rapt
attention the water escaping through the broken soil.
Doctor Honorat, facing him at the opposite side of the hole, was
observing him with an air of mingled surprise and boredom.
Andermatt said to him: "It might be desirable to taste it; it is
perhaps a mineral spring."
The physician returned: "No doubt it is mineral. There are any number
of mineral waters here. There will soon be more springs than invalids."
The other in reply said: "But it is necessary to taste it."
The physician displayed little or no interest in the matter: "It is
necessary at least to wait till we see whether it is clean."
And everyone wanted to see. Those in the second row pushed those in
front almost into the muddy water. A child fell in, and caused a
laugh. The Oriols, father and son, were there, contemplating gravely
this unexpected phenomenon, not knowing yet what they ought to think
about it. The father was a spare man, with a long, thin frame, and a
bony head--the hard head of a beardless peasant; and the son, taller
still, a giant, thin also, and wearing a mustache, had the look at the
same time of a trooper and a vinedresser.
The bubblings of the water appeared to increase, its volume to grow
larger, and it was beginning to get clearer. A movement took place
among the people, and Doctor Latonne appeared with a glass in his hand.
He perspired, panted, and stood quite stupefied at the sight of his
brother-physician, Doctor Honorat, with one foot planted at the side of
the newly discovered spring, like a general who has been the first to
enter a fortress.
He asked, breathlessly: "Have you tasted it?"
"No, I am waiting to see whether 'tis clear."
Then Doctor Latonne thrust his glass into it, and drank with that
solemnity of visage which experts assume when tasting wines. After
that, he exclaimed, "Excellent!" which in no way compromised him, and
extending the glass toward his rival said: "Do you wish to taste it?"
But Doctor Honorat, decidedly, had no love for mineral waters, for he
smilingly replied:
"Many thanks! 'Tis quite sufficient that you have appreciated it. I
know the taste of them."
He did know the taste of them all, and he appreciated it, too, though
in quite a different fashion. Then, turning toward Père Oriol said:
"'Tisn't as good as your excellent vine-growth."
The old man was flattered. Christiane had seen enough, and wanted to
go away. Her brother and Paul once more forced a path for her through
the populace. She followed them, leaning on her father's arm. Suddenly
she slipped and was near falling, and glancing down at her feet she
saw that she had stepped on a piece of bleeding flesh, covered with
black hairs and sticky with mud. It was a portion of the pug-dog, who
had been mangled by the explosion and trampled underfoot by the crowd.
She felt a choking sensation, and was so much moved that she could not
restrain her tears. And she murmured, as she dried her eyes with her
handkerchief: "Poor little animal! poor little animal!"
She wanted to know nothing more about it. She wished to go back, to
shut herself up in her room. That day, which had begun so pleasantly,
had ended sadly for her. Was it an omen? Her heart, shriveling up, beat
with violent palpitations. They were now alone on the road, and in
front of them they saw a tall hat and the two skirts of a frock-coat
flapping like wings. It was Doctor Bonnefille, who had been the last to
hear the news, and who was now rushing to the spot, glass in hand, like
Doctor Latonne.
When he recognized the Marquis, he drew up.
"What is this I hear, Marquis? They tell me it is a spring--a mineral
spring?"
"Yes, my dear doctor."
"Abundant?"
"Why, yes."
"Is it true that--that they are there?"
Gontran replied with an air of gravity: "Why, yes, certainly; Doctor
Latonne has even made the analysis already."
Then Doctor Bonnefille began to run, while Christiane, a little tickled
and enlivened by his face, said:
"Well, no, I am not going back yet to the hotel. Let us go and sit down
in the park."
Andermatt had remained at the site of the knoll, watching the flowing
of the water.