Part 10

“It won’t be the better for her coming,” said one would-be wit, and another cried, “Good luck never comes single; you stay with us, Colas, and she goes!” And he drank to my health.

I felt somewhat shaky, but not wishing to show it, I too held up my glass and answered, “When the gods love a man they take his wife away!” But I could not swallow the wine, it seemed tasteless, and suddenly starting up, I seized my stick and went out without saying another word. They called after me, but my heart was in my throat, and I could not answer. It was all very well to say that I did not love her, and that we had been constantly rubbing one another up the wrong way for the last thirty years; she had lain by my side in the narrow bed, and from her had sprung the seed I planted; and now that the pale shadow was near her, I felt a cold hand laid on my heart; it was as if a part of my flesh was torn from me, and though I had often wished to be rid of her, now I pitied her and myself, and--Heaven forgive me!--I almost loved her!

I arrived the next day at nightfall, and as soon as I came near my wife I could see on her face the hand of the great sculptor, and under the wrinkled skin the tragic mask of Death. There was a yet more certain sign, for she smiled as I came in, and said:

“Why, poor old man, I hope the walk has not tired you!”

Fancy her speaking to me like that! My heart sank, and I said to myself that there was no chance for her as I sat down by the bedside and took her hand in mine. Her eyes rested on me with affection, but she was too weak to talk, so I tried to cheer her up by telling all about my illness, and how I had got out of the clutches of the plague after all; but as it was the first she had heard of it the news proved almost too much for her, and she turned so faint that I was ready to beat myself on the head for my stupidity. However, she came to in a little while, and to my great relief began to scold me in her trembling voice; she was so weak that she could not get the words out fast enough, and it really did me good, and seemed like old times to be told that I ought to be ashamed of myself, that a man of any decency would have let his wife know when he caught the plague, and that I deserved to die of it all alone on my dunghill. The others were frightened at her violence, and wanted to send me out of the room, but I laughed and said that it would do her good to lose her temper, she was used to it; then I took her face in my two hands and kissed her on both cheeks, and will you believe it? the poor old thing began to cry.

For a long time after that I sat with her alone in silence, listening to the tick-tack of the death-watch in the wainscot; at last she tried to speak, but could only make a feeble murmur.

“Don’t try to talk, old girl,” said I. “I understand; we have not lived together thirty years for nothing.”

“I have something I must say to you, Colas, or I should not rest easy in Paradise,--I have been very hard to you, my husband.”

“No, no,” said I, “only a bit sharp, and that was good for me.”

“Yes, I was hard, jealous, quarrelsome; I know I often made the house too hot for you, but,--Colas, it was because I loved you!”

“You don’t say so!” said I, patting her hand. “Well, there are all sorts of ways of loving, but yours was rather a queer one.”

“I did love you,” she went on, “and you never returned it, that was why I was cross, and you were always good-natured. Oh! that laugh of yours, Colas! You don’t know how it made me suffer, till sometimes I really thought it would kill me. You covered yourself with it like a hood, and storm as I might, I could never get at you.”

“My poor old dear!” said I; “that was because I do not like water!”

“There you go again laughing! But I don’t mind it now that the chill of the grave is upon me; your laughter seems something warm and comforting, it does not anger me now,--and, Colas, say that you forgive me.”

“You were an honest, hard-working, faithful wife to me,” said I earnestly; “perhaps you were not always as sweet as sugar, but in this world, you know, one does not expect perfection, God keeps that for Himself up yonder; but when it came to hard times, you always backed me up. I used to think you really good-looking when I saw how you threw yourself into your work, whatever happened. Now I don’t want you to torment yourself about the past, it’s bad enough to have lived through it, but since it is all over, we might as well let the burden slip from our shoulders and cast all our cares on the Master. We have come to the end, and can take breath and look about us for a nice soft hole where we can sleep the sleep of the just which means, I suppose, of the good workers.”

While I was talking, she lay with folded arms, and her eyes shut, and when I stopped she held out her hand. “Wake me tomorrow morning,” she said. “And now good-night, my dear!”

Then she stretched herself out in the bed, and, neat as ever, she drew the sheet smoothly up to her chin, with the crucifix resting on her breast;--poor little woman, how thin she was! And there she lay, all ready, staring straight in front of her, waiting for the summons. It seemed that after so many years of effort her poor old body deserved some repose, but alas! there was one more trial in store for her. The landlady suddenly rushed into the room calling to me to come quickly, and when I did not at once understand, and told her to speak lower, it seemed as if the dying woman from her funeral couch could see beyond and above me, for she raised herself stiffly like him whom Jesus awakened, stretched out her arms, and cried, “Glodie!”

Her cry went through my heart, and as I heard a hoarse choking cough from the next room, I understood only too well, and ran in to find my poor little lark struggling with the croup, her cheeks all flushed and burning, as she put her hands up to her throat, and with wild eyes implored us to help her.

Oh, what a dreadful night that was! Even now a week later my knees give way under me when I think of it. Can it be that the Omnipotent causes the pain of such poor little creatures? How can He bear to see their eyes full of wondering reproach when it is in His power to save them? I can understand that since we are made in the image of our Creator, He may sometimes be cruel, as we are, or at least not always compassionate,--perhaps even capricious,--but grown-up men and women must set their teeth and take whatever comes to them, and they can always resist when things go too far, but that He should torment these helpless lamblings is more than we can tolerate, and if this goes on, Lord, some day or other we shall withdraw our allegiance. If such crimes are possible it must be because You are blind, or else there is no Father up there!--Pardon, I must take that back, it is a little more than I intended. If You did not exist, I could not speak to You as I am doing, and we have had many a discussion, which always ended in my having the last word.--During the whole of that terrible night, I called to You, threatened, cursed, denied, implored You; clasped my hands in prayer, or shook my fist at You, but no voice came from above in answer, in spite of all I could do nothing seemed to touch You, till at last I cried out in desperation, “Lord, if You will not hear me, I will turn to some one less hard-hearted!”

Martine, the child’s mother, had been taken with the pains of labor on her journey, and had been obliged to stop at Dornecy, leaving Glodie to the care of her grandmother; so now I had to watch alone with the old landlady. It seemed as if our little martyr would pass away with the night, and when dawn came I felt that there was but one thing left to do. Looking out I saw that it rained and a high wind blew through the doorway, but none the less, I made the sign of the Cross and lifted my darling from her pillow where she lay so exhausted that she had no further strength to struggle, but only panted a little like a bird in one’s hand. She weighed no more than a feather as I carried her out, where a rose brushed against her in passing,--that’s a sign of Death, they say,--but I crossed myself and went out sheltering her as best I could against the tempest. The landlady went first carrying presents, and so we came to the wood, where we found what we sought; a tall aspen standing high above the reeds on the edge of the swamp. Once, twice, three times we circled round the tree; the child lay quiet in my arms, only her teeth shook together like the leaves about us. We tied one end of a ribbon to her wrist, and fastened the other end to the aspen, and then the woman and I repeated this incantation:

“Shake, shake, My sickness take. By the sweet Trinity, Thus do I order thee; But if thou reject my suit Ax shall soon destroy thy root.”

Then the old woman dug a hole between the roots of the tree, in which she poured a pint of wine, and put in two cloves of garlic, a slice of bacon, and a copper penny; then we filled my hat with rushes, laid it on the ground, and again marched three times round it; the third time we spat in it and said, “Catch croup, cursèd toads.” Then we turned toward home, but near the edge of the wood we laid Glodie at the foot of a thorn tree, and put up a prayer to God’s Son in the name of the Holy Thorn.

The little one was unconscious when we got back to the house, but we felt that we had done all we could; and it seemed too that my wife would not quit this world as long as Glodie remained in it. “Jesus, Mary,” cried she, “I cannot go until I know that our child will recover, surely she must be cured, I swear it!”

Poor old dear, she was not as sure as she said, for she kept on praying, with a strength that astonished me when I remembered that I had thought her at her last breath the night before. “If that is the last, it is a good long one,” said I, and was ashamed of myself for laughing at such a moment, but I could not help it. You cannot, of course, keep off suffering by laughter, but a Frenchman will always meet pain with a smile, and sad or merry you will find he has his eyes wide open; so, though I put a good face on it, my anxiety was as great as that of the poor old woman who was twisting and groaning in her bed. I tried to soothe her as we do children, tucking up the bedclothes which she had disordered; but she pushed me away, and told me that if I was worth my salt, I would do _something_ for Glodie. “You cured yourself of the plague,” said she, crying, “and yet you can do nothing for our darling! You are the one that ought to have died!”

“True enough, my dear, and I would give my skin to save her, but it is too old and cracked to be of use to anybody; all we are good for now is to suffer, the pair of us, and be as brave as we can, it may be some help to our little girl.”

My wife leaned her head against mine, and our tears dropped together as we felt in the room the sweeping wings of the Archangel of Death.

All at once the sound of those great wings grew fainter, and as if by miracle hope dawned again. God had compassion on us, or the tender Jesus to whom I had prayed so fervently;--or else those elder gods of the earth and forest perhaps had heard our cries? Even our offering to the aspen may have helped us? But no matter what the reason, all we knew certainly was that from this moment the child’s fever left her, once more she could draw her breath easily. Death had released her throat from the clutch of his pale fingers, she was given back to us! We did not know to whom we owed our thanks for this great mercy, but our hearts were filled with gratitude, and with tears of joy we sang “Nunc Dimittis,” and then my poor old woman said, “Now I can go.” She fell back on her pillow quite exhausted, the light in her eyes faded, her features grew sharp and hollow, and she sank down into the dark river, through which I could still seem to see the outline of her body;--until life was gone. I stooped and closed her eyelids, kissed her brow, and folded her workworn hands together for the rest they had never known till now, and turning from the extinguished lamp, I went to watch by the little flickering flame which was to be henceforward the light of my dwelling.

Glodie slept, and as I sat by her side I could not help the thoughts that rushed over me:--Why is this little creature so unutterably dear that nothing seems worth while without her, and with her the worst that could happen would be bearable? Hers is the only life that matters; in comparison my own seems valueless, and yet here am I active of body and mind, with some talents, and what is even better, plenty of good sense; loving life, and made to enjoy it, in short a good Burgundian workman, and I would freely sacrifice all this for the sake of a little creature I do not even know; who is nothing as yet but a sweet face, a pretty plaything, but who will be something perhaps,--and for this possibility I am willing to give up my own “I am.” Ah! it is because in this “perhaps” lies enfolded the fine flower of my existence, the best that is in me, and when I lie below the sod, and worms have destroyed this body, then will arise another self better and happier than the old one, yes, better, because I shall serve as a stepping-stone from which to see more clearly than I did.--You who are born of me, and will see the light when my eyes can no more behold it; through you I shall taste the vintage of the long future years, through you I shall enjoy the known and the unknown. All around me is passing as I shall pass, but you will lead me, ever farther and upward. I am no longer bound to my little holding here on earth; beyond my fields, beyond my life, the lines of the future stretch out into the infinite; they cover the years to come as the Milky Way covers the night sky. I have sown the seed of future harvests, and in you who will live after me I put my desire and my eternal hope.

IX

THE FIRE

15th of August.

I can hardly bear to tell of what happened today, and I feel as if I could never really reconcile myself to it; but as I always say, “Cheer up, Colas! a brave heart will carry you through everything.”

I have often heard it said that summer’s rain gives no pain; but you would agree that it gives no gain, either, if you could see me after a season when one storm after another has beat on my devoted head; here I am without shoes or shirt to cover me,--but let me tell you all about it.--I was just pulling myself together after a double trial, you remember? Glodie had been cured of the croup and my poor wife of all the troubles of this world; when a fresh blow fell on me at the hands, I suppose, of the heavenly powers,--unless there is some woman up there who has a grudge against me?--but this time I am stripped to the skin, and glad enough to have that left on my bones. I had been in no hurry to come home while Glodie was recovering from her illness; a child’s convalescence is so charming! It is as if one saw a fresh creation, everything looks smooth and white like a new-laid egg; and as I had little to do, I went to market by way of amusement, and just to know what was going on in the world. One day I heard something which made me prick up my ears like an old mule. They said that a great fire was raging at Clamecy, that it had spread to the suburb of Beuvron, and that the whole place was burning up like a bundle of kindling wood. Naturally I asked eagerly about my own house, but could hear nothing further, and felt as if I was on hot coals,--probably from association of ideas,--though all my friends tried to calm me by saying that my house could be in no danger, or I should have heard of it by this time, that ill news travels fast, and that I was certainly not the only fool in Beuvron.

In spite of all this a voice told me that my house was on fire;--I could almost smell it, and without further words I started off, thinking as I went how careless I had been, to leave everything at sixes and sevens. Other conflagrations had been caused by the enemy, and I always had had warning enough to transport my most precious possessions across the bridge, and get them behind walls, so that I saved my money, my best pieces of work, furniture and tools, and all those things that people accumulate, and which are dear to us because they are like fragments of a happy past. This time, however, nothing had been placed in safety, and I could almost hear my old woman’s voice from the other world, berating me for my stupidity. As I trudged along, I tried to find a good answer to these reproaches, but my only excuse was that I had been in a hurry to get to her sick-bed. I endeavored to persuade myself also, that there was no real cause for alarm, but the thought kept coming back and back, like a fly that settles on your nose, till I was all in a cold perspiration, in spite of the fact that I was walking at a good round pace. As I climbed up the long wooded hill just after you pass Villiers, I saw a chaise coming down; I could not tell who was driving at first, but when it got nearer, I recognized Jojot, the miller from Moulot.

He pulled up as soon as he caught sight of me.

“Poor old boy!” he cried, waving his whip, and though I expected it, the wind was just knocked out of me, and I could not say a word, but stood there like a stick, with my mouth open.

“There is no use in your keeping on, Colas; you might as well go back where you came from. The whole thing is burned, flat as the palm of your hand; it will only make you sick to see it.” Every word seemed to wring my heartstrings, but I tried to put a good face on it, and said:

“I know, I know, but I must go on all the same.”

“What for, if the whole place is in ruins?”

“I want to pick up the pieces.”

“There aren’t any pieces,” said he, “not so much as you could put on the end of your finger.”

“Jojot,” said I, “there is no use your trying to persuade me that there is absolutely nothing left! My apprentices and the neighbors would not stand by, and see all I have in the world burnt to ashes, without trying to save a few sticks of furniture for me!”

“You don’t know anything about it,” cried he. “Why, your neighbors are the very ones who set your house on fire!”

I was perfectly crushed at this news, and he, with the sort of perverse satisfaction one has in making out anything as bad as possible, went on to tell me the whole story from the beginning.

“You must know,” said he, “that the plague is at the bottom of the trouble; our town Councilors, the Provost, and the whole crew of them, fled away, and left us as sheep without a shepherd, and the people at this lost their heads completely, so that when a fresh case of the disease broke out in Beuvron, some one raised a cry to burn down the infected houses. No sooner said than done, and naturally they began with yours, Colas, because you were not on hand to stop them. The more they burned, the better they seemed to like it; you know how a mob is when it once gets going, men seem to be drunk with love of destruction, so they went on from bad to worse, as if they were crazy; throwing everything they could lay hands on into the flames, and dancing round them like savages.

‘On the bridge of Clamecy town, See us dancing up and down.’

you know the children’s song. It was really awful to see such madness, and yet it was a kind of contagion. I’ll bet you would have danced yourself if you had been there, to see what a blaze your shop made with all the dry wood you had in it.”

“I wish I had been there,” said I. “It must have been a grand sight.”

And the funny part of it was that I really did think so. I thought something else too: that this time I was ruined; but wild horses would not have dragged it out of me before Jojot. He was puzzled, and looked as if he did not know what to make of me, half with that queer pleasure we have in the misfortunes of our fellow-man, and half with pity, for he is really a good sort, and a friend of mine. I turned to go.

“They ought to have kept a thing like that for the midsummer bonfire,” said I.

“Are you really going on?”

“Yes, I’m going on, Jojot.”

“Well, you’re an odd fish--you do hate to be like other people.” And he whipped up his horse and drove off down the hill, while I stepped out bravely in the opposite direction as long as he was in sight; but as soon as I got round the corner, my knees seemed to give way under me, and I let myself fall like a lump by the roadside.

The next moments were among the worst that I have ever had to bear, and as there was nobody to see me, I just let myself go, and bewailed my misfortune.

“I have lost everything in the world,” thought I. My home,--the house was full of dear memories,--and the hope of ever having another of my own; all my savings, which it took me years to get together, bit by bit, and which were so much the more valuable to me, and worst of all, my independence is gone; for now of course, I shall have to live with one of my children, and I don’t know which of us will hate it the most. It is the one thing I have always been resolved against, as the worst that could happen. There is no use telling me that I love them, and they love me,--I know all that, but young people and old interfere with each other, and it is natural and proper for a bird to sit on its own nest, and hatch out its own eggs in its own way. Respect for the old is all very well, or rather it makes a difficulty, for you are not on an equality with people when you are obliged to show them respect. I have tried to behave so that my five children should not have too much respect for me, and I think I have succeeded pretty well, but there must always be a distance between us. Parents come and go in their children’s lives, like strangers from a far country; there can never be perfect understanding from one generation to another, and too often there is, on the contrary, interference and irritation.

It seems a dreadful thing to say, but it is not wise to tempt Providence, and put too great a strain on the love, even of our best and dearest. It is asking a great deal of human nature; not that I have anything to complain of in my children, who have always been good to me, but I don’t want to impose myself on them, for my own sake, as well as theirs;--and then it goes against the grain with me to take back the least part of what I have given them; it looks like asking for repayment, and that is a sort of thing that sticks in the throat of a man who has never owed anything to anybody but himself. I want to be master in my own house, to come and go without question; and it would kill me to think that some one was counting every mouthful I ate; I should soon become a broken-down, good-for-nothing old man. Far rather would I live on the charity of strangers than on that of my children, never being sure that they kept me of their own free will. I would rather die outright than be such a burden to them.... I sat there for a long time, like an old tree that has been cut down at the roots; and there was precious little of my boasted philosophy left. I suffered in my pride, and in my affections; in what was best and worst in me; accumulations from the past, and hopes for the future, had all gone up in smoke, but I knew that I must walk in the path before me, however thorny it might prove; there could be no escape.