Part 6

“The best of luck!” said he, holding out his bottle, and when I shook my head he still pressed it on me. “At least you will have a bite of dinner,” he said, thinking of course I would refuse, having already dined, but I took him up at once. “So much to the good on my bill,” thought I to myself.

We began all over again, but this time without undue haste, as the first rage of hunger was abated and the crowd thinning out,--there are always people who leave as soon as they have swallowed their food,--and there remained only men of ripe age and wisdom who know what’s what, and reckon a good dish to be equal to a good deed any day. I sat where I could feel the sunshine and fresh air through the open door, where some chickens were picking at the crumbs, and an old hound lay dozing on the threshold; outside were the street cries, “Fine fish!” “Mend your windows!” and the shrill voices of women. On the other side of the dusty square were two big white oxen lying down with their legs folded under them, peacefully chewing the cud, with their eyes half shut, while from the sunny roofs came the cooing of pigeons. Really I could have cooed or purred myself if any one had stroked my back. We all began to talk from table to table, in perfect good-fellowship, the country vicar, the notary, his partner, the innkeeper (Baiselat by name), and I, and as we were all full, and contented with our lot, we took a certain pleasure in discussing the hard times and the political situation. We all groaned over the bad state of business, the high cost of living, the poverty and ruin of France, general decadence of the race, mistakes in administration, etc., but we were careful to name no names, for the ears of the great are as large as their fortunes, and who knows when an unlucky word may drop into them? Truth, as we know, is at the bottom of a well, so we ran but little risk in abusing those of our masters who were the farthest off, especially that wretched Concini brought from Florence under the fat Queen’s petticoats. Each had something to say against him, and with perfect justice, for if you catch two curs fighting over a bone, you beat your own dog, of course, but you half kill the stranger. However, I took the other side of the argument, partly for love of fair play, and partly out of perversity; so I said the dogs should be treated alike, that any one would suppose, to hear people talk, that all our evils were imported from Italy, whereas if the truth were known plenty of wicked things, and wicked people too, grow in our own garden. To this they all declared with one voice that a scamp from over the Alps was three times worse than one of us, and that three honest Italians were not equal to a third of a good Frenchman. I answered that man is pretty much the same animal wherever you find him, that I knew a good one when I saw him, and liked him, even if he came out of Italy, but this raised a perfect riot, and they all fell on me at once saying they knew I talked like that because I was a wanderer and a gadabout, always stumping along the highroad. I had to admit that there was some truth in this, for in my time I did kick about the world a good deal, when our good lord the old Duke--father of the present man--sent me to Mantua to study the enamels, potteries, and art industries which were afterwards transplanted here. The whole journey from St. Martin’s to St. Andrew’s in Mantua was made on my two feet, with a stick in my hand, so you may guess if I spared shoe-leather! I love to feel the ground under me, and the world before me where to choose, but don’t say another word about it, or I shall be off again, like a true son of those Gauls who pillaged the world. “I should like to know what you ever brought back from your travels by way of booty,” they said. As much as any of my ancestors; all that I could cram into my head or my eyes,--empty pockets if you like, but Lord! what a lot I saw and heard and tasted,--it is a treat only to think of it. A man cannot know all and see all, but he can do his best, and I was like a big sponge in the ocean, or rather like a ripe bunch of grapes full to bursting of the rich juices of the earth; you would have a fine vintage if you could squeeze me, but I mean to keep it for my own particular drinking; you fellows pretend to look down on it, so much the better for me. When I first came home you know I tried to share some of my good things with you, the treasures I had picked up in sunny climes, but people here have no curiosity except about the doings of their neighbors; the rest of the world seems too far off, there is as good at home, and they think those who come from Rome are none the better for their journey. I never try to force a thing down any man’s throat, so I kept what I had for myself, and let people go on in their own way, and I even went along with them, for that is the path of wisdom; you can’t make people happy against the grain, but you can share content with them.

Following this plan I joined in the usual hymn of praise. What pride, what joy to be a Clamecyan! and I believe it, by Heavens! so I sat there furtively drawing Delavau’s nose, and the curate’s long arms which he flaps about when he speaks, and we talked about our good town;--a place where I was born must have merit,--besides, all human plants flourish here, they are not thorny and spiteful, even if their tongues are somewhat long and sharp at the end. No one is the worse for a little gossip, particularly if you get as good as you send; at bottom you love your neighbor as yourself, and would not hurt a hair of his head.

We are all proud of our province, which remained calm in the midst of the excitement everywhere else; our Provost Ragon would not join the Guisards, the League, the heretics, the Catholics, or any of the extremists, persecutors, or rebels; and it was here that St. Bartholomew came to wash his bloody hands, where we all stood firm around our good Duke, like an island of safety against which the waves of trouble dashed themselves in vain.--I cannot speak without emotion of Duke Louis, and our late King,--how we loved them both!--for we really seemed made for one another, in spite of faults on both sides; no one is perfect in this world, of course, but these very faults in them were endearing, and brought us closer together; they were so human! We used to laugh and say, “Nevers is younger than ever,” or “Our good King is once more a father to his people!” Those were the good times, and we can truly say that we had the cream of it then--Delavau knew Duke Louis as well as I, but the honor of having seen King Henry is mine alone, and I love to tell for the hundredth time of how it happened. It always seems a new story to me and to my friends too, for they are Frenchmen of the right sort, and so I told them once more of the gray King mounted on a gray horse with his gray hat, his gray coat,--his elbows sticking through the sleeves,--his gray eyes, the outside all gray, but pure gold within!

Just as I was in the middle of my story the notary’s clerk ran in to call him to a dying client, so I was interrupted, for he had to leave at once, which was all the more annoying as he had a story of his own on the tip of his tongue. I knew he had been hatching it for an hour, but I wanted first to get off my own little tale. I must admit in all fairness that his was funny when it did come; he has not his equal for a story with a dash of salt to it.

* * * * *

We all went out together, cheered from head to foot. It must have been just about five o’clock or a bit later, and see how in three short hours I had raked in two good dinners, and an order from the notary for an oak press, to say nothing of all the fun we had had going over old stories:--well, we just stopped to take a thimble full of cherry brandy and a biscuit at Rathery’s, the apothecary, and then the party broke up. Delavau had finished one story and begun another, so as we wanted to hear the end of it, we went on with him as far as Mirandole, and there we left him at last, only stopping to lean against the wall for a minute or two, long enough to say good-by.

It was now rather too late to go home, or perhaps I should say too early, so I walked down towards Béyant with a man who was pushing his barrow loaded with charcoal, trumpeting his wares as he went. On the way we met a blacksmith coming up trundling a wheel before him; when it slackened speed he made a running jump and sent it flying on ahead, for all the world like those allegories where you see men pursue Fortune which always eludes their outstretched hand. This impressed me as a very good image, and I made a note of it for future reference. I was in two minds which way to take towards home, when I saw a funeral issuing out of the hospital gates. First came two tiny choir-boys, giggling together as they walked, one carrying a cross three times as high as himself clutched against his little fat tummy. Behind came the body under its pall, borne by four tottering old men, and then the vicar. I felt it a matter of simple politeness to go with the poor sleeper to his last lodging, for misery loves company, and then I wanted to hear what the widow had to say. As is the custom, she was walking beside the officiating priest pouring out her sad tale; how the departed was taken ill, what remedies were applied, how he died, his faults, his virtues, his affection, in short the story of his life and hers, while the priest’s chants filled in the pauses. Before we had gone far our numbers were swelled by many worthy souls with ears to hear and hearts to feel, so at last we came to the resting-place where they put down the bier at the edge of the grave. You know a pauper cannot take his wooden shirt with him--not that he sleeps the less sound for that,--so they lifted the pall and the coffin lid, and let him slide down into his hole. I threw a handful of earth over him, and made the sign of the Cross, to keep bad dreams away, and then went off at peace with all the world; since morning I had seen and heard everything, rejoiced with the fortunate, and wept with the sorrowful. My cup was full, and, the day being over, I sauntered back along the waterside.

I was making for the junction of the two rivers, meaning to follow the Beuvron to my own house, but the lovely evening tempted me on till almost without knowing it I found myself outside the town and I kept on by the bewitching little Yonne nearly to the narrows at La Forêt. The water flowed by calm and still with scarcely a ripple on its smooth surface; my sight was drowned in it, as a fish is held by the hook; the whole sky was entangled by the river as if in a net, where it seemed to float with its rosy clouds caught among the reeds and grasses, and the golden sun rays trailing in the water. There was an old cowherd on the bank with his two skinny cows: I went and sat down beside him, and as he was rather shaky on his pins, I told him of a remedy for his rheumatic complaint;--(I am rather a good doctor when I have time for it),--so he told me all about himself, his ills and sorrows, but he seemed jolly enough, and even resented my thinking him younger than he was. He was seventy-five years old, and took pride in it, saying the older you were, the more you could bear. It seemed quite right to him that we should all have to suffer, and, on the other hand, he said God’s favors fall alike on the just and the unjust, so all is as it should be; rich and poor, gentle and simple will sleep at last in the same Father’s arms. As he talked his quavering old voice mingled with the chirp of crickets, the water pouring over the dam, the smell of wood and tar blowing towards us from the harbor, the tranquil flowing river, the fair reflections all melting into the peaceful evening.

When he had gone I walked back alone with my hands behind my back, watching the circles in the water, and was so absorbed that I forgot where I was till I heard a well-known voice on the other bank, and saw I was just opposite our house. There was my wife,--gentle soul!--shaking her fist at me out of the window! I fixed my eyes on the stream and made believe not to see her, but she was reflected upside down as if in a glass; I did not say a word, but shook all over with inward laughter, and the more I laughed the angrier she got. It was too killing to see her bobbing up and down in the Beuvron head first! At last she lost all patience; I heard doors and windows banging behind her, and she came rushing out after me like a whirlwind. She had to cross a bridge to get at me, and the question was which? Right or left, for we were just between the two. She made for the little foot-bridge to the right, and I naturally took the other, where I found Gadin planted on the very same spot where I had left him in the morning.

Night was falling as I came to my own door. Though I am not like that lazy Roman who was always complaining that he had lost a day, still I do not know where time goes, though none of this day has been lost, and I am content enough, but if only there were forty-eight hours instead of twenty-four! I do not feel that I always get my money’s worth, for my glass is no sooner filled than it is empty; there must be a crack in it. I sometimes think I envy people who sip and sip without ever coming to the bottom. It cannot be that their glass is longer than mine, that would be too much to bear. “Hi there! you landlord of the Sun, fill up my mug to the brim when you are pouring out the daylight!” But I have nothing really to complain of, for the Lord has blessed me with an appetite that nothing can ever satisfy, so I love both day and night and cannot get enough of either.

Swift flying day of April, are you gone indeed? But it is good to feel that I have not lost a moment of your sweet presence. I have kissed and held you close in my arms;--so now welcome, dear night, it is your turn to share my couch, but good Lord! I forgot, there will be three of us, for the old woman is just coming up to look for me.

V

BELETTE

May.

Three months ago I got an order from the château of Asnois for a dresser and a chest, but I would not begin to work on them until I was able to see the room and the place where they were to stand; for according to my idea, furniture is like wall fruit. A good apple comes from a good tree; and there is no use in telling me that a beautiful thing is beautiful no matter where it is, like a wayside Venus, who sells herself to the highest bidder. True art is an expression of our inmost selves; it is the spirit of home and of the fireside, our domestic deity; and to know him you must know the house where he dwells. He is so made for man, and his work meant to fulfil and complete man’s existence, that nothing can be really beautiful unless it is in its proper setting.

I set off early, then, to see where my chest was to stand, and what with the walk and my dinner, it took up nearly half a day; but man must eat to live, and everything was so much to my mind, that I was in the best of spirits when I at last started back towards home. The path to Clamecy ran straight enough, but when I came to the crossroads, I could not help glancing down a by-way, which went wandering across the meadows, between the blossoming hedges.

Said I to myself, “How nice it would be to leave the stupid highroad, and follow that little path; the day is yet young, and anyhow it would never do to get home ahead of the sun, and early or late the wife will have something to say to me.... I really must go a step or two farther, and have a look at that dear little pear tree; surely those are not snowflakes? no, of course not, they are the white petals blown off by the wind. Listen to the birds! and the tinkling of the brook, sliding along under the grass, like a kitten chasing a ball.... I have a great mind to follow it, and see if the roots of this oak will not stop it; where can it have gone? well, upon my word! it has squeezed its way under the big gouty knees of yonder elm,--did you ever see such impudence? I might as well go and find out where this path does lead.”

It was all very well to saunter along thus at the heels of my vagrant shadow, but in the back of my head I knew perfectly well where that beguiling footway would take me. Like Ulysses, I tried to play the hypocrite with myself, but the truth is, that I made up my mind where I meant to go from the moment I left the gates of Asnois. An old flame of mine lived at a mill down in these parts, and I had a fancy to go and surprise her,--or perhaps surprise myself, who knows? It was many a long day since I had set eyes on Céline, or “Belette” as they called her, and the chances were that her saucy face would be changed out of knowledge. Ah! Belette, I am not afraid of you now! Those little teeth of yours can no longer hurt this poor old dried-up heart! Perhaps the teeth are gone too? I can see them now, and hear your charming laughter! What a fool she did make of you, Breugnon; you were a mere toy in those hands of hers; but, after all, why not? if she could get some fun out of such a country blockhead as I was then. I learned the noble art of wood-carving from Master Médard Lagneau, and I can see myself now leaning over the wall of his place, gazing with my mouth open. The wall ran between the yard where we worked and a big kitchen garden, planted with lettuce, strawberries, pink radishes, cucumbers, and melons; and there, at all hours of the day, I could see a tall active slip of a girl, balancing two great watering pots in her strong brown hands, as she carefully sprinkled the thirsty borders. She wore a coarse chemise of unbleached linen, which showed her bare arms and long throat; her feet too were bare, and her short skirt was tucked up to her knees, which were round and strong like a boy’s. The first thing you noticed about her was the heavy mass of her twisted reddish hair. I literally could not take my eyes off her as she came and went emptying her watering pots, going back to fill them at the well, carrying them steadily and carefully along the narrow paths, where her long bare toes felt their own way cleverly in the damp earth between the strawberry plants. She did not seem to know that I was there, keeping steadily on with her work; but when she came close, all at once she turned her head and shot a look at me. Ouch!--I can still feel the hook in my gills, and the net around me. “A woman’s eye catches the fly,” as the proverb has it. I struggled of course, but what was the use? There was the silly fly on the wall, with his wings stuck together.

She paid no more attention to me, and squatted down on her heels to plant her cabbage, but from time to time she stole a look to make sure that her prey was still there. There was no use in my saying to myself, “She is trying to make a fool of you, my lad!” I could see her snickering, and that made me grin too:--what an ass I must have looked! At last up she jumped, ran across the garden, came back, stuck her feet wide apart over the edge of the border, caught at a floating spray of bloom, and said, waving her arm at me, “Another good fellow gone!” As she spoke she thrust her flower in the front of her dress. “That’s where I should like to be,” said I, for though I may have been a fool at that age, I was no laggard in an affair of this kind.

She put her arms akimbo and burst out laughing. “Not for the likes of you,” cried she. “Greedy!”... That was the beginning of my acquaintance with the pretty gardener Belette, on a warm August evening.

The nickname of “Weasel” suited her long body, with the small head and pointed nose, and wide prominent mouth; just the mouth to crack nuts and hearts, and made too for laughter. Oh, her eyes! dark blue like thunder-clouds, and her wildcat smiling lips!--What chance had the poor prey, once in her toils?

I did very little work after this, but spent most of my time gawking over the wall, till Master Lagneau would come behind, and dislodge me with a vigorous kick. Belette got tired of me sometimes, and would tell me to stop staring at her and get out; but I often told her, with a wink, that you cannot know either a woman or a melon just by looking. How much I should have liked to try a slice of her! But perhaps another fruit would have served my turn then equally well; for I was at the age when a man could fall in love with the eleven thousand virgins. Did I love Belette really?--there are times when a boy like me will love anybody;--but no, Breugnon, that is all humbug, and you know it; your first love is the real article, your fate, marked out for you by the stars in their courses, and it is perhaps because I missed my destiny that my whole life long I have gone unsatisfied.

We understood one another at half a word; though we did nothing but tease. Both of us had glib tongues, and I would give her back as good as she sent, quick as lightning. Sometimes we nearly died of laughing, and when she thought that she had got the better of me, she would throw herself down and roll over and over on the ground with joy, among her beets and onions. She would come too and stand under my wall, and talk to me in the warm twilight evenings. How well I remember her once, as she stood there laughing, her bright eyes looking into mine,--she could see my heart at the bottom of them,--and I can see her now, as she reached up and pulled down a branch of the cherry tree, the ripe fruit resting like jewels on her hair, and then she did not pick the cherries, she just bit off the flesh of them, leaving the stones on the stem. Ah! eternal eager youth, with your lips at the fountain!--When I have been carving on a panel, how many a time since have I drawn the lines of her beautiful arms, her breast, her throat with the head thrown back, her full rich mouth!... I bent over the wall, and drew the branch towards me, putting the moist stones to my lips, where I could still feel the touch of hers.

On Sundays we walked over to Beaugy, and there we used to dance; though I was a perfect stick at it in spite of what they say, that love lends wings, and would give grace to the very bean-poles. She was always at me, and never for a moment did we cease our sparring; she liked to laugh at my long crooked nose, my big mouth like an oven, my scrubby beard, and all the rest of it. They say we are made in the likeness of God, but I hope not, for His sake.... Belette at least never stopped laughing at my queer looks, and I did my best to get even.

This kind of thing went on till we both of us took fire. I shall never forget the vintage that year; Belette and I worked side by side, bent double among the poles, our heads nearly touching, and sometimes as I stripped the vines my hand would brush against her, and then she would rear up like a young colt and give me a smart slap, or squeeze a bunch of grapes in my face. Naturally I retorted with another, till the red juice ran down over her sunburned bosom. You never saw such a little devil as she was, but I could not catch her off her guard. We always kept a wary eye on each other, for she knew well enough what I was after; but she always seemed to be saying, “Don’t you wish you may get it?” On my side, I was just like a cat with his eyes half shut, watching a mouse and ready to pounce at the right moment. “Wait till I catch you, my lady!” I thought.