Chapter 16
But it will doubtless be long before a new Fabre will resume, with the same heroic ardour, the life of solitary labour, varied only by a few austere recreations.
Rising at six o'clock, he would first of all pace the tiles of his kitchen, breakfast in hand; so imperious in him was the need of action, if his mind was to work successfully, that even at this moment of morning meditation his body must already be in movement. Then, after many turns among the bushes of the enclosure, all irised with drops of dew which were already evaporating, he went straight to his cell: that is, to the silence of his laboratory.
There, in unsociable silence, invisible to all, he worked hard and steadily until noon; pursuing an observation or carrying out some experiment, or recording what he saw or what he had seen the day before, or re-drafting his records in their final form.
How many who have come hither to knock upon the door in these morning hours, or to ring at the little gate, silent as the tomb, which gives upon the private path frequented only by foot-passengers on their way to the fields, have undertaken a fruitless journey! But without such discipline would it have been possible to accomplish such a task as his?
At last he would leave his workroom; jaded, exhausted by the excessive intensity of his work, "face pale and features drawn." (15/1.)
Now he is "at leisure: the half-day is over" (15/2.); and he can satisfy his immense need not of repose, but of relaxation and distraction in less severe occupations; for he is never at any time nor anywhere inactive; incessantly making notes, with little stumps of pencil which he carries about in his pockets, and on the first scrap of paper that comes to hand, of all that passes through his mind. Those eternal afternoons, which usually, in the depth of the French provinces, prove so dull and wearisome, seem short enough to him. Now he will halt before his plants, now stoop to the ground, the better to observe a passing insect; always in search of some fresh subject of study; or now bending over his microscope. (15/3.) Then he undertakes, for his later-born children at Sérignan, the duties which he formerly performed for the elder family at Orange: he teaches them himself; he has much to do with them, for their sake and for his own as well, for he is jealous of possessing them, and he regrets parting with them. They too have their tasks arranged in advance.
They are his assistants, his appointed collaborators, who keep and relieve guard, undertaking, in his absence, some observation already in hand, so that no detail may be lost, no incident of the story that unrolls itself sometimes with exasperating slowness beneath the bell-covers of the laboratory or on some bush in the garden. He inspires the whole household with the fire of his own genius, and all those about him are almost as interested as he.
At home, in the house, always wearing his eternal felt hat, and absorbed in meditation, he speaks little, holding that every word should have its object, and only employing a term when he has tested its weight and meaning. Silence at mealtimes again is a rule that no one of his household would infringe. But he unbends his brow when he receives a friend at his hospitable table, where but lately his smiling wife would sit, full of little attentions for him. (15/4.)
Frugal in all respects, he barely touches the dishes before him; avoiding all meats, and saving himself wholly for the fruits; for is not man naturally frugivorous, by his teeth, his stomach, and his bowels? Certain dishes repel him, for reasons of sentiment rather than through any real disgust; such as paté de foie gras, which reminds him too forcibly of the so cruelly tortured goose; such cruelty is too high a price to pay for a mere greasy mouthful. (15/5.) On the other hand, he drinks wine with pleasure, the harsh, rough "wine of the country" of the plains of Sérignan. He is also well able to appreciate good things and appetizing cookery; no one ever had a finer palate; but he is happiest in seeing others appreciate the pleasures of the table. Witness that breakfast worthy of Gargantua, which he himself organized in honour of his guests, whom he had invited to an excursion over the Ventoux Alp; where he seems expressly to have commanded "that all should come in shoals." What a tinkling of bottles, what piles of bread! There are green olives "flowing with brine," black olives "seasoned with oil," sausages of Arles "with rosy flesh, marbled with cubes of fat and whole peppercorns," legs of mutton stuffed with garlic "to dull the keen edge of hunger"; chickens "to amuse the molars"; melons of Cavaillon too, with white pulp, not forgetting those with orange pulp, and to crown the feast those little cheeses, so delightfully flavoured, peculiar to Mont Ventoux, "spiced with mountain herbs," which melt in the mouth. (15/6.)
But his greatest pleasure is his pipe; a briar, which in absence of mind he is always allowing to go out, and always relighting.
Respectful of all traditions, he has kept up the observance of old customs; no Christmas Eve has ever been passed under the roof of his Harmas without the consecrated meats upon the table; the heart of celery, the nougat of almonds, the dish of snails, and the savoury-smelling turkey. Then, stuck into the Christmas bread (15/7.), the sprigs of holly, the verbouisset, the sacred bush whose little starry flowers and coral berries, growing amid evergreen leaves, affirm the eternal rebirth of indestructible nature.
At Sérignan Fabre is little known and little appreciated. To tell the truth, folk regard him as eccentric; they have often surprised him in the country lying on his stomach in the middle of a field, or kneeling on the ground, a magnifying glass in hand, observing a fly or some one of those insignificant creatures in which no sane person would deign to be interested.
How should they know him, since he never goes into the village? When he did once venture thither to visit his friend Charrasse, the schoolmaster, his appearance was an event of which every one had something to say, so greatly did it astonish the inhabitants. (15/8.)
Yet he never hesitates to place his knowledge at the service of all, and welcomes with courtesy the rare pilgrims in whom a genuine regard is visible, although he is always careful never to make them feel his own superiority; but he very quickly dismisses, sometimes a trifle hastily, those who are merely indiscreet or importunate; pedantic and ignorant persons he judges instantaneously with his piercing eyes; with such people he cannot emerge from his slightly gloomy reserve; he shuts himself up like the snail, which, annoyed by some displeasing object, retires into its shell, and remains silent in their presence.
Professors come to consult him: asking his advice as to their programmes of instruction, or begging him to resolve some difficult problem or decide some especially vexed question; and his explanations are so simple, so clear, so logical that they are astonished at their own lack of comprehension and their embarrassment. (15/9.)
But there are few who venture within the walls of that enclosure, which seems to shut out all the temptations of the outer world; the only intimate visitors to the Harmas are the village schoolmaster--first Laurent, then Louis Charrasse (15/10.), and later Jullian--and a blind man, Marius.
This latter lost his sight at the age of twenty. Then, to earn a living, he began to make and repair chairs, and in his misfortune, although blind and extremely poor, he kept a calm and contented mind.
Fabre had discovered the sage and the blind man on his arrival at Sérignan, and also Favier (15/11.), "that other native, whose jovial spirit was so prompt to respond, and who helped to dig up the Harmas; to set up the planks and tiles of the little kitchen-garden; a rude task, since this scrap of uncultivated ground was then but a terrible desert of pebbles." To Favier fell the care of the flowers, for the new owner was a great lover of flowers. Potted plants, sometimes of rare species, were already, as to-day, crowded in rows upon the terrace before the house, where all the summer they formed a sort of vestibule in the open air, on either side of the entrance; and these Fabre never ceased to watch over with constant and meticulous care. Both spoke the same language, and the words they exchanged were born of a like philosophy; for Favier also loved nature in his own way, and at heart was an artist; and when, after the day's work, sitting "on the high stone of the kitchen hearth, where round logs of green oak were blazing," he would evoke, in his picturesque and figurative language, the memories of an old campaigner, he charmed all the household and the evening seemed to pass with strange rapidity.
When this precious servant and boon companion had disappeared, after two years of digging, sowing, weeding, and hoeing, all was ready; the frame was completed and the work could be commenced. It was then that Marius became the master's appointed collaborator, and it is he who now constructs his apparatus, his experimental cages; stuffs his birds, helps to ransack the soil, and shades him with an umbrella while he watches under the burning sun. Marius cannot see, but so intimate is his communion with his master, so keen his enthusiasm for all that Fabre does, that he follows in his mind's eye, and as though he could actually see them, all the doings at which he assists, and whose inward reflection lights up his wondering countenance.
Marius was not only rich in feeling and the gift of inner vision; he had also a marvellously correct ear. He was a member of the "Fanfare" of Sérignan, in which he played the big drum, and there was no one like him for keeping perfect time and for bringing out the clash of the cymbals.
Charrasse was no less fervent a disciple; he worshipped science and all beautiful things; and he could even conceive a noble passion for his exhausting trade of school-teaching.
Like Marius, he ate "a bitter bread"; and Fabre would get on with them all the better in that they, like himself, had lived a difficult life. "Man is like the medlar," he liked to tell them; "he is worth nothing until he has ripened a long time in the attic, on the straw."
"L'homme est comme la nèfle, il n'est rien qui vaille S'il n'a mûri longtemps, au grenier, sur la paille."
These humble companions afforded him the simple conversation which he likes so well; so natural, and so full of sympathy and common sense. They customarily spent Thursday and Sunday afternoons at the Harmas; but these beloved disciples might call at any hour; the master always welcomed them, even in the morning, even when he was entirely absorbed in his work and could not bear any one about him. They were his circle, his academy; he would read them the last chapter written in the morning; he shared his latest discoveries with them; he did not fear to ask advice of their "fertile ignorance." (15/12.)
Charrasse was a "Félibre," versed in all the secrets of the Provençal idiom, of which he knew all the popular terms, the typical expressions and turns of speech; and Fabre loved to consult him, to read some charming verses which he had just discovered, or to recite some delightful rustic poem with which he had just been inspired; for in such occupations he found one of his favourite relaxations, giving free vent to his fancy, a loose rein to the poet that dwells within him. These poems the piety of his brother has preserved in the collection entitled "Oubreto." It is at such a moment that one should see his black eyes, full of fire; his power of mimicry and expression, his impassioned features, lit up by inspiration, truly idealized, almost transfigured, are at such times a thing to be remembered.
Sometimes, again, in the shadow of the planes, on summer afternoons, when the cigales were falling silent; or in the winter, before the blazing fireplace, in that dining-room on the ground floor in which he welcomed his visitors; when out of doors the mistral was roaring and raging, or the rain clattering on the panes, the little circle was enlarged by certain new- comers, his nephews, nieces, a few intimates, of whom, a little later, I myself was often one. At such times his humour and imagination were given full play, and it was truly a rare pleasure to sit there, sipping a glass of mulled wine, during those delightful and earnest hours; to taste the charm of his smiling philosophy, his picturesque conversation, full of exact ideas, all the more profound in that they were founded on experience and pointed or adorned by proverbs, adages, and anecdotes. Thanks to the daily reading of the "Temps," which one of his friends regularly sends him, Fabre is in touch with all the ideas of the day, and expresses his judgment of them; for example, he does not conceal his scepticism with regard to certain modern inventions, such as the aeroplane, whose novelty rather disturbs his mind, and whose practical bearing seems to him to be on the whole somewhat limited.
Thus even the most recent incidents find their way into the solitude of the Harmas and help to sustain the conversation.
"The first time we resume our Sérignan evenings," he wrote to his nephew on the morrow of one of these intimate gatherings, "we will have a little chat about your Justinian, whom the recent drama of "Théodora" has just made the fashion. Do you know the history of that terrible hussy and her stupid husband? Perhaps not entirely; it is a treat I am keeping for you." (15/13.)
The only subject which is hardly ever mentioned during these evenings at Sérignan is politics, although Fabre, strange as it may seem, was one year appointed to sit on the municipal council.
The son of peasants, who has emerged from the people yet has always remained a peasant, has too keen a sense of injustice not to be a democrat; and how many young men has he not taught to emancipate themselves by knowledge? But above all he is proud of being a Frenchman; his mind, so lucid, so logical, which has never gone abroad in search of its own inspirations, and has never been influenced by any but those old French masters, François Dufour and Réaumur, and the old French classics, has always felt an instinctive repugnance, which it has never been able to overcome, for all those ideas which some are surreptitiously seeking to put forward in our midst in favour of some foreign trade-mark.
Although his visit to the court of Napoleon III left him with a rather sympathetic idea of the Emperor, whose gentle, dreamy appearance he still likes to recall, he detested the Empire and the "brigand's trick" which established it.
On the day of the proclamation of the Republic he was seen in the streets of Avignon in company with some of his pupils. He was agreeably surprised at the turn events had taken, and delighted by the unforeseen result of the war.
A spirit as proud and independent as his was naturally the enemy of any species of servitude. State socialism of the equalitarian and communistic kind was to him no less horrifying. Was not Nature at hand, always to remind him of her eternal lessons?
"Equality, a magnificent political label, but scarcely more! Where is it, this equality? In our societies shall we find even two persons exactly equal in vigour, health, intelligence, capacity for work, foresight, and so many other gifts which are the great factors of prosperity?...A single note does not make a harmony: we must have dissimilar notes; discords even, which, by their harshness, give value to the concords; human societies are harmonious only thus, by the concourse of dissimilarities." (15/14.)
And what a puerile Utopia, what a disappointing illusion is that of communism! Let us see under what conditions, at the price of what sacrifices, nature here and there realizes it.
Among the bees "twenty thousand renounce maternity and devote themselves to celibacy to raise the prodigious family of a single mother."
Among the ants, the wasps, the termites "thousands and thousands remain incomplete and become humble auxiliaries of a few who are sexually gifted."
Would you by chance reduce man to the life of the Processional caterpillars, content to nibble the pine-needles among which they live, and which, satisfied to march continually along the same tracks, find within reach an abundant, easy, and idle subsistence? All have the same size, the same strength, the same aptitudes. No initiative. "What one does the others do, with equal zeal, neither better nor worse." On the other hand, there is "no sex, no love." And what would be a society in which there was no work done for pleasure and from which love and the family were banished? What would be the effect upon its progress, its welfare, its happiness? Would not all that make the charm of life disappear for good? However imperfect our present society may be, however mysterious its destinies, it is not in socialism that Fabre foresees the perfection of future humanity, for to him the true humanity does not as yet exist; it is making its way, it is slowly progressing, and in this evolution he wishes with all his heart to believe. Modern humanity is as yet only a shapeless grimacing caricature, and its life is like a play written by madmen and played by drunken actors; according to those profound words of the great poet, with which his mind is in some sort imbued; which he often repeats, and which he has transcribed at the head of one of his last records as an epigraph and a constant reminder.
And you who groan over the distressing problem of depopulation, lend an ear to the lesson of the Copris, "which trebles its customary batch of offspring in times of abundance, and in times of dearth imitates the artisan of the city who has only just enough to live on, or the bourgeois, whose numerous wants are more and more costly to satisfy, limiting the number of its offspring lest they should go in want, often reducing the number of its children to a single one." (15/15.)
Instead of running after so many false appearances and false pleasures, learn to return to simpler tastes, to more rustic manners; free yourselves from a mass of factitious needs; steep yourself anew in the antique sobriety, whose desires were sager; return to the fields, the source of abundance, and the earth, the eternal foster-mother!
And in this appeal to return to nature, which perhaps since the time of Rousseau has never been worded so eloquently, Fabre has in view if not the strong, the predestined, who are called elsewhere, and who are actuated by the sense of great tasks to be performed, at least all those of rural origin, all those for whom the love of the family, the daily task, and a peaceful heart are really the great things of life, the things that count, the things that suffice.
He himself, although he was one of the strong, did not care to break any of the ties that bound him to his origins. Like the Osmia, "which retains a tenacious memory of its home," the beloved village of his childhood has never been effaced from his memory, and for a long time the desire to leave his bones there haunted him. His mind often returned to it; he thought that there, better than anywhere else, he would find peace; that it would please him to wander among the rocks, the trees, the stones which he had so loved, in the old days, and that all these things would recognize him too.
One day, however, when I was begging him to make up his mind on this point- -it was one of those peaceful evenings which are troubled under the plane- trees only by the tinkling of the fountain--he confided to me that his beloved Sérignan had at last, in his secret preferences, obliterated the old longing. As he advanced in life, in fact, although he never forgot his rude natal countryside, he felt that new links were daily binding him more closely to those heaths and mountains on which his heart had been so often thrilled with the intense joy of discovery, and that it was indeed in this soil, to him so full of delight, amid its beautiful hymenoptera and scarabaei, that he would wish to be buried.
Fabre is by no means the misanthrope that some have chosen to think him. He delights in the society of women, and knows how to welcome them gracefully; and more than any one he is sensitive to the pleasant and stimulating impressions produced by the conversation of cultivated people.
He is no less fond of the arts, provided he finds in them a sincere interpretation of life. This is why the theatre, with its false values, its tinsel and affectation, has to him seemed a gross deformation of the reality, ever since the day when at Ajaccio he attended a performance of "Norma," in which the moon was represented by a round transparent disc, lit from behind by a lantern hanging at the end of a string, whose oscillation revealed by turns first the luminary and then the transparency. This was enough to disgust him for ever with the theatre and the opera, whose motionless choruses, contrasting with the sometimes frantic movement of the music, left him with a memory of an insane and illogical performance.
Nevertheless, he adored music, of which he knew something, having learned it, as he learned his drawing, without a master; but he preferred the naive songs of the country, or the melody of a flute; to the most scholarly concert-music. (15/16.) In the intimacy of the modest chamber which serves as the family salon, with its few shabby and old-fashioned pieces of furniture, he plays on an indifferent harmonium little airs of his own composition, the subjects of which were at first suggested by his own poetry. Like Rollinat, Fabre rightly considers that music should complete, accentuate, and release that which poetry has perforce left incomplete or indefinite. This is why he makes the bise laugh and sing and roar; why he imitates the organ-tones of the wind in the pines, and seeks to reproduce some of the innumerable rhythms of nature; the frenzy of the lizard, the wriggling of the stickle-back, the jumping gait of the frog, the shrill hum of the mosquito, the complaint of the cricket, the moving of the Scarabaei, and the flight of the Libellulae.
Too busy by day to find time for much reading, it was at night that he would shut himself up. Retiring early to his little chamber, with bare walls and bare tile floor, and a window opening to the garden, he would lie on his low bed, with curtains of green serge, and would often read far into the night.
This philosopher, to whose books the philosophers of the future will resort for new theories and original ideas, refuses to have any commerce with other philosophers, disdaining their systems and preferring to go straight to the facts. Even when he took up Darwin's "Origin of Species" he did little more than open the book; so wearisome and uninteresting, he told me, did he find the reading of it. On the other hand, he is full of the ancient philosophers, and as he did not read them very extensively in his youth and middle age, he has returned to them finally with love and predilection for "these good old books." Unlike many thinkers of the day, he is persuaded that we cannot with impunity dispense with classic studies; and he rightly considers that science and the humanities are not rivals, but allies. Above all he has a particular affection for Virgil; one may say that he is steeped in his poetry; and he knows La Fontaine by heart. The style of the latter is curiously like his own, and Fabre owns himself as his disciple; certainly La Fontaine's is the most active influence which his work reveals. He has a profound acquaintance with Rabelais, who was always his "friend" and who constantly crops up in his conversation and his chance remarks.
After these his intellectual foster-parents have been Courrier, Toussenel, of whom he is passionately fond, and Rousseau, of whom he cares for little but his "Lettres sur la botanique," full of such fresh impressions, in which we feel not the literary man but the "craftsman"; he also cherishes Michelet; so full of intuition, although he never handled actual things and knew nothing of the practice of the sciences; not learned, but overflowing with love; his magic pen, his powers of evocation, and his deft brushwork delight Fabre, despite the poverty and insufficiency of his fundamental facts (15/17.); sometimes Michelet had been his inspiration. The two do really resemble one another; Michelet was no less fitted than Fabre to play the confidant to Nature, and his heart was of the same mettle.
Since I have spoken of his favourites, let me also speak of his dislikes; Racine, whom he cannot bear; Molière, whom he does not really like; Buffon, whom he frankly detests for his too fluent prose, his ostentatious style, and his vain rhetoric. The only naturalist whom he might really have delighted in, had he possessed his works and been able to read them at leisure, is Audubon, the enthusiastic painter of the birds of America. In him he felt the presence of a mind and a temper almost identical with his own.