Chapter 7
Goethe has somewhere written: Whosoever would understand the poet and his work should visit the poet's country.
Let us, then, the latest of many, make the pilgrimage which all those who are fascinated by the enigma of nature will accomplish later, with the same piety that has led so many and so fervent admirers to the dwelling of Mistral at Maillane.
Starting from Orange and crossing the Aygues, a torrent whose muddy waters are lost in the Rhône, but whose bed is dried by the July and August suns, leaving only a desert of pebbles, where the Mason-bee builds her pretty turrets of rock-work, we come presently to the Sérignaise country; an arid, stony tract, planted with vines and olives, coloured a rusty red, or touched here and there with almost a hue of blood; and here and there a grove of cypress makes a sombre blot. To the north runs a long black line of hills, covered with box and ilex and the giant heather of the south. Far in the distance, to the east, the immense plain is closed in by the wall of Saint-Amant and the ridge of the Dentelle, behind which the lofty Ventoux rears its rocky, cloven bosom abruptly to the clouds. At the end of a few miles of dusty road, swept by the powerful breath of the mistral, we suddenly reach a little village. It is a curious little community, with its central street adorned by a double row of plane-trees, its leaping fountains, and its almost Italian air. The houses are lime-washed, with flat roofs; and sometimes, at the side of some small or decrepit dwelling, we see the unexpected curves of a loggia. At a distance the facade of the church has the harmonious lines of a little antique temple; close at hand is the graceful campanile, an old octagonal tower surmounted by a narrow mitre wrought in hammered iron, in the midst of which are seen the black profiles of the bells.
I shall never forget my first visit. It was in the month of August; and the whole countryside was ringing with the song of the cicadae. I had applied to a job-master of Orange, counting on him to take me thither; but he had never driven any one to Sérignan, had hardly heard of Fabre, and did not know where his house was. At length, however, we contrived to find it. At the entrance of the little market-town, in a solitary corner, in the centre of an enclosure of lofty walls, which were taller than the crests of the pines and cypresses, his dwelling was hidden away. No sound proceeded from it; but for the baying of the faithful Tom I do not think I should have dared to knock on the great door, which turned slowly on its hinges. A pink house with green shutters, half-hidden amid the sombre foliage, appears at the end of an alley of lilacs, "which sway in the spring under the weight of their balmy thyrsi." Before the house are the shady plane-trees, where during the burning hours of August the cicada of the flowering ash, the deafening cacan, concealed beneath the leaves, fills the hot atmosphere with its eager cries, the only sound that disturbs the profound silence of this solitude.
Before us, beyond a little wall of a height to lean upon, on an isolated lawn, beneath the shade of great trees with interwoven boughs, a circular basin displays its still surface, across which the skating Hydrometra traces its wide circles. Then, suddenly, we see an opening into the most extraordinary and unexpected of gardens; a wild park, full of strenuous vegetation, which hides the pebbly soil in all directions; a chaos of plants and bushes, created throughout especially to attract the insects of the neighbourhood.
Thickets of wild laurel and dense clumps of lavender encroach upon the paths, alternating with great bushes of coronilla, which bar the flight of the butterfly with their yellow-winged flowers, and whose searching fragrance embalms all the air about them.
It is as though the neighbouring mountain had one day departed, leaving here its thistles, its dogberry-trees, its brooms, its rushes, its juniper- bushes, its laburnums, and its spurges. There too grows the "strawberry tree," whose red fruits wear so familiar an appearance; and tall pines, the giants of this "pigmy forest." There the Japanese privet ripens its black berries, mingled with the Paulownia and the Cratoegus with their tender green foliage. Coltsfoot mingles with violets; clumps of sage and thyme mix their fragrance with the scent of rosemary and a host of balsamic plants. Amid the cacti, their fleshy leaves bristling with prickles, the periwinkle opens its scattered blossoms, while in a corner the serpent arum raises its cornucopia, in which those insects that love putrescence fall engulfed, deceived by the horrible savour of its exhalations.
It is in the spring above all that one should see this torrent of verdure, when the whole enclosure awakens in its festival attire, decked with all the flowers of May, and the warm air, full of the hum of insects, is perfumed with a thousand intoxicating scents. It is in the spring that one should see the "Harmas," the open-air observatory, "the laboratory of living entomology" (6/1.); a name and a spot which Fabre has made famous throughout the world.
I enter the dining-room, whose wide, half-closed shutters allow only a half-light to enter between the printed curtains. Rush-bottomed chairs, a great table, about which seven persons daily take their places, a few poor pieces of furniture, and a simple bookcase; such are all the contents. On the mantel, a clock in black marble, a precious souvenir, the only present which Fabre received at the time of his exodus from Avignon; it was given by his old pupils, the young girls who used to attend the free lectures at Saint-Martial's.
There, every afternoon, half lying on a little sofa, the naturalist has the habit of taking a short siesta. This light repose, even without sleep, was of old enough to restore his energies, exhausted by hours of labour. Thenceforth he was once more alert, and ready for the remainder of the day.
But already he is on his feet, bareheaded, in his waistcoat, his silk necktie carelessly fastened under the soft turned-down collar of his half- open shirt, his gesture, in the shadowy chamber, full of welcome.
François Sicard, in his faultless medal and his admirable bust, has succeeded with rare felicity in reproducing for posterity this rugged, shaven face, full of laborious years; a peasant face, stamped with originality, under the wide felt hat of Provence; touched with geniality and benevolence, yet reflecting a world of energy. Sicard has fixed for ever this strange mask; the thin cheeks, ploughed into deep furrows, the strained nose, the pendent wrinkles of the throat, the thin, shrivelled lips, with an indescribable fold of bitterness at the corners of the mouth. The hair, tossed back, falls in fine curls over the ears, revealing a high, rounded forehead, obstinate and full of thought. But what chisel, what graver could reproduce the surprising shrewdness of that gaze, eclipsed from time to time by a convulsive tremor of the eyelids! What Holbein, what Chardin could render the almost extraordinary brilliance of those black eyes, those dilated pupils: the eyes of a prophet, a seer; singularly wide and deeply set, as though gazing always upon the mystery of things, as though made expressly to scrutinize Nature and decipher her enigmas? Above the orbits, two short, bristling eyebrows seem set there to guide the vision; one, by dint of knitting itself above the magnifying-glass, has retained an indelible fold of continual attention; the other, on the contrary, always updrawn, has the look of defying the interlocutor, of foreseeing his objections, of waiting with an ever-ready return-thrust. Such is this striking physiognomy, which one who has seen it cannot forget.
There, in this "hermit's retreat," as he himself has defined it, the sage is voluntarily sequestered; a true saint of science, an ascetic living only on fruits, vegetables, and a little wine; so in love with retirement that even in the village he was for a long time almost unknown, so careful was he to go round instead of through it on his way to the neighbouring mountain, where he would often spend whole days alone with wild nature.
It is in this silent Thebaïd, so far from the atmosphere of cities, the vain agitations and storms of the world, that his life has been passed, in unchanging uniformity; and here he has been able to pursue, with resolute labour and incredible patience, that prodigious series of marvellous observations which for nearly fifty years he has never ceased to accumulate.
Let us indeed remember how much time has been required and what effort has been expended to complete the long and patient inquiries which he had hitherto accomplished; obliged, as he was, to allow himself to be interrupted at any moment, and to postpone his observations often at the most interesting moment, in order to undertake some enervating labour, or the disagreeable and mechanical duties of his profession. Remember that his first labours already dated from twenty-five years earlier, and at the moment when we observe him in his solitude at Sérignan he had only just painfully gathered together the material for his first book. What a contrast to the thirty fruitful years that were to follow! Now nearly ten volumes, no less overflowing with the richest material, were to succeed one another at almost regular intervals--about one in every three years.
To be sure, he would have gathered his harvest in no matter what corner of the world, provided he had found within his reach, in whatever sphere of life he had been placed, any subject of inquiry whatever; such was Rousseau, botanizing over the bunch of chickweed provided for his canary; such was Bernardin Saint-Pierre, discovering a world in a strawberry-plant which had sprouted by chance at the corner of his window. (6/2.) But the field in which he had hitherto been able to glean was indeed barren. That he was able, later on, to narrate the wonderful history of the Pelopaeus, whose habits he had observed at Avignon, was due to the fact that this curious insect had come to lodge with him, having chosen Fabre's chamber for its dwelling. None the less he threw himself eagerly upon all such scraps of information as happened to come under his notice; witness the observations which he embodied in a memoir touching the phosphorescence of certain earth-worms which, abounding in a little courtyard near his dwelling, were so rare elsewhere that he was never again able to find them. (6/3.) It was therefore fortunate, if not for himself, at least for his genius, that he did not become, as he had wished, a professor in a faculty; there, to be sure, he would have found a theatre worthy of his efforts, in which he might even have demonstrated, in all its magnificence, his incomparable gift of teaching; but it is probable too that he would have been stranded in shoal waters; that in the official atmosphere of a city his still more marvellous gifts of observation would scarcely have found employment.
It was only by belonging fully to himself that he could fruitfully exercise his talents. Necessary to every scholar, to every inquirer, to an open-air observer like Fabre liberty and leisure were more than usually essential; failing these he might never have accomplished his mission. How many lives are wasted, how many minds expended in sheer loss, in default of this sufficiency of leisure! How many scholars tied to the soil, how many physicians absorbed by an exigent practice, who perhaps had somewhat to say, have succeeded only in devising plans, for ever postponing their realization to some miraculous tomorrow, which always recedes!
But we must not fall into illusions. How many might be tempted to imitate him, hoping to see some unknown talent awaken or expand within them, only to find themselves incapable of producing anything, and to consume themselves in an insurmountable and barren ennui! One must be rich in one's own nature, rich in will and in ability, to live apart and seek new paths in solitude, and it is not without reason that the majority prefer the turmoil of cities and the murmur of men to the silence of the country.
The atmosphere of a great capital, for instance, is singularly conducive to work. Living constantly within the circle of light shed by the masters, within reach of the laboratories and the great libraries, we are less likely to go astray; we are stimulated by the contact of others; we profit by their advice and experience; and it is easy to borrow ideas if we lack them. Then there is the stimulant of self-respect, the sense of rivalry, the eager desire to advance, to distinguish oneself, to shine, to attract attention, to become in one's turn an arbiter, an object of wonder and envy, without which stimulus many would merely have existed, and would never have become what they are.
On the other hand, a man needs an intrinsic radio-activity, and a real talent; and the aid, moreover, of exceptional circumstances, if fame is to consent to come to him and take him by the hand in the depths of some unknown Maillane, some obscure Sérignan; even, as in the case of Fabre, at the end only of a long life.
But he, by a kind of fatality inherent in his nature, loved "to circumscribe himself," according to the happy expression of Rousseau; and he profited, rather than otherwise, by living entirely to himself; for he had long been, indeed he always was, the man who, at twenty-five, writing to his brother, had said, in speaking of his native countryside:
"For a impassioned botanist, it is a delightful country, in which I could pass a month, two months, three months, a year even, alone, quite alone, with no other companion than the crows and the jays which gossip among the oak-trees; without being weary for a moment; there would be so many beautiful fungi, orange, rosy, and white, among the mosses, and so many flowers in the fields." (6/4.)
His work having brought him at last just enough to enable him to give himself the pleasure of becoming, in his turn, a proprietor, he had acquired, for a modest sum, this dilapidated dwelling and this deserted spot of ground; barren land, given over to couch-grass, thistles, and brambles; a sort of "accursed spot, to which no one would have confided even a pinch of turnip-seed." A piece of water in front of the house attracted all the frogs in the neighbourhood; the screech-owl mewed from the tops of the plane-trees, and numerous birds, no longer disturbed by the presence of man, had domiciled themselves in the lilacs and the cypresses. A host of insects had seized upon the dwelling, which had long been deserted.
He restored the house, and to some extent reduced confusion to order. In the uncultivated and pebbly plain where the plough had been long a stranger he established plants of a thousand varieties, and, the better to hide himself, he had walls built to shut himself in.
Why was he drawn by preference to this village of Sérignan?--for he did not go thither without making some inquiries as to the possibility of obtaining shelter elsewhere, and the Carpentras cemetery had tempted him also; but what had particularly seduced and drawn him thither was the nearness of the mountain with its Mediterranean flora, so rich that it recalled the Corsican maquis; full of beautiful fungi and varied insects, where, under the flat stones exposed to the burning sun, the centipede burrowed and the scorpion slept; where a special fauna abounded--of curious dung-beetles, scarabaei, the Copris, the Minotaur, etc.--which only a little farther north grow rapidly scarcer and then altogether disappear.
He had thus at last arrived in port; he had found his "Eden."
He had realized, "after forty years of desperate struggles," the dearest, the most ardent, the longest cherished of all his desires. He could observe at leisure "every day, every hour," his beloved insects; "under the blue sky, to the music of the cigales." He had only to open his eyes and to see; to lend an ear and hear; to enjoy the great blessing of leisure to his heart's content.
Doffing the professor's frock-coat for the peasant's blouse, planting a root of sweet basil in his "topper," and finally kicking it to pieces, he snapped his fingers at his past life.
Liberated at last, far from all that could irritate or disturb him or make him feel dependent, satisfied with his modest earnings, reassured by the ever-increasing popularity of his little books, he had obtained entire possession of his own body and mind, and could give himself without reserve to his favourite subjects.
So, with Nature and her inexhaustible book before him, he truly commenced a new life.
But would this life have been possible without the support and comfort of those intimate feelings which are at the root of human nature? Man is seldom the master of these feelings, and they, with reason or despite reason, force themselves on his notice as the question of questions.
This delicate problem Fabre had to resolve after suffering a fresh grief. Hardly had he commenced to enjoy the benefits of this profound peace, when he lost his wife. At this moment his children were already grown up; some were married and some ready to leave him; and he could not hope much longer to keep his old father, the ex-café-keeper of Pierrelatte, who had come to rejoin him; and who might be seen, even in his extreme old age, going forth in all weathers and dragging his aged limbs along all the roads of Sérignan. (6/5.) The son, moreover, had inherited from his father his profound inaptitude for the practical business of life, and was equally incapable of managing his interests and the economics of the house. This is why, after two years of widowerhood, having already passed his sixtieth year, although still physically quite youthful, he remarried. Careless of opinion, obeying only the dictates of his own heart and mind, and following also the intuitions of unerring instinct, which was superior to the understanding of those who thought it their duty to oppose him, he married, as Boaz married Ruth, a young woman, industrious, full of freshness and life, already completely devoted to his service, and admirably fitted to satisfy that craving for order, peace, quiet, and moral tranquillity, which to him were above all things indispensable.
His new companion, moreover, was in all things faithful to her mission, and it was thanks to the benefits of this union, as the future was to show, that Fabre was in a position to pursue his long-delayed inquiries.
Three children, a son and two daughters, were born in swift succession, and reconstituted "the family," which was very soon increased by the youngest of his daughters by his first wife, who had not married; this was that Aglaë, who so often helped her father with her childlike attentions, and, "her cheek blooming with animation," collaborated in some of his most famous observations (6/6.); an unobtrusive figure, a soul full of devotion and resignation, heroic and tender. Having in vain ventured into the world, she had returned to the beloved roof at Sérignan, unable to part from the father she so admired and adored.
Later, when the shadow of age grew denser and heavier, the young wife and the younger children of the famous poet-entomologist took part in his labours also; they gave him their material assistance, their hands, their eyes, their hearing, their feet; he in the midst of them was the conceiving, reasoning, interpreting, and directing brain.
>From this time forward the biography of Fabre becomes simplified, and remains a statement of his inner life. For thirty years he never emerged from his horizon of mountains and his garden of shingle; he lived wholly absorbed in domestic affections and the tasks of a naturalist. None the less, he still exercised his vocation as teacher, for neither pure science nor poetry was sufficient to nourish his mind, and he was still Professor Fabre, untiringly pursuing his programme of education, although no longer applying himself thereto exclusively.
This long active period was also the most silent period of his life, although not an hour, not a minute of his many days was left unoccupied.
In the first few months at his new home he resumed his hymn to labour.
"You will learn in your turn," he writes to his son Émile, "you will learn, I hope, that we are never so happy as when work does not leave us a moment's repose. To act is to live." (6/7.)
The better to belong to himself, he eluded all invitations, even those from his nearest or most intimate friends; he hated to go away even for a few hours, preferring to enjoy in his own house their presence amidst his habitual and delightful surroundings. Everything in this still unexplored country was new to him. What would he do elsewhere, even in his beloved Carpentras, whither his faithful friend and pupil Devillario, who had formerly followed him in his walks around Avignon, would endeavour from time to time to draw him? Devillario was a magistrate, a collector and palaeontologist; his simple tastes, his wide culture, and his passion for natural history would surely have decided Fabre to accept his invitations, but that he forbade himself the pleasure. "I am afraid the hospitable cutlet that awaits me at your table will have time to grow cold; I am up to the neck in my work (6/8.)...But you, when you can, escape from your courts, and we will philosophize at random, as is our custom when we can manage to pass a few hours together. As for me, it is very doubtful whether the temptation will seize me to come to Carpentras. A hermit of the Thebaïd was no more diligent in his cell than I in my village home." (6/9.)