Alice Hegan Rice - "Calvary Alley"

Unknown - "Pages for Laughing Eyes"

William Bligh - "A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat"

Charlotte M. Yonge - "Two Penniless Princesses"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Man With The Broken Ear

E >> Edmond About >> The Man With The Broken Ear




"We did not go so far, in fact."

"You did not push on to Vienna?"

"No."

"Well, then, where did you sign the treaty of peace?"

"At Villafranca."

"At Villafranca? That's the capital of Austria, then?"

"No; it's a village of Italy."

"Monsieur, I don't admit that treaties of peace are signed anywhere but
in capitals. That was our principle, our A B C, the first paragraph of
our theory. It seems as if the world must have changed a good deal while
I was not in it. But patience!"

And now truth obliges me to confess that Fougas got drunk at dessert. He
had drunk and eaten like a Homeric hero, and talked more fluently than
Cicero in his best days. The fumes of wine, spices, and eloquence
mounted into his brain. He became familiar, spoke affectionately to some
and rudely to others, and poured out a torrent of absurdities big enough
to turn forty mills. His drunkenness, however, had in it nothing brutal,
or even ignoble; it was but the overflowing of a spirit young,
affectionate, vain-glorious, and unbalanced. He proposed five or six
toasts--to Glory, to the Extension of our Frontiers, to the Destruction
of the last of the English, to Mlle. Mars--the hope of the French
stage, to Affection--the tie, fragile but dear, which unites the lover
to his sweetheart, the father to his son, the colonel to his regiment!

His style, a singular mixture of familiarity and impressiveness,
provoked more than one smile among the auditory. He noticed it, and a
spark of defiance flashed up at the bottom of his heart. From time to
time he loudly asked if "those people there" were not abusing his
ingenuousness.

"Confusion!" cried he, "Confusion to those who want me to take bladders
for lanterns! The lantern may blaze out like a bomb, and carry
consternation in its path!"

After a series of such remarks, there was nothing left for him to do but
to roll under the table, and this _denouement_ was generally expected.
But the Colonel belonged to a robust generation, accustomed to more than
one kind of excess, and strong to resist pleasure as well as dangers,
privations, and fatigues. So when Madame Renault pushed back her chair,
in indication that the repast was finished, Fougas arose without
difficulty, gracefully offered his arm, and conducted his partner to the
parlor. His gait was a little stiff and oppressively regular, but he
went straight ahead, and did not oscillate the least bit. He took a
couple of cups of coffee, and spirits in moderation, after which he
began to talk in the most reasonable manner in the world. About ten
o'clock, M. Martout, having expressed a wish to hear his history, he
placed himself on a stool, collected his ideas for a moment, and asked
for a glass of water and sugar. The company seated themselves in a
circle around him, and he commenced the following narrative, the
slightly antiquated style of which craves your indulgence.




CHAPTER XIII.

HISTORY OF COLONEL FOUGAS, RELATED BY HIMSELF.


"Do not expect that I will ornament my story with those flowers, more
agreeable than substantial, which Imagination often uses to gloss over
truth. A Frenchman and a soldier, I doubly ignore deception. Friendship
interrogates me, Frankness shall answer.

"I was born of poor but honest parents at the beginning of the year
which the _Jeu de Paume_[5] brightened with an aurora of liberty. The
south was my native clime; the language dear to the troubadours was that
which I lisped in my cradle. My birth cost my mother's life. The author
of mine was the humble owner of a little farm, and moistened his bread
in the sweat of labor. My first sports were not those of wealth. The
many-colored pebbles which are found by the brooks, and that well-known
insect which childhood holds fluttering, free and captive at the same
time, at the end of a thread, stood me in stead of other playthings.

"An old minister at Devotion's altar, enfranchised from the shadowy
bondage of fanaticism, and reconciled to the new institutions of France,
was my Chiron and Mentor. He nourished me with the strong lion's marrow
of Rome and Athens; his lips distilled into my ears the embalmed honey
of wisdom. Honor to thee, learned and venerable man, who gavest me the
first precepts of wisdom and the first examples of virtue!

"But already that atmosphere of glory which the genius of one man and
the valor of a nation had set floating over the country, filled all my
senses, and made my young heart throb. France, on the edge of the
volcano of civil war, had collected all her forces into a thunderbolt to
launch upon Europe, and the world, astounded if not overwhelmed, was
shrinking from the surge of the unchained torrent. What man, what
Frenchman, could have heard with indifference that echo of victory
reverberating through millions of hearts?

"While scarcely leaving childhood, I felt that honor is more precious
than life. The warlike music of the drums brought to my eyes brave and
manly tears. 'And I, too,' said I, following the music of the regiments
through the streets of Toulouse, 'will pluck laurels though I sprinkle
them with my blood.' The pale olive of peace had from me nothing but
scorn. The peaceful triumphs of the law, the calm pleasures of commerce
and finance, were extolled in vain. To the toga of our Ciceros, to the
robe of our magistrates, to the curule chair of our legislators, to the
opulence of our Mondors, I preferred the sword. One would have said that
I had sucked the milk of Bellona. 'Victory or Death!' was already my
motto, and I was not sixteen years old.

"With what noble scorn I heard recounted the history of our Proteuses of
politics! With what disdainful glances I regarded the Turcarets of
finance, lolling on the cushions of some magnificent carriage, and
conducted by a laced automaton to the boudoir of some Aspasia. But if I
heard told the mighty deeds of the Knights of the Round Table, or the
valor of the crusaders celebrated in flowing verse; if chance placed in
my hand the great actions of our modern Rolands, recounted in an army
bulletin by the successor of Charlemagne, a flame presaging the fire of
battles rose in my young eyes.

"Ah, the inaction was too much, and my leading-strings, already worn by
impatience, would have broken, perhaps, had not a father's wisdom untied
them.

"'Most surely,' said he to me, trying, but in vain, to restrain his
tears, 'it was no tyrant who begot you, and I will not poison the life
which I myself gave you. I had hoped that your hand would remain in our
cottage to close my eyes; but when Patriotism has spoken, Egotism must
be still. My prayers will always follow you to the field where Mars
harvests heroes. May you merit the guerdon of valor, and show yourself a
good citizen, as you have been a good son!'

"Speaking thus, he opened his arms to me. I threw myself into them; we
mingled our tears, and I promised to return to our hearthstone as soon
as I could bring the star of honor suspended from my breast. But alas!
my unhappy father was destined to see me no more. The fate which was
already gilding the thread of my days, pitilessly severed that of his. A
stranger's hand closed his eyes, while I was gaining my first epaulette
at the battle of Jena.

"Lieutenant at Eylau, captain at Wagram, and there decorated by the
Emperor's own hand on the field of battle, major before Almieda,
lieutenant-colonel at Badajoz, colonel at Moscow, I have drunk the cup
of victory to the full. But I have also tasted the chalice of adversity.
The frozen plains of Russia saw me alone with a platoon of braves, the
last remnant of my regiment, forced to devour the mortal remains of that
faithful friend who had so often carried me into the very heart of the
enemy's battalions. Trusty and affectionate companion of my dangers,
when rendered useless by an accident at Smolensk, he devoted his very
_manes_ to the safety of his master, and made of his skin a protection
for my frozen and lacerated feet.

"My tongue refuses to repeat the story of our perils in that terrible
campaign. Perhaps some day I will write it with a pen dipped in
tears--tears, the tribute of feeble humanity. Surprised by the season of
frosts in a zone of ice, without fire, without bread, without shoes,
without means of transportation, denied the succor of Esculapius' art,
harassed by the Cossacks, robbed by the peasants--positive vampires, we
saw our mute thunderers, which had fallen into the enemy's hands, belch
forth death upon ourselves. What more can I tell you? The passage of the
Beresina, the opposition at Wilna--Oh, ye gods of Thunder!--- But I feel
that grief overcomes me, and that my language is becoming tinged with
the bitterness of these recollections.

"Nature and Love were holding in reserve for me brief but precious
consolations. Released from my fatigues, I passed a few happy days in my
native land among the peaceful vales of Nancy. While our phalanxes were
preparing themselves for fresh combats, while I was gathering around my
flag three thousand young but valorous warriors, all resolved to open to
posterity the path of honor, a new emotion, to which I had before been a
stranger, furtively glided into my soul.

"Beautified by all Nature's gifts, enriched by the fruits of an
excellent education, the young and interesting Clementine had scarcely
passed from the uncertain shadows of childhood into the sweet illusions
of youth. Eighteen springs composed her life. Her parents extended to
some of the army officers a hospitality which, though it was not
gratuitous, was far from lacking in cordiality. To see their child and
love her, was for me the affair of a day. Her virgin heart smiled upon
my love. At the first avowals dictated to me by my passion, I saw her
forehead color with a lovely modesty. We exchanged our vows one lovely
evening in June, under an arbor where her happy father sometimes
dispensed to the thirsty officers the brown liquor of the North. I swore
that she should be my wife, and she promised to be mine; she yielded
still more. Our happiness, regardless of all outside, had the calmness
of a brook whose pure wave is never troubled by the storm, and which
rolls sweetly between flowery banks, spreading its own freshness through
the grove that protects its modest course.

"A lightning stroke separated us from each other at the moment when Law
and Religion were about adding their sanction to our sweet communion. I
departed before I was able to give my name to her who had given me her
heart. I promised to return; she promised to wait for me; and, all
bathed in her tears, I tore myself from her arms, to rush to the laurels
of Dresden and the cypresses of Leipzic. A few lines from her hand
reached me during the interval between the two battles. 'You are to be a
father,' she told me. Am I one? God knows! Has she waited for me? I
believe she has. The waiting must have appeared to be a long one since
the birth of this child, who is forty-six years old to-day, and who
could be, in his turn, my father.

"Pardon me for having troubled you so long with misfortunes. I wished to
pass rapidly over this sad history, but the unhappiness of virtue has in
it something sweet to temper the bitterness of grief.

"Some days after the disaster of Leipzic, the giant of our age had me
called into his tent, and said to me:

"'Colonel, are you a man to make your way through four armies?'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'Alone, and without escort?'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'There must be a letter carried to Dantzic.'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'You will deliver it into General Rapp's own hands?'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'It is probable you will be taken, or killed.'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'For that reason I send two other officers with copies of the same
despatch. There are three of you; the enemy will kill two, the third
will get there, and France will be saved.'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'The one who returns shall be a brigadier-general.'

"'Yes, sire.'

"Every detail of this interview, every word of the Emperor, every
response which I had the honor to address to him, is still engraved upon
my memory. All three of us set out separately. Alas! not one of us
reached the goal aimed at by his valor, and I have learned to-day that
France was not saved. But when I see these blockheads of historians
asserting that the Emperor forgot to send orders to General Rapp, I
feel a terrible itching to cut their ---- story short, at least.

"'When a prisoner in the hands of the Russians in a German village, I
had the consolation of finding an old philosopher, who gave me the
rarest proofs of friendship. Who would have told me, when I succumbed to
the numbness of the cold in the tower of Liebenfeld, that that sleep
would not be the last? God is my witness, that in then addressing, from
the bottom of my heart, a last farewell to Clementine, I did not even
hope to see her again. I will see you again, then, O sweet and confiding
Clementine--best of spouses, and, probably, of mothers! What do I say? I
see her now! My eyes do not deceive me! This is surely she! There she
is, just as I left her! Clementine! In my arms! On my heart! Look here!
What's this you've been whining to me, the rest of you? Napoleon is not
dead, and the world has not grown forty-six years older, for Clementine
is still the same!"

The betrothed of Leon Renault was about entering the room, and stopped
petrified at finding herself so overwhelmingly received by the Colonel.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE GAME OF LOVE AND WAR.


As she was evidently backward in falling into his arms, Fougas imitated
Mahomet, and ran to the mountain.

"Oh, Clementine!" said he, covering her with kisses, "the friendly Fates
give you back to my devotion. I clasp once more the partner of my life
and the mother of my child!"

The young lady was so astounded, that she did not even dream of
defending herself. Happily, Leon Renault extricated her from the hands
of the Colonel, and placed himself between them, determined to defend
his own.

"Monsieur," cried he, clenching his fists, "you deceive yourself
entirely, if you think you know _Mademoiselle_. She is not a person of
your time, but of ours; she is not your _fiancee_, but mine; she has
never been the mother of your child, and I trust that she will be the
mother of mine!"

Fougas was iron. He seized his rival by the arm, sent him off spinning
like a top, and put himself face to face with the young girl.

"Are you Clementine?" he demanded of her.

"Yes, Monsieur."

"I call you all to witness that she is my Clementine!"

Leon returned to the charge, and seized the Colonel by the collar, at
the risk of getting himself dashed against the walls.

"We've had joking enough!" said he. "Possibly you don't pretend to
monopolize all the Clementines in the world? Mademoiselle's name is
Clementine Sambucco; she was born at Martinique, where you never set
your foot, if I am to believe what you have said within an hour. She is
eighteen years old----"

"So was the other!"

"Eh! The other is sixty-four to-day, since she was eighteen in 1813.
Mlle. Sambucco is of an honorable and well-known family. Her father, M.
Sambucco, was a magistrate; her grandfather was a functionary of the war
department. You see, she is in no way connected with you, nearly or
remotely; and good sense and politeness, to say nothing of gratitude,
make it your duty to leave her in peace."

He gave the Colonel a shove, in his turn, and made him tumble between
the arms of a sofa.

Fougas bounded up as if he had been thrown on a million springs. But
Clementine stopped him, with a gesture and a smile.

"Monsieur," said she in her most caressing voice, "do not get angry with
him; he loves me."

"So much the more reason why I should! Damnation!"

He cooled down, nevertheless, made the young lady sit down beside him,
and regarded her from head to foot with the most absorbed attention.

"This is surely she," said he. "My memory, my eyes, my heart, everything
in me, recognizes her, and tells me that it is she. And nevertheless the
testimony of mankind, the calculation of times and distances, in a word,
the very soul of evidence, seems to have made it a special point to
convict me of error.

"Is it possible, then, that two women should so resemble each other?
Am I the victim of an illusion of the senses? Have I recovered life
only to lose reason? No; I know myself, I find myself the same; my
judgment is firm and accurate, and can make its way in this world
so new and topsy-turvy. It is on but one point that my reason
wavers--Clementine!--I seem to see you again, and you are not you! Well,
what's the difference, after all? If the Destiny which snatched me from
the tomb has taken care to present to my awaking sense the image of her
I loved, it must be because it had resolved to give me back, one after
another, all the blessings which I had lost. In a few days, my
epaulettes; to-morrow, the flag of the 23d of the line; to-day this
adorable presence which made my heart beat for the first time! Living
image of all that is sweetest and clearest in the past, I throw myself
at your feet! Be my wife!"

The devil of a fellow joined the deed to the word, and the witnesses of
the unexpected scene opened their eyes to the widest. But Clementine's
aunt, the austere Mlle. Sambucco, thought that it was time to show her
authority. She stretched out her big, wrinkled hands, seized Fougas,
jerked him sharply to his feet, and cried in her shrillest voice:

"Enough, sir; it is time to put an end to this scandalous farce! My
niece is not for you; I have promised her and given her away. Know that,
day after to-morrow, the 19th of this month, at ten o'clock in the
morning, she will marry M. Leon Renault, your benefactor!"

"And I forbid it--do you hear, Madame Aunt? And if she pretends to marry
this boy----"

"What will you do?"

"I'll curse her!"

Leon could not help laughing. The malediction of this
twenty-five-year-old Colonel appeared rather more comic than terrible.
But Clementine grew pale, burst into tears, and fell, in her turn, at
the feet of Fougas.

"Monsieur," cried she, kissing his hands, "do not overwhelm a poor girl
who venerates you, who loves you, who will sacrifice her happiness if
you demand it! By all the marks of tenderness which I have lavished upon
you for a month, by the tears I have poured upon your coffin, by the
respectful zeal with which I have urged on your resuscitation, I conjure
you to pardon our offences. I will not marry Leon if you forbid me; I
will do anything to please you; I will obey you in everything; but, for
God's sake, do not pour upon me your maledictions!"

"Embrace me," said Fougas. "You yield; I pardon."

Clementine raised herself, all radiant with joy, and held up her
beautiful forehead. The stupefaction of the spectators, especially of
those most interested, can be better imagined than described. An old
mummy dictating laws, breaking off marriages, and imposing his desires
on the whole house! Pretty little Clementine, so reasonable, so
obedient, so happy in the prospect of marrying Leon Renault,
sacrificing, all at once, her affections, her happiness, and almost her
duty, to the caprice of an interloper. M. Nibor declared that it was
madness. As for Leon, he would have butted his head into all the walls,
if his mother had not held him back.

"Ah, my poor child!" said she, "why did you bring that thing from
Berlin?"

"It's my fault!" cried old Monsieur Renault.

"No," interrupted Dr. Martout, "it's mine."

The members of the Parisian committee discussed with M. Rollon the new
aspect of the case. "Had they resuscitated a madman? Had the
revivification produced some disorder of the nervous system? Had the
abuse of wine and other drinkables during the first repast caused a
delirium? What an interesting autopsy it would be, if they could dissect
M. Fougas at the next regular meeting!"

"You would do very well as far as you would go, gentlemen," said the
Colonel of the 23d. "The autopsy might explain the delirium of our
unfortunate friend, but it would not account for the impression produced
upon the young lady. Is it fascination, magnetism, or what?"

While the friends and relations were weeping, counselling, and buzzing
around him, Fougas, serene and smiling, gazed at himself in Clementine's
eyes, while they, too, regarded him tenderly.

"This must be brought to an end!" cried Mlle. Sambucco the severe.
"Come, Clementine!"

Fougas seemed surprised.

"She doesn't live here, then?"

"No, sir; she lives with me."

"Then I will escort her home. Angel! will you take my arm?"

"Oh, yes, Monsieur, with great pleasure!"

Leon gnashed his teeth.

"This is admirable! He presumes on such familiarity, and she takes it
all as a matter of course!"

He went to get his hat, for the purpose of, at least, going home with
the aunt, but his hat was not in its place; Fougas, who had not yet one
of his own, had helped himself to it without ceremony. The poor lover
crowded his head into a cap, and followed Fougas and Clementine, with
the respectable Virginie, whose arm cut like a scythe.

By an accident which happened almost daily, the Colonel of cuirassiers
met Clementine on the way home. The young lady directed Fougas'
attention to him.

"That's M. du Marnet," said she. "His restaurant is at the end of our
street, and his room at the side of the park. I think he is very much
taken with my little self, but he has never even bowed to me. The only
man for whom my heart has ever beaten is Leon Renault."

"Ah, indeed! And me?" said Fougas.

"Oh! as for you, that's another matter. I respect you, and stand in awe
of you. It seems to me as if you were a good and respectable parent."

"Thank you!"

"I'm telling you the truth, as far as I can read it in my heart. All
this is not very clear, I confess, but I do not understand myself."

"Azure flower of innocence, I adore your sweet perplexity! Let love take
care of itself; it will speak to you in master tones."

"I don't know anything about that; it's possible! Here we are at home.
Good evening, Monsieur; embrace me.--Good night, Leon; don't quarrel
with M. Fougas. I love him with all my heart, but I love you in a
different way!"

The aunt Virginie made no response to the "Good evening" of Fougas. When
the two men were alone in the street, Leon marched along without saying
a word, till they reached the next lamp-post. There, planting himself
resolutely opposite the Colonel, he said,

"Well, sir, now that we are alone, we had better have an explanation. I
don't know by what philter or incantation you have obtained such
prodigious influence over my betrothed; but I know that I love her, that
I have been loved by her more than four years, and that I will not stop
at any means of retaining and protecting her."

"Friend," answered Fougas, "you can brave me with impunity; my arm is
chained by gratitude. It shall never be written in history that Pierre
Fougas was an ingrate!"

"Would it have been more ungrateful in you to cut my throat, than to rob
me of my wife?"

"Oh, my benefactor! Learn to understand and pardon! God forbid that I
should marry Clementine in spite of you, in spite of herself. It is
through her consent and your own that I hope to win her. Realize that
she has been dear to me, not for four years, as to you, but for nearly
half a century. Reflect that I am alone on earth, and that her sweet
face is my only consolation. Will you, who have given me life, prevent
my spending it happily? Have you called me back to the world only to
deliver me over to despair?--Tiger! Take back, then, the life you gave
me, if you will not permit me to consecrate it to the adorable
Clementine!"

"Upon my soul, my dear fellow, you are superb! The habit of victory must
have totally twisted your wits. My hat is on your head:--keep it; so far
so good. But because my betrothed happens to remind you vaguely of a
girl in Nancy, must I give her up to you? I can't see it!"

"Friend, I will give you back your hat just as soon as you've bought me
another one; but do not ask me to give up Clementine. In the first
place, do you know that she will reject me?"

"I'm sure of it."

"She loves me."

"You're crazy!"

"You've seen her at my feet."

"What of that? It was from fear, from respect, from superstition, from
anything in the devil's name you choose to call it; but it was not from
love."

"We'll see about that pretty clearly, after six months of married life."

"But," cried Leon Renault, "have you the right to dispose of yourself?
There is another Clementine, the true one; she has sacrificed everything
for you; you are engaged, in honor, to her. Is Colonel Fougas deaf to
the voice of honor?"

"Are you mocking me? What! I marry a woman sixty-four years old?"

"You ought to; if not for her sake, at least for your child's."

"My child is a pretty big boy. He's forty-six years old; he has no
further need of my care."

"He does need your name, though."

"I'll adopt him."

"The law is opposed to it. You're not fifty years old, and he's not
fifteen years younger than you are; quite the reverse!"

"Very well; I'll legitimize him by marrying the young Clementine."

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