Ten Tales
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Francois Coppee >> Ten Tales
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Toulon, the ball and chain, the work in the harbor, the blows from a
stick, wooden shoes on bare feet, soup of black beans dating from
Trafalgar, no tobacco money, and the terrible sleep in a camp swarming
with convicts; that was what he experienced for five broiling summers
and five winters raw with the Mediterranean wind. He came out from there
stunned, was sent under surveillance to Vernon, where he worked some
time on the river. Then, an incorrigible vagabond, he broke his exile
and came again to Paris. He had his savings, fifty-six francs, that is
to say, time enough for reflection. During his absence his former
wretched companions had dispersed. He was well hidden, and slept in a
loft at an old woman's, to whom he represented himself as a sailor,
tired of the sea, who had lost his papers in a recent shipwreck, and who
wanted to try his hand at something else. His tanned face and his
calloused hands, together with some sea phrases which he dropped from
time to time, made his tale seem probable enough.
[Illustration]
One day when he risked a saunter in the streets, and when chance had led
him as far as Montmartre, where he was born, an unexpected memory
stopped him before the door of Les Freres, where he had learned to
read. As it was very warm the door was open, and by a single glance the
passing outcast was able to recognize the peaceable school-room. Nothing
was changed: neither the bright light shining in at the great windows,
nor the crucifix over the desk, nor the rows of benches with the tables
furnished with ink-stands and pencils, nor the table of weights and
measures, nor the map where pins stuck in still indicated the operations
of some ancient war. Heedlessly and without thinking, Jean Francois
read on the blackboard the words of the Evangelist which had been set
there as a copy:
"Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over
ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance."
It was undoubtedly the hour for recreation, for the Brother Professor
had left his chair, and, sitting on the edge of a table, he was telling
a story to the boys who surrounded him with eager and attentive eyes.
What a bright and innocent face he had, that beardless young man, in his
long black gown, and white necktie, and great ugly shoes, and his badly
cut brown hair streaming out behind! All the simple figures of the
children of the people who were watching him seemed scarcely less
childlike than his; above all when, delighted with some of his own
simple and priestly pleasantries, he broke out in an open and frank peal
of laughter which showed his white and regular teeth, a peal so
contagious that all the scholars laughed loudly in their turn. It was
such a sweet, simple group in the bright sunlight, which lighted their
dear eyes and their blond curls.
Jean Francois looked at them for some time in silence, and for the
first time in that savage nature, all instinct and appetite, there awoke
a mysterious, a tender emotion. His heart, that seared and hardened
heart, unmoved when the convict's cudgel or the heavy whip of the
watchman fell on his shoulders, beat oppressively. In that sight he saw
again his infancy; and closing his eyes sadly, the prey to torturing
regret, he walked quickly away.
Then the words written on the blackboard came back to his mind.
"If it wasn't too late, after all!" he murmured; "if I could again, like
others, eat honestly my brown bread, and sleep my fill without
nightmare! The spy must be sharp who recognizes me. My beard, which I
shaved off down there, has grown out thick and strong. One can burrow
somewhere in the great ant-hill, and work can be found. Whoever is not
worked to death in the hell of the galleys comes out agile and robust,
and I learned there to climb ropes with loads upon my back. Building is
going on everywhere here, and the masons need helpers. Three francs a
day! I never earned so much. Let me be forgotten, and that is all I
ask."
He followed his courageous resolution; he was faithful to it, and after
three months he was another man. The master for whom he worked called
him his best workman. After a long day upon the scaffolding, in the hot
sun and the dust, constantly bending and raising his back to take the
hod from the man at his feet and pass it to the man over his head, he
went for his soup to the cook-shop, tired out, his legs aching, his
hands burning, his eyelids stuck with plaster, but content with himself,
and carrying his well-earned money in a knot in his handkerchief. He
went out now without fear, since he could not be recognized in his white
mask, and since he had noticed that the suspicious glances of the
policeman were seldom turned on the tired workman. He was quiet and
sober. He slept the sound sleep of fatigue. He was free!
At last--oh, supreme recompense!--he had a friend!
He was a fellow-workman like himself, named Savinien, a little peasant
with red lips who had come to Paris with his stick over his shoulder and
a bundle on the end of it, fleeing from the wine-shops and going to mass
every Sunday. Jean Francois loved him for his piety, for his candor,
for his honesty, for all that he himself had lost, and so long ago. It
was a passion, profound and unrestrained, which transformed him by
fatherly cares and attentions. Savinien, himself of a weak and
egotistical nature, let things take their course, satisfied only in
finding a companion who shared his horror of the wine-shop. The two
friends lived together in a fairly comfortable lodging, but their
resources were very limited. They were obliged to take into their room a
third companion, an old Auvergnat, gloomy and rapacious, who found it
possible out of his meagre salary to save something with which to buy a
place in his own country. Jean Francois and Savinien were always
together. On holidays they together took long walks in the environs of
Paris, and dined under an arbor in one of those small country inns where
there are a great many mushrooms in the sauces and innocent rebusses on
the napkins. There Jean Francois learned from his friend all that lore
of which they who are born in the city are ignorant: learned the names
of the trees, the flowers, and the plants; the various seasons for
harvesting; he heard eagerly the thousand details of a laborious country
life--the autumn sowing, the winter chores, the splendid celebrations of
harvest and vintage days, the sound of the mills at the water-side, and
the flails striking the ground, the tired horses led to water, and the
hunting in the morning mist; and, above all, the long evenings around
the fire of vine-shoots, that were shortened by some marvellous stories.
He discovered in himself a source of imagination before unknown, and
found a singular delight in the recital of events so placid, so calm, so
monotonous.
One thing troubled him, however: it was the fear lest Savinien might
learn something of his past. Sometimes there escaped from him some low
word of thieves' slang, a vulgar gesture--vestiges of his former
horrible existence--and he felt the pain one feels when old wounds
re-open; the more because he fancied that he sometimes saw in Savinien
the awakening of an unhealthy curiosity. When the young man, already
tempted by the pleasures which Paris offers to the poorest, asked him
about the mysteries of the great city, Jean Francois feigned ignorance
and turned the subject; but he felt a vague inquietude for the future of
his friend.
His uneasiness was not without foundation. Savinien could not long
remain the simple rustic that he was on his arrival in Paris. If the
gross and noisy pleasures of the wine-shop always repelled him, he was
profoundly troubled by other temptations, full of danger for the
inexperience of his twenty years. When spring came he began to go off
alone, and at first he wandered about the brilliant entrance of some
dancing-hall, watching the young girls who went in with their arms
around each others' waists, talking in low tones. Then, one evening,
when lilacs perfumed the air and the call to quadrilles was most
captivating, he crossed the threshold, and from that time Jean Francois
observed a change, little by little, in his manners and his visage. He
became more frivolous, more extravagant. He often borrowed from his
friend his scanty savings, and he forgot to repay. Jean Francois,
feeling that he was abandoned, jealous and forgiving at the same time,
suffered and was silent. He felt that he had no right to reproach him,
but with the foresight of affection he indulged in cruel and inevitable
presentiments.
One evening, as he was mounting the stairs to his room, absorbed in his
thoughts, he heard, as he was about to enter, the sound of angry voices,
and he recognized that of the old Auvergnat who lodged with Savinien and
himself. An old habit of suspicion made him stop at the landing-place
and listen to learn the cause of the trouble.
"Yes," said the Auvergnat, angrily, "I am sure that some one has opened
my trunk and stolen from it the three louis that I had hidden in a
little box; and he who has done this thing must be one of the two
companions who sleep here, if it were not the servant Maria. It concerns
you as much as it does me, since you are the master of the house, and I
will drag you to the courts if you do not let me at once break open the
valises of the two masons. My poor gold! It was here yesterday in its
place, and I will tell you just what it was, so that if we find it again
nobody can accuse me of having lied. Ah, I know them, my three beautiful
gold pieces, and I can see them as plainly as I see you! One piece was
more worn than the others; it was of greenish gold, with a portrait of
the great emperor. The other was a great old fellow with a queue and
epaulettes; and the third, which had on it a Philippe with whiskers, I
had marked with my teeth. They don't trick me. Do you know that I only
wanted two more like that to pay for my vineyard? Come, search these
fellows' things with me, or I will call the police! Hurry up!" "All
right," said the voice of the landlord; "we will go and search with
Maria. So much the worse for you if we find nothing, and the masons get
angry. You have forced me to it."
[Illustration]
Jean Francois' soul was full of fright. He remembered the embarrassed
circumstances and the small loans of Savinien, and how sober he had
seemed for some days. And yet he could not believe that he was a thief.
He heard the Auvergnat panting in his eager search, and he pressed his
closed fists against his breast as if to still the furious beating of
his heart.
"Here they are!" suddenly shouted the victorious miser. "Here they are,
my louis, my dear treasure; and in the Sunday vest of that little
hypocrite of Limousin! Look, landlord, they are just as I told you. Here
is the Napoleon, the man with a queue, and the Philippe that I have
bitten. See the dents? Ah, the little beggar with the sanctified air. I
should have much sooner suspected the other. Ah, the wretch! Well, he
must go to the convict prison."
At this moment Jean Francois heard the well-known step of Savinien
coming slowly up the stairs.
He is going to his destruction, thought he. Three stories. I have time!
And, pushing open the door, he entered the room, pale as death, where he
saw the landlord and the servant stupefied in a corner, while the
Auvergnat, on his knees, in the disordered heap of clothes, was kissing
the pieces of gold.
"Enough of this," he said, in a thick voice; "I took the money, and put
it in my comrade's trunk. But that is too bad. I am a thief, but not a
Judas. Call the police; I will not try to escape, only I must say a word
to Savinien in private. Here he is."
In fact, the little Limousin had just arrived, and seeing his crime
discovered, believing himself lost, he stood there, his eyes fixed, his
arms hanging.
Jean Francois seized him forcibly by the neck, as if to embrace him; he
put his mouth close to Savinien's ear, and said to him in a low,
supplicating voice,
"Keep quiet."
Then turning towards the others:
"Leave me alone with him. I tell you I won't go away. Lock us in if you
wish, but leave us alone."
With a commanding gesture he showed them the door. They went out.
[Illustration]
Savinien, broken by grief, was sitting on the bed, and lowered his eyes
without understanding anything.
"Listen," said Jean Francois, who came and took him by the hands. "I
understand! You have stolen three gold pieces to buy some trifle for a
girl. That costs six months in prison. But one only comes out from there
to go back again, and you will become a pillar of police courts and
tribunals. I understand it. I have been seven years at the Reform
School, a year at Sainte Pelagie, three years at Poissy, five years at
Toulon. Now, don't be afraid. Everything is arranged. I have taken it on
my shoulders."
"It is dreadful," said Savinien; but hope was springing up again in his
cowardly heart.
"When the elder brother is under the flag, the younger one does not go,"
replied Jean Francois. "I am your substitute, that's all. You care for
me a little, do you not? I am paid. Don't be childish--don't refuse.
They would have taken me again one of these days, for I am a runaway
from exile. And then, do you see, that life will be less hard for me
than for you. I know it all, and I shall not complain if I have not done
you this service for nothing, and if you swear to me that you will never
do it again. Savinien, I have loved you well, and your friendship has
made me happy. It is through it that, since I have known you, I have
been honest and pure, as I might always have been, perhaps, if I had
had, like you, a father to put a tool in my hands, a mother to teach me
my prayers. It was my sole regret that I was useless to you, and that I
deceived you concerning myself. To-day I have unmasked in saving you. It
is all right. Do not cry, and embrace me, for already I hear heavy boots
on the stairs. They are coming with the _posse_, and we must not seem to
know each other so well before those chaps."
He pressed Savinien quickly to his breast, then pushed him from him,
when the door was thrown wide open.
It was the landlord and the Auvergnat, who brought the police. Jean
Francois sprang forward to the landing-place, held out his hands for
the handcuffs, and said, laughing, "Forward, bad lot!"
To-day he is at Cayenne, condemned for life as an incorrigible.
[Illustration]
AT TABLE.
[Illustration: AT TABLE]
When the _maitre d'hotel_--oh, what a respectable paunch in an ample
kerseymere vest! What a worthy and red face, well framed by white
whiskers! (an English physique, I assure you)--when the imposing
_maitre d'hotel_ opened with two raps the door of the salon, and
announced in his musical bass voice, at the same time sonorous and
respectful, "The dinner of madame la comtesse is served," hats were hung
on the corners of brackets, while the more distinguished of the guests
offered their arms to the ladies, and all passed into the dining-room,
silent, almost meditative, like a procession.
The table glittered. What flowers! What lights! Each guest found his
place without difficulty. As soon as he had read his name on the glazed
card, a grand lackey in silk stockings pushed gently behind him a
luxurious chair embroidered with a count's coronet. Fourteen at the
table, not more: four young women in full toilets, and ten men belonging
to the aristocracy of blood or of merit, who had put on that evening all
their orders in honor of a foreign diplomat sitting at the right hand of
the mistress of the house. Clusters of jewelled decorations hung from
button-holes, plaques of diamonds glittered in the lapel of one or two
black coats, a heavy commander's cross sparkled on the starched front of
a general with a red cravat. As to the ladies, they bore all the
splendors of their jewel-boxes.
[Illustration]
An elegant and exquisite reunion! What an atmosphere of good-living in
the high hall--splendidly decorated and ornamented on its four panels
with studies for a dining-hall in the fine style of olden days--where
were fruits, venison, and eatables of all sorts. The service of the
table was noiseless; the domestics seemed to glide upon the thick
carpet. The butler whispered the wines in the ears of the guests with a
confidential tone, and as if he were revealing a secret upon which life
depended.
At the soup--a _consomme_ at the same time mild and stimulating, giving
force and youthful vigor to the digestion--chat between neighbors began.
Undoubtedly these were the merest trifles that were at first so low
spoken. But what politeness in the grave gestures! What affability in
looks and smiles! Soon after the Chateau-yquem, wit sparkled. These
men, for the most part old or very mature, all remarkable through birth
or through talent, had lived much; full of experience and memories, they
were made for conversation, and the beauty of the women present inspired
them with a desire to shine, and excited them to a courteous rivalry.
There was a snapping of bright words, a flight of sudden sallies, and
the conversationalists broke into groups of two or three. A famous
voyager with bronzed skin, recently returned from the farthest deserts,
told his two neighbors of an elephant hunt, without any boasting, with
as much tranquillity as though he were speaking of shooting rabbits.
Farther off, the fine profile and white hair of an illustrious savant
was gallantly inclined towards the comtesse, who listened to him
laughing--a very slender blonde, her eyes young and intent, with a
collar of splendid emeralds on a bosom like a professional beauty, and
the neck and shoulders of the Venus de Medici.
* * * * *
Decidedly the dinner promised to be charming as well as sumptuous.
Ennui, that too frequent guest at mundane feasts, would not come to sit
at that table. These fortunate ones were going to pass a delicious hour,
drinking enjoyment through every pore, by every sense.
[Illustration]
Now, at that same table, at the lower end, in the most modest place, a
man still young, the least qualified, the most obscure of all who were
there, a man of reverie and imagination, one of those dreamers in whom
is something of philosophy, something of poetry, sat silent.
Admitted into that high society by virtue of his renown as an artist,
one of nature's aristocrats but without vanity, sprung from the people
and not forgetting it, he breathed voluptuously that flower of
civilization which is called good company.
He knew--none better than he--how everything in this environment--the
charm of the women, the wit of the men, the glittering table, the
furnishing of the hall, to the exquisite wine which he had just touched
to his lips--how everything was choice and rare, and he rejoiced that a
concourse of things so lovely and so harmonious existed. He was plunged
in a bath of optimism; it seemed to him good that there should be,
sometimes and somewhere in the weary world, beings almost happy.
Provided that they were accessible to pity, charitable--and these happy
people probably were that--who could distress them? what could injure
them? Ah, beautiful and consoling chimera to believe that for such as
these life is pleasant; that they retain always--or almost always--that
gay, happy light in the eye, that half-blossomed smile upon the lips;
that they have blotted out, as far as possible, from their existence,
imperious and discreditable desires and abject infirmities.
He whom we will call the Dreamer was pursuing that train of thought,
when the _maitre d'hotel_--the superb _maitre d'hotel_--entered with
solemnity, carrying in a great silver plate a turbot of fabulous
dimensions--one of those phenomenal fish which are only seen in the old
paintings representing the miraculous draught of fish, or perhaps in the
window of Chevet, before a row of astonished street-boys who flatten
their noses against the glass window.
* * * * *
Dinner is served. But when the Dreamer had before him on his plate a
portion of the monstrous turbot, the light odor of the sea evoked in his
mind, prone to unexpected suggestions, that corner of Breton, that poor
village of sailors, where he had been belated the other autumn until the
equinox, and where he had rendered assistance in some dreadful storms.
He suddenly called to mind that terrible night when the fishing-boats
could not come back to port, the night that he had passed on the mole
amid a group of frightened women, standing where the sea-spray streamed
down his face, and the cold and furious wind seemed striving to tear his
clothes from his back. What a life was theirs, those poor men! Down
there how many widows, young and old, wearing always the black shawl,
went at break of day, with their swarms of children, to earn their
bread--oh, nothing but bread!--working in the sickening smell of hot oil
in the sardine factories! He saw again in memory the church above the
village, half-way up the cliff, the steeple painted white to show to the
distant boats the passage between the reefs; and he saw, also, in the
short grass of the cemetery nibbled by the sheep, the gravestones on
which this sinister inscription was so often repeated: "_Lost at sea._"
"_Lost at sea._" "_Lost at sea._"
The enormous turbot was of savory and delicate taste, and the shrimp
sauce with which it was served proved that the _chef_ of the comte had
followed a course in cooking at the Cafe Anglais and profited by it.
For our refined civilization reaches even this point. One takes degrees
in culinary science. There are doctors in roasts and bachelors in
sauces. All of the guests eat as if they appreciated, and with delicate
gestures, but without showing special favor for exceptional dishes,
through good form and because they were habituated to exquisite food.
* * * * *
The Dreamer himself had no appetite. He was still in thought with the
Bretons, with the sons of the sea, who had caught, perhaps, this
magnificent turbot. He remembered the day that followed the
tempest--that morning, rainy and gray--when, walking by the heavy,
leaden sea, he had found a body at his feet and recognized it as that of
an old sailor, the father of a family, who had been lost at sea three
days before--mournful jetsam, stranded in the wrack and foam, so
heart-rending to see, with the gray hair of the drowned full of sand and
shells!
A shudder passed over his heart.
[Illustration]
But the lackeys had already removed the plates; every trace of the giant
fish had disappeared, and while they were serving another course, the
diners, elegant triflers, had taken up their chat again. Hunger being
already somewhat appeased, they were more animated, they spoke with more
abandon--light laughs ran round. Oh, charming and gracious company!
* * * * *
Then the Dreamer, the silent guest, was seized with an infinite sadness;
for all the work and distress that were required to create this comfort
and well-being came surging on his imagination.
That these men of the world might wear light dress-coats in
mid-December, that these women might expose their arms and their
shoulders, the temperature of the room was that of a spring morning. And
who furnished the coal? The poor devils of the black country, the
subterranean workmen who lived in hellish mines. How white and fresh is
the complexion of that young woman against her corsage of pink satin!
But who had woven that satin? The human spider of Lyons, the weaver,
always at his trade in the leprous houses of the Croix Rousse. She wears
in her tiny ears two beautiful pearls. What brilliancy! what opaline
transparence! Almost perfect spheres! The pearl which Cleopatra
dissolved in vinegar and swallowed, and which was worth ten thousand
sesterces, was not more pure. But does she know, that young woman, that
in far-off Ceylon, on the pearl-oyster banks of Arripo and Condatchy,
the Indians of the Indian Company plunge heroically down in twelve
fathoms of water, one foot in the heavy stone weight which drags them
down to the bottom, a knife in the left hand for defence against the
shark?
* * * * *
But what of that? One is lovely and coquettish. The air of the
dining-hall is warm and perfumed. There one can dine gaily, adorned and
half nude, flirting with one's neighbors. What has one to do, I ask you,
with a dark workman, who digs fifty feet under the ground, with a weaver
sitting with stiffened joints before the loom, with a savage who emerges
from the sea and sometimes reddens it with his blood? Why should one
think of things so sad, so ugly? What an absurdity!
Meanwhile the Dreamer pursued his train of thought.
An instant ago, without taking thought, mechanically he crumbled on the
cloth a bit of the gilded bread which was placed near his napkin. As a
viand, a mere bit of fancy, insignificant in such a repast, it made him
think of the _naif_ phrase of the great lady concerning the starving
wretches--"Let them eat cake." Nevertheless, this little cake is bread
all the same--bread made of flour, which in turn is made of wheat. Great
heaven! yes, it is bread, simply bread, like the loaf of the peasant,
like the bran-roll of the soldier; and that it might be here, on the
table of the rich, required the patient labor of many poor.
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