Ten Tales
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Francois Coppee >> Ten Tales
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The peasant labored, sowed, reaped. He pushed his plough or led his
harrow across the fertile field, under the cold needles of the autumn
rain; he started from sleep, full of terror for his crop, when it
thundered by night; he trembled, seeing the passage of great violet
clouds charged with hail; he went forth, dissatisfied and gloomy, to the
heavy work and exhausting labor of harvest.
And when the old miller, twisted by rheumatism which he has caught in
the river fogs, has sent the flour to Paris, the market-porters with the
great white hats have carried the crushing sacks on their broad backs,
and last night, even, in the baker's cellar the workmen toiled until
morning.
Verily, yes! It has cost all these efforts, all these pains--the bit of
bread carelessly broken by the white hands of these patricians.
And now the incorrigible Dreamer was possessed by these things. The
delicacies of the repast only recalled to him the suffering of humanity.
Presently, when the butler poured for him a glass of Chambertin, did he
not remember that certain glass-blowers became consumptive through
blowing bottles?
Let it pass--it is absurd. He well knows that so the world is made. An
economist would have laughed in his face. Would he become a Socialist,
perhaps? There will always be rich and poor, as there will always be
well-formed men and hunchbacks.
Besides, the fortunates before him were not unjustly so. These were not
vulgar favorites of the Gilded Calf--parvenus gross and conceited. The
nobleman who presides at the table bears with honor and dignity a name
associated with all the glories of France; the general with the gray
mustache is a hero, and charged at Rezonville with the intrepidity of a
Murat; the painter, the poet, have faithfully served Art and Beauty; the
chemist, a self-made man who began life as a shop-boy in a drug-store,
and to whom the learned world listens to-day as to an oracle, is simply
a man of genius; these high-born dames are generous and good, and they
will often dip their fair hands courageously in the depth of misfortune.
Why should not these members of the _elite_ have exceptional enjoyment?
The Dreamer said to himself that he had been unjust. These were old
sophisms--good, at the best, for the clubs of the faubourgs, which had
been awakened in his memory, and by which he had been duped. Is it
possible? He was ashamed of himself.
But the dinner neared its end; and while the lackeys refilled for the
last time the champagne-glasses, the table grew silent--the guests felt
the apathy of digestion. The Dreamer looked at them, one after the
other, and all the faces had satiated, _blase_ expressions which
disturbed and disquieted him. A sentiment, obscure, inexplicable, but so
bitter! protested even from the depth of his soul against that repast;
and when they rose at last from the table, he repeated softly and
stubbornly to himself:
"Yes; they are within their rights. But do they know, do they
understand, that their luxury is made from many miseries? Do they think
of it sometimes? Do they think of it as often as they should? Do they
think of it?"
[Illustration]
AN ACCIDENT.
[Illustration: AN ACCIDENT.]
I.
Saint Medard, the old church of the Rue Mouffetard, once well known as
the scene of the Convulsionnaires, is a very poor parish. The "Faubourg
Marceau," as they call it there, has not much religion, and the
vestry-board must have hard work to make both ends meet. On Sundays, at
the hours of service, there are but few there, and they are for the most
part women: some twenty of the folk of the quarter and some servants in
their round caps. As for the men, there are not at the most more than
three or four--old men in peasant jackets, who kneel awkwardly on the
stone floor, near a pillar, their caps under their arms, rolling a great
chaplet of beads between their fingers, moving their lips, and raising
their eyes towards the arched roof, with an air as if they had given the
stained-glass windows. On week days, nobody. On Thursdays, in the
winter, the aisles resounded for an instant with the clang of wooden
shoes, when the students of the catechism came and went. Sometimes a
poor woman, leading one or two children and carrying a baby in her arms,
came to burn a little candle on the stand at the chapel of the Virgin,
or perhaps one heard by the baptismal font the wailing of a new-born
babe; or, more often, the funeral of some poor wretch: a deal box,
covered with a black cloth and resting on two trestles, hastily blessed
by the priest, before a little group of women, the men being
free-thinkers, and waiting the conclusion of the ceremony in the
drinking-shop across the way, where they played bagatelle for drinks.
Therefore, the old Abbe Faber, one of the vicars of the parish, is sure
that twice out of three times he will find no penitent before his
confessional, and has only to hear, for the most part of the time, the
uninteresting confession of some good women. But he is conscientious,
and on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, at seven o'clock precisely,
he betakes himself regularly to the chapel of St. John, only to make a
short prayer and return should there be nobody there.
II.
One day last winter, struggling against a heavy wind with his open
umbrella, the Abbe Faber toiled painfully up the Rue Mouffetard, on the
way to his parish, and, almost certain that his toil was useless, he
regretted to himself the warm fire he had just quitted in his little
room in the Rue D'homond, and the folio _Bollandiste_ which he had left
lying on the table, with his eye-glasses on its open pages. But it was
Saturday night, the day when certain old widows, who earned their scant
income in the neighboring boarding-houses, sometimes sought absolution
for the morrow's communion. The honest priest could not, therefore,
excuse himself from entering his oak box and opening, with the
punctuality of a cashier, that wicket where the devotees, for whom the
confessional is a spiritual savings-bank, make a weekly deposit of their
venial sins.
The Abbe Faber was the more sorry to go out, because that particular
Saturday was pay-day, and on such occasions the Rue Mouffetard swarmed
with people, and a people not well disposed toward his cloth. However
good a man one may be, it is far from agreeable to be forced to lower
the eyes to avoid malevolent looks, and to stop the ears against
insolent words heard in passing. There was a certain drinking-shop which
the abbe particularly dreaded--a shop brilliant with gas and exhaling
an odor of alcohol through its open doors, through which one could see a
perspective of barrels labelled: "Absinthe," "Bitter," "Madere,"
"Vermouth," etc. Here, leaning against the bar, were always a band of
loafers in long blouses and high hats, who saluted the poor abbe,
walking quickly along the pavement, with ribald jests.
However, on this night the streets were deserted on account of the bad
weather, and the abbe reached his church without interruption. He
dipped his finger in the holy water, crossed himself, made a brief
reverence before the grand altar, and went towards his confessional. At
least he had not come for nothing. A penitent was waiting.
III.
A male penitent! a rare and exceptional thing at Saint Medard. But,
distinguishing by the red light of the lamp hanging from the roof of the
chapel the short white jacket and the heavy nailed shoes of the kneeling
man, the Abbe Faber believed him to be some workman who had kept his
rustic faith and his early habits of religious observance. Without doubt
the confession that he was about to hear would be as stupid as that of
the cook of the Rue Monge, who, after having accused himself of petty
thefts, exclaimed loudly against a single word of restitution. The
priest even smiled to himself as he remembered the formal confession of
one of the inhabitants of the faubourg, who came to ask for a billet of
confession that he might marry. "I have neither killed or robbed. Ask me
about the rest." And so the vicar entered very tranquilly into his
confessional, and, after having taken a copious pinch of snuff, opened
without emotion the little curtain of green serge which closed the
wicket.
"Monsieur le cure," stammered a rough voice, which was making an effort
to speak low.
"I am not a cure, my friend. Say your _confiteor_, and call me father."
The man, whose face the abbe could not see among the shadows, stumbled
through the prayer, which he seemed to have great difficulty in
recalling, and he began again in a hoarse whisper:
"Monsieur le cure--no--my father--excuse me if I do not speak properly,
but I have not been to confession for twenty-five years--no, not since I
quitted the country--you know how it is--a man in Paris, and yet I have
not been worse than other people, and I have said to myself, 'God must
be a good sort of fellow.' But to-day what I have on my conscience is
too heavy to carry alone, and you must hear me, monsieur le cure: I
have killed a man!"
The abbe half rose from his seat. A murderer! There was no longer any
question of his mind wandering from the duties of his office, of half
annoyance at the garrulity of the old women, to whom he listened with a
half attentive ear, and whom he absolved in all confidence. A murderer!
That head which was so near his had conceived and planned such a crime!
Those hands, crossed on the confessional, were perhaps still stained
with blood! In his trouble, perhaps not unmixed with a certain amount of
fear, the Abbe Faber could only speak mechanically.
"Confess yourself, my son. The mercy of God is infinite."
"Listen to my whole story," said the man, with a voice trembling with
profound grief. "I am a workingman, and I came to Paris more than twenty
years ago with a fellow-countryman, a companion from childhood. We
robbed birds'-nests, and we learned to read in school together--almost a
brother, sir. He was called Philip; I am called Jack, myself. He was a
fine big fellow; I have always been heavy and ill-formed. There was
never a better workman than he--while I am only a 'botcher'--and so
generous and good-natured, wearing his heart on his sleeve. I was proud
to be his friend, to walk by his side--proud when he clapped me on the
back and called me a clumsy fellow. I loved him because I admired him,
in fact. Once here, what an opportunity! We worked together for the same
employer, but he left me alone in the evenings more than half the time.
He preferred to amuse himself with his companions--natural enough, at
his age. He loved pleasure, he was free, he had no responsibilities. All
this was impossible for me. I was forced to save my money, for at that
time I had an invalid mother in the country, and I sent her all my
savings. As for me, I stayed at the fruiterer's where I lodged, and who
kept a lodging-house for masons. Philip did not dine there; he used to
go somewhere else, and, to tell the truth, the dinners were not
particularly good. But the fruiterer was a widow, far from happy, and I
saw that my payments were of help to her; and then, to be frank, I fell
at once in love with her daughter. Poor Catherine! You will soon know,
monsieur le cure, what came from it all. I was there three years
without daring to tell her of the love I had for her. I have told you
that I am not a good workman, and the little that I gained hardly
sufficed for me and for the support of my mother. There could be no
thought of marrying. At last my good mother left this world for a
better. I was somewhat less pressed for money, and I began to save, and
when it seemed to me that I had enough to begin with, I told Catherine
of my love. She said nothing at first--neither yes nor no. Well, I knew
that no one would fall upon my neck; I am not attractive. In the mean
time Catherine consulted her mother, who thought well of me as a steady
workman, as a good fellow, and the marriage was decided upon. Ah, I had
some happy weeks! I saw that Catherine barely accepted me, and that she
was by no means carried away with me; but as she had a good heart, I
hoped that she would love me some day--I would make her love me. As a
matter of course, I told everything to Philip, whom I saw every day at
the work-yard, and as Catherine and I were engaged, I wanted him to meet
her. Perhaps you have already guessed the end, monsieur le cure. Philip
was handsome, lively, good-tempered--everything that I was not; and
without attempting it, innocently enough, he fascinated Catherine. Ah,
Catherine had a frank and honest heart, and as soon as she recognized
what had happened she at once told me everything. Ah, I can never forget
that moment! It was Catherine's birthday, and in honor of it I had
bought a little cross of gold which I had arranged in a box with cotton.
We were alone in the back shop, and she had just brought me my soup. I
took my box from my pocket, and, opening it, I showed her the jewel.
Then she burst into tears.
[Illustration]
"'Forgive me, Jack,' she said, 'and keep that for her whom you will
marry. As for me, I can never become your wife. I love another--I love
Philip.'
IV.
"Believe me, I had trouble enough then, monsieur le cure; my soul was
full of it. But what could I do, since I loved them both? Only what I
believed was for their happiness--let them marry. And as Philip had
always lived freely, and spent as he made, I lent him my hoard to buy
the furniture.
"Then they were married, and for a while all went well. They had a
little boy, and I stood sponsor for him and named him Camille, in
remembrance of his mother. It was a little after the birth of the baby
that Philip began to go wrong. I was mistaken in him--he was not made
for marriage; he was too fond of frivolity and pleasure. You live in a
poor quarter, monsieur le cure, and you must know the sad story by
heart--the workman who glides little by little from idleness into
drunkenness, who is off on a spree for two or three days, who does not
bring home his week's wages, and who only returns to his home, broken up
by his spree, to make scenes and to beat his wife. In less than two
years Philip became one of these wretches. At first I tried to reform
him, and sometimes, ashamed of himself, he would attempt to do better;
but that did not last long. Then my remonstrances only irritated him;
and when I went to his house, and he saw me look sadly around the
chamber made bare by the pawn-shop, at poor Catherine, thin and pale
with grief, he became furious. One day he had the audacity to be jealous
of me on account of his wife, who was as pure as the blessed Virgin,
reminding me that I was once her lover and accusing me of still being
so, with slanders and infamies that I should be ashamed to repeat. We
almost flew at each other's throats. I saw what I must do. I would see
Catherine and my godson no more; and as for Philip, I would only meet
him when by chance we worked on the same job.
"Only, you will understand, I loved Catherine and little Camille too
well to lose sight of them entirely. On Saturday evenings, when I knew
that Philip was drinking up his wages with his comrades, I used to prowl
about the quarter, and chat with the boy when I found him; and if it was
too miserable at home, he did not return with empty hands, you know. I
believe that the wretched Philip knew that I was helping his wife, and
that he closed his eyes to the fact, finding it rather convenient. I
will hurry on, for the story is too miserable. Some years have passed;
Philip plunging deeper in vice; but Catherine, whom I had helped all I
could, has educated her son, who is now a fellow of twenty years, good
and courageous like herself. He is not a workman; he is educated; he has
learned to draw at the evening schools, and he is now with an architect,
where he gets good wages. And though the house is saddened by the
presence of the drunkard, things go fairly well, for Camille is a great
comfort to his mother; and for a year or two, when I see Catherine--she
is so changed, the poor woman!--leaning on the arm of her manly son, it
warms my heart.
"But yesterday evening, coming out of my cook-shop, I met Camille; and
shaking hands with him--oh, he is not ashamed of me, and he doesn't
blush at a blouse covered with plaster--I saw that something was the
matter.
"'Let's see--what's the matter now?'
"'I drew the lot yesterday,' he replied, 'and I drew the number ten--a
number that sends you to die with fever in the colonies with the
marines. That will, at all events, send me there for five years, to
leave mother alone, without resources, with father, who has never been
drinking so much, who has never been so wicked. And it will kill her--it
will kill her! How cursed it is to be poor!'
"Oh, what a horrible night I passed! Think of it, monsieur le cure,
that poor woman's labor for twenty years destroyed in a minute by an
unhappy chance; because a child, rummaging in a sack, has drawn an
unfortunate number! In the morning I was broken as by age when I went to
the house we were building on the Boulevard Arago. Of what use is
sorrow? we must work all the same. So I mounted the scaffolding. We had
already built the house to the fourth story, and I began to place my
mortar. Suddenly I felt some one strike me on the shoulder. It was
Philip. He only worked now when the inclination seized him, and he was
apparently putting in a day's work to get something to drink; but the
builder, having a forfeit to pay if the building was not finished by a
certain date, accepted the first-comers.
V.
"I had not seen Philip for a long time, and it was with difficulty that
I recognized him. Burned and fevered by brandy, his beard gray, his
hands trembling, he was more than an old man--he was a ruin.
"'Well,' I said to him, 'the boy has drawn a bad number.'
"'What of it?' he replied, with an angry look. 'Are you going to worry
me about that, too, like Catherine and Camille? The boy will do as
others have done: he will serve his country. I know what worries them,
both my wife and son. If I were dead he would not have to go. But, so
much the worse for them, I am still solid at my post, and Camille is not
the son of a widow.'
"The son of a widow! Ah, monsieur le cure, why did he use that unhappy
phrase? The evil thought came to me at once, and it never quitted me all
the morning that I worked at the wretch's side. I imagined all that she
was about to suffer--poor Catherine!--when she no longer had her son to
care for and protect her, and she must be alone with the miserable
drunkard, now completely brutalized, ugly, and capable of anything. A
neighboring clock struck eleven, and the workmen all descended to lunch.
We remained until the last, Philip and I, but in stepping on the ladder
to descend, he turned to me with a leer, and said, in his hoarse,
dissipated voice:
"'You see, steady as a sailor; Camille is not nearly the son of a
widow.'
"The blood mounted to my head. I was beside myself. I seized with both
hands the rounds of the ladder to which Philip clung shouting 'Help!'
and with a single effort I toppled it over.
"He was instantly killed--by an accident, they said--and now Camille is
the son of a widow and need not go.
"That is what I have done, monsieur le cure, and what I want to tell to
you and to the good God. I repent, I ask pardon, of course; but I must
not see Catherine in her black dress, happy on the arm of her son, or I
could not regret my crime. To prevent that I will emigrate--I will lose
myself in America. As to my penance--see, monsieur le cure, here is the
little cross of gold that Catherine refused when she told me that she
was in love with Philip. I have always kept it, in memory of the only
happy days that I ever knew in my life. Take it and sell it. Give the
money to the poor."
* * * * *
Jack rose absolved by the Abbe Faber.
One thing is certain, and that is that the priest never sold the little
cross of gold. After having paid its price into the Treasury of the
Church, he hung the jewel, as an _ex-voto_, on the altar of the chapel
of the Virgin, where he often went to pray for the poor mason.
[Illustration]
THE SABOTS OF LITTLE WOLFF.
[Illustration: The Sabots of little Wolff.
(a Christmas Story).]
Once upon a time--it was so long ago that the whole world has forgotten
the date--in a city in the north of Europe--whose name is so difficult
to pronounce that nobody remembers it--once upon a time there was a
little boy of seven, named Wolff, an orphan in charge of an old aunt who
was hard and avaricious, who only embraced him on New-Year's Day, and
who breathed a sigh of regret every time that she gave him a porringer
of soup.
But the poor little chap was naturally so good that he loved the old
woman just the same, although she frightened him very much, and he could
never see without trembling the great wart, ornamented with four gray
hairs, which she had on the end of her nose.
As the aunt of Wolff was known through all the village to have a house
and an old stocking full of gold, she did not dare send her nephew to
the school for the poor. But she so schemed to obtain a reduction of the
price with the school-master whose school little Wolff attended, that
the bad teacher, vexed at having a scholar so badly dressed and who paid
so poorly, punished him very often and unjustly with the backboard and
fool's cap, and even stirred his fellow-pupils against him, all sons of
well-to-do men, who made the orphan their scapegoat.
The poor little fellow was therefore as miserable as the stones in the
street, and hid himself in out-of-the-way corners to cry; when Christmas
came.
The night before Christmas the school-master was to take all of his
pupils to the midnight mass, and bring them back to their homes.
Now, as the winter was very severe that year, and as for several days a
great quantity of snow had fallen, the scholars came to the rendezvous
warmly wrapped and bundled up, with fur caps pulled down over their
ears, double and triple jackets, knitted gloves and mittens, and good
thick nailed boots with strong soles. Only little Wolff came shivering
in the clothes that he wore week-days and Sundays, and with nothing on
his feet but coarse Strasbourg socks and heavy sabots, or wooden shoes.
His thoughtless comrades made a thousand jests over his sad looks and
his peasant's dress. But the orphan was so occupied in blowing on his
fingers, and suffered so much from his chilblains, that he took no
notice of them; and the troop of boys, with the master at their head,
started for the church.
[Illustration]
It was fine in the church, which was resplendent with wax-candles; and
the scholars, excited by the pleasant warmth, profited by the noise of
the organ and the singing to talk to each other in a low voice. They
boasted of the fine suppers that were waiting for them at home. The son
of the burgomaster had seen, before he went out, a monstrous goose that
the truffles marked with black spots like a leopard. At the house of the
first citizen there was a little fir-tree in a wooden box, from whose
branches hung oranges, sweetmeats, and toys. And the cook of the first
citizen had pinned behind her back the two strings of her cap, as she
only did on her days of inspiration when she was sure of succeeding with
her famous sugar-candy. And then the scholars spoke, too, of what the
Christ-child would bring to them, of what he would put in their shoes,
which they would, of course, be very careful to leave in the chimney
before going to bed. And the eyes of those little chaps, lively as a
parcel of mice, sparkled in advance with the joy of seeing in their
imagination pink paper bags of burnt almonds, lead soldiers drawn up in
battalions in their boxes, menageries smelling of varnished wood, and
magnificent jumping-jacks covered with purple and bells.
Little Wolff knew very well by experience that his old miserly aunt
would send him supperless to bed. But in the simplicity of his soul, and
knowing that he had been all the year as good and industrious as
possible, he hoped that the Christ-child would not forget him, and he,
too, looked eagerly forward by-and-by to putting his wooden shoes in the
ashes of the fireplace.
The midnight mass concluded, the faithful went away, anxious for supper,
and the band of scholars, walking two by two after their teacher, left
the church.
Now, under the porch, sitting on a stone seat under a Gothic niche, a
child was sleeping--a child covered by a robe of white linen, and whose
feet were bare, notwithstanding the cold. He was not a beggar, for his
robe was new and nice, and near him on the ground were seen, lying in a
cloth, a square, a hatchet, a pair of compasses, and the other tools of
a carpenter's apprentice. Under the light of the stars, his face, with
its closed eyes, bore an expression of divine sweetness, and his long
locks of golden hair seemed like an _aureole_ about his head. But the
child's feet, blue in the cold of that December night, were sad to see.
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