Books: Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, v3
G >>
Gustave Droz >> Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, v3
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6
How many times have I not played this little farce, seated under a willow
on the banks of my little stream, which ripples over the white stones,
while the reeds bend tremblingly. The children would crowd round me to
hear the watch, and soon questions broke forth in chorus to an
accompaniment of laughter. They inspected my gaiters, rummaged in my
pockets and leant against my knees. The ducklings glided under my feet,
and the big geese tickled my back.
How enjoyable it is not to alarm creatures that tremble at everything.
I would not move for fear of interrupting their joy, and was like a child
who is building a house of cards and who has got to the third story. But
I marked all these happy little faces standing out against the blue sky;
I watched the rays of the sun stealing into the tangles of their fair
hair, or spreading in a patch of gold on their little brown necks; I
followed their gestures full of awkwardness and grace; I sat down on the
grass to be the nearer to them; and if an unfortunate chicken came to
grief, between two daisies, I quickly stretched out my arm and replaced
it on its legs.
I assure you that they were all grateful. If one loves these little
people at all, there is one thing that strikes you when you watch them
closely. Ducklings dabbling along the edge of the water or turning head
over heels in their feeding trough, young shoots thrusting forth their
tender little leaves above ground, little chickens running along before
their mother hen, or little men staggering among the grass-all these
little creatures resemble one another. They are the babies of the great
mother Nature; they have common laws, a common physiognomy; they have
something inexplicable about them which is at once comic and graceful,
awkward and tender, and which makes them loved at once; they are
relations, friends, comrades, under the same flag. This pink and white
flag, let us salute it as it passes, old graybeards that we are. It is
blessed, and is called childhood.
All babies are round, yielding, weak, timid, and soft to the touch as a
handful of wadding. Protected by cushions of good rosy flesh or by a
coating of soft down, they go rolling, staggering, dragging along their
little unaccustomed feet, shaking in the air their plump hands or
featherless wing. See them stretched haphazard in the sun without
distinction of species, swelling themselves with milk or meal, and dare
to say that they are not alike. Who knows whether all these children of
nature have not a common point of departure, if they are not brothers of
the same origin?
Since men with green spectacles have existed, they have amused themselves
with ticketing the creatures of this world. These latter are arranged,
divided into categories and classified, as though by a careful apothecary
who wants everything about him in order. It is no slight matter to stow
away each one in the drawer that suits him, and I have heard that certain
subjects still remain on the counter owing to their belonging to two
show-cases at once.
And what proves to me, indeed, that these cases exist? What is there to
assure me that the whole world is not one family, the members of which
only differ by trifles which we are pleased to regard as everything?
Have you fully established the fact of these drawers and compartments?
Have you seen the bars of these imaginary cages in which you imprison
kingdoms and species? Are there not infinite varieties which escape your
analysis, and are, as it were, the unknown links uniting all the
particles of the animated world? Why say, "For these eternity, for those
annihilation?"
Why say, "This is the slave, that is the sovereign?" Strange boldness
for men who are ignorant of almost everything!
Man, animal or plant, the creature vibrates, suffers or enjoys--exists
and encloses in itself the trace of the same mystery. What assures me
that this mystery, which is everywhere the same, is not the sign of a
similar relationship, is not the sign of a great law of which we are
ignorant?
I am dreaming, you will say. And what does science do herself when she
reaches that supreme point at which magnifying glasses become obscure and
compasses powerless? It dreams, too; it supposes. Let us, too, suppose
that the tree is a man, rough skinned dreamy and silent, who loves, too,
after his fashion and vibrates to his very roots when some evening a warm
breeze, laden with the scents of the plain, blows through his green locks
and overwhelms him with kisses. No, I do not accept the hypothesis of a
world made for us. Childish pride, which would be ridiculous did not its
very simplicity lend it something poetic, alone inspires it. Man is but
one of the links of an immense chain, of the two ends of which we are
ignorant. [See Mark Twain's essay: 'What is Man.' D.W.]
Is it not consoling to fancy that we are not an isolated power to which
the remainder of the world serves as a pedestal, that one is not a
licensed destroyer, a poor, fragile tyrant, whom arbitrary decrees
protect, but a necessary note of an infinite harmony? To fancy that the
law of life is the same in the immensity of space and irradiates worlds
as it irradiates cities and as it irradiates ant-hills. To fancy that
each vibration in ourselves is the echo of another vibration. To fancy a
sole principle, a primordial axiom, to think the universe envelops us as
a mother clasps her child in her two arms; and say to one's self, "I
belong to it and it to me; it would cease to be without me. I should not
exist without it." To see, in short, only the divine unity of laws,
which could not be nonexistent, where others have only seen a ruling
fancy or an individual caprice.
It is a dream. Perhaps so, but I have often dreamed it when watching the
village children rolling on the fresh grass among the ducklings.
CHAPTER XXXI
AUTUMN
Do you know the autumn, dear reader, autumn away in the country with its
squalls, its long gusts, its yellow leaves whirling in the distance, its
sodden paths, its fine sunsets, pale as an invalid's smile, its pools of
water in the roadway; do you know all these? If you have seen all these
they are certainly not indifferent to you. One either detests or else
loves them.
I am of the number of those who love them, and I would give two summers
for a single autumn. I adore the big blazing fires; I like to take
refuge in the chimney corner with my dog between my wet gaiters. I like
to watch the tall flames licking the old ironwork and lighting up the
black depths. You hear the wind whistling in the stable, the great door
creak, the dog pull at his chain and howl, and, despite the noise of the
forest trees which are groaning and bending close by, you can make out
the lugubrious cawings of a flock of rooks struggling against the storm.
The rain beats against the little panes; and, stretching your legs toward
the fire, you think of those without. You think of the sailors, of the
old doctor driving his little cabriolet, the hood of which sways to and
fro as the wheels sink into the ruts, and Cocotte neighs in the teeth of
the wind. You think of the two gendarmes, with the rain streaming from
their cocked hats; you see them, chilled and soaked, making their way
along the path among the vineyards, bent almost double in the saddle,
their horses almost covered with their long blue cloaks. You think of
the belated sportsman hastening across the heath, pursued by the wind
like a criminal by justice, and whistling to his dog, poor beast, who is
splashing through the marshland. Unfortunate doctor, unfortunate
gendarmes, unfortunate sportsman!
And all at once the door opens and Baby rushes in exclaiming: "Papa,
dinner is ready." Poor doctor! poor gendarmes!
"What is there for dinner?"
The cloth was as white as snow in December, the plate glittered in the
lamplight, the steam from the soup rose up under the lamp-shade, veiling
the flame and spreading an appetizing smell of cabbage. Poor doctor!
poor gendarmes!
The doors were well closed, the curtains carefully drawn. Baby hoisted
himself on to his tall chair and stretched out his neck for his napkin to
be tied round it, exclaiming at the same time with his hands in the air:
"Nice cabbage soup." And, smiling to myself, I said: "The youngster has
all my tastes."
Mamma soon came, and cheerfully pulling off her tight gloves: "There,
sir, I think, is something that you are very fond of," she said to me.
It was a pheasant day, and instinctively I turned round a little to catch
a glimpse on the sideboard of a dusty bottle of my old Chambertin.
Pheasant and Chambertin! Providence created them for one another and my
wife has never separated them.
"Ah! my children, how comfortable you are here," said I, and every one
burst out laughing. Poor gendarmes! poor doctor!
Yes, yes, I am very fond of the autumn, and my darling boy liked it as
well as I did, not only on account of the pleasure there is in gathering
round a fine large fire, but also on account of the squalls themselves,
the wind and the dead leaves. There is a charm in braving them. How
many times we have both gone out for a walk through the country despite
cold and threatening clouds. We were wrapped up and shod with thick
boots; I took his hand and we started off at haphazard. He was five
years old then and trotted along like a little man. Heavens! it is
five-and-twenty years ago. We went up the narrow lane strewn with damp
black leaves; the tall gray poplars stripped of their foliage allowed a
view of the horizon, and we could see in the distance, under a violet sky
streaked with cold and yellowish bands, the low thatched roofs and the
red chimneys from which issued little bluish clouds blown away by the
wind. Baby jumped for joy, holding with his hand his hat which
threatened to fly off, and looking at me with eyes glittering through
tears brought into them by the breeze. His cheeks were red with cold,
and quite at the tip of his nose hung ready to drop a small transparent
pearl. But he was happy, and we skirted the wet meadows overflowed by
the swollen river. No more reeds, no more water lilies, no more flowers
on the banks. Some cows, up to mid-leg in damp herbage, were grazing
quietly.
At the bottom of a ditch, near a big willow trunk, two little girls were
huddled together under a big cloak wrapped about them. They were
watching their cows, their half bare feet in split wooden shoes and their
two little chilled faces under the large hood. From time to time large
puddles of water in which the pale sky was reflected barred the way, and
we remained for a moment beside these miniature lakes, rippling beneath
the north wind, to see the leaves float on them. They were the last.
We watched them detach themselves from the tops of the tall trees, whirl
through the air and settle in the puddles. I took my little boy in my
arms and we went through them as we could. At the boundaries of the
brown and stubble fields was an overturned plough or an abandoned harrow.
The stripped vines were level with the ground, and their damp and knotty
stakes were gathered in large piles.
I remember that one day in one of these autumnal walks, as we gained the
top of the hill by a broken road which skirts the heath and leads to the
old bridge, the wind suddenly began to blow furiously. My darling,
overwhelmed by it, caught hold of my leg and sheltered himself in the
skirt of my coat. My dog, for his part, stiffening his four legs, with
his tail between the hind ones and his ears waving in the wind, looked up
at me too. I turned, the horizon was as gloomy as the interior of a
church. Huge black clouds were sweeping toward us, and the trees were
bending and groaning on every side under the torrents of rain driven
before the squall. I only had time to catch up my little man, who was
crying with fright, and to run and squeeze myself against a hedge which
was somewhat protected by the old willows. I opened my umbrella,
crouched down behind it, and, unbuttoning my big coat, stuffed Baby
inside. He clung closely to me. My dog placed himself between my legs,
and Baby, thus sheltered by his two friends, began to smile from the
depths of his hiding-place. I looked at him and said:
"Well, little man, are you all right?"
"Yes, dear papa."
I felt his two arms clasp round my waist--I was much thinner than I am
now--and I saw that he was grateful to me for acting as a roof to him.
Through the opening he stretched out his little lips and I bent mine
down.
"Is it still raining outside, papa?"
"It will soon be over."
"Already, I am so comfortable inside you."
How all this stays in your heart. It is perhaps silly to relate these
little joys, but how sweet it is to recall them.
We reached home as muddy as two water-dogs and we were well scolded.
But when evening had come and Baby was in bed and I went to kiss him and
tickle him a little, as was our custom, he put his two little arms round
my neck and whispered: "When it rains we will go again, eh?"
CHAPTER XXXII
HE WOULD HAVE BEEN FORTY NOW
When you have seen your child born, have watched his first steps in life,
have noted him smile and weep, have heard him call you papa as he
stretches out his little arms to you, you think that you have become
acquainted with all the joys of paternity, and, as though satiated with
these daily joys that are under your hand, you already begin to picture
those of the morrow. You rush ahead, and explore the future; you are
impatient, and gulp down present happiness in long draughts, instead of
tasting it drop by drop. But Baby's illness suffices to restore you to
reason.
To realize the strength of the ties that bind you to him, it is necessary
to have feared to see them broken; to know that a river is deep, you must
have been on the point of drowning in it.
Recall the morning when, on drawing aside the curtain of his bed, you saw
on the pillow his little face, pale and thin. His sunken eyes,
surrounded by a bluish circle, were half closed. You met his glance,
which seemed to come through a veil; he saw you, without smiling at you.
You said, "Good morning," and he did not answer. His face only expressed
dejection and weakness, it was no longer that of your child. He gave a
kind of sigh, and his heavy eyelids drooped. You took his hands,
elongated, transparent, and with colorless nails; they were warm and
moist. You kissed them, those poor little hands, but there was no
responsive thrill to the contact of your lips. Then you turned round,
and saw your wife weeping behind you. It was at that moment when you
felt yourself shudder from head to foot, and that the idea of a possible
woe seized on you, never more to leave you. Every moment you kept going
back to the bed and raising the curtains again, hoping perhaps that you
had not seen aright, or that a miracle had taken place; but you withdrew
quickly, with a lump in your throat. And yet you strove to smile, to
make him smile himself; you sought to arouse in him the wish for
something, but in vain; he remained motionless, exhausted, not even
turning round, indifferent to all you said, to everything, even yourself.
And what is all that is needed to strike down this little creature, to
reduce him to this pitch? Only a few hours. What, is that all that is
needed to put an end to him? Five minutes. Perhaps.
You know that life hangs on a thread in this frail body, so little fitted
to suffer. You feel that life is only a breath, and say to yourself:
"Suppose this one is his last." A little while back he was complaining.
Already he does so no longer. It seems as though someone is clasping
him, bearing him away, tearing him from your arms. Then you draw near
him, and clasp him to you almost involuntarily, as though to give him
back some of your own life. His bed is damp with fever sweats, his lips
are losing their color. The nostrils of his little nose, grown sharp and
dry, rise and fall. His mouth remains wide open. It is that little rosy
mouth which used to laugh so joyfully, those are the two lips that used
to press themselves to yours, and . . . all the joys, the bursts of
laughter, the follies, the endless chatter, all the bygone happiness,
flock to your recollection at the sound of that gasping, breathing, while
big hot tears fall slowly from your eyes. Poor wee man. Your hand seeks
his little legs, and you dare not touch his chest, which you have kissed
so often, for fear of encountering that ghastly leanness which you
foresee, but the contact of which would make you break out in sobs.
And then, at a certain moment, while the sunlight was flooding the room,
you heard a deeper moan, resembling a cry. You darted forward; his face
was contracted, and he looked toward you with eyes that no longer saw.
And then all was calm, silent and motionless, while his hollow cheeks
became yellow and transparent as the amber of his necklaces.
The recollection of that moment lasts for a lifetime in the hearts of
those who have loved; and even in old age, when time has softened your
grief, when other joys and other sorrows have filled your days, his dying
bed still appears to you when sitting of an evening beside the fire. You
see amid the sparkling flames the room of the lost child, the table with
the drinks, the bottles, the arsenal of illness, the little garments,
carefully folded, that waited for him so long, his toys abandoned in a
corner. You even see the marks of his little fingers on the wall paper,
and the zigzags he made with his pencil on the door; you see the corner
scribbled over with lines and dates, in which he was measured every
month, you see him playing, running, rushing up in a perspiration to
throw himself into your arms, and, at the same time, you also see him
fixing his glazing eyes on you, or motionless and cold under a white
sheet, wet with holy water.
Does not this recollection recur to you sometimes, Grandma, and do not
you still shed a big tear as you say to yourself: "He would have been
forty now?" Do we not know, dear old lady, whose heart still bleeds,
that at the bottom of your wardrobe, behind your jewels, beside packets
of yellow letters, the handwriting of which we will not guess at, there
is a little museum of sacred relics--the last shoes in which he played
about on the gravel the day he complained of being cold, the remains of
some broken toys, a dried sprig of box, a little cap, his last, in a
triple wrapper, and a thousand trifles that are a world to you, poor
woman, that are the fragments of your broken heart?
The ties that unite children to parents are unloosed. Those which unite
parents to children are broken. In one case, it is the past that is
wiped out; in the other, the future that is rent away.
CHAPTER XXXIII
CONVALESCENCE
But, my patient reader, forget what have just said. Baby does not want
to leave you, he does not want to die, poor little thing, and if you want
a proof of it, watch him very closely; there, he smiles.
A very faint smile like those rays of sunlight that steal between two
clouds at the close of a wet winter. You rather guess at than see this
smile, but it is enough to warm your heart. The cloud begins to
disperse, he sees you, he hears you, he knows that papa is there, your
child is restored to you. His glance is already clearer. Call him
softly. He wants to turn, but he can not yet, and for his sole answer
his little hand, which is beginning to come to life again, moves and
crumples the sheet. Just wait a little, poor impatient father, and
tomorrow, on his awakening, he will say "Papa." You will see what good
it will do you, this "Papa," faint as a mere breath, this first scarcely
intelligible sign of a return to life. It will seem to you that your
child has been born again a second time.
He will still suffer, he will have further crises, the storm does not
become a calm all at once, but he will be able now to rest his head on
your shoulder, nestle in your arms among the blankets; he will be able to
complain, to ask help and relief of you with eye and voice; you will, in
short, be reunited, and you will be conscious that he suffers less by
suffering on your knees. You will hold his hand in yours, and if you
seek to go away he will look at you and grasp your finger. How many
things are expressed in this grasp. Dear sir, have you experienced it?
"Papa, do stay with me, you help to make me better; when I am alone I am
afraid of the pain. Hold me tightly to you, and I shall not suffer so
much."
The more your protection is necessary to another the more you enjoy
granting it. What is it then when this other is a second self, dearer
than the first. With convalescence comes another childhood, so to speak.
Fresh astonishments, fresh joys, fresh desires come one by one as health
is restored. But what is most touching and delightful, is that delicate
coaxing by the child who still suffers and clings to you, that
abandonment of himself to you, that extreme weakness that gives him
wholly over to you. At no period of his life has he so enjoyed your
presence, has he taken refuge so willingly in your dressing-gown, has he
listened more attentively to your stories and smiled more intelligently
at your merriment. Is it true, as it seems to you, that he has never
been more charming? Or is it simply that threatened danger has caused
you to set a higher value on his caresses, and that you count over your
treasures with all the more delight because you have been all but ruined?
But the little man is up again. Beat drums; sound trumpets; come out of
your hiding-places, broken horses; stream in, bright sun; a song from you
little birds. The little king comes to life again--long live the king!
And you, your majesty, come and kiss your father.
What is singular is that this fearful crisis you have gone through
becomes in some way sweet to you; you incessantly recur to it, you speak
of it, you speak of it and cherish it in your mind; and, like the
companions of AEneas, you seek by the recollection of past dangers to
increase the present joy.
"Do you remember," you say, "the day when he was so ill? Do you remember
his dim eyes, his poor; thin, little arm, and his pale lips? And that
morning the doctor went away after clasping our hands?"
It is only Baby who does not remember anything. He only feels an
overpowering wish to restore his strength, fill out his cheeks and
recover his calves.
"Papa, are we going to have dinner soon, eh, papa?"
"Yes, it is getting dusk, wait a little."
"But, papa, suppose we don't wait?"
"In twenty minutes, you little glutton."
"Twenty, is twenty a great many? If you eat twenty cutlets would it make
you ill? But with potatoes, and jam, and soup, and--is it still twenty
minutes?"
Then again: "Papa, when there is beef with sauce," he has his mouth full
of it, "red tomato sauce."
"Yes, dear, well?"
"Well, a bullock is much bigger than what is on the dish; why don't they
bring the rest of the bullock? I could eat it all and then some bread
and then some haricots, and then--"
He is insatiable when he has his napkin under his chin, and it is a
happiness to see the pleasure he feels in working his jaws. His little
eyes glisten, his cheeks grow red; what he puts away into his little
stomach it is impossible to say, and so busy is he that he has scarcely
time to laugh between two mouthfuls. Toward dessert his ardor slackens,
his look becomes more and more languid, his fingers relax and his eyes
close from time to time.
"Mamma, I should like to go to bed," he says, rubbing his eyes. Baby is
coming round.
CHAPTER XXXIV
FAMILY TIES
The exhilaration of success and the fever of life's struggle take a man
away from his family, or cause him to live amid it as a stranger, and
soon he no longer finds any attractions in the things which charmed him
at the outset. But let ill luck come, let the cold wind blow rather
strongly, and he falls back upon himself, he seeks near him something to
support him in his weakness, a sentiment to replace his vanished dream,
and he bends toward his child, he takes his wife's hand and presses it.
He seems to invite these two to share his burden. Seeing tears in the
eyes of those he loves, his own seem diminished to that extent. It would
seem that moral suffering has the same effect as physical pain. The
drowning wretch clutches at straws; in the same way, the man whose heart
is breaking clasps his wife and children to him. He asks in turn for
help, protection, and comfort, and it is a touching thing to see the
strong shelter himself in the arms of the weak and recover courage in
their kiss. Children have the instinct of all this; and the liveliest
emotion they are capable of feeling is that which they experience on
seeing their father weep.
Recall, dear reader, your most remote recollections, seek in that past
which seems to you all the clearer the farther you are removed from it.
Have you ever seen your father come home and sit down by the fire with a
tear in his eye? Then you dared not draw near him at first, so deeply
did you feel his grief. How unhappy he must be for his eyes to be wet.
Then you felt that a tie attached you to this poor man, that his
misfortune struck you too, that a part of it was yours, and that you were
smitten because your father was. And no one understands better than the
child this joint responsibility of the family to which he owes
everything. You have felt all this; your heart has swollen as you stood
silent in the corner, and sobs have broken forth as, without knowing why,
you have held out your arms toward him. He has turned, he has understood
all, he has not been able to restrain his grief any further, and you have
remained clasped in one another's arms, father, mother, and child,
without saying anything, but gazing at and understanding one another.
Did you, however, know the cause of the poor man's grief?
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6