Ten Tales Part 6

The Dreamer himself had no appet.i.te. 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 sh.e.l.ls!

A shudder pa.s.sed over his heart.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 h.e.l.lish 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 _naf_ 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.

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 pa.s.sage 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 crus.h.i.+ng 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 gla.s.s of Chambertin, did he not remember that certain gla.s.s-blowers became consumptive through blowing bottles?

Let it pa.s.s--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 n.o.bleman who presides at the table bears with honor and dignity a name a.s.sociated 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-gla.s.ses, 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?"

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AN ACCIDENT.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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-gla.s.s windows. On week days, n.o.body. 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 Sat.u.r.days, 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 n.o.body 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'h.o.m.ond, and the folio _Bollandiste_ which he had left lying on the table, with his eye-gla.s.ses on its open pages. But it was Sat.u.r.day 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 cas.h.i.+er, 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 pa.s.sing. 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, distinguis.h.i.+ng 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 rest.i.tution. 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 hoa.r.s.e 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, 'G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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.

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"'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.