Letters from my Windmill Part 13

The small wood of green oaks which seemed to beckon him:

--Come over here, Sub-Prefect, you will find composing your speech much easier in the shade of my trees....

The Sub-Prefect was captivated; he jumped down from the barouche and told his men to wait there for him, as he was going to compose his speech over in the small wood of green oaks.

In the small wood of green oaks, there were birds, violets, and springs hidden in the delicate gra.s.s.... When the birds noticed the Sub-Prefect with his gorgeous breeches and his large, leather-embossed briefcase, they became alarmed and stop singing, the springs are scared and stop their babbling, and the violets hid themselves in the gra.s.s.... This whole world in miniature had never seen a Sub-Prefect before, and they quietly wondered who this dignitary was, walking around in silver breeches.

Meanwhile, the Sub-Prefect, delighted by the silence and the coolness of the wood, lifted his coat-tails, put his hat on the gra.s.s, and sat down in the moss at the foot of a young oak. He then put the large, leather-embossed briefcase on his knees, opened it, and took out a long sheet of official paper.

--He's an artist, said the warbler.

--No, said the bullfinch, he's not an artist; with his silver breeches, he's more of a prince.

--He's more of a prince, said the bullfinch.

--He's neither an artist nor a prince, interrupted an old nightingale, who had sang all season in the district's gardens.... I know what he is; he's a Sub-Prefect!

And the whole woodland came alive with the rumour:

--He's a Sub-Prefect! He's a Sub-Prefect!

--He's bald! remarked a crested lark.

The violets asked:

--Is he a bad man?

--Is he a bad man? asked the violets.

The old nightingale replied:

--Not at all! And with that rea.s.surance, the birds started to sing again, the streams to flow, and the violets to perfume the air, just as though the gentleman wasn't there.... Ignoring all this pretty clamour, the Sub-Prefect invoked the spirit of the country fetes, and, pencil at the ready, began to declaim in his ceremonial voice:

--Gentlemen and const.i.tuents....

--Gentlemen and const.i.tuents.... said the Sub-Prefect in his ceremonial voice....

A cackle of laughter broke his concentration; he turned round and saw a lone fat woodp.e.c.k.e.r, perched on his opera hat, looking at him and laughing. The Sub-Prefect shrugged his shoulders and readied himself to continue, but the woodp.e.c.k.e.r interrupted him again:

--What is the point?

--I beg your pardon! What is the point? said the Sub-Prefect, who was flus.h.i.+ng all over, and shooing the cheeky animal away, he resumed even more pompously:

--Gentlemen and const.i.tuents....

--Gentlemen and const.i.tuents.... once again resumed the Sub-Prefect even more pompously.

Then, the little violets stretched their stems out towards him and kindly asked him:

--Sub-Prefect, can you smell our lovely perfume?

And the streams were making divine music for him from beneath the moss, and over his head in the branches, a band of warblers sang their finest songs; indeed, the whole wood conspired to stop him composing his speech.

As he composed his speech, the Sub-Prefect was intoxicated by the perfume, and delighted by the music. He tried again to resist the charm, but in vain, and became completely overcome. He propped himself up on the gra.s.s with his elbows, loosened his fine tails, and stammers, yet again, two or three times:

--Gentlemen and const.i.tuents.... Gentlemen and const.... Gent....

Finally, he sent his const.i.tuents to the devil, and the muse of the country fetes could only cover her face.

Cover your face, O Muse of the country fetes!... When, after an hour, his a.s.sistants, worried about their master, followed him into the wood, they saw something that made them recoil in horror.... The Sub-Prefect was lying on his stomach in the gra.s.s, all dishevelled like a Bohemian.

He had taken off his tails;... and the Sub-Prefect was composing poetry, as he chewed ruminatively on a violet.

BIXIOU'S WALLET

One October morning, a few days before I left Paris, a man in shabby clothes turned up at my home--while I was having lunch.

He was bent over, muddied, and stooped and s.h.i.+vered on his long legs like a plucked wading bird. It was Bixiou. Yes, Parisians, your very own Bixiou, the ferociously charming Bixiou, the fanatical satirist who has so delighted you for fifteen years with his writings and caricatures.... Oh, poor man, and how painful to see him like that.

Without the familiar grimace when he came in, I would not have recognised him.

His head was bent over to one side, and his cane was pushed into his mouth like a clarinet. The ill.u.s.trious and gloomy jester then moved to the centre of the room and staggered against my table as he said despondently: "Have pity on a blind man!..."

It was such a good take-off that I couldn't stop myself laughing. The Arctic-cold response came immediately: "If you think I'm joking ...

just look into my eyes."

He then turned two large, white, sightless eyes towards me: "I've gone blind, my dear, blind for life.... That's what comes from writing with vitriol. I have burned out the candle of my eyes out doing the d.a.m.ned job ... to the stub!" he added showing me his desiccated eyelids with no trace of an eyelash.

I was so overcome, I couldn't find anything to say. My silence troubled him:

"Are you working?"

?--No, Bixiou, I'm having lunch. Would you like to join me?"

He didn't reply, but I could see clearly from his quivering nostrils that he was dying to say yes. I took his hand and sat him down beside me.

While I served him, the poor devil sniffed at the food and chuckled:

"Oh, it smells good, this. I'm really going to enjoy it; and it will be an age before I eat again! A sou's worth of bread every morning, as I traipse through the ministries, is all I get.... I tell you, I'm really badgering the ministries now--it's the only work I do--I am trying to get permission to run a tobacconist's shop.... What else can I do; I've got to eat. I can't draw; I can't write... Dictation?... But dictate what?... I haven't a clue, me; I can't think of a thing to write. My trade was to look at the lunacies of Paris and hold a mirror up to them; but I haven't got what it takes now.... Then I thought about a tobacconist's shop; not in the boulevards of course, I can't expect those kind of favours, being neither a show girl's mother, nor a field officer's widow. No. I'm just looking for a small shop in the provinces, somewhere far away, say a spot in the Vosges. I will sell a h.e.l.l of a clay pipe, and console myself by wrapping tobacco in my contemporaries' writings.

"That's all I want. Not too much to ask, is it? But, do you know what, its h.e.l.l on earth to get it... Yet, I shouldn't be short of patronage.

I have soared high in my time. I used to dine with the Marshal, the prince, and ministers, all those people wanted me then because I amused them--or frightened them. Now, no one does. Oh, my eyes! my poor, poor eyes! I'm not welcome anywhere, now. It's unbearable being blind at meal times.... Do pa.s.s me the bread, please.... Oh, those thieves! They will make me pay through the nose for this d.a.m.ned tobacconist's shop.

I've been wandering through all the ministries clutching my pet.i.tion, for the last six months. I go in the morning at the time they light the stoves and take His Excellence's horse around the sanded courtyard, and I don't leave until night when they bring in the big lights and the kitchens begin to smell really good....

"All my life is spent sitting on the wooden chests in the antechambers.

The ushers know who I am, as well--enough said. Inside the court they call me _That kind man!_ So, to get them on my side, to amuse them, I practise my wit, or, in a corner of their blotters, I draw rough caricatures without taking the pen off the page.... See what I've come to after twenty years of outstanding success; look at just what an artist's life amounts to!... And to think there are forty thousand rascals in France who s...o...b..r over our work! To think that throughout Paris, every day, locomotives make steam to bring us loads of idiots thirsting for waffle and printed gossip!... Oh, what a world of fantasists. If only Bixiou's suffering could teach them a lesson."