IX
THE FIRE
I can hardly bear to tell of what happened today, and I feel as if I could never really reconcile myself to it; but as I always say, "Cheer up, Colas! a brave heart will carry you through everything."
I have often heard it said that summer's rain gives no pain; but you would agree that it gives no gain, either, if you could see me after a season when one storm after another has beat on my devoted head; here I am without shoes or shirt to cover me, — but let me tell you all about it. — I was just pulling myself together after a double trial, you remember? lodie had been cured of the croup and my poor wife of all the troubles of this world; when a fresh blow fell on me at the hands, I suppose, of the heavenly powers, — unless there is some woman up there who has a grudge against me? — but this time I am stripped to the skin, and glad enough to have that left on my bones. I had been in no hurry to come home while Glodie was recovering from her illness; a child's convalescence is so charming! It is as if one saw a fresh creation, everything looks smooth and white like a new-laid egg; and as I had little to do, I went to market by way of amusement, and just to know what was going on in the world. One day I heard something which made me prick up my ears like an old mule. They said that a great fire was raging at Clamecy, that it had spread to the suburb of Beuvron, and that the whole place was burning up like a bundle of kindling wood. Naturally I asked eagerly about my own house, but could hear nothing further, and felt as if I was on hot coals, — probably from association of ideas, — though all my friends tried to calm me by saying that my house could be in no danger, or I should have heard of it by this time, that ill news travels fast, and that I was certainly not the only fool in Beuvron.
In spite of all this a voice told me that my house was on fire; — I could almost smell it, and without further words I started off, thinking as I went how careless I had been, to leave everything at sixes and sevens. Other conflagrations had been caused by the enemy, and I always had had warning enough to transport my most precious possessions across the bridge, and get them behind walls, so that I saved my money, my best pieces of work, furniture and tools, and all those things that people accumulate, and which are dear to us because they are like fragments of a happy past. This time, however, nothing had been placed in safety, and I could almost hear my old woman's voice from the other world, berating me for my stupidity. As I trudged along, I tried to find a good answer to. these reproaches, but my only excuse was that I had been in a hurry to get to her sick-bed. I endeavored to persuade myself also, that there was no real cause for alarm, but the thought kept coming back and back, like a fly that settles on your nose, till I was all in a cold perspiration, in spite of the fact that I was walking at a good round pace. As I climbed up the long wooded hill just after you pass Villiers, I saw a chaise coming down; I could not tell who was driving at first, but when it got nearer, I recognized Jojot, the miller from Moulot.
He pulled up as soon as he caught sight of me.
"Poor old boy!" he cried, waving his whip, and though I expected it, the wind was just knocked out of me, and I could not say a word, but stood there like a stick, with my mouth open.
"There is no use in your keeping on. Colas; you might as well go back where you came from. The whole thing is burned, flat as the palm of your hand; it will only make you sick to see it." Every word seemed to wring my heartstrings, but I tried to put a good face on it, and said:
"I know, I know, but I must go on all the same."
"What for, if the whole place is in ruins?"
"I want to pick up the pieces."
"There aren't any pieces," said he, "not so much as you could put on the end of your finger."
"Jojot," said I, "there is no use your trying to persuade me that there is absolutely nothing left! My apprentices and the neighbors would not stand by, and see all I have in the world burnt to ashes, without trying to save a few sticks of furniture for me!"
"You don't know anything about it," cried he. "Why, your neighbors are the very ones who set your house on fire!"
I was perfectly crushed at this news, and he, with the sort of perverse satisfaction one has in making out anything as bad as possible, went on to tell me the whole story from the beginning.
"You must know," said he, "that the plague is at the bottom of the trouble; our town Councilors, the Provost, and the whole crew of them, fled away, and left us as sheep without a shepherd, and the people at this lost their heads completely, so that when a fresh case of the disease broke out in Beuvron, some one raised a cry to burn down the infected houses. No sooner said than done, and naturally they began with yours, Colas, because you were not on hand to stop them. The more they burned, the better they seemed to like it; you know how a mob is when it once gets going, men seem to be drunk with love of destruction, so they went on from bad to worse, as if they were crazy; throwing everything they could lay hands on into the flames, and dancing round them like savages.
"On the bridge of Clamecy town,
See us dancing up and down."
you know the children's song. It was really awful to see such madness, and yet it was a kind of contagion. I'll bet you would have danced yourself if you had been there, to see what a blaze your shop made with all the dry wood you had in it."
"I wish I had been there," said I. "It must have been a grand sight."
And the funny part of it was that I really did think so. I thought something else too: that this time I was ruined; but wild horses would not have dragged it out of me before Jojot. He was puzzled, and looked as if he did not know what to make of me, half with that queer pleasure we have in the misfortunes of our fellow-man, and half with pity, for he is really a good sort, and a friend of mine. I turned to go.
"They ought to have kept a thing like that for the midsummer bonfire," said I.
"Are you really going on?"
"Yes, I'm going on, Jojot."
"Well, you're an odd fish — you do hate to be like other people." And he whipped up his horse and drove off down the hill, while I stepped out bravely in the opposite direction as long as he was in sight; but as soon as I got round the corner, my knees seemed to give way under me, and I let myself fall like a lump by the roadside.
The next moments were among the worst that I have ever had to bear, and as there was nobody to see me, I just let myself go, and bewailed my misfortune.
"I have lost everything in the world," thought I. My home, — the house was full of dear memories, — and the hope of ever having another of my own; all my savings, which it took me years to get together, bit by bit, and which were so much the more valuable to me, and worst of all, my independence is gone; for now of course, I shall have to live with one of my children, and I don't know which of us will hate it the most. It is the one thing I have always been resolved against, as the worst that could happen. There is no use telling me that I love them, and they love me, — I know all that, but young people and old interfere with each other, and it is natural and proper for a bird to sit on its own nest, and hatch out its own eggs in its own way. Respect for the old is all very well, or rather it makes a difficulty, for you are not on an equality with people when you are obliged to show them respect. I have tried to behave so that my five children should not have too much respect for me, and I think I have succeeded pretty well, but there must always be a distance between us. Parents come and go in their children's lives, like strangers from a far country; there can never be perfect understanding from one generation to another, and too often there is, on the contrary, interference and irritation.
It seems a dreadful thing to say, but it is not wise to tempt Providence, and put too great a strain on the love, even of our best and dearest. It is asking a great deal of human nature; not that I have anything to complain of in my children, who have always been good to me, but I don't want to impose myself on them, for my own sake, as well as theirs; — and then it goes against the grain with me to take back the least part of what I have given them; it looks like asking for repayment, and that is a sort of thing that sticks in the throat of a man who has never owed anything to anybody but himself. I want to be master in my own house, to come and go without question; and it would kill me to think that some one was counting every mouthful I ate; I should soon become a broken-down, good-for-nothing old man. Far rather would I live on the charity of strangers than on that of my children, never being sure that they kept me of their own free will. I would rather die outright than be such a burden to them, ... I sat there for a long time, like an old tree that has been cut down at the roots; and there was precious little of my boasted philosophy left. I suffered in my pride, and in my affections; in what was best and worst in me; accumulations from the past, and hopes for the future, had all gone up in smoke, but I knew that I must walk in the path before me, however thorny it might prove; there could be no escape.
Not far off above the tops of the trees, my sad eyes lighted on the towers of the Chateau of Cuncy, and I felt that there they had found something on which they might rest with pleasure. For many years I had worked for the good lord Philibert de Cuncy; and the castle was full of fine furniture, woodwork, and stairways, which I had executed at his order. He was a queer man, and I sometimes got into hot water with him. Would you believe it? once he wanted me to make portrait statues of his mistresses and himself all in costumes dating from the days of Adam and Eve! Another time he took it into his head to have the stag's antlers in his armory attached to busts representing all the unlucky husbands in the vicinity. We had a good laugh over it, but it was not always so easy to please him; as fast as I finished one thing, he wanted me to begin another, and very seldom did I see the color of his money. Never mind! he was a genuine lover of art, and of woman, and much in the same way too. In this I was much of his mind, for I have always thought a man should love a work of art, as he does his mistress, with the flesh as well as the spirit.
It was a consolation to me to think that so much of my best work survived, now that the rest had perished, even if it was not paid for; and I felt a longing to go and see the fruit of my past labors, hoping that it might make life seem less hard to me. At the castle I was well known, and they let me go where I would. The Master was away, they said, but I told them I had some measurements to take for new work, and I knew where to find the children of my brains and my fingers, though it was some time since I had seen them. As long as an artist feels in himself the power of fresh creation, he does not care to dwell on his former productions, and besides, the last time I was here, the Master had made some excuse to prevent my coming in. I thought at the time, that he looked rather queer, but suspected perhaps that he was hiding some married woman, and as I was quite sure it was not my wife, I thought no more about it; besides, no one at Cuncy ever pays much attention to the Master's vagaries; he is a little cracked, they say, and let it go at that.
I had not mounted ten steps of the staircase before I was struck motionless, like Lot's wife, by the sight which met my eyes. The fine carving which ran along the banisters, representing vines and flowering branches, was all hacked and disfigured so that I could hardly believe it, and had to touch and feel the rough edge to convince myself that these injuries had been made deliberately with a knife or hatchet. My breath came short, and I trembled to think of what yet might be in store for me, but I took the rest of the stair four steps at a time, and burst open the great doors on the landing. As I looked down the long range of apartments, I saw that my worst fears were realized. In the armory, the dining-hall, and the state bedroom, my beautiful little figurines had all been mutilated, shorn of their noses, their arms, or their legs. Silly inscriptions, names or dates, were cut deep in the panels of the wardrobes, on the chimney breasts, or across the fluted pilasters. At the head of the long gallery stood a charming group, — a nymph of the Yonne, with her bare knee on the neck of a shaggy lioness. This they had used as a target, so that it was all battered by shots from an arquebus. Some of the faces were ornamented with mustaches, or had low jokes scrawled upon them with wine stains or ink. Everywhere were gashes, chips, or rubbish; all that loneliness, idleness, or stupidity could suggest to the mind of a rich idiot, on the lookout for some new amusement, destruction and disfigurement being the only things that could come into the head of a creature too dull to be of any use himself in the world. It is lucky that he was not there, for in the first transport of rage I believe that I should have killed him. I could not speak at first, but the veins of my neck swelled up, and my eyes started from my head like a lobster's. Another moment, and I really should have burst! but fortunately I managed to let out an oath or two, and then my rage came in a flood, and I screamed, stamped, and swore like a man demented.
"Dog! beast! ruffian!" cried I. "I gave you these lovely children of my art, to ornament your vile den, and look what you have done to them! I thought that they would adorn your house and carry on my name for generations, and here they are, spoiled, tortured, and violated! What joy was mine when I evoked all these from the enduring wood, and worked with loving care to make them beautiful, perfect in every limb, — and now see them, thus soiled and mutilated from head to foot, defaced and ruined. Poor dears! your own father scarcely knows you, one would think that you had all been to the wars!"
And then I put up a fervent prayer to Heaven (which was perhaps superfluous), entreating that I might not enter Paradise, but be sent to the nethermost hell, where I might assist Lucifer in tormenting my enemy. "Ah! — ha! when I think of this brutal destroyer, how I should love to stick a spit through him and twirl him before a slow fire!"
The steward Andoche came in, while I was still foaming with rage; he begged me as an old acquaintance to calm myself, and led me from the room, saying what he could to console me.
"They are only bits of wood, after all," he said. "It is not worth while for you to excite yourself so for things like that; and what would you do if you had to live here, like us, with this lunatic? If he wants to knock anything about, — and after all a man must have some pleasure, — why should he not kick these chunks of wood, for which you got a fair price, instead of good Christians like you and me?"
"I don't care how much he beats you," said I. "I had rather have been flogged myself than have had him injure this wood into which I had breathed the breath of life. Do you think a man cares for his bones? It is his thought that is sacred to him, and he who kills that is thrice guilty!" Carried away by my own eloquence, I might have kept on like this for hours, but I saw that Andoche did not grasp a word of it, and indeed seemed to think that I was nearly as cracked as his Master. I turned on the threshold and gave a last look, as one may say, at the field of battle, where lay my poor noseless creations; there was Andoche with his pitying smile, and here was I wasting my breath in cursing at these dummies. It struck me all at once as so deucedly funny, that I just laughed in Andoche's face, and went off in a gust of merriment which seemed to carry away my anger and my pain along with it.
I struck out towards Clamecy, musing as I went, "This time," thought I, "they may as well stick me under ground; for there is nothing left of the old man but his skin. Hold on, though, there may be something worth while inside of that, — I remember a story of a fellow who was besieged, and they told him to yield, or they would kill all his children. He answered that if they did, he knew how to make a lot of new ones. That is my position exactly. In the dry places of the earth we artists have sown grain which wild beasts and birds of the air come to devour, because they do not know how to create, and can only feed on the works of others; but let them trample and uproot as much as they will, I have a store from which I can replenish the fruitful soil. Let the wheat ripen or die, it does not matter, for my eyes are fixed, not on the past, but on the future, and when the day comes, as it will, when none are left to me of all my members, when the sight of my eyes is dimmed, and my hands have lost their cunning, then when that time comes, Colas, you will have ceased to be. Is it possible to imagine a Breugnon, who cannot work or feel, who does not laugh or spring from the ground with both feet at once? No, then he will be only a withered nut, you can throw the old shell into the fire!"
I was so much comforted by these reflections that when I reached the top of the last hill as you go towards Clamecy I went on gaily, throwing my feet out, and twirling my stick with a jaunty air, when I saw in the distance a boy running towards me, seemingly in much distress. As he came nearer, I knew him for my youngest apprentice, a lad about thirteen years old, Robinet, called Binet; certainly as idle a youngster as ever stared out of a window at the girls, when he should have been hard at work. Twenty times a day I had to cuff him for his laziness, but he was a clever little monkey, and his agile fingers could turn out astonishingly good things when he liked; and then his funny face with its wide mouth and turned-up nose, was so attractive that, for the life of me, I could not be really angry with him. He knew it, the young rascal! and when I hit him a good clip, he would just shake his ears like a donkey, and in ten minutes was as bad as ever.
Imagine my surprise when I saw that he was crying, the large drops streaming in rivulets down his cheeks, and before I could say a word, he flung his arms round my neck, blubbering, and bedewing me with his tears, like a Triton in a fountain.
"Stand off!" cried I. "What on earth is the matter with you? And, for goodness' sake, blow your nose, first, if you want to kiss me!"
Then as I saw that, far from stopping, he let himself slip to the ground and lay there, sobbing louder than ever, I became really alarmed, and raised him, so that I saw that one hand was wrapped in a bloody rag, that his eyebrows were singed, and his clothes torn and dusty.
"Come, my boy, what is the matter? What mischief have you been up to this time?" — I had really forgotten my disaster.
"Oh, Master!— the fire! I can't bear to tell you," said he, weeping, and when I realized that the poor child was unhappy on my account, because my house was burned down, I cannot tell you what a comfort it was to me.
"My poor boy!" said I, "don't cry any longer."
He thought that I had not understood, and told me more calmly that my workshop and my house were burned to the ground.
"That's an old story by now," said I, patting him on the back. "You are the fourth or fifth person who has told me of it. Well! it's hard luck, that's all I can say, but I never thought you cared so much about the old shop. Honor bright, now, didn't you dance around it, like the others, while it was burning?"
The way I was taking it had made him feel much better, but at this he shook off my hand indignantly. "You don't believe a word of it. Master; Cagnat and I did all we could to put it out, but there were only two of us, and Cagnat was sick with the fever; he got out of his bed to help, and we tried to hold the door of the house against the crowd, but what was the use? They threw us down, and trampled us under foot like a herd of wild cattle! We were swept off our feet as if a flood had gone over us, and when Cagnat managed to pick himself up, and tried to prevent them from setting fire to the house, they very nearly killed him.
"I got into the workshop somehow, though it was already in a blaze, flaming like a torch from top to bottom, with long red banners of fire streaming from the roof and windows. The smoke nearly choked me, and I thought I should be burnt to a crisp, but I made one bound into a heap of shavings, which were so hot that they set my breeches on fire, and it did not take me long to jump out of them again. I hit my head such a crack on the corner of the workbench that it half stunned me, but not for long; all around the fire was crackling and roaring, and outside I could hear the cries of those mad devils.
"I crawled on my hands and knees towards your figure of St. Marie Madeleine, which I saw near me; I could not bear to see the flames licking up over her little rounded body, and her long beautiful hair! — I just jumped at her, beat out the sparks with my fingers, and caught her m my arms as if she had been alive. 'Dear St. Madelon! treasure of my heart,' cried I, 'don't be afraid, I will save you, — and myself too, if I have luck!' There was not a minute to spare, for by this time the roof was falling in, and I could not get out the way I came. But I spied the round loophole in the wall towards the river, struck the glass a blow with my fist, and jumped through it with my saint, as if it had been a paper hoop! A tight fit, I can tell you! but out we popped, splash, to the bottom of the Beuvron! Luckily the bottom is not far from the top, and very soft and muddy, so Madeleine did not so much as bump her pretty head, but as I had not the sense to let go of her, she dragged me down face first, till I was so full of slime and river water that it was a hard job to pull myself out with the lady. So here we are, at last. Master, and I only wish that I could have saved more for you!"
He had a bundle under his arm wrapped up in an old waistcoat, and when he carefully unrolled it, I saw the sweet face of my little saint, not much the worse, except for her scorched toes. Up to this time I had not wept for all the misfortunes that had fallen on me, but at the sight I was touched to the quick, and taking Madeleine and the boy in my arms, I kissed them both, and cried, till the tears ran down my cheeks.
"What became of Cagnat?" I asked when I had recovered myself a little, and reading the answer in the boy's face, I knelt down, and put my lips to the earth in honor of a brave spirit.
"God reward you both!" I cried, as I looked at the lad still clasping the statue in his bandaged arms, and I thought, "These will last, the souls of these children, on which I have wrought my impress;—wood and stone may be destroyed, but this joy no man can take from me!"