COMPENSATION
Sunday, May 27th
Capital cities have one thing peculiar to them: their days of rest seemto be the signal for a general dispersion and flight. Like birds thatare just restored to liberty, the people come out of their stone cages,and joyfully fly toward the country. It is who shall find a greenhillock for a seat, or the shade of a wood for a shelter; they gather Mayflowers, they run about the fields; the town is forgotten until theevening, when they return with sprigs of blooming hawthorn in their hats,and their hearts gladdened by pleasant thoughts and recollections of thepast day; the next day they return again to their harness and to work.
These rural adventures are most remarkable at Paris. When the fineweather comes, clerks, shop keepers, and workingmen look forwardimpatiently for the Sunday as the day for trying a few hours of thispastoral life; they walk through six miles of grocers shops and public-houses in the faubourgs, in the sole hope of finding a real turnip-field.
The father of a family begins the practical education of his son byshowing him wheat which has not taken the form of a loaf, and cabbage "inits wild state." Heaven only knows the encounters, the discoveries, theadventures that are met with! What Parisian has not had his Odyssey inan excursion through the suburbs, and would not be able to write acompanion to the famous Travels by Land and by Sea from Paris to St.
Cloud?
We do not now speak of that floating population from all parts, for whomour French Babylon is the caravansary of Europe: a phalanx of thinkers,artists, men of business, and travellers, who, like Homers hero, havearrived in their intellectual country after beholding "many peoples andcities;" but of the settled Parisian, who keeps his appointed place, andlives on his own floor like the oyster on his rock, a curious vestige ofthe credulity, the slowness, and the simplicity of bygone ages.
For one of the singularities of Paris is, that it unites twentypopulations completely different in character and manners. By theside of the gypsies of commerce and of art, who wander through all theseveral stages of fortune or fancy, live a quiet race of people with anindependence, or with regular work, whose existence resembles the dialof a clock, on which the same hand points by turns to the same hours.
If no other city can show more brilliant and more stirring forms of life,no other contains more obscure and more tranquil ones. Great cities arelike the sea: storms agitate only the surface; if you go to the bottom,you find a region inaccessible to the tumult and the noise.
For my part, I have settled on the verge of this region, but do notactually live in it. I am removed from the turmoil of the world, andlive in the shelter of solitude, but without being able to disconnect mythoughts from the struggle going on. I follow at a distance all itsevents of happiness or grief; I join the feasts and the funerals; for howcan he who looks on, and knows what passes, do other than take part?
Ignorance alone can keep us strangers to the life around us: selfishnessitself will not suffice for that.
These reflections I made to myself in my attic, in the intervals of thevarious household works to which a bachelor is forced when he has noother servant than his own ready will. While I was pursuing mydeductions, I had blacked my boots, brushed my coat, and tied my cravat;I had at last arrived at the important moment when we pronouncecomplacently that all is finished, and that well.
A grand resolve had just decided me to depart from my usual habits.
The evening before, I had seen by the advertisements that the next daywas a holiday at Sevres, and that the china manufactory would be open tothe public. I was tempted by the beauty of the morning, and suddenlydecided to go there.
On my arrival at the station on the left bank, I noticed the crowdhurrying on in the fear of being late. Railroads, besides many otheradvantages, possess that of teaching the French punctuality. They willsubmit to the clock when they are convinced that it is their master;they will learn to wait when they find they will not be waited for.
Social virtues, are, in a great degree, good habits. How many greatqualities are grafted into nations by their geographical position, bypolitical necessity, and by institutions! Avarice was destroyed for atime among the Lacedaemonians by the creation of an iron coinage, tooheavy and too bulky to be conveniently hoarded.
I found myself in a carriage with two middle-aged women belonging to thedomestic and retired class of Parisians I have spoken of above. A fewcivilities were sufficient to gain me their confidence, and after someminutes I was acquainted with their whole history.
They were two poor sisters, left orphans at fifteen, and had lived eversince, as those who work for their livelihood must live, by economy andprivation. For the last twenty or thirty years they had worked injewelry in the same house; they had seen ten masters succeed one another,and make their fortunes in it, without any change in their own lot. Theyhad always lived in the same room, at the end of one of the passages inthe Rue St. Denis, where the air and the sun are unknown. They begantheir work before daylight, went on with it till after nightfall, and sawyear succeed to year without their lives being marked by any other eventsthan the Sunday service, a walk, or an illness.
The younger of these worthy work-women was forty, and obeyed her sisteras she did when a child. The elder looked after her, took care of her,and scolded her with a mothers tenderness. At first it was amusing;afterward one could not help seeing something affecting in these twogray-haired children, one unable to leave off the habit of obeying, theother that of protecting.
And it was not in that alone that my two companions seemed younger thantheir years; they knew so little that their wonder never ceased. We hadhardly arrived at Clamart before they involuntarily exclaimed, like theking in the childrens game, that they "did not think the world was sogreat"!
It was the first time they had trusted themselves on a railroad, and itwas amusing to see their sudden shocks, their alarms, and theircourageous determinations: everything was a marvel to them! They hadremains of youth within them, which made them sensible to things whichusually only strike us in childhood. Poor creatures! they had still thefeelings of another age, though they had lost its charms.
But was there not something holy in this simplicity, which had beenpreserved to them by abstinence from all the joys of life? Ah! accursedbe he who first had the had courage to attach ridicule to that name of"old maid," which recalls so many images of grievous deception, ofdreariness, and of abandonment! Accursed be he who can find a subjectfor sarcasm in involuntary misfortune, and who can crown gray hairs withthorns!
The two sisters were called Frances and Madeleine. This days journeywas a feat of courage without example in their lives. The fever of thetimes had infected them unawares. Yesterday Madeleine had suddenlyproposed the idea of the expedition, and Frances had accepted itimmediately. Perhaps it would have been better not to yield to the greattemptation offered by her younger sister; but "we have our follies at allages," as the prudent Frances philosophically remarked. As forMadeleine, there are no regrets or doubts for her; she is the life-guardsman of the establishment.
"We really must amuse ourselves," said she; "we live but once."
And the elder sister smiled at this Epicurean maxim. It was evident thatthe fever of independence was at its crisis in both of them.
And in truth it would have been a great pity if any scruple hadinterfered with their happiness, it was so frank and genial! The sightof the trees, which seemed to fly on both sides of the road, caused themunceasing admiration. The meeting a train passing in the contrarydirection, with the noise and rapidity of a thunderbolt, made them shuttheir eyes and utter a cry; but it had already disappeared! They lookaround, take courage again, and express themselves full of astonishmentat the marvel.
Madeleine declares that such a sight is worth the expense of the journey,and Frances would have agreed with her if she had not recollected, withsome little alarm, the deficit which such an expense must make in theirbudget. The three francs spent upon this single expedition were thesavings of a whole week of work. Thus the joy of the elder of the twosisters was mixed with remorse; the prodigal child now and then turnedits eyes toward the back street of St. Denis.
But the motion and the succession of objects distract her. See thebridge of the Val surrounded by its lovely landscape: on the right, Pariswith its grand monuments, which rise through the fog, or sparkle in thesun; on the left, Meudon, with its villas, its woods, its vines, and itsroyal castle! The two work-women look from one window to the other withexclamations of delight. One fellow-passenger laughs at their childishwonder; but to me it is deeply touching, for I see in it the sign of along and monotonous seclusion: they are the prisoners of work, who haverecovered liberty and fresh air for a few hours.
At last the train stops, and we get out. I show the two sisters the paththat leads to Sevres, between the railway and the gardens, and they go onbefore, while I inquire about the time of returning.
I soon join them again at the next station, where they have stopped atthe little garden belonging to the gatekeeper; both are already in deepconversation with him while he digs his garden-borders, and marks out theplaces for flower-seeds. He informs them that it is the time for hoeingout weeds, for making grafts and layers, for sowing annuals, and fordestroying the insects on the rose-trees. Madeleine has on the sill ofher window two wooden boxes, in which, for want of air and sun, she hasnever been able to make anything grow but mustard and cress; but shepersuades herself that, thanks to this information, all other plants mayhenceforth thrive in them. At last the gatekeeper, who is sowing aborder with mignonette, gives her the rest of the seeds which he does notwant, and the old maid goes off delighted, and begins to act over againthe dream of Paired and her can of milk, with these flowers of herimagination.
On reaching the grove of acacias, where the fair was going on, I lostsight of the two sisters. I went alone among the sights: there werelotteries going on, mountebank shows, places for eating and drinking, andfor shooting with the cross-bow. I have always been struck by the spiritof these out-of-door festivities. In drawing-room entertainments, peopleare cold, grave, often listless, and most of those who go there arebrought together by habit or the obligations of society; in the countryassemblies, on the contrary, you only find those who are attracted by thehope of enjoyment. There, it is a forced conscription; here, they arevolunteers for gayety! Then, how easily they are pleased! How far thiscrowd of people is yet from knowing that to be pleased with nothing, andto look down on everything, is the height of fashion and good taste!
Doubtless their amusements are often coarse; elegance and refinement arewanting in them; but at least they have heartiness. Oh, that the heartyenjoyments of these merry-makings could be retained in union with lessvulgar feeling! Formerly religion stamped its holy character on thecelebration of country festivals, and purified the pleasures withoutdepriving them of their simplicity.
The hour arrives at which the doors of the porcelain manufactory and themuseum of pottery are open to the public. I meet Frances and Madeleineagain in the first room. Frightened at finding themselves in the midstof such regal magnificence, they hardly dare walk; they speak in a lowtone, as if they were in a church.
"We are in the kings house," said the eldest sister, forgetting thatthere is no longer a king in France.
I encourage them to go on; I walk first, and they make up their minds tofollow me.
What wonders are brought together in this collection! Here we see claymoulded into every shape, tinted with every color, and combined withevery sort of substance!
Earth and wood are the first substances worked upon by man, and seem moreparticularly meant for his use. They, like the domestic animals, are theessential accessories of his life; therefore there must be a moreintimate connection between them and us. Stone and metals require longpreparations; they resist our first efforts, and belong less to theindividual than to communities. Earth and wood are, on the contrary, theprincipal instruments of the isolated being who must feed and shelterhimself.
This, doubtless, makes me feel so much interested in the collection I amexamining. These cups, so roughly modelled by the savage, admit me to aknowledge of some of his habits; these elegant yet incorrectly formedvases of the Indian tell me of a declining intelligence,--in which stillglimmers the twilight of what was once bright sunshine; these jars,loaded with arabesques, show the fancy of the Arab rudely and ignorantlycopied by the Spaniard! We find here the stamp of every race, everycountry, and every age.
My companions seemed little interested in these historical associations;they looked at all with that credulous admiration which leaves no roomfor examination or discussion. Madeleine read the name written underevery piece of workmanship, and her sister answered with an exclamationof wonder.
In this way we reached a little courtyard, where they had thrown away thefragments of some broken china.
Frances perceived a colored saucer almost whole, of which she tookpossession as a record of the visit she was making; henceforth she wouldhave a specimen of the Sevres china, "which is only made for kings!"
I would not undeceive her by telling her that the products of themanufactory are sold all over the world, and that her saucer, before itwas cracked, was the same as those that are bought at the shops forsixpence! Why should I destroy the illusions of her humble existence?
Are we to break down the hedge-flowers that perfume our paths? Thingsare oftenest nothing in themselves; the thoughts we attach to them alonegive them value. To rectify innocent mistakes, in order to recover someuseless reality, is to be like those learned men who will see nothing ina plant but the chemical elements of which it is composed.
On leaving the manufactory, the two sisters, who had taken possession ofme with the freedom of artlessness, invited me to share the luncheon theyhad brought with them. I declined at first, but they insisted with somuch good-nature, that I feared to pain them, and with some awkwardnessgave way.
We had only to look for a convenient spot. I led them up the hill, andwe found a plot of grass enamelled with daisies, and shaded by twowalnut-trees.
Madeleine could not contain herself for joy. All her life she haddreamed of a dinner out on the grass! While helping her sister to takethe provisions from the basket, she tells me of all her expeditions intothe country that had been planned, and put off. Frances, on the otherhand, was brought up at Montmorency, and before she became an orphan shehad often gone back to her nurses house. That which had the attractionof novelty for her sister, had for her the charm of recollection. Shetold of the vintage harvests to which her parents had taken her; therides on Mother Lurets donkey, that they could not make go to the rightwithout pulling him to the left; the cherry-gathering; and the sails onthe lake in the innkeepers boat.
These recollections have all the charm and freshness of childhood.
Frances recalls to herself less what she has seen than what she has felt.
While she is talking the cloth is laid, and we sit down under a tree.
Before us winds the valley of Sevres, its many-storied houses abuttingupon the gardens and the slopes of the hill; on the other side spreadsout the park of St. Cloud, with its magnificent clumps of treesinterspersed with meadows; above stretch the heavens like an immenseocean, in which the clouds are sailing! I look at this beautifulcountry, and I listen to these good old maids; I admire, and I aminterested; and time passes gently on without my perceiving it.
At last the sun sets, and we have to think of returning. While Madeleineand Frances clear away the dinner, I walk down to the manufactory to askthe hour. The merrymaking is at its height; the blasts of the trombonesresound from the band under the acacias. For a few moments I forgetmyself with looking about; but I have promised the two sisters to takethem back to the Bellevue station; the train cannot wait, and I makehaste to climb the path again which leads to the walnut-trees.
Just before I reached them, I heard voices on the other side of thehedge. Madeleine and Frances were speaking to a poor girl whose clotheswere burned, her hands blackened, and her face tied up with bloodstainedbandages. I saw that she was one of the girls employed at the gunpowdermills, which are built further up on the common. An explosion had takenplace a few days before; the girls mother and elder sister were killed;she herself escaped by a miracle, and was now left without any means ofsupport. She told all this with the resigned and unhopeful manner of onewho has always been accustomed to suffer. The two sisters were muchaffected; I saw them consulting with each other in a low tone: thenFrances took thirty sous out of a little coarse silk purse, which was allthey had left, and gave them to the poor girl. I hastened on to thatside of the hedge; but, before I reached it, I met the two old sisters,who called out to me that they would not return by the railway, but onfoot!
I then understood that the money they had meant for the journey had justbeen given to the beggar! Good, like evil, is contagious: I run to thepoor wounded girl, give her the sum that was to pay for my own place, andreturn to Frances and Madeleine, and tell them I will walk with them.
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I am just come back from taking them home; and have left them delightedwith their day, the recollection of which will long make them happy.
This morning I was pitying those whose lives are obscure and joyless;now, I understand that God has provided a compensation with every trial.
The smallest pleasure derives from rarity a relish otherwise unknown.
Enjoyment is only what we feel to be such, and the luxurious man feels nolonger: satiety has destroyed his appetite, while privation preserves tothe other that first of earthly blessings: the being easily made happy.
Oh, that I could persuade every one of this! that so the rich might notabuse their riches, and that the poor might have patience. If happinessis the rarest of blessings, it is because the reception of it is therarest of virtues.
Madeleine and Frances! ye poor old maids whose courage, resignation, andgenerous hearts are your only wealth, pray for the wretched who givethemselves up to despair; for the unhappy who hate and envy; and for theunfeeling into whose enjoyments no pity enters.
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