I had well stopped up the chinks of my window; my little carpet wasnailed down in its place; my lamp, provided with its shade, cast asubdued light around, and my stove made a low, murmuring sound, as ifsome live creature was sharing my hearth with me.
All was silent around me. But, out of doors the snow and rain swept theroofs, and with a low, rushing sound ran along the gurgling gutters;sometimes a gust of wind forced itself beneath the tiles, which rattledtogether like castanets, and afterward it was lost in the empty corridor.
Then a slight and pleasurable shiver thrilled through my veins: I drewthe flaps of my old wadded dressing-gown around me, I pulled mythreadbare velvet cap over my eyes, and, letting myself sink deeper intomy easy-chair, while my feet basked in the heat and light which shonethrough the door of the stove, I gave myself up to a sensation ofenjoyment, made more lively by the consciousness of the storm which ragedwithout. My eyes, swimming in a sort of mist, wandered over all thedetails of my peaceful abode; they passed from my prints to my bookcase,resting upon the little chintz sofa, the white curtains of the ironbedstead, and the portfolio of loose papers--those archives of theattics; and then, returning to the book I held in my hand, they attemptedto seize once more the thread of the reading which had been thusinterrupted.
In fact, this book, the subject of which had at first interested me, hadbecome painful to me. I had come to the conclusion that the pictures ofthe writer were too sombre. His description of the miseries of the worldappeared exaggerated to me; I could not believe in such excess of povertyand of suffering; neither God nor man could show themselves so harshtoward the sons of Adam. The author had yielded to an artistictemptation: he was making a show of the sufferings of humanity, as Neroburned Rome for the sake of the picturesque.
Taken altogether, this poor human house, so often repaired, so muchcriticised, is still a pretty good abode; we may find enough in it tosatisfy our wants, if we know how to set bounds to them; the happiness ofthe wise man costs but little, and asks but little space.
These consoling reflections became more and more confused. At last mybook fell on the ground without my having the resolution to stoop andtake it up again; and insensibly overcome by the luxury of the silence,the subdued light, and the warmth, I fell asleep.
I remained for some time lost in the sort of insensibility belonging toa first sleep; at last some vague and broken sensations came over me.
It seemed to me that the day grew darker, that the air became colder.
I half perceived bushes covered with the scarlet berries which foretellthe coming of winter. I walked on a dreary road, bordered here and therewith juniper-trees white with frost. Then the scene suddenly changed.
I was in the diligence; the cold wind shook the doors and windows; thetrees, loaded with snow, passed by like ghosts; in vain I thrust mybenumbed feet into the crushed straw. At last the carriage stopped, and,by one of those stage effects so common in sleep, I found myself alone ina barn, without a fireplace, and open to the winds on all sides. I sawagain my mothers gentle face, known only to me in my early childhood,the noble and stern countenance of my father, the little fair head of mysister, who was taken from us at ten years old; all my dead family livedagain around me; they were there, exposed to the bitings of the cold andto the pangs of hunger. My mother prayed by the resigned old man, and mysister, rolled up on some rags of which they had made her a bed, wept insilence, and held her naked feet in her little blue hands.
It was a page from the book I had just read transferred into my ownexistence.
My heart was oppressed with inexpressible anguish. Crouched in a corner,with my eyes fixed upon this dismal picture, I felt the cold slowlycreeping upon me, and I said to myself with bitterness:
"Let us die, since poverty is a dungeon guarded by suspicion, apathy, andcontempt, and from which it is vain to try to escape; let us die, sincethere is no place for us at the banquet of the living!"
And I tried to rise to join my mother again, and to wait at her feet forthe hour of release.
This effort dispelled my dream, and I awoke with a start.
I looked around me; my lamp was expiring, the fire in my stoveextinguished, and my half-opened door was letting in an icy wind.
I got up, with a shiver, to shut and double-lock it; then I made forthe alcove, and went to bed in haste.
But the cold kept me awake a long time, and my thoughts continued theinterrupted dream.
The pictures I had lately accused of exaggeration now seemed but a toofaithful representation of reality; and I went to sleep without beingable to recover my optimism--or my warmth.
Thus did a cold stove and a badly closed door alter my point of view.
All went well when my blood circulated properly; all looked gloomy whenthe cold laid hold on me.
This reminds me of the story of the duchess who was obliged to pay avisit to the neighboring convent on a winters day. The convent waspoor, there was no wood, and the monks had nothing but their disciplineand the ardor of their prayers to keep out the cold. The duchess, whowas shivering with cold, returned home, greatly pitying the poor monks.
While the servants were taking off her cloak and adding two more logs toher fire, she called her steward, whom she ordered to send some wood tothe convent immediately. She then had her couch moved close to thefireside, the warmth of which soon revived her. The recollection of whatshe had just suffered was speedily lost in her present comfort, when thesteward came in again to ask how many loads of wood he was to send.
"Oh! you may wait," said the great lady carelessly; "the weather is verymuch milder."
Thus, mans judgments are formed less from reason than from sensation;and as sensation comes to him from the outward world, so he finds himselfmore or less under its influence; by little and little he imbibes aportion of his habits and feelings from it.
It is not, then, without cause that, when we wish to judge of a strangerbeforehand, we look for indications of his character in the circumstanceswhich surround him. The things among which we live are necessarily madeto take our image, and we unconsciously leave in them a thousandimpressions of our minds. As we can judge by an empty bed of the heightand attitude of him who has slept in it, so the abode of every mandiscovers to a close observer the extent of his intelligence and thefeelings of his heart. Bernardin de St.-Pierre has related the story ofa young girl who refused a suitor because he would never have flowers ordomestic animals in his house. Perhaps the sentence was severe, but notwithout reason. We may presume that a man insensible to beauty and tohumble affection must be ill prepared to feel the enjoyments of a happymarriage.
14th, seven oclock PM--This morning, as I was opening my journal towrite, I had a visit from our old cashier.
His sight is not so good as it was, his hand begins to shake, and thework he was able to do formerly is now becoming somewhat laborious tohim. I had undertaken to write out some of his papers, and he came forthose I had finished.
We conversed a long time by the stove, while he was drinking a cup ofcoffee which I made him take.
M. Rateau is a sensible man, who has observed much and speaks little; sothat he has always something to say.
While looking over the accounts I had prepared for him, his look fellupon my journal, and I was obliged to acknowledge that in this way Iwrote a diary of my actions and thoughts every evening for private use.
From one thing to another, I began speaking to him of my dream the daybefore, and my reflections about the influence of outward objects uponour ordinary sentiments. He smiled.
"Ah! you, too, have my superstitions," he said, quietly. "I have alwaysbelieved, like you, that you may know the game by the lair: it is onlynecessary to have tact and experience; but without them we commitourselves to many rash judgments. For my part. I have been guilty ofthis more than once, but sometimes I have also drawn a right conclusion.
I recollect especially an adventure which goes as far back as the firstyears of my youth--"
He stopped. I looked at him as if I waited for his story, and he told itme at once.
At this time he was still but third clerk to an attorney at Orleans. Hismaster had sent him to Montargis on different affairs, and he intended toreturn in the diligence the same evening, after having received theamount of a bill at a neighboring town; but they kept him at the debtorshouse, and when he was able to set out the day had already closed.
Fearing not to be able to reach Montargis in good time, he took acrossroad they pointed out to him. Unfortunately the fog increased,no star was visible in the heavens, and the darkness became so great thathe lost his road. He tried to retrace his steps, passed twentyfootpaths, and at last was completely astray.
After the vexation of losing his place in the diligence, came the feelingof uneasiness as to his situation. He was alone, on foot, lost in aforest, without any means of finding his right road again, and with aconsiderable sum of money about him, for which he was responsible. Hisanxiety was increased by his inexperience. The idea of a forest wasconnected in his mind with so many adventures of robbery and murder,that he expected some fatal encounter every instant.
To say the truth, his situation was not encouraging. The place was notconsidered safe, and for some time past there had been rumors of thesudden disappearance of several horse-dealers, though there was no traceof any crime having been committed.
Our young traveller, with his eyes staring forward, and his earslistening, followed a footpath which he supposed might take him to somehouse or road; but woods always succeeded to woods. At last he perceiveda light at a distance, and in a quarter of an hour he reached thehighroad.
A single house, the light from which had attracted him, appeared at alittle distance. He was going toward the entrance gate of the courtyard,when the trot of a horse made him turn his head. A man on horseback hadjust appeared at the turning of the road, and in an instant was close tohim.
The first words he addressed to the young man showed him to be the farmerhimself. He related how he had lost himself, and learned from thecountryman that he was on the road to Pithiviers. Montargis was threeleagues behind him.
The fog had insensibly changed into a drizzling rain, which was beginningto wet the young clerk through; he seemed afraid of the distance he hadstill to go, and the horseman, who saw his hesitation, invited him tocome into the farmhouse.
It had something of the look of a fortress. Surrounded by a pretty highwall, it could not be seen except through the bars of the great gate,which was carefully closed. The farmer, who had got off his horse, didnot go near it, but, turning to the right, reached another entranceclosed in the same way, but of which he had the key.
Hardly had he passed the threshold when a terrible barking resoundedfrom each end of the yard. The farmer told his guest to fear nothing,and showed him the dogs chained up to their kennels; both were of anextraordinary size, and so savage that the sight of their master himselfcould not quiet them.
A boy, attracted by their barking, came out of the house and took thefarmers horse. The latter began questioning him about some orders hehad given before he left the house, and went toward the stable to seethat they had been executed.
Thus left alone, our clerk looked about him.
A lantern which the boy had placed on the ground cast a dim light overthe courtyard. All around seemed empty and deserted. Not a trace wasvisible of the disorder often seen in a country farmyard, and which showsa temporary cessation of the work which is soon to be resumed again.
Neither a cart forgotten where the horses had been unharnessed, norsheaves of corn heaped up ready for threshing, nor a plow overturned in acorner and half hidden under the freshly-cut clover. The yard was swept,the barns shut up and padlocked. Not a single vine creeping up thewalls; everywhere stone, wood, and iron!
He took up the lantern and went up to the corner of the house. Behindwas a second yard, where he heard the barking of a third dog, and acovered wall was built in the middle of it.
Our traveller looked in vain for the little farm garden, where pumpkinsof different sorts creep along the ground, or where the bees from thehives hum under the hedges of honeysuckle and elder. Verdure and flowerswere nowhere to be seen. He did not even perceive the sight of apoultry-yard or pigeon-house. The habitation of his host was everywherewanting in that which makes the grace and the life of the country.
The young man thought that his host must be of a very careless or a verycalculating disposition, to concede so little to domestic enjoyments andthe pleasures of the eye; and judging, in spite of himself, by what hesaw, he could not help feeling a distrust of his character.
In the mean time the farmer returned from the stables, and made him enterthe house.
The inside of the farmhouse corresponded to its outside. The whitewashedwalls had no other ornament than a row of guns of all sizes; the massivefurniture hardly redeemed its clumsy appearance by its great solidity.
The cleanliness was doubtful, and the absence of all minor conveniencesproved that a womans care was wanting in the household concerns. Theyoung clerk learned that the farmer, in fact, lived here with no one buthis two sons.
Of this, indeed, the signs were plain enough. A table with the clothlaid, that no one had taken the trouble to clear away, was left near thewindow. The plates and dishes were scattered upon it without any order,and loaded with potato-parings and half-picked bones. Several emptybottles emitted an odor of brandy, mixed with the pungent smell oftobacco-smoke.
After seating his guest, the farmer lighted his pipe, and his two sonsresumed their work by the fireside. Now and then the silence was justbroken by a short remark, answered by a word or an exclamation; and thenall became as mute as before.
"From my childhood," said the old cashier, "I had been very sensible tothe impression of outward objects; later in life, reflection had taughtme to study the causes of these impressions rather than to drive themaway. I set myself, then, to examine everything around me with greatattention.
"Below the guns, I had remarked on entering, some wolftraps weresuspended, and to one of them still hung the mangled remains of a wolfspaw, which they had not yet taken off from the iron teeth. The blackenedchimneypiece was ornamented by an owl and a raven nailed on the wall,their wings extended, and their throats with a huge nail through each; afoxs skin, freshly flayed, was spread before the window; and a larderhook, fixed into the principal beam, held a headless goose, whose bodyswayed about over our heads.
"My eyes were offended by all these details, and I turned them again uponmy hosts. The father, who sat opposite to me, only interrupted hissmoking to pour out his drink, or address some reprimand to his sons.
The eldest of these was scraping a deep bucket, and the bloody scrapings,which he threw into the fire every instant, filled the room with adisagreeable fetid smell; the second son was sharpening some butchersknives. I learned from a word dropped from the father that they werepreparing to kill a pig the next day.
"These occupations and the whole aspect of things inside the house toldof such habitual coarseness in their way of living as seemed to explain,while it formed the fitting counterpart of, the forbidding gloominess ofthe outside. My astonishment by degrees changed into disgust, and mydisgust into uneasiness. I cannot detail the whole chain of ideas whichsucceeded one another in my imagination; but, yielding to an impulse Icould not overcome, I got up, declaring I would go on my road again.
"The farmer made some effort to keep me; he spoke of the rain, of thedarkness, and of the length of the way. I replied to all by the absolutenecessity there was for my being at Montargis that very night; andthanking him for his brief hospitality, I set off again in a haste whichmight well have confirmed the truth of my words to him.
"However, the freshness of the night and the exercise of walking did notfail to change the directions of my thoughts. When away from the objectswhich had awakened such lively disgust in me, I felt it graduallydiminishing. I began to smile at the susceptibility of my feelings,and then, in proportion as the rain became heavier and colder, thesestrictures on myself assumed a tone of ill-temper. I silently accusedmyself of the absurdity of mistaking sensation for admonitions of myreason. After all, were not the farmer and his sons free to live alone,to hunt, to keep dogs, and to kill a pig? Where was the crime of it?
With less nervous susceptibility, I should have accepted the shelter theyoffered me, and I should now be sleeping snugly on a truss of straw,instead of walking with difficulty through the cold and drizzling rain.
I thus continued to reproach myself, until, toward morning, I arrived atMontargis, jaded and benumbed with cold.
"When, however, I got up refreshed, toward the middle of the next day,I instinctively returned to my first opinion. The appearance of thefarmhouse presented itself to me under the same repulsive colors whichthe evening before had determined me to make my escape from it. Reasonitself remained silent when reviewing all those coarse details, and wasforced to recognize in them the indications of a low nature, or else thepresence of some baleful influence.
"I went away the next day without being able to learn anything concerningthe farmer or his sons; but the recollection of my adventure remaineddeeply fixed in my memory.
"Ten years afterward I was travelling in the diligence through thedepartment of the Loiret; I was leaning from the window, and looking atsome coppice ground now for the first time brought under cultivation, andthe mode of clearing which one of my travelling companions was explainingto me, when my eyes fell upon a walled inclosure, with an iron-barredgate. Inside it I perceived a house with all the blinds closed, andwhich I immediately recollected; it was the farmhouse where I had beensheltered. I eagerly pointed it out to my companion, and asked who livedin it.
"Nobody just now, replied he.
"But was it not kept, some years ago, by a farmer and his two sons?
"The Turreaus; said my travelling companion, looking at me; did youknow them?
"I saw them once.
"He shook his head.
"Yes, yes! resumed he; for many years they lived there like wolves intheir den; they merely knew how to till land, kill game, and drink. Thefather managed the house, but men living alone, without women to lovethem, without children to soften them, and without God to make them thinkof heaven, always turn into wild beasts, you see; so one morning theeldest son, who had been drinking too much brandy, would not harness theplow-horses; his father struck him with his whip, and the son, who wasmad drunk, shot him dead with his gun."
16th, PM--I have been thinking of the story of the old cashier thesetwo days; it came so opportunely upon the reflections my dream hadsuggested to me.
Have I not an important lesson to learn from all this?
If our sensations have an incontestable influence upon our judgments,how comes it that we are so little careful of those things which awakenor modify these sensations? The external world is always reflected in usas in a mirror, and fills our minds with pictures which, unconsciously toourselves, become the germs of our opinions and of our rules of conduct.
All the objects which surround us are then, in reality, so many talismanswhence good and evil influences are emitted, and it is for us to choosethem wisely, so as to create a healthy atmosphere for our minds.
Feeling convinced of this truth, I set about making a survey of my attic.
The first object on which my eyes rest is an old map of the history ofthe principal monastery in my native province. I had unrolled it withmuch satisfaction, and placed it on the most conspicuous part of thewall. Why had I given it this place? Ought this sheet of old worm-eatenparchment to be of so much value to me, who am neither an antiquary nor ascholar? Is not its real importance in my sight that one of the abbotswho founded it bore my name, and that I shall, perchance, be able to makemyself a genealogical tree of it for the edification of my visitors?
While writing this, I feel my own blushes. Come, down with the map!
let us banish it into my deepest drawer.
As I passed my glass, I perceived several visiting cards complacentlydisplayed in the frame. By what chance is it that there are only namesthat make a show among them? Here is a Polish count--a retired colonel--the deputy of my department. Quick, quick, into the fire with theseproofs of vanity! and let us put this card in the handwriting of ouroffice-boy, this direction for cheap dinners, and the receipt of thebroker where I bought my last armchair, in their place. Theseindications of my poverty will serve, as Montaigne says, mater masuperbe, and will always make me recollect the modesty in which thedignity of the lowly consists.
I have stopped before the prints hanging upon the wall. This large andsmiling Pomona, seated on sheaves of corn, and whose basket isoverflowing with fruit, only produces thoughts of joy and plenty; I waslooking at her the other day, when I fell asleep denying such a thing asmisery. Let us give her as companion this picture of Winter, in whicheverything tells of sorrow and suffering: one picture will modify theother.
And this Happy Family of Greuzes! What joy in the childrens eyes!
What sweet repose in the young womans face! What religious feeling inthe grandfathers countenance! May God preserve their happiness to them!
but let us hang by its side the picture of this mother, who weeps over anempty cradle. Human life has two faces, both of which we must dare tocontemplate in their turn.
Let me hide, too, these ridiculous monsters which ornament mychimneypiece. Plato has said that "the beautiful is nothing else thanthe visible form of the good." If it is so, the ugly should be thevisible form of the evil, and, by constantly beholding it, the mindinsensibly deteriorates.
But above all, in order to cherish the feelings of kindness and pity, letme hang at the foot of my bed this affecting picture of the Last Sleep!
Never have I been able to look at it without feeling my heart touched.
An old woman, clothed in rags, is lying by a roadside; her stick is ather feet, and her head rests upon a stone; she has fallen asleep; herhands are clasped; murmuring a prayer of her childhood, she sleeps herlast sleep, she dreams her last dream!
She sees herself, again a strong and happy child, keeping the sheep onthe common, gathering the berries from the hedges, singing, curtsying topassers-by, and making the sign of the cross when the first star appearsin the heavens! Happy time, filled with fragrance and sunshine! Shewants nothing yet, for she is ignorant of what there is to wish for.
But see her grown up; the time is come for working bravely: she must cutthe corn, thresh the wheat, carry the bundles of flowering clover orbranches of withered leaves to the farm. If her toil is hard, hopeshines like a sun over everything and it wipes the drops of sweat away.
The growing girl already sees that life is a task, but she still sings asshe fulfills it.
By-and-bye the burden becomes heavier; she is a wife, she is a mother!
She must economize the bread of to-day, have her eye upon the morrow,take care of the sick, and sustain the feeble; she must act, in short,that part of an earthly Providence, so easy when God gives us his aid,so hard when he forsakes us. She is still strong, but she is anxious;she sings no longer!
Yet a few years, and all is overcast. The husbands health is broken;his wife sees him pine away by the now fireless hearth; cold and hungerfinish what sickness had begun; he dies, and his widow sits on the groundby the coffin provided by the charity of others, pressing her two half-naked little ones in her arms. She dreads the future, she weeps, and shedroops her head.
At last the future has come; the children are grown up, but they are nolonger with her. Her son is fighting under his countrys flag, and hissister is gone. Both have been lost to her for a long time--perhapsforever; and the strong girl, the brave wife, the courageous mother, ishenceforth only a poor old beggar-woman, without a family, and without ahome! She weeps no more, sorrow has subdued her; she surrenders, andwaits for death.
Death, that faithful friend of the wretched, is come: not hideous andwith mockery, as superstition represents, but beautiful, smiling, andcrowned with stars! The gentle phantom stoops to the beggar; its palelips murmur a few airy words, which announce to her the end of herlabors; a peaceful joy comes over the aged beggarwoman, and, leaning onthe shoulder of the great Deliverer, she has passed unconsciously fromher last earthly sleep to her eternal rest.
Lie there, thou poor way-wearied woman! The leaves will serve thee for awinding-sheet. Night will shed her tears of dew over thee, and the birdswill sing sweetly by thy remains. Thy visit here below will not haveleft more trace than their flight through the air; thy name is alreadyforgotten, and the only legacy thou hast to leave is the hawthorn sticklying forgotten at thy feet!
Well! some one will take it up--some soldier of that great human hostwhich is scattered abroad by misery or by vice; for thou art not anexception, thou art an instance; and under the same sun which shines sopleasantly upon all, in the midst of these flowering vineyards, this ripecorn, and these wealthy cities, entire generations suffer, succeed eachother, and still bequeath to each the beggars stick!
The sight of this sad picture shall make me more grateful for what Godhas given me, and more compassionate for those whom he has treated withless indulgence; it shall be a lesson and a subject for reflection forme.
Ah! if we would watch for everything that might improve and instruct us;if the arrangements of our daily life were so disposed as to be aconstant school for our minds! but oftenest we take no heed of them.
Man is an eternal mystery to himself; his own person is a house intowhich he never enters, and of which he studies the outside alone. Eachof us need have continually before him the famous inscription which onceinstructed Socrates, and which was engraved on the walls of Delphi by anunknown hand:
KNOW THYSELF.