They had come about one-third of the way up the mountain side. Low bushes grew on either hand along the steep paths which they were ascending at a foot pace. At last, at a turn in one of the paths, Genestas saw La Fosseuse’s dwelling, which stood on one of the largest knolls on the mountain. Around it was a green sloping space of lawn about three acres in extent, planted with trees, and surrounded by a wall high enough to serve as a fence, but not so high as to shut out the view of the landscape. Several rivulets that had their source in this garden formed little cascades among the trees. The brick-built cottage with a low roof that projected several feet was a charming detail in the landscape. It consisted of a ground floor and a single story, and stood facing the south. All the windows were in the front of the house, for its small size and lack of depth from back to front made other openings unnecessary. The doors and shutters were painted green, and the underside of the penthouses had been lined with deal boards in the German fashion, and painted white. The rustic charm of the whole little dwelling lay in its spotless cleanliness.
Climbing plants and briar roses grew about the house; a great walnut tree had been allowed to remain among the flowering acacias and trees that bore sweet-scented blossoms, and a few weeping willows had been set by the little streams in the garden space. A thick belt of pines and beeches grew behind the house, so that the picturesque little dwelling was brought out into strong relief by the sombre width of background. At that hour of the day, the air was fragrant with the scents from the hillsides and the perfume from La Fosseuse’s garden. The sky overhead was clear and serene, but low clouds hung on the horizon, and the far-off peaks had begun to take the deep rose hues that the sunset often brings. At the height which they had reached the whole valley lay before their eyes, from distant Grenoble to the little lake at the foot of the circle of crags by which Genestas had passed on the previous day. Some little distance above the house a line of poplars on the hill indicated the highway that led to Grenoble. Rays of sunlight fell slantwise across the little town which glittered like a diamond, for the soft red light which poured over it like a flood was reflected by all its window-panes. Genestas reined in his horse at the sight, and pointed to the dwellings in the valley, to the new town, and to La Fosseuse’s house.
“Since the victory of Wagram, and Napoleon’s return to the Tuileries in 1815,” he said, with a sigh, “nothing has so stirred me as the sight of all this. I owe this pleasure to you, sir, for you have taught me to see beauty in a landscape.”
“Yes,” said the doctor, smiling as he spoke, “It is better to build towns than to storm them.”
“Oh! sir, how about the taking of Moscow and the surrender of Mantua! Why, you do not really know what that means! Is it not a glory for all of us? You are a good man, but Napoleon also was a good man. If it had not been for England, you both would have understood each other, and our Emperor would never have fallen. There are no spies here,” said the officer, looking around him, “and I can say openly that I love him, now that he is dead! What a ruler! He knew every man when he saw him! He would have made you a Councillor of State, for he was a great administrator himself; even to the point of knowing how many cartridges were left in the men’s boxes after an action. Poor man! While you were talking about La Fosseuse, I thought of him, and how he was lying dead in St. Helena! Was that the kind of climate and country to suit him, whose seat had been a throne, and who had lived with his feet in the stirrups; hein? They say that he used to work in the garden. The deuce! He was not made to plant cabbages.... And now we must serve the Bourbons, and loyally, sir; for, after all, France is France, as you were saying yesterday.”
Genestas dismounted as he uttered these last words, and mechanically followed the example set by Benassis, who fastened his horse’s bridle to a tree.
“Can she be away?” said the doctor, when he did not see La Fosseuse on the threshold. They went into the house, but there was no one in the sitting room on the ground floor.
“She must have heard the sound of a second horse,” said Benassis, with a smile, “and has gone upstairs to put on her cap, or her sash, or some piece of finery.”
He left Genestas alone, and went upstairs in search of La Fosseuse. The commandant made a survey of the room. He noticed the pattern of the paper that covered the walls — roses scattered over a gray background, and the straw matting that did duty for a carpet on the floor. The armchair, the table, and the smaller chairs were made of wood from which the bark had not been removed. The room was not without ornament; some flower-stands, as they might be called, made of osiers and wooden hoops, had been filled with moss and flowers, and the windows were draped by white dimity curtains bordered with a scarlet fringe. There was a mirror above the chimney-piece, where a plain china jar stood between two candlesticks. Some calico lay on the table; shirts, apparently, had been cut out and begun, several pairs of gussets were finished, and a work-basket, scissors, needles and thread, and all a needle-woman’s requirements lay beside them. Everything was as fresh and clean as a shell that the sea had tossed up on the beach. Genestas saw that a kitchen lay on the other side of the passage, and that the staircase was at the further end of it. The upper story, like the ground floor, evidently consisted of two rooms only. “Come, do not be frightened,” Benassis was saying to La Fosseuse; “come down-stairs!”
Genestas promptly retreated into the sitting-room when he heard these words, and in another moment a slender girl, well and gracefully made, appeared in the doorway. She wore a gown of cambric, covered with narrow pink stripes, and cut low at the throat, so as to display a muslin chemisette. Shyness and timidity had brought the color to a face which had nothing very remarkable about it save a certain flatness of feature which called to mind the Cossack and Russian countenances that since the disasters of 1814 have unfortunately come to be so widely known in France. La Fosseuse was, in fact, very like these men of the North. Her nose turned up at the end, and was sunk in her face, her mouth was wide and her chin small, her hands and arms were red and, like her feet, were of the peasant type, large and strong. Although she had been used to an outdoor life, to exposure to the sun and the scorching summer winds, her complexion had the bleached look of withered grass; but after the first glance this made her face more interesting, and there was such a sweet expression in her blue eyes, so much grace about her movements, and such music in her voice, that little as her features seemed to harmonize with the disposition which Benassis had praised to the commandant, the officer recognized in her the capricious and ailing creature, condemned to suffering by a nature that had been thwarted in its growth.
La Fosseuse deftly stirred the fire of dry branches and turfs of peat, then sat down in an armchair and took up one of the shirts that she had begun. She sat there under the officer’s eyes, half bashful, afraid to look up, and calm to all appearance; but her bodice rose and fell with the rapid breathing that betrayed her nervousness, and it struck Genestas that her figure was very graceful.
“Well, my poor child, is your work going on nicely?” said Benassis, taking up the material intended for the shirts, and passing it through his fingers.
La Fosseuse gave the doctor a timid and beseeching glance.
“Do not scold me, sir,” she entreated; “I have not touched them to-day, although they were ordered by you, and for people who need them very badly. But the weather has been so fine! I wandered out and picked a quantity of mushrooms and white truffles, and took them over to Jacquotte; she was very pleased, for some people are coming to dinner. I was so glad that I thought of it; something seemed to tell me to go to look for them.”
She began to ply her needle again.
“You have a very pretty house here, mademoiselle,” said Genestas, addressing her.
“It is not mine at all, sir,” she said, looking at the stranger, and her eyes seemed to grow red and tearful; “it belongs to M. Benassis,” and she turned towards the doctor with a gentle expression on her face.
“You know quite well, my c
hild, that you will never have to leave it,” he said, as he took her hand in his.
La Fosseuse suddenly rose and left the room.
“Well,” said the doctor, addressing the officer, “what do you think of her?”
“There is something strangely touching about her,” Genestas answered. “How very nicely you have fitted up this little nest of hers!”
“Bah! a wall-paper at fifteen or twenty sous; it was carefully chosen, but that was all. The furniture is nothing very much either, my basket-maker made it for me; he wanted to show his gratitude; and La Fosseuse made the curtains herself out of a few yards of calico. This little house of hers, and her simple furniture, seem pretty to you, because you come upon them up here on a hillside in a forlorn part of the world where you did not expect to find things clean and tidy. The reason of the prettiness is a kind of harmony between the little house and its surroundings. Nature has set picturesque groups of trees and running streams about it, and has scattered her fairest flowers among the grass, her sweet-scented wild strawberry blossoms, and her lovely violets.... Well, what is the matter?” asked Benassis, as La Fosseuse came back to them.
“Oh! nothing, nothing,” she answered. “I fancied that one of my chickens was missing, and had not been shut up.”
Her remark was disingenuous, but this was only noticed by the doctor, who said in her ear, “You have been crying!”
“Why do you say things like that to me before some one else?” she asked in reply.
“Mademoiselle,” said Genestas, “it is a great pity that you live here all by yourself; you ought to have a mate in such a charming cage as this.”
“That is true,” she said, “but what would you have? I am poor, and I am hard to please. I feel that it would not suit me at all to carry the soup out into the fields, nor to push a hand-cart; to feel the misery of those whom I should love, and have no power to put an end to it; to carry my children in my arms all day, and patch and re-patch a man’s rags. The cure tells me that such thoughts as these are not very Christian; I know that myself, but how can I help it? There are days when I would rather eat a morsel of dry bread than cook anything for my dinner. Why would you have me worry some man’s life out with my failings? He would perhaps work himself to death to satisfy my whims, and that would not be right. Pshaw! an unlucky lot has fallen to me, and I ought to bear it by myself.”
“And besides, she is a born do-nothing,” said Benassis. “We must take my poor Fosseuse as we find her. But all that she has been saying to you simply means that she has never loved as yet,” he added, smiling. Then he rose and went out on to the lawn for a moment.
“You must be very fond of M. Benassis?” asked Genestas.
“Oh! yes, sir; and there are plenty of people hereabouts who feel as I do — that they would be glad to do anything in the world for him. And yet he who cures other people has some trouble of his own that nothing can cure. You are his friend, perhaps you know what it is? Who could have given pain to such a man, who is the very image of God on earth? I know a great many who think that the corn grows faster if he has passed by their field in the morning.”
“And what do you think yourself?”
“I, sir? When I have seen him,” she seemed to hesitate, then she went on, “I am happy all the rest of the day.”
She bent her head over her work, and plied her needle with unwonted swiftness.
“Well, has the captain been telling you something about Napoleon?” said the doctor, as he came in again.
“Have you seen the Emperor, sir?” cried La Fosseuse, gazing at the officer’s face with eager curiosity.
“Parbleu!” said Genestas, “hundreds of times!”
“Oh! how I should like to know something about the army!”
“Perhaps we will come to take a cup of coffee with you to-morrow, and you shall hear ‘something about the army,’ dear child,” said Benassis, who laid his hand on her shoulder and kissed her brow. “She is my daughter, you see!” he added, turning to the commandant; “there is something wanting in the day, somehow, when I have not kissed her forehead.”
La Fosseuse held Benassis’ hand in a tight clasp as she murmured, “Oh! you are very kind!”
They left the house; but she came after them to see them mount. She waited till Genestas was in the saddle, and then whispered in Benassis’ ear, “Tell me who that gentleman is?”
“Aha!” said the doctor, putting a foot in the stirrup, “a husband for you, perhaps.”
She stood on the spot where they left her, absorbed in watching their progress down the steep path; and when they came past the end of the garden, they saw her already perched on a little heap of stones, so that she might still keep them in view and give them a last nod of farewell.
“There is something very unusual about that girl, sir,” Genestas said to the doctor when they had left the house far behind.
“There is, is there not?” he answered. “Many a time I have said to myself that she will make a charming wife, but I can only love her as a sister or a daughter, and in no other way; my heart is dead.”
“Has she any relations?” asked Genestas. “What did her father and mother do?”
“Oh, it is quite a long story,” answered Benassis. “Neither her father nor mother nor any of her relations are living. Everything about her down to her name interested me. La Fosseuse was born here in the town. Her father, a laborer from Saint Laurent du Pont, was nicknamed Le Fosseur, which is no doubt a contraction of fossoyeur, for the office of sexton had been in his family time out of mind. All the sad associations of the graveyard hang about the name. Here as in some other parts of France, there is an old custom, dating from the times of the Latin civilization, in virtue of which a woman takes her husband’s name, with the addition of a feminine termination, and this girl has been called La Fosseuse, after her father.
“The laborer had married the waiting-woman of some countess or other who owns an estate at a distance of a few leagues. It was a love-match. Here, as in all country districts, love is a very small element in a marriage. The peasant, as a rule, wants a wife who will bear him children, a housewife who will make good soup and take it out to him in the fields, who will spin and make his shirts and mend his clothes. Such a thing had not happened for a long while in a district where a young man not unfrequently leaves his betrothed for another girl who is richer by three or four acres of land. The fate of Le Fosseur and his wife was scarcely happy enough to induce our Dauphinois to forsake their calculating habits and practical way of regarding things. La Fosseuse, who was a very pretty woman, died when her daughter was born, and her husband’s grief for his loss was so great that he followed her within the year, leaving nothing in the world to this little one except an existence whose continuance was very doubtful — a mere feeble flicker of a life. A charitable neighbor took the care of the baby upon herself, and brought her up till she was nine years old. Then the burden of supporting La Fosseuse became too heavy for the good woman; so at the time of year when travelers are passing along the roads, she sent her charge to beg for her living upon the highways.
“One day the little orphan asked for bread at the countess’ chateau, and they kept the child for her mother’s sake. She was to be waiting-maid some day to the daughter of the house, and was brought up to this end. Her young mistress was married five years later; but meanwhile the poor little thing was the victim of all the caprices of wealthy people, whose beneficence for the most part is not to be depended upon even while it lasts. They are generous by fits and starts — sometimes patrons, sometimes friends, sometimes masters, in this way they falsify the already false position of the poor children in whom they interest themselves, and trifle with the hearts, the lives, and futures of their protegees, whom they regard very lightly. From the first La Fosseuse became almost a companion to the young heiress; she was taught to read and write, and her future mistress sometimes amused herself by giving her music lessons. She was treated sometimes as a lady’s companion, somet
imes as a waiting-maid, and in this way they made an incomplete being of her. She acquired a taste for luxury and for dress, together with manners ill-suited to her real position. She has been roughly schooled by misfortune since then, but the vague feeling that she is destined for a higher lot has not been effaced in her.
“A day came at last, however, a fateful day for the poor girl, when the young countess (who was married by this time) discovered La Fosseuse arrayed in one of her ball dresses, and dancing before a mirror. La Fosseuse was no longer anything but a waiting-maid, and the orphan girl, then sixteen years of age, was dismissed without pity. Her idle ways plunged her once more into poverty; she wandered about begging by the roadside, and working at times as I have told you. Sometimes she thought of drowning herself, sometimes also of giving herself to the first comer; she spent most of her time thinking dark thoughts, lying by the side of a wall in the sun, with her face buried in the grass, and passers-by would sometimes throw a few halfpence to her, simply because she asked them for nothing. One whole year she spent in a hospital at Annecy after heavy toil in the harvest field; she had only undertaken the work in the hope that it would kill her, and that so she might die. You should hear her herself when she speaks of her feelings and ideas during this time of her life; her simple confidences are often very curious.
“She came back to the little town at last, just about the time when I decided to take up my abode in it. I wanted to understand the minds of the people beneath my rule; her character struck me, and I made a study of it; then when I became aware of her physical infirmities, I determined to watch over her. Perhaps in time she may grow accustomed to work with her needle, but, whatever happens, I have secured her future.”
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 1022