That man is typical of the Flemish beggar. Every village and hamlet is afflicted by at least one such wretch. Full of insolence in his prayers, preserving to the point of obstinacy, he comes regularly, every week, to receive alms that he regards as his legal entitlement. “It’s my day,” he cries, after having murmured an unintelligible prayer in which it is difficult to recognize the primitive language. “I didn’t come last week, so you owe me my last alms.”
He stops in that fashion at every door, collects his tribute, and when evening comes he presents himself at a farm, where they hasten to shelter him in the barn, one a fresh bale of hay, sometimes better than the proprietor’s bed.
There is not in all of Flanders a farmer resolute enough to refuse alms or hospitality to a beggar. Woe to him if he does, for soon the red flames of a conflagration will escape in swirls from the roof of his barn and the dome of his wheat-mill; his cadaver will soon be found lying on a path with his head fractured by a terrible blow from a knotty staff.
Furthermore, a beggar, in Flanders, is a redoubtable individual, on whom is reflected all the evil renown of sorcerers and spell-casters.
Substitute maledictions for their murmured prayers, magic words whose occult power strikes with affliction those who refuse to help them, fascinate livestock with a stare and cause the labors of the farm to fail: that is of what they are accused by old women and the majority of the inhabitants of the countryside. There is no farmer who does not reply in an amicable voice, in the evening, to the taciturn salute of a beggar, and who does not hasten to make the sign of the cross as a preservative against the spell that might have been cast on him.
But what is feared most in the country is the aid of a beggar in any fashion whatsoever, or, worse still, the possession of an object belonging to an individual of that dangerous class. A terrible misfortune is always attached to it; so the robust maidservant, the farm-worker and the plowman carefully refrain, not only from requesting aid for a beggar, but from receiving the slightest service from him. Finally, if the smallest of object of value falls from his wallet, one hastens to restore it to him, for it will assuredly bring bad luck to anyone who keeps it, even unintentionally.
Beggars encourage such prejudices, which ensure that their idleness is respected and gave them the power of dread that Tiberius did not think purchased too dearly when he paid the price of hatred for it.
During my sickly childhood the physicians told my family that only the pure and salubrious air of the country could render me a health that the excessive cares and exaggerated precautions of an idolatrous mother had rendered frail and languishing. It was therefore resolved, not without difficulty, that I would spend a few months in the home of one of my father’s farmers, a worthy man who enjoyed an honest ease.
On arriving at my destination, I found a child of my own age there, the worthy Hubert, taller than me by a head, with blond hair, a dark complexion and large blue eyes.
You will understand that I rejoiced in seeing myself associated with such a companion, that I was happy to find myself liberated from the tender captivity in which the fearful solicitude of my mother had previously held me. It was marvelous to see us, Hubert and me, running around all day in the ardor of the sum, without any surveillance.
Ten times as robust as me and proud of his physical superiority, Hubert watched over his little comrade with a tender solicitude. No child in the village would have dared to offer me the slightest insult; my protector’s fists would have chastised him for it immediately. If I was fatigued, Hubert carried me in his arms. If it was necessary to climb a hill, Hubert took me by the hand. When I hesitated to set foot in some muddy pool he hoisted me up on his shoulders and started running gaily, and whistling, as if to offer further evidence that he was not rendered breathless by his burden.
Then too, he supported my caprices of a spoiled child with an angelic patience. Nothing fatigued him, nothing discouraged him, nothing irritated him; either his friendship for me gave that child the patience of a mature man, or he loved me like a precious toy, whose springs one fears to break by compressing them.
One day, when we had built a kind of little chapel with braches and we were ecstasizing over that marvelous work, a merchant of primitive images passed by. The same idea struck my comrade and me: that we could decorate our chapel with some ornament. But for that, we needed a sou, and we did not possess one
From that moment on, our chapel, constructed with so much difficulty and previously so perfect in our eyes, appeared sad and poor. Discouraged, we sat down on a stone a few paces away, and it was in a loud voice that we built fanciful castles in Spain, ardently desired, which we only needed a sou in order to realize.
A tall man, of unattractive appearance, whose ragged accoutrement, stout staff and beggar’s wallet clearly indicated his profession, heard our naïve plants. He doubtless found it piquant, poor fellow, to accomplish the desires of two individuals, and, holding a handful of small coins, he chose a sou therefrom and gratified Hubert with it.
We immediately started running after the merchant of images, but it was impossible for us to catch up with him and it was necessary to come back without having spent our petty treasure.
When my companion’s grandmother saw us playing with a coin, and learned from what hand we had obtained it, the good woman gave evidence of the sharpest anxieties.
“Dear children,” she said, “return as quickly as possible to the place where you left the beggar and return his accursed coin. If he has gone, if it’s impossible for you to catch him—utterly impossible, you understand, my children—throw it in the first ditch you come to…no, wait; it’s better to slide it into the tree-trunk at the foot of the Calvary.”
You can imagine that the old woman’s discourse filled us with fear, and we ran in search of the beggar immediately, but it was quite impossible for us to find him.
During our travels and investigations, the panic and anxiety that had been inspired in us by what Hubert’s grandmother had said gradually eased, and gave way to a cheerfulness that one never loses for long at the age we were.
Soon, the coin at which we had scarcely dared look before, served us as a plaything. Hubert made it bounce and roll on the pavement of the road. We tried to catch it in our little hands. Our bursts of laughter redoubled at each new course of the sou, and our pleasure was unequaled when the coin struck the axle of a cart and fell alongside the wheel. Hubert tried to pick up our plaything. Oh! My poor Hubert was seized by the wheel. It fractured his skull.
His grandmother reminded me about that terrible adventure not long ago, and she asked with sobs of despair why the good God granted beggars such a terrible power to do evil and to take away children from their mothers in that fashion.
THE SEMINARIST
1830
There is no place that I would not like better with you,
my sweet Henri, than the most beautiful palace in the
world. Yes, my friend, it seems to me that I would prefer
and eternity of dolor with you to Paradise without you.
That is because, for me, you are more than repose, than
happiness, than all the world. It is because I love you
more than I can say, that I love you as you can love.
(Lettres d’amour.)
Is it not true that we shall not longer be apart?
“Is the tomb not there?”
(Maurice Pteuginter, Contes allemands.)29
I want to make a bet of four gold pieces with you.
I want to bet that none of you, good people of Paris, knows clearly and exactly what a collector of direct contributions does in a commune of two thousand souls under the ministries of Messieurs Villèle and Polignac.
Form a circle around me, then, and lend me your ears. I’ll tell you simply and in my own fashion.
A rural tax-collector is a man to whom one gives fifty francs a year.
In order to obtain that large sum, he is enjoined to do various things, among whic
h is collecting thirty or forty thousand francs in three hamlets, in which the richest of households never has two silver coins to rub together. If, on the appointed day, the said collector has not assembled the required sum in good coin, too bad for him; it’s necessary that he put his hand in his pocket.
It’s marvelous, also, to see a collector depart from his residence at daybreak, coiffed in a broad-brimmed hat if the weather is sunny, or wrapped up in a cloak if there is rain, wind, hail or snow.
As soon as he arrives in a village, woe betide the taxpayers—as he calls them—who are not “in measure,” that being the official term. First he issues them with a summons without expenses, then a summons with expenses, and then threatens a collective garnishing.
It does them not good to protest: “I have nothing; I’m in the grip of poverty.” The garnisher does not take long to come to their home, a brutal, devouring biped animal, drunk without ever losing his reason. The law, as you see, is delicate and good, squandering the meager possessions of its debtor recklessly, in order to assist him to pay.
Now, the man about whom I am speaking was a collector of contributions in a commune of three thousand souls. No one administered as well, or as honestly; never—and I mean never—was he ever found in remiss of a centime when the day came to transmit the funds to the receiver.
So, when evening came, he remained quietly at home, only daring to go out secretly, and equipped with loaded pistols. That did not always prevent him, nevertheless, from hearing whistles or feeling some large stone thrown by some unknown hand falling on his back.
Every Sunday, moreover, he was punctual in going reverently to hear mass, always at the moment when the sub-prefect came to say his prayers. A miscreant would have felt edified to see the worthy Christian on his knees, turning the pages of a Book of Hours and reciting litanies and psalms while moving his lips—not to mention the good mea culpas with which he struck his breast, and the white eyes that he turned to the heavens when the elevation bell rang.
One day, one of the sub-prefect’s domestics brought the tax-collector a letter, and the collector omitted to gratify him with a tip. He had, however, traveled two leagues; it was election time, and in order to obtain goodwill, no one, as you know, neglects either the messages or the good care of tax-collectors.
Three days later, the same motive brought the said domestic back to the said tax-collector’s abode. While awaiting a response, he went into the kitchen, where the lady of the house, good housekeeper as she was, was preparing a pullet of appetizing appearance.
At the sudden and unwelcome appearance of the administrative domestic, the pullet was immediately hidden, for it was Friday. But a glance had been sufficient for that benign individual; and even though the lady, when he left, doubled the usual tip, the sub-prefect nevertheless showed the poor tax-collector the most severe expression the following day.
The honest father of four did not get a wink of sleep that night.
The following day he went to confession and took communion solemnly; and as there was a procession he followed it bare-headed, singing high and clear, neither more nor less than a cantor, and responded more loudly that any other of the faithful ora pro nobis or libera nos, Domine.
Apparently, the work of piety, like the wood of Sganarelle, is salted by all the devils. For he, so orderly and of such edifying mores, spent the rest of the day in the café, drinking alone and in small sips a bottle of Burgundy wine.
Someone, by chance, uttered the celebrated word “consequent,” then much in fashion.
The tax-collector—the Burgundy wine must have troubled his reason; God alone knows how he could have thought of such a thing—told the man that he was talking through his hat.
Alas, he realized instantly the immense error that he had just made. In order to recover his composure he picked up a newspaper, mechanically. Mercy! It was the Courrier Français.
He dropped it as if it were a fragment of red hot iron.
But it was too late. An honest Jesuit, who had long had his eye on the tax-collector’s position for his own nephew, had seen everything. And without losing a moment he ran to ring the doorbell of the sub-prefect, whose house was opposite the café. He only came out again an hour later, so long had his report been, and listened to at leisure, and he went straight to vespers. You can imagine how ill the jubilation of that honest man made the tax-collector feel.
His destitution was infallible.
With death in his heart he slowly resumed the route to his village, and had no sooner arrived there than it was necessary for him to go to bed, for he was shivering with fever. His family, rendered anxious by the distress in his features, asked about the reasons that had produced it, but he attributed it to a sudden illness.
Alas, he thought, the unfortunates will learn only too soon about the blow that will cast them into poverty.
That day, I had been hunting since daybreak, and, more fatigued than I can say, I was doing my best to return to my village, from which two long leagues still separated me, when the village in which Monsieur Lefebre resides—that being the name of the tax-collector about whom I am talking—appeared to me, with its gray steeple, in the middle of a little wood.
Without intending to, I stopped walking, and my fatigue seemed greater than ever.
Then, I started thinking about a benevolent and jovial welcome, a large armchair next to a crackling fire, an abundant supper and a soft warm bed.
Madame de Staël has said that “the best means of getting rid of a temptation is to succumb to it.” I followed Madame de Staël’s advice, and I took the small side-path that began at my feet and which led to Monsieur Lefebre’s house.
Having arrived at his door, I knocked on it with the butt of my rifle and shouted joyfully: “Hey! I’ve come to ask you for shelter.” The door opened; Madame Lefebre gave me a good welcome, but, in spite of that, it as easy for me to see at the first glance that my arrival was an inconvenience.
I would have given anything in the world to get out of that false position and to be able to retrace my steps, but it was too late.
The good Madame Lefebre read in my face what I was thinking, for she hastened to explain the cause of her embarrassment.
“My husband fell ill on returning from the village,” she said. “I fear that he has learned something troubling, for I believe that the malady is more anxiety than fever.”
I asked to see him; I was taken to the bedroom where he was lying, and we were left alone. At the sight of me the poor fellow held out his hand, gripped mine convulsively and started to weep.
Then he told me what had happened to him and the fears that he had.
“Oh, my dear Monsieur,” he added, as he concluded, “how frightful it is to have no other means of subsistence, for oneself and one’s family, than a wretched position for which it is necessary to dread the loss incessantly, for which it is necessary to make the sacrifice of one’s beliefs, opinions and honor every day. Better than anyone else, you know what I have done. Wretch! I have gone so far as to let my son, my poor Étienne, become a priest, drawn by an irreflective devotion and subjugated by insidious advice. Alas, how many chagrins that career is preparing for his weakness of character, his inconstant enthusiasms and his Romantic sensibility! I would have liked to oppose my paternal authority to that foolish resolution, but it was made known to me that if I opposed the slightest obstacle to what they called my son’s vocation, I would immediately be destitute; it was necessary for me to curb my head and remain silent. Tomorrow he will be a priest.
“Ought I confess to you my weakness, and let you see the extremity to which poverty has reduced me? I have been cowardly enough to rejoice, in spite of myself, in that insensate resolution of my son, in the hope that its accomplishment might prevent my ruination. My God! What execrable thoughts poverty gives!”
I cannot tell you what I was caused to experience by that struggle of an honest man in the perpetual alternative of either offending his conscience or ruining his f
amily.
I encouraged him as best I could; I enabled him to envisage things from a less depressing point of view, and succeeded in rendering him a measure of calm, and almost of hope.
His wife came to interrupt us, and I was very glad, for the heavy and unhealthy air that one respired in the invalid’s little bedroom, combined with my extreme fatigue and the emotion caused by the tax-collector’s confidences, was making my head ache severely and my depriving heart of vigor.
I hastened to go out into the fresh air, but it brought no relief to my malaise.
Black clouds had accumulated in the sky; flashes of lightning succeeded one another so promptly that my vision was fatigued by them; I could scarcely breathe, and there was I know not what impatience in all my nerves, mingled with agitation and depression.
I sat down at the entrance to a little shed at the bottom of the garden.
There, what the unfortunate collector had told me about his son Étienne returned to my imagination and took possession of it forcefully.
Étienne had been my comrade at school; for six years we had been inseparable; both sickly, both fonder of a work of fiction than a dance, we had not taken long to be united in the tender intimacy that takes such forceful possession of two young adolescents. Of a character weaker than mine, Étienne had allowed himself to be led, most of the time, by my advice, and his confidence in me was limitless. My affection for the excellent Étienne was no less, and I lent myself obligingly to the sidesteps of his strange and sometimes delirious imagination. Another might have mocked his bizarre ideas for their exaggeration and their eccentric impetuosity; exceedingly fond of everything related to the marvelous, I found in Étienne’s conversation the attraction that one finds in a tale that makes one shiver.
The Angel Asrael Page 18