Alongside the pine, the cork-oak was following its own meditation. But its faculty of giving a part of itself permitted it to suffer that much less. For pity is worn away by work accomplished. A young birch was white with respect for the meditation of those great venerable brothers. And a little further away, on the other side of the fence, a cypress, without paying any heed to anyone, was launching an almost visible dark blue prayer, like a jet, straight into the bright azure sky.
I observed that the night was perfectly silent and that even the owls, in the distance, had fallen silent. But as soon as I had made that observation, the silence ceased abruptly. I heard the branches of the old pine palpitate, and then those of the cork-oak. A bird had passed from one tree to the other. But it did not have in flying the precaution, the affectation of silence, that birds have that fly in the middle of the night. That bird was flying somewhat at hazard, bumping into branches, going hither and yon, and it seemed to me that there was something disorderly in the manner of its flight. I leaned out to see and I encountered the ruddy gleam of an eye, and saw tousled plumage. It was the crow.
At the same time, I heard it utter several cries. I had never desired so much to understand their meaning; but the admirable gift was not in me that evening and the thought that I had of obtaining it must have rendered its coming impossible. Everything that comes from the gods is contradictory and fleeting. Nevertheless, I took account of the fact that there was an annunciation, that there was a solemn appeal therein, with which was mingled the idea of death and perhaps the heartbreak of an adieu.
The old crow with the tattered plumage flew to the right and the left in the trees of the garden, colliding with braches, as if its eyesight had deteriorated, and I saw it reach the rim of the well, pitifully, where it took two or three limping steps. There, it uttered a few more cries, but lower, leaning its beak and its plucked neck toward the ground, as if it wanted to give some information to the invisible world that inhabits the vegetation of the soil.
It seemed to me that I understood that information. The old crow was announcing that it was going to die. It had come to that place, where it had lived, and where there were certain bonds and certain amities, to say that it had flown through its last moonlit night. That is what I believed that I sensed confusedly. But one remains incredulous about one’s intuitions.
However, there was something abnormal about the garden. Branches were stirring in the trees, and there were a few almost imperceptible chirps of birds, as if, in fact, there were an item of information being transmitted. An animal shifted in the clump of rosemary. I saw a turtle pass under the wooden fence.
The crow, with one last cry, took off and went past my window. No, it did not address itself to me. At least, I didn’t think so. All of that was in my imagination. And yet a force impelled me. Who knows? I went downstairs precipitately, I arrived in the garden, I ran into the road, not without noticing that the little calls of the birds in the trees had redoubled and that, here and there, in the bushes, there was the rustle of small creatures in motion.
I looked in all directions and I saw that the crow had not gone very far. It was on a branch of a eucalyptus, at the intersection of two roads. Again it uttered a little sad cry and it flew away: a miserable, uncertain flight, zigzagging slightly, which permitted it to reach another tree, some distance away, but not far enough for me to be unable to distinguish its silhouette with ruffled plumage outlined in the moonlight.
Was the crow waiting for me? Did it want a human witness, and was what I was sensing internally true? Or was I only the victim of my imagination, and it was only pausing in one tree after another because of its fatigue and old age? I could not give myself a sure response, but curiosity drove me forward. I followed the crow, sometimes running in the fear of losing it, cursing the detours that I was obliged to make when I encountered one of those iron wire boundaries with which property-owners have the habit of marking their possessions. I jumped over hedges, went alongside pine woods, and whenever I thought I had lost the crow, its increasingly lamentable croaking resonated in my ears and told me the direction that I had to follow.
I cannot evaluate the time that the march lasted. It must have been longer than I thought while I was accomplishing it. For I was kept in suspense by the idea that I was going to witness one of those scenes to which humans are not usually invited and no not exist for them any more than if they had occurred on another plane of existence to which human reason does not have access.
As I went, my eyes fixed on the low branches of the trees, I wondered whether there was not something abnormal in the fields and the woods. I regretted not having a greater experience of the countryside at two o’clock in the morning. Was the sky always cut like that by the passage of birds? I thought that birds slept, like humans, until sunrise. And what were those movements in the bushes? I knew full well that there was an entire nocturnal life, that hedgehogs only sought their nourishment by night, and that it was only thanks to darkness that foxes slid into henhouses, but I was witness to an unusual activity.
I saw a donkey traversing a field at a deliberate pace. Donkeys do not wander around on their own in the middle of the night. A peacock that I knew well was running in the same direction as the donkey. Often, while out walking, I had stopped to watch it displaying its tail through the gate of the park of an English lady to whom it belonged. Why had that peacock escaped? Other animals that I could not make out were slipping through the wild laburnums, going through the larches that grew under the pines. And they were all heading in the same direction, as if they were being guided by the plaintive crow, whose silhouette could be seen lurching awkwardly in the moonlight.
Suddenly, I made out the shiny undulation of a stream. It was gliding among the paludal rushes, the color of mat silver, and, under the lunar rays, projected gleaming crystal spangles. It broadened and shrank in places, and I recognized, by the sandy banks that its course left behind, that I had reached the edge of the Argens.
The place toward which I was heading, and which the crow had reached, was a large circular meadow covered with peach trees in flower, which the Argens divided in two with the passage of its gleam. A large wood of old trees came down a hillside and bounded the meadow in the direction from which I arrived, while on the other side, small clumps of cypresses stood to attention impressively. It seemed to me that one of the groups framed a stone oratory in ruins, the niche of which was empty, surmounted by a little dome whose cross had disappeared.
A special enchantment resident in the color of the water, the lightness of the peach-blossom and the mystery of the full moon gave the entire landscape a supernatural atmosphere and created a beauty that made one think of the beauty that one ought to contemplate in the other world. I was profoundly penetrated by it, while assuring myself that I was not witnessing anything abnormal, that nature always had that same beauty, under the full moon and in the middle of the night. And I reproached myself for not having made a similar contemplation instead of sleeping heavily in my closed bedroom, preferring dense slumber and its liking for oblivion to the subtle and fluid intoxication that the ensemble of the moon, the night, water and trees provide, by virtue the combination of their relationships and exchanges.
But I rapidly took account of the fact that I had reached the theater of an unexpected and perhaps unique scene.
The sandy Argens, the meadow of peach-trees and the woods of pines and cork-oaks had been chosen for a mysterious animal assembly. Scarcely had I stopped, agape with emotion, when a great flock of birds coming from the north, settled in the trees, but in a silence so great that their wings seemed to be velvet. Another flock, almost triangular in form, striped the sky and came to settle further away, in the trees that bounded the meadow on the other side of the river. I recognized, by the shape of a belated bird, that they were swallows.
At the same time, I had the perception of an extraordinary, varied, moving and meditative life that surrounded me on all sides. I had a wooly sensation in
my hand. A large long-haired dog had stopped alongside me. It had been running, and was holding back its panting. A little further away, the donkey that I had already seen was marching uncertainly, as if it were hesitating to advance. Sheep were trampling the grass behind me. It seemed to me that I saw the pointed muzzle, the oval eyes and the tawny fur of a fox. A family of wild pigs, which seemed to have come a long way, descended the wooded slope and stopped suddenly.
Meanwhile, the lunar blue of the sky was striped by the incessant passage of birds. They were coming from all directions. They were letting themselves fall like black rain on to the trees and the bushes. I noticed that they were avoiding the vast wood of pines and oaks that closed one side of the meadow, as if it were a reserved location. There, all the trees were already garnished with motionless birds, similar to one another. They were the crows, the younger brethren and descendants of the old ancestor. There must have been thousands of them. As I looked attentively at the foliage under the night sky, I saw the somber red gleam of their eyes, lighting up and dying away.
Sometimes, a bleat was heard, or a grunt, or the sketch of a cock-crow, abruptly interrupted. And that extraordinary presence extended to the society of the smallest animals. The leaps of frogs were outlined against the waters of the Argens like geometric figures. Swarms of dragonflies vibrated their wings in the reeds. A buzz indicated the passage of a cockchafer. Wild plants shifted at my feet, trodden by hedgehogs, and as I leaned over to see them, I distinguished large quantities of scarabs, like scattered precious stones, and a long file of processionary caterpillars. Glow-worms were keeping their lamps lit, rendered pale green by the moonlight, and some were flying, tracing luminous curves. A white cat slid silently to my side. Along the Argens, doubtless escaped from some park and carried by the current, two swans were advancing majestically. I did not notice the presence of any snake.
I do not know what fateful hour sounded: an hour that did not enter into the human conception of time. Voices suddenly woke all over the place and transmitted an announcement incomprehensible for me. But they were voices quieter than usual, sounds proffered with precaution, very low sounds, which seemed to contain a hint of respect. That began with a few croaks of crows, followed by a demi-bark of the dog, grunts, sighs and even the sketch of a donkey’s bray, immediately stifled. A large owl, whose silhouette could be seen outlined at the top of a poplar, terminated it with its call, the sorrowful note of which seemed to summarize a song of adieu that had not been sung.
I wondered where the old crow was. A flutter of wings indicated its presence to me. It was in the stone niche of the ruined oratory, in a circle of cypresses, and I saw that the oratory occupied an almost central position in the extent of the mysterious gathering. There were a few seconds of absolute, total, overwhelming silence, only cut by the wing-beats of the bird in its niche. Then I had the sentiment of being enveloped by an immense animal pity, something greater than human pity, and the dolor of being separated from those one loves: a resigned, bleak, desperate pity unameliorated by any hope. I felt it floating around me in the silence and the pale moonlight.
The crow launched itself outside the stone niche. I thought that it was going to fall in the meadow, for it was flying with difficulty, bumping into the high branches of the peach trees, the light flowers of which took flight around it. It climbed again with that aureole of petals and, by means of a great effort, it succeeded in flying over the water of the river. It held itself motionless in the air for the duration of a second, such as humans are accustomed to measure it. Then it uttered one last croak, a cry that went much further than the desolation that any living organs can express by name: a cry containing, in itself alone, all the wretched life of beasts, since their formation at the origin of the world, with feathers, fur or scales; a cry in which there were thousands of millennia of effort on their part toward the unknown light of intelligence; a cry so heart-rending that it seemed to me that my breast was physically wrung by it—and that cry, which was prolonged in the silence, was abruptly stopped by the interruption of divine death. It alone knew in what measure the expression of dolor ought to be prolonged. The crow’s wings seemed to be mineralized, and it fell like a bird of stone into the clear waters of the Argens.
No noise followed it. There was no plaint, by way of a funerary adieu for the departure of that ancestral animal. And the silence was so great that I dared not budge myself, and I held my breath for fear of troubling I know not what solemn meditation. I waited for a time that I cannot evaluate. And suddenly, like the signal of an angel announcing the passage from one world to the other, or a resurrection in light after centuries of tenebrous slumber, a nightingale made audible a song so clear that it was impossible not to think of a flaming sword agitating in the sky.
The mysterious ceremony was over.
Had I witnessed the death of a guide of the realm of beasts incarnate in one of the species in which the intellect is susceptible to the greatest development? Among the creatures subservient to humankind, were there privileged individuals corresponding to what saints are among us? I shall never know.
The silence was scarcely troubled. There were noises in the parted foliage. A hoof resonated on a stone nearby. A thousand little plunges told me that the river-dwelling frogs of the Argens were returning to their element, and I saw a thousand little bright splashes among the reeds. In the distance, the swans drew away. The owl took flight from its poplar.
I took the road of return.
I took a long time. I got lost. The moon was very low in the sky, and a slight blanching announcing the morning competed with its light.
Finally, I succeeded in recognizing the familiar aspect of a road, and a certain gnarled tree that I often passed on my walks. I nearly tripped over a small creature that was walking in the opposite direction to me. I recognized the turtle that had been domiciled in my garden. It was going as rapidly as it is possible for a turtle to go. I would have liked to tell it that it was too late. But how could I do that?
THE QUEEN OF CLUBS
Madame Tournadieu is a sympathetic person. Person is the exact term. There are people of whom one is obliged to say: That is a person. Madame Tournadieu is a person. In her presence, one immediately has the idea that sympathy, once observed, must be limited.
Why? Why is it necessary to limit one’s sympathy? Is it not contrary to the law that a sage man ought to impose on himself? To cause to radiate from oneself an increasingly great sympathy for all beings, even all persons?
That poses a very important problem, which it is essential to resolve. Ought one to love more and more, in the measure of the possible, or, on the contrary, detach oneself and break the bonds of sympathy that life creates with the hazard of its encounters? The quotidian conduct of the sage man depends on the solution to that problem.
But with Madame Tornadieu, the problem is resolved. Limitation is necessary. She presses the hand with too much force and holds on to it a few seconds too long. She looks at you for too long and with eyes too moist, even though she is not prey to any emotion. She sometimes lets remarks drop like: “I have a reserved nature, but with a passionate temperament.” And her oblique gaze gives the impression of adding: Note that well: you’re dealing with a passionate nature.
Madame Tournadieu has a small house that is only separated from the road by a rather low stone balustrade. Because of that, she has every facility to call out to people passing by. She stations herself behind it, and an array of cards is laid out on a little iron table. She plays patience, or tells her own fortune, without fear of importuning destiny or obliging it to contradict her. One never sees a book on that table. She is part of the category of people who do not read. That category includes an immense number of people. Perhaps she is even part of the rather numerous subdivision of those who fear books and simulate respect with regard to them in order to disguise the fear they inspire in them.
That afternoon, Madame Tournadieu called to me, brandishing her pack of cards, as I was jus
t hastening my step in order to go past her house.
“Stop for a few minutes, and I’ll tell your fortune,” she shouted to me joyfully.
She appeared to me to be slightly fatter than usual. The midday heat caused the reds that colored her cheeks too abundantly to fuse.
“It’s Friday,” she added. “You’re in luck—you’ll benefit from a day of inspiration.”
And I had to sit down in front of the iron table.
“For there are good and bad days. It’s truly an inspiration, like that of poets. Yes, it’s a kind of muse that visits you. Today, Friday, the muse has come.”
Madame Tournadieu told me that, that very morning, at sunrise or thereabouts, she had told her own fortune. She was personified among the cards by Queen Argine, the queen of clubs. She was that queen, without a doubt. That, she sensed profoundly. She was Argine, as surely was Roseline was the queen of diamonds, the Rachel that the tradition of card-readers represented as an evil woman. That didn’t mean in an absolute fashion that Roseline had an evil nature. Personally, Madame Tournadieu didn’t think so. Perhaps one could say that she was slightly devoid of conscience. Yes, one could say that, but completely evil was an exaggeration. So, the cards had spoken. And certain things had been announced relative to the heart. My God! Yes, her own heart.
For she had an ardent heart, which hid treasures of affection—treasures unknown to everyone for a long time, since the death of poor Tornadieu. And the cards had announced to her that she would soon encounter a twin soul—yes, there was a union in prospect for her.
But it wasn’t appropriate to talk about such things. It was so personal! It was necessary to keep silent about those personal announcements!
Madame Tournadieu possessed the great art of laughing at her own remarks. She interrupted herself to laugh, as if what she said was not serious. That laughter removed value from certain things that had too much and added it to others that did not have enough. Then too, that laughter permitted her to draw breath, for she was rather short of breath. At the same time, with a rapid gesture like that of a prestidigitator, she pulled up either a girdle or a corset, which had slipped while she was talking and inconvenienced her if it slipped down too far.
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