The life of a dog is full of danger. If he would escape suffering he must be ever on the watch, during meals and even during sleep.
XVIII
It is impossible to know whether one has acted well towards men. One must worship them without seeking to understand them. Their wisdom is mysterious.
XIX
Invocation. O Fear, Fear august and maternal, Fear sacred and salutary, possess me, in danger fill me, in order that I may avoid that which is harmful, lest, casting myself upon the enemy, I suffer for my imprudence.
XX
Vehicles there are which horses pull through the street. They are terrible. Other vehicles there are which move of themselves breathing loudly. These are also fearful. Men in rags are detestable, likewise such as carry baskets on their heads or roll casks. I do not love children who utter loud cries and flee from and pursue each other swiftly in the streets. The world is full of hostile and dreadful things.
THE NECKTIE
MONSIEUR BERGERET was hammering nails into the wall of his new flat. Becoming aware that he was enjoying the work, he began to wonder why it gave him pleasure to knock nails into the wall. He found the reason and lost the pleasure. For the pleasure had consisted in hammering the nails without thinking of the reason of anything. Then, as he hung his father’s portrait in the place of honour in the drawing-room, he meditated on the sorrows of a philosophical mind.
“It tips forward too much,” said Zoé.
“Do you think so?”
“I am sure of it. It looks as if it were going to fall.”
Monsieur Bergeret shortened the cord from which the picture hung.
“It isn’t straight,” said Mademoiselle Bergeret.
“Is it not?”
“No it hangs perceptibly too much to the left.”
Monsieur Bergeret carefully readjusted it.
“And now how is it?”
“It hangs too much to the right.”
Monsieur Bergeret did his best to bring the picture-frame into line with the horizon, and then drew back three steps in order to inspect his handiwork.
“I think it is right,” he said.
“It is all right now ,” said Zoé. “It worries me when a picture isn’t straight.”
“You are not the only one whom it worries, Zoé. There are many who feel like you. Any irregularity in simple matters is irritating because it is so easy to see the difference between what is and what ought to be. Some people cannot bear to see a badly hung wall-paper. The conditions of our humanity are indeed terrible and atrocious when a crooked picture frame upsets us.”
“There is nothing extraordinary in that, Lucien. Little things occupy a large place in life. You yourself are constantly interested in trifles.”
“All the years that I have been gazing at this potrait I have never remarked before what strikes me at this moment. I have just perceived that this portrait of our father is the portrait of a young man.”
“Why, of course, Lucien. When the artist Gosselin, on his return from Rome, painted father, he was not more than thirty.”
“True, sister. But when I was a boy the portrait appeared to me that of a man well on in years, and that impression clung to me. Now it has suddenly vanished. The colours of Gosselin’s picture have lost their brightness; the flesh has assumed an amber tint under the varnish; the lines have grown vague, merging into shadow of an olive hue. Our father’s face seems to retreat further and further into a far-distant background. But that smooth forehead, those large bright eyes, the dear pure line of the delicate cheeks, the black hair thick and shining, belong, I see it now for the first time, to a man in the flower of his youth.”
“Certainly,” said Zoé.
“His dress and the style of his hair are those of the old days when he was young. He wears his hair ruffled. His bottle-green coat has a high collar, he wears a nankin waistcoat and his broad black silk stock tie is wound three times round his neck.”
“Ten years ago old men were still to be seen wearing ties like that,” said Zoé.
“Possibly,” said Monsieur Bergeret. “But it is certain that Monsieur Malorey never wore any others.”
“You mean the Dean of the Faculté des Lettres at Saint-Omer, Lucien.… It is thirty years and more since his death.”
“He was over sixty, Zoé, when I was less than twelve — but it was then that I committed a most daring outrage on his tie.”
“I think I remember that rather stupid joke,” said Zoé.
“No, Zoé, you do not remember my joke. If you did you would not speak of it like that. You know that Monsieur Malorey was very particular about his personal appearance and that he was always very dignified. You remember also that he was extremely decorous. He had an old-fashioned way of speaking, which was delightful. One day when he had invited our parents to dinner for the second time he himself offered a dish of artichokes to our mother, saying: ‘Just a little more of the underpart, Madame.’ He was speaking according to the best traditions of politeness and of language. For our ancestors never spoke of ‘the bottom of an artichoke.’ But the term was antiquated and our mother had great difficulty to keep from laughing. I cannot remember, Zoé, how we came to know the artichoke story.”
Zoé, who was hemming white curtains, replied: “We heard it because our father related it one day without noticing that we were present.”
“And ever afterwards, Zoé, you could never see Monsieur Malorey without wanting to laugh.”
“You laughed also.”
“No, Zoé, I did not laugh at that. That which amuses other men does not make me laugh, that which amuses me does not make other men laugh. I have often noticed it. I see the ludicrous where no one else perceives it. I am gay and I am sad in the wrong places, and it has often made me look like a fool.”
Monsieur Bergeret climbed a ladder in order to hang a view of Mount Vesuvius by night, during an eruption; the picture was a water-colour which he had inherited from a paternal ancestor.
“But I have not told you, sister, what I said to Monsieur Malorey.”
“Lucien, while you are on the ladder, please put up the curtain-rods,” said Zoé.
“I will,” said her brother. “We were then living in a little house in a suburb ot Saint-Omer.”
“The curtain-rings are in the nail-box.”
“I have them.... A little house with a garden.”
“A very pretty garden,” said Zoé. “It was full of lilac bushes. On the lawn was a vase in terra cotta, at the end a maze, and a grotto rockery, and on the wall two large blue pots.”
“Yes, Zoé, two large blue pots. One morning, one summer morning, Monsieur Malorey came to our house to consult some books, that were not in his own library and which he could not have found in the town library, because it had been destroyed in a fire. My father had placed his study at the Dean’s disposal and the offer had been accepted. It was arranged that when he had collated his texts he would stay and lunch with us.”
“Just see if the curtains are too long, Lucien.”
“I will. …”
“That morning the heat was stifling. Among the still leaves even the birds were silent. Sitting under a tree in the garden, I perceived in the shaded study the back of Monsieur Malorey and his long hair resting on the collar of his frock-coat. Save that his hand was moving over a sheet of paper, he did not stir. There was nothing extraordinary in that. He was writing. But what did appear to me unusual …”
“Well, are they long enough?”
“Not by four inches, my good Zoé.”
“What, four inches? Show me Lucien.”
“Look. … What did appear to me unusual was to see Monsieur Malorey’s tie on the windowsill. Overcome by the heat, the Dean had unwound the black cravat that three times encircled his neck. And the long piece of black silk hung from side to side out of the open window. I was seized with an uncontrollable desire to take it. I crept softly up to the wall of the house, I stretched my arm towards the tie, I pulled it; nothing stirr
ed in the study; I pulled it again; there it was in my hand; I went and hid it in one of the large blue pots in the garden.”
“It was not a very brilliant joke, Lucien.”
“No. .. I hid it in one of the large blue pots and I took care to cover it with leaves and moss. Monsieur Malorey continued for some time at work in the study. I watched his motionless back and the long white hair flowing over the collar of his frock-coat. Then the servant called me to lunch. As I entered the dining-room the most unexpected sight met my gaze. Between our father and mother I saw Monsieur Malorey grave, calm, but without his necktie. He had all his usual dignity. He was even august. But he was not wearing his tie. This filled me with surprise. I knew he could not be wearing it, since it was in the blue pot. And yet I was prodigiously astonished to see him without it. “I cannot think, Madame,” he said softly to our mother.... She interrupted him: “My husband will lend you one, dear sir.”
“And I reflected: ‘I hid it in jest, he failed to find it in earnest.’ But I was astonished.”
THE MONTIL MANŒUVRES
THE engagement had begun; everything was going well. At ten o’clock in the morning General Decuir, of the southern army, whose brigade occupied a strong position beneath the woods of Saint-Colomban, effected a brilliant reconnaissance which demonstrated the absence of the enemy. Then the soldiers broke their fast, and the General, leaving his escort at Saint-Luchaire, drove, accompanied by Captain Varnot, in the motor-car which had come to fetch him, to the Château de Montil, where the Baronne de Bonmont had invited him to lunch. The village of Montil was hung with flags. At the entrance to the park, the General passed beneath a triumphal arch erected in his honour and decorated with flags, trophies and branches of oak interwoven with boughs of laurel.
On the steps of her castle the Baronne de Bonmont received the General and led him into a vast hall hung with weapons and glittering with steel.
“Your residence is superb, Madame, and the country is beautiful,” said the General. “I have often been to shoot about here, chiefly with the Brécés, where I had the pleasure of meeting your son, if I am not mistaken.”
“No, you are not mistaken,” said Ernest de Bonmont, who had driven the General from Saint-Luchaire. “And to say one is bored at the Brécés is to put it mildly!”
It was a small luncheon party. Besides the General, the Captain, the Baronne and her son, there were only Madame Worms-Clavelin and Joseph Lacrisse.
“You must take things as you find them!” said Madame de Bonmont placing the General on her right at a table decorated with flowers over which towered an equestrian statue of Napoleon in Sèvres porcelain.
At a glance the General took in the long gallery hung with the finest Van Orley tapestries.
“You have plenty of room here!”
“The General might have brought his brigade,” said the Captain.
“I should have been delighted to receive it,” replied the Baronne smiling.
The talk was simple, quiet and cordial. Every one had the good taste to avoid politics. The General was a royalist. He did not say so, but it was well known. His manners were perfect. His two sons had been arrested for crying: “Panama!” on the boulevards when President Loubet came into office. The General’s own attitude had always been discreet. Horses and cannon were the topics of conversation.
“The new 75 is a gem,” said the General.
“One cannot too highly commend the ease with which the firing is regulated. It is really wonderful,” added Captain Varnot.
“And during the manœuvres,” said Madame Worms-Clavelin, “by a new and ingenious arrangement the covers of the ammunition wagons serve as a shelter for the gunners.”
Madame la Préfète was congratulated on her military knowledge.
Madame Worms-Clavelin appeared to equal advantage when she spoke of Notre-Dame des Belles-Feuilles.
“You know, General, that in this department, no further away than Brécé, we have a miraculous statue of the Blessed Virgin.”
“I have heard of it,” replied the General.
“Before he was made a Bishop,” continued Madame Worms-Clavelin, “the Abbé Guitrel was greatly interested in the apparitions of Notre-Dame des Belles-Feuilles. He even wrote a little book to prove that Notre-Dame des Belles-Feuilles is the special proctectress of the French army.”
“Tell me where I can procure a copy and I will read it,” said the General.
Madame Worms-Clavelin promised to send him the book.
In short throughout the meal not a word was uttered that could be called offensive or tending to the malicious. After lunch, there was a walk in the park. Then Captain Varnot took his leave.
“Let my escort wait for me at Saint-Luchaire, Captain,” said the General. And turning to Lacrisse, he said:
“Manœuvres are a picture of war, but they are not a true picture because everything is thought out and planned whereas in war it is the unexpected that happens.”
“Will you come and see the pheasantry, General?” said Madame de Bonmont.
“With pleasure, Madame.”
She turned round.
“Are you not coming, Ernest?”
Ernest had been stopped on his way by the worthy Raulin, mayor of Montil.
“Excuse me, Baron,” he was saying. “But if you could say a word to General Decuir me, if only the artillery would pass over St. John’s Hill, across my lucerne field.”
“What! Haven’t you a good crop, Raulin? Is that why you want it trampled on?”
“Not at all, not at all. The crop is excellent, Baron; the harvest next month promises to be good. But compensation is good also. Last time it was Houssiaux who had it. Isn’t it my turn now? I am mayor, I bear all the burdens of the commune, is it not fair therefore that when there is any bonus to be given.…?”
The General was taken to the pheasantry.
“It is time,” he said, “that I rejoined my brigade.”
“Oh! You will reach it in no time with my thirty horse-power,” said the young baron.
They inspected the kennels, the stables and the gardens.
“Your roses are superb,” said the General, who was fond of flowers. Through the perfumed air there boomed the sound of cannon.
“It has a festal sound and uplifts the heart,” said Lacrisse.
“Like the sound of bells,” said Madame Worms-Clavelin.
“You are a true Frenchwoman, Madame,” said the General. “Every word you utter breathes the purest patriotism.”
It was four o’clock. The General could not stay a minute longer. Fortunately in “the thirty horse-power” he would reach his brigade in no time.
With the young baron, Lacrisse and the chauffeur he entered the car, and once again passed beneath his triumphal arch.
In forty minutes he was at Saint-Luchaire. But his escort was not there. In vain the four motorists looked for Captain Varnot. The village was deserted. Not a soldier to be found. A butcher was passing in his cart. They asked him where Decuir’s division was: he replied:
“Try the Cagny road. Just now I heard firing in the direction of Cagny, and it was loud too, I can assure you.”
“Cagny, where is that?” inquired the General.
“Don’t you trouble, I know,” said the Baron. “I will drive you there.”
And, as the drive would be a long one, he gave the General a dust-coat, a cap and goggles.
They started on the departmental road; they passed Saint-André, Villeneuve, Letaf, Saint-Porçain, Truphême, Mirange, and they saw the Cagny pond shining like brass in the light of the setting sun. On the high-road, they met dragoons of the northern army who knew nothing of the whereabouts of the Decuir brigade, but they maintained that the southern army was engaged at Saint-Paulain.
Saint-Paulain was forty-five kilometres distant, in the direction of Montil.
The car turned round, went back down the departmental road, returned through Mirange, Truphême, Saint-Porçain, Letaf, Villeneuve and Saint-
André.
“Put on more speed,” ordered the Baron.
And the car passed through the streets of Verry-les-Fougerais, Suttières and Rary-la-Vicomté, raising a cloud of dust golden like a glory and crushing pigs and poultry. Two kilometres from Saint-Paulain, they came on the outposts of the southern army holding La Saulaie, Mesville and Le Sourdais. There they learned that the whole of the northern army was on the other side of the Ilette.
They drove towards Torcy-la-Mirande in order to strike the river by the heights of Vieux-Bac.
When in the course of an hour they began to perceive by the evening light a sheet of white mist hanging over the low lying meadows:
“Gad,” said the young Baron, “we can’t cross: the Ilette Bridge is destroyed.”
“What!” exclaimed the General, “the Ilette Bridge destroyed? What’s that you say? The Bridge destroyed!”
“Why, General! yes. In the plan of the manœuvres the Bridge is destroyed in theory.”
The General did not appreciate the joke.
“I admire your wit young man,” he said sharply.
At Vieux-Bac they thundered across the iron bridge and followed the ancient Roman road, which connects Torcy-la-Mirande with the chief town of the department. In the sky, Venus was kindling her silver flame close by the crescent moon. They travelled about thirty kilometres without meeting any troops. At Saint-Évariste there was a terrible hill to climb. The car groaned like a tired beast but did not stop. Coming down it went over some stones and was on the point of capsizing in a ditch. Then the road was excellent as far as Mallemanche, where they arrived at night, during a surprise.
The sky was glittering with stars. Trumpets were sounding. Lanterns were casting a yellow gleam on the blue road. Foot soldiers were pillaging the houses. The inhabitants were at the windows.
“Although merely theoretical it is all extremely impressive,” said Lacrisse.
The General was told that his brigade was in possession of Villeneuve on the left wing of the victorious army. The enemy was in full retreat.
Villeneuve is at the junction of the Ilette and the Claine, twenty kilometres from Mallemanche.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 360