“Roussin,” added Blanchet, “you must have the head of an ass not to understand that the horse was brought into the world to suffer, and that if he does not suffer he fails to fulfil his destiny and that from happy horses the heavenly horse turns away his face.”
THE OCEAN CHRIST
THAT year many of the fishers of Saint-Valéry had been drowned at sea. Their bodies were found on the beach cast up by the waves with the wreckage of their boats; and for nine days, up the steep road leading to the church were to be seen coffins borne by hand and followed by widows, who were weeping beneath their great black-hooded cloaks, like women in the Bible.
Thus were the skipper Jean Lenoël and his son Désiré laid in the great nave, beneath the vaulted roof from which they had once hung a ship in full rigging as an offering to Our Lady. They were righteous men and God-fearing. Monsieur Guillaume Truphème, priest of Saint-Valéry, having pronounced the Absolution, said in a tearful voice:
“Never were laid in consecrated ground there to await the judgment of God better men and better Christians than Jean Lenoël and his son Désiré.”
And while barques and their skippers perished near the coast, in the high seas great vessels foundered. Not a day passed that the ocean did not bring in some flotsam of wreck. Now one morning some children who were steering a boat saw a figure lying on the sea. It was a figure of Jesus Christ, life-size, carved in wood, painted in natural colouring, and looking as if it were very old. The Good Lord was floating upon the sea with arms out-stretched. The children towed the figure ashore and brought it up into Saint-Valéry. The head was encircled with the crown of thorns. The feet and hands were pierced. But the nails were missing as well as the cross. The arms were still outstretched ready for sacrifice and blessing, just as He appeared to Joseph of Arimathea and the holy women when they were burying him.
The children gave it to Monsieur le Curé Truphème, who said to them:
“This image of the Saviour is of ancient workmanship. He who made it must have died long ago. Although to-day in the shops of Amiens and Paris excellent statues are sold for a hundred francs and more, we must admit that the earlier sculptors were not without merit. But what delights me most is the thought that if Jesus Christ be thus come with open arms to Saint-Valéry, it is in order to bless the parish, which has been so cruelly tried, and in order to announce that he has compassion on the poor folk who go a-fishing at the risk of their lives. He is the God who walked upon the sea and blessed the nets of Cephas.”
And Monsieur le Curé Truphème, having had the Christ placed in the church on the cloth of the high altar, went off to order from the carpenter Lemerre a beautiful cross in heart of oak.
When it was made, the Saviour was nailed to it with brand new nails, and it was erected in the nave above the churchwarden’s pew.
Then it was noticed that His eyes were filled with mercy and seemed to glisten with tears of heavenly pity.
One of the churchwardens, who was present at the putting up of the crucifix, fancied he saw tears streaming down the divine face. The next morning when Monsieur le Curé with a choir-boy entered the church to say his mass, he was astonished to find the cross above the churchwarden’s pew empty and the Christ lying upon the altar.
As soon as he had celebrated the divine sacrifice he had the carpenter called and asked him why he had taken the Christ down from his cross. But the carpenter replied that he had not touched it. Then, after having questioned the beadle and the sidesmen, Monsieur Truphème made certain that no one had entered the church since the crucifix had been placed over the churchwarden’s pew.
Thereupon he felt that these things were miraculous, and he meditated upon them discreetly. The following Sunday in his exhortation he spoke of them to his parishioners, and he called upon them to contribute by their gifts to the erection of a new cross more beautiful than the first and more worthy to bear the Redeemer of the world.
The poor fishers of Saint-Valéry gave as much money as they could and the widows brought their wedding-rings. Wherefore Monsieur Truphème was able to go at once to Abbeville and to order a cross of ebony, highly polished and surmounted by a scroll with the inscription I.N.R.I. in letters of gold. Two months later it was erected in the place of the former and the Christ was nailed to it between the lance and the sponge.
But Jesus left this cross as He had left the other; and as soon as night fell He went and stretched Himself upon the altar.
Monsieur le Curé, when he found Him there in the morning, fell on his knees and prayed for a long while.
The fame of this miracle spread throughout the neighbourhood, and the ladies of Amiens made a collection for the Christ of Saint-Valéry. Monsieur Truphème received money and jewels from Paris, and the wife of the Minister of Marine, Madame Hyde de Neuville, sent him a heart of diamonds. Of all these treasures, in the space of two years, a goldsmith of La Rue St. Sulpice, fashioned a cross of gold and precious stones which was set up with great pomp in the church of Saint-Valéry on the second Sunday after Easter in the year 18 — . But He who had not refused the cross of sorrow, fled from this cross of gold and again stretched Himself upon the white linen of the altar.
For fear of offending Him, He was left there this time; and He had lain upon the altar for more than two years, when Pierre, son of Pierre Caillou, came to tell Monsieur le Curé Truphème that he had found the true cross of Our Lord on the beach.
Pierre was an innocent; and, because he had not sense enough to earn a livelihood, people gave him bread out of charity, he was liked because he never did any harm. But he wandered in his talk and no one listened to him.
Nevertheless Monsieur Truphème, who had never ceased meditating on the Ocean Christ, was struck by what the poor imbecile had just said. With the beadle and two sidesmen he went to the spot, where the child said he had seen a cross, and there he found two planks studded with nails, which had long been washed by the sea and which did indeed form a cross.
They were the remains of some old shipwreck. On one of these boards could still be read two letters painted in black, a J and an L; and there was no doubt that this was a fragment of Jean Lenoël’s barque, he who with his son Désiré had been lost at sea five years before.
At the sight of this, the beadle and the sidesmen began to laugh at the innocent who had taken the broken planks of a boat for the cross of Jesus Christ. But Monsieur le Curé Truphème checked their merriment. He had meditated much and prayed long since the Ocean Christ had arrived among the fisherfolk, and the mystery of infinite charity began to dawn upon him. He knelt down upon the sand, repeated the prayer for the faithful departed, and then told the beadle and the sidesmen to carry the flotsam on their shoulders and to place it in the church. When this had been done he raised the Christ from the altar, placed it on the planks of the boat and himself nailed it to them, with the nails that the ocean had corroded.
By the priest’s command, the very next day this cross took the place of the cross of gold and precious stones over the churchwarden’s pew. The Ocean Christ has never left it. He has chosen to remain nailed to the planks on which men died invoking His name and that of His Mother. There, with parted lips, august and afflicted He seems to say:
“My cross is made of all men’s woes, for I am in truth the God of the poor and the heavy-laden.”
JEAN MARTEAU
I
A DREAM
THE talk fell on sleep and dreams.
Jean Marteau said that one dream had left an indelible impression on his mind.
“Was it a prophetic dream?” inquired Monsieur Goubin.
“In itself,” replied Jean Marteau, “the dream was not remarkable, not even for its incoherence. But its images presented themselves with a painful vividness which is quite unique. Nothing I ever experienced, nothing, was ever so real to me, so actual as the visions of this dream. In that lies its interest. It enabled me to understand the illusions of a mystic. Had I been less rational I should certainly have taken it to be a
n apocalypse and a revelation, and I should have derived therefrom principles of conduct and a rule of life. I ought to tell you that I dreamed this dream under peculiar circumstances. It was in the spring of 1895; I was twenty. Having recently arrived in Paris I was in difficulties. That night I had lain down in a copse of the Versailles wood. I had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours. I suffered no pain. I was in a state of calm and ease, disturbed occasionally by a feeling of anxiety. It seemed to me as if I was neither asleep nor awake. A little girl, quite a little girl in a blue-hooded cape, and a white apron, was walking with crutches over a plain. With every step she took her crutches grew and raised her like stilts. They soon became higher than the poplars on the river’s bank. A woman who saw my surprise said to me: “Don’t you know that in the spring crutches grow? But there are times when the size increases with alarming rapidity.”
A man whose face I could not see, added: “It is the climacteric hour.”
Then with a soft and mysterious sound which alarmed me, all around me the grass began to grow. I arose and reached a plain covered with wan plants, cottony and dead. There I met Vernaux, who was my only friend in Paris, where he lived as penuriously as I. Long we walked side by side in silence. In the sky the stars, huge and rayless, were like discs of pale gold.
I knew the cause of this appearance and I explained it to Vernaux: “It is an optical phenomenon,” I said, “our eyes are out of focus.”
And with infinite care and minuteness I engaged in a demonstration which chiefly turned upon the exact correspondence between the human eye and the astronomical telescope. While I was reasoning thus, Vernaux found on the ground some leaden-coloured grass, an enormous black hat, boat shaped, with a brim, a band of gold braid and a diamond buckle. Putting it on his head, he said: “It is the lord mayor’s hat.” “Obviously,” I replied, and I resumed my demonstration. So arduous was it that the perspiration dropped from my forehead. I was always losing the thread and beginning again vaguely with the phrase: “The great saurians who swam in the tepid waters of the primitive ocean had eyes constructed like a telescope. …”
I continued until I perceived that Vernaux had disappeared. It was not long before I found him again in a hollow. He was on a spit, roasting over a brushwood fire. Indians with their hair tied on the tops of their heads were basting him with a long-handled spoon and were turning the spit. In a clear voice Vernaux said to me: “Mélanie has been here.”
Then only did I perceive that he had the head and neck of a chicken. But all I could think of was how to find Mélanie, who, by a sudden inspiration I knew to be the most beautiful of women. I ran, and, having reached the edge of a wood, by the moonlight I saw a white form fleeting before me. Hair of a glorious red fell over her neck. A silver light caressed her shoulders, a blue shadow filled the hollow in the middle of her gleaming back; and, as she ran, her dimples in their rise and fall seemed to smile with a divine smile. I distinctly saw the azure shadow on her leg augment or diminish according to the motion of the limb. I noticed also the pink soles of her feet. Long did I pursue her without fatigue and with a step light as the flight of a bird. But a dark shadow veiled her, and her perpetual flight led me into a path so narrow that it was blocked completely by a little iron stove. It was one of those stoves with long bent pipes which are used in studios. It was at a white heat. The door was incandescent and all around the metal was red hot. A cat with its hair all shorn was sitting on it and looking at me. As I drew near I perceived through the cracks in its scorched skin an ardent mass of liquid metal which filled its body. It was miauling, and I understood that it was asking for water. In order to find some, I descended the slope on which was a cool wood of birch and ash trees. A stream ran through it at the bottom of a ravine. But I could not approach it on account of the blocks of sandstone and tufts of dwarf oaks by which it was overhung. As I slipped on a mossy stone my left arm came away from my shoulder without causing a wound or any pain. I took it in my right hand; it was cold and numb; its touch made me shudder. I reflected that now I was in danger of losing it and how wearisome a drudgery it would be for the rest of my life to have to watch ceaselessly over it. I resolved to order an ebony box wherein I might keep it when it was not in use. As it was very cold in this damp hollow I quitted it by a rustic path which led me on to a wind-swept plateau, where all the trees were bent as if in sorrow. There along a yellow road a procession was passing. It was countrified and humble, just like the Rogation procession in the village of Brécé, which our Master, Monsieur Bergeret, knows so well. There was nothing singular about the clergy, the confraternities, or the faithful except that no one had any feet and that they all moved upon little wheels. Under the canopy I recognized Monsieur l’Abbé Lantaigne, who had become village priest and was weeping tears of blood. I wanted to call out to him: “I am ministre plenipotentiaire.” But my voice choked in my throat, and a great shadow coming down upon me caused me to raise my head. It was one of the little lame girl’s crutches. They had now ascended into the sky some thousand metres, and I perceived the child like a little black spot against the moon. The stars had grown still larger and paler, and among them I distinguished three planets, the spherical form of which was quite visible to the eye. I even thought I could recognize spots on their surface. But these spots did not correspond to the drawings of those on Mars, Jupiter and Saturn which I had once seen in astronomical books.
My friend Vernaux having come up, I asked him whether he could not see the canals on the planet Mars. “The Ministry is defeated,” he said.
He bore no sign of the spit I had seen transfixing him, but he still had a chicken’s head and neck, and he was dripping with gravy. I felt an uncontrollable desire to demonstrate my optical theory to him and to resume my argument where I had left it. “The great saurians,” I said, “which swam in the tepid waters of the primitive ocean had eyes constructed like a telescope....”
Instead of listening to me, he went up to a reading-desk, which was there in the field, opened an antiphonary and began to crow like a cock.
Out of all patience, I turned my back on him and jumped into a tram that was passing. Inside I found a vast dining-hall, like those in great hotels or on board Atlantic liners. It was all flowers and glass. As far as one could see there were seated at table women in low frocks and men in evening dress in front of candelabra and crystal chandeliers forming an infinite vista of light. A steward came round with meat to which I helped myself. But it emitted a disgusting odour and it made me feel sick before I tasted it. Besides I was not hungry. The diners left the table before I had swallowed a mouthful. While the servants were taking away the candles, Vernaux came up to me and said: “You did not notice the lady in the low-necked dress who was sitting next you. It was Mélanie. Look.”
And through the door he pointed to shoulders flooded with a white light, out in the darkness under the trees. I leapt out, I rushed in pursuit of the charming form. This time I caught it up, I touched it. For one moment I felt a delicious throbbing beneath my fingers. But she slipped from my arms and I was embracing briars.
That was my dream.
“Truly your dream was sad,” said Monsieur Bergeret, to quote the simple Stratonice:
“‘A vision of oneself may arouse no little disgust.’”
II
THE LAW IS DEAD BUT THE JUDGE IS LIVING
A FEW days later, said Jean Marteau, I happened to be lying in a thicket of the Bois de Vincennes. I had eaten nothing for thirty-six hours.
Monsieur Goubin wiped his eyeglasses. His eyes were kind but his glance was keen. He looked hard at Jean Marteau and said to him reproachfully:
“What? Again you had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours?”
“Again,” replied Jean Marteau, “I had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours. But I was wrong. One ought not to go without food. It is not right. Hunger should be a crime like vagrancy. But as a matter of fact the two offences are regarded as one and the same; article 269 inflicts from three to six months�
�� imprisonment on those who lack means of subsistence. Vagrancy, according to the code, is the condition of vagrants, of vagabonds, persons without any fixed dwelling or means of subsistence, who exercise no specific trade or profession. They are great criminals.”
“It is curious,” said Monsieur Bergeret, “that the state of vagrancy, punishable by six months’ imprisonment and ten years’ police supervision, is precisely the same as that in which the good St. Francis placed his companions at St. Mary of the Angels and the daughters of St. Clare. If St. Francis of Assisi and St. Anthony of Padua came to preach in Paris to-day they would run great risk of being clapped into the prison van and carried off to the police court. Not that I mean to denounce to the authorities the mendicant monks who now swarm among us. They possess means of livelihood; they exercise all manner of trades.”
“They are respectable because they are rich,” said Jean Marteau. “It is only the poor who are forbidden to beg. Had I been discovered beneath my tree I should have been thrown into prison and that would have been justice. Possessing nothing, I was assumed to be the enemy of property; and it is just to defend property against its enemies. The august task of the judge is to assure to every man that which belongs to him, to the rich his wealth, to the poor his poverty.”
“I have reflected on the philosophy of law,” said Monsieur Bergeret, “and I have perceived that the whole structure of social justice rests upon two axioms: robbery is to be condemned: the result of robbery is to be respected. These are the principles which assure the security of individuals and maintain order in the State. If one of these tutelary principles were to be disregarded the whole of society would fall to pieces. They were established in the beginning of time. A chief clothed in bearskin, armed with an axe of flint and with a sword of bronze, returned with his comrades to the stone entrenchments, wherein were enclosed the children of the tribe and the troops of women and of reindeer. They brought back with them youths and maidens from the neighbouring tribe and stones fallen from the sky, which were precious because out of them could be made swords which would not bend. The chief ascended a hillock in the middle of the enclosure and said: ‘These slaves and this iron, which I have taken from men weak and contemptible are mine. Whosoever shall lay hands upon them shall be struck down by my axe.’ Such is the origin of law. Its spirit is ancient and barbarous. And it is because justice is the ratification of all injustice that it reassures every one.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 364