Romance of the Rabbit

Francis Jammes

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Edited by Gladys Edgerton, Translated by Gladys Edgerton

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Title: Romance of the Rabbit

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ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT

By

FRANCIS JAMMES

Authorized Translation from the French by Gladys Edgerton

1920

INTRODUCTION

The simple and bucolic art of Francis Jammes has grown to maturity in

the solitude of the little town of Orthez at the foot of the Pyrenees,

far from the clamor and complexities of literary Paris. In the preface

"My God, You have called me among men. Behold I am here. I suffer and

I love. I have spoken with the voice which you have given me. I have

written with the words which You have taught my mother and my father

among the poets of contemporary France, and won for him the admiration

of all classes. There is probably no other French poet who can evoke

so perfectly the spirit of the landscape of rural France. He delights

to commune with the wild flowers, the crystal spring, and the friendly

fire. Through his eyes we see the country of the singing harvest where

the poplars sway beside the ditches and the fall of the looms of the

weavers fills the silence. The poet apprehends in things a soul which

others cannot perceive.

His gift of sympathy with the poor and the simple is infinite. He

is full of pity and tenderness and enfolds in his heart and in his

Those of a higher sophistication and a greater worldliness may smile

at the artlessness, and, if one will, naivete of a man like Jammes. It

is true that his art is limited, and that if one reads too much at one

time there is a note of monotony and a certain paucity of phrase, but

who is the writer of whom this is not equally true? The quality of

beauty, sincerity, and a large serenity are in his work, and how

grateful are these permanencies amid the shrilling noises of the

countless conflicting creeds and dogmas, and amid the poses and

vanities which so fill the world of contemporary literature and art!

As far as the record goes the outward life of Francis Jammes has been

the cottages and fields, the horizon and the snows.

Jammes was born at Tournay in the department of Hautes Pyrenees on

December 2, 1863, and spent most of his life in this region. He was

educated at Pau and Bordeaux, and later spent a short time in a law

office. Early in the nineties he wrote his first volumes, slender

_plaquettes_ with the brief title "Vers." It is interesting that

one of these was dedicated to that strange English genius, Hubert

Crackanthorpe, the author of "Wreckage" and "Sentimental Studies."

This dedication, and the curious orthography (the book was set up in a

provincial printery) led a reviewer in the _Mercure de France_ into an

Since then his life has been wholly devoted to literature and he has

published a considerable number of volumes of poetry and prose which

one of the most delightful of Francis Jammes' earlier books. In it he

tells of Rabbit's joys and fears, of his life on this earth, of the

pilgrimage to paradise with St. Francis and his animal companions,

and of his death. This book was published in 1903, and has run through

many editions in France. A number of characteristic short tales and

impressions of Jammes' same creative period have been added.

To turn a work so delicate and full of elusiveness as Jammes' from one

love. The translator hopes that she has accomplished this without too

great a loss to the spirit of the original.

BOOK I

Amid the thyme and dew of Jean de la Fontaine Rabbit heard the hunt

and clambered up the path of soft clay. He was afraid of his shadow,

and the heather fled behind his swift course. Blue steeples rose from

valley to valley as he descended and mounted again. His bounds curved

That day he had almost run into the twelfth milestone between Castetis

and Balansun, because his eyes in which fear dwells are set on the

side of his head. Abruptly he stopped. His cleft upper lip trembled

imperceptibly, and disclosed his long incisor teeth. Then his

stubble-colored legs which were his traveling boots with their worn

and broken claws extended. And he bounded over the hedge, rolled up

like a ball, with his ears flat on his back.

And again he climbed uphill for a considerable time, while the dogs,

having lost his scent, were filled with disappointment, and then, he

again ran downhill until he reached the road to Sauvejunte, where he

pale dryness, how magnificent it was, and how filled it was with the

bitter fragrance of mint! It was not long before the horse stood in

front of Rabbit.

this great animated machine which moved with so loud a noise. He

bounded away and continued his flight over the meadows, with his

nose toward the Pyrenees, his tail toward the lowlands, his right eye

toward the rising sun, his left toward the village of Mesplede.

Finally he crouched down in the stubble, quite near a quail which

was sleeping in the manner of chickens half-buried in the dust, and

overcome by the heat was sweating off its fat through its feathers.

The morning was sparkling in the south. The blue sky grew pale under

the heat, and became pearl-gray. A hawk in seemingly effortless flight

and Rabbit's noonday rest began.

* * * * *

He stayed in this stubble until evening, motionless, only troubled

somewhat by a cloud of mosquitoes quivering like a road in the sun.

Then at dusk he made two bounds forward softly and two more to the

left and to the right.

It was the beginning of the night. He went forward toward the river

where on the spindles of the reeds hung in the moonlight a weave of

Were all human beings dead? There was one watching at some distance;

he was making movements above the water, and noiselessly withdrawing

his dripping and shimmering net. But only the heart of the waters was

troubled, Rabbit's remained calm.

And, lo, between the angelicas something that looked like a ball bit

by bit came into view. It was his best-beloved approaching. Rabbit ran

toward her until they met deep in the blue aftercrop of grass. Their

little noses touched. And for a moment in the midst of the wild

sorrel, they exchanged kisses. They played. Then slowly, side by

side, guided by hunger, they set out for a small farm lying low in the

sty.

Thus the night passed in eating and amatory sport. Little by little

from the mist, and in a field dogs with their tails as stiff as cables

were busy trying to disentangle the loops so skillfully described by

the charming couple amid the mint and blades of grass.

* * * * *

Rabbit took refuge in a marl-pit over which mulberries arched, and

there he stayed crouching with his eyes wide-open until evening. Here

had adorned them with pale-blue pearls. There he finally fell asleep.

But his dream was unquiet, not like that which should come from the

unexpectedly. Was it an enemy approaching? He knew that happiness can

be found in a place of refuge only when everything remains exactly the

same this moment, as it was the moment before. Hence came his love of

order, that is to say his immobility.

Why should a leaf stir on the eglantine in the blue calm of an idle

day? When the shadows of a copse move so slowly, that it seems they

are trying to stop the passage of the hours, why should they suddenly

stir? Why was there this crowd of men who, not far from his retreat,

were gathering the ears of maize in which the sun threaded pale

beads of light? His eyelids had no lashes, and so could not bear

His life was a work of music to him, and each discordant note warned

him to be cautious. He did not confuse the voice of the pack of hounds

with the distant sound of bells, or the gesture of a man with that of

a waving tree, or the detonation of a gun with a clap of thunder, or

the latter with the rumbling of carts, or the cry of the hawk with

the steam-whistle of threshing-machines. Thus there was an entire

language, whose words he knew to be his enemies.

Who can say from what source Rabbit obtained this prudence and this

wisdom? No one can explain these things, or tell whence or how they

have come to him. Their origin is lost in the night of time where

when the dove, which retains the sound of great waters in its cooing,

brought the olive-branch, the sign that the great wave was subsiding?

Or had he been created, such as he is, with his short tail, his

her golden breasts before the mystic pomegranates. Or was he at first

nothing but an incandescent mist? Had he already lived in the heart

of the porphyries? Had he, incombustible, escaped from their boiling

lava, in order to inhabit each in turn the cell of granite and of

the alga before he dared show his nose to the world? Did he owe his

pitch-black eyes to the molten jet, his fur to the clayey ooze, his

soft ears to the sea-wrack, his ardent blood to the liquid fire?

peacefully in his marl-pit. It was in a sultry August toward the end

of a heavy afternoon. The sky was of the deep-blue color of a plum,

single drop only fell to the bottom of the marl-pit, and splashed and

always fell again at the same place.

So there was nothing in this concert to trouble the heart of Rabbit.

He was quite familiar with the song in which the tears of the rain

form the strophes, and he knew that neither dog, nor man, nor fox, nor

hawk had any part in it. The sky was like a harp on which the silver

strings of the streaming rain were strung from above down to the

earth. And down here below every single thing made this harp resound

in its own peculiar fashion, and in turn it again took up its own

melody. Under the green fingers of the leaves the crystal strings

panting of burning lips which yielded to the fullness of the storm.

The night which followed the storm was serene. The downfall of rain

had almost evaporated. On the green meadow where Rabbit was in the

habit of meeting his beloved, nothing was left of the storm, except

ball-like masses of mist. It looked as though they were paradisiacal

cotton-plants whose downy whiteness was bursting beneath the flood of

moonlight. Along the steep banks of the river the thickets, heavy with

rain, stood in rows like pilgrims bowed down under the weight of their

wallets and leather-bottles. Peace reigned. It was as though an

angel had rested his forehead in a hand. Dawn shivering with cold was

And suddenly Rabbit crouching in the midst of his meadow saw a man

approaching, and he wasn't in the least afraid of him. For the first

time since the beginning of things, since man had set traps and

girdle. He kept his bony face turned toward the moon, and the moon was

less pale than it. One could clearly distinguish his eagle's nose and

his deep eyes, which were like those of asses, and his black beard on

which tufts of lamb's wool had been left by the thickets.

Two doves accompanied him. They flitted from branch to branch in the

sweetness of the night. The tender beat of their wings was like the

fallen petals of a flower, and as if these were striving to re-unite

Three poor dogs that wore spiked collars and wagged their tails

And the man approached Rabbit and said to him:

"I am Francis. I love thee and I greet thee, Oh thou, my brother. I

greet thee in the name of the sky which mirrors the waters and the

sparkling stones, in the name of the wild sorrel, the bark of the

trees and the seeds which are thy sustenance. Come with these sinless

ones who accompany me and cling to my foot-steps with the faith of the

ivy which clasps the tree without considering that soon, perhaps, the

woodcutter will come. Oh Rabbit, I bring to thee the Faith which we

share one in another, the Faith which is life itself, all that of

Rabbit alone, his eyes wide-open, now seemed uneasy because of the

sound of this voice. He stood with one ear forward and the other back

as if uncertain whether to take flight or whether to stay.

When Francis saw this he gathered a handful of grass from the meadow,

and held it out to Rabbit, and now he followed him.

* * * * *

From that night they remained together.

dancing to the drone of a bagpipe at the evening hour when the young

elms were softly shading into the night and the girls were gaily

raising their glasses to the evening wind at the dark tables before

food for his creatures, for each one that which it liked best.

And besides they easily found enough to live on, for the autumn

through which they were wending was generous and the granaries were

bulging. They were allowed to glean in the fields of maize and to have

a share in the vintage and the songs which rose in the setting sun.

Fair-haired girls held the grapes against their luminous breasts.

Their raised elbows gleamed. Above the blue shadows of the chestnut

growing thicker. The sighing of dresses could be heard in the depth of

the avenues.

Even when the hunting-horn sounded Rabbit remained quite without fear

among his companions. They watched over him and he watched over them.

One day a pack of hounds drew near to him, but fled again when they

saw the wolf. Another time a cat crept close to the doves, but took

flight before the three dogs with their spiked collars, and a ferret

who lay in wait for the lamb had to seek a hiding-place from the birds

of prey. Rabbit, himself, frightened away the swallows who attacked

the owl.

* * * * *

to give her shelter, she ran about in the fields where she met

Francis.

Rabbit always walked by her side, and when she slept her muzzle lay

upon him and he too fell asleep. All of them always had their noonday

sleep, and under the dull fire of the sun it was filled with dreams.

Then Francis saw again the Paradise from which he had come. It seemed

to him as if he were passing through the great open gate into the

wonderful street on which stood the houses of the Elect. They were low

huts, each like the other, in a luminous shadow which caused tears

At a distance a hill stretched out; it was all covered with springtime

and shade. Its sides were of incomparable softness. It was fragrant

nightingale. Over the whole expanse of the silent hill nothing was

heard but the song of the nightingale. Night was merely the sobbing of

the nightingale.

Then in the groves dawn appeared, all rose-red because it was naked

amid the choirs of birds who still sang from a full throat for their

wings were heavy with love and morning dew. The quails in the grain

were not yet calling. The tom-tits with their black heads made a noise

A wood-pecker rent the azure with its cry, and then flew toward the

old, white-flowered apple-trees. It had almost the appearance of a

on the sun; now and then they beat their steely wings against their

mottled, keel-like breasts.

The owl sought out the shadows of the hill, so that hidden in some

solitary cavern and happy in its darkness and wisdom, it might listen

to the plaint of the nightingale.

But the most wonderful shelter of all was that chosen by the doves.

They sat among the olive-trees, that were stirred by the evening

breeze. In this garden young girls dwelled, who were permitted to

enter here because of their animal-like grace. They included all the

of dreams, and all the dreaming doves: the dove that drew Beatrice

heavenward and to which Dante gave a grain of corn; and the one which

the disenchanted Quitteria heard in the night. Here was the dove which

sobbed on Virginia's shoulder, when during the night she sought

in vain to calm the fires of her love in the spring underneath a

cocoanut-palm. And here too was the dove to which the heavy-hearted

maiden at the waning of summer, in the orchard among the ripening

peaches, confides passionate messages that it may bear them along in

its flight into the unknown.

And there were the doves of old parsonages shrouded in roses, and

brow of the sick, and the blinded dove whose voice is so filled

with pain that it lures the flight of its passing sisters toward

the huntsman's ambush, and the dove, the gentlest of all, who brings

beneath their sun-bathed crystal the grass was of a marvelous green.

And nearby was a lake, iridescent like mother-of-pearl and the

feathers of a peacock; it was azure and glistened like mica, and

seemed to be the breast of humming-birds and the wing of butterflies.

Here after they had licked the pure white salt from the golden-grained

granite, the sheep dreamed their long dream, and their tufts of thick

wool overlapped like the leaves of great branches covered with snow.

whitened the eye-lashes of the lambs, and had entered into their eyes

of gold. And the atmosphere was so transparent that it seemed one

silvery lichens, stretched upward. Waterfalls as if suspended from

the rocky crags, scattered in a smoke-like spray. And suddenly the

heavenly flocks sent forth their bleating toward God, and the ecstatic

bells wept for the shadow of the ferns. And the dark water of the

grottoes broke in the light.

Lying amid the wild laurel the lamb of the Gospel became visible

again. Its paw rested under its nose, and was still bleeding. The

roads over which it had passed had been hard, but soon it would be

fully restored by the slightly acid sweetness of the myrtles. Even now

it was quivering as it listened to its scattered companions.

seemed to have thrown a shadow of bitterness, streamed on amid

the grass with its broken waves in which were mirrored the snowy

tremblings of the lamb.

And high on the slopes of the _happy valleys_ they saw the sheep of

those heroes that Cervantes tells about, all of whom were sick at

heart for the love of one and the same girl and left their city to

lead the life of shepherds in a far-away country. These sheep had

the gentlest of voices, like hearts that secretly love their own

sufferings. They drank from the wild thyme the always new, burning

tears which their bucolic poets had let fall like dew from the cups of

that of the Ocean. It consisted of the broken sobbing of flutes

or clarinets, of cries reechoed from the abysses, of the baying of

restless dogs, and of the fall of a moss-covered stone into the

* * * * *

The fourth Paradise in its almost indescribable barrenness was that of

the wolves.

At the summit of a treeless mountain, in the desolation of the wind,

beneath a penetrating fog, they felt the voluptuous joy of martyrdom.

joy in feeling that they were abandoned, that never for more than an

instant--and then only under the greatest suffering--had they been

And the wolves were resigned. Their fur, bald as the rock, was

pitiable. A sort of miserable grandeur reigned in this strange abode.

One felt that this destitution was so tragic and so inexorable that

one would have tenderly kissed the forehead of these poor flesh-eating

beasts even had one surprised them in slaying the lambs. The beauty

of this Paradise in which the friend of Francis now found his home was

that of desolation and hopeless despair.

And beyond this region the heaven of the beasts stretched on to

infinity.

As for Rabbit, he had prudently taken flight at sight of the heavenly

pack of hounds. While Francis had remained near him he had trusted in

Francis. But now, even though he was in the abode of the Blessed,

his distrust which was as natural to him as to the suspicious peasant

gained the upper hand again. And since he did not yet feel himself

entirely at home in this Paradise, tasting neither perfect security,

nor the thrill of familiar danger against which he could battle,

Long-Ear became bewildered.

Accordingly he strayed hither and thither, ill at ease, not knowing

where he was, nor finding his way. He sought in vain for that from

dreamed a sleep more undisturbed than on these beds of wool that the

breeze spread beneath the flower-covered bushes of the stars?

powerfully as it had beaten when on knolls in the flame-colored heath

a shot scattered the earth like rain about him. Under the smooth

caress of the lawn-like grass hair grew again on the callous parts

of his paws where it had been so sparse. And he began to deplore the

over-abundance of heaven. He was like the gardener who, having become

king, was forced to put on sandals of purple, and longed regretfully

for his wooden shoes heavy with clay and with poverty.

And Francis in his Paradise heard of Rabbit's troubles and of his

curb-stones of the wells.

Therefore Francis set out on his way to find God, and He received him

in His Garden at the close of day. This garden of God was the most

humble but also the most beautiful. No one knew whence came the

miracle of its beauty. Perhaps because there was nothing in it but

love. Over the walls which the ages had filled with chinks dark lilacs

spread. The stones were joyous to support the smiling mosses whose

golden mouths were drinking at the shadowy heart of the violets.

In a diffused light which was neither like that of the dawn nor

destiny! Not far from the hedges of boxwood the lips of the lettuce

radiated mute words while a low light clung about the shadow of the

sleeping watering-pots. Their task was over.

And full of trust and serenity, without pride or humility, a

sage-plant let its insignificant odor rise toward God.

* * * * *

Francis sat down beside God on a bench sheltered by an oak round which

an ivy twined. And God said unto Francis:

here. Go therefore to thy fleet-footed friend, and ask him what it is

that he desires. And as soon as he has told thee, I shall grant him

his wish. If he did not understand how to die and to renounce the

And Francis set out toward the Paradise of beasts where none of the

children of man except young girls had ever set their foot. There he

met Rabbit who was disconsolately wandering about. But when Rabbit saw

his old master approaching he experienced such joy that he crouched

down with more fright in his eye than ever and with his nostrils

quivering almost imperceptibly.

heart, and I have come here to learn the reason for your sadness. Have

you eaten too many bitter kernels of grain? Why have you not found

Paradise where I have lost my way, because your presence is no longer

with me, Oh divine brother of the beast, my soul feels suffocated for

I do not find my God."

"Do you think, then," said Francis, "that God abandons rabbits, and

that they alone of the whole world have no title to Paradise?"

"No," Rabbit replied, "I have given no thought to such things. I would

have followed you because I came to know you as intimately as the

earthly hedge on which the lambs hung the warm flakes of snow with

which I used to line and keep warm my nest. Vainly I have sought

"Oh Francis, Oh my friend, Oh you in whom alone I have faith, give

back to me my earth. I feel that I am not at home here. Give back to

me my furrows full of mud, give back to me my clayey paths. Give back

to me my native valley where the horns of the hunters make the mists

stir. Give back to me the wagon-track on the roadway from which I

heard sound the packs of hounds with their hanging ears, like an

angelus. Give back to me my timidity. Give back to me my fright. Give

back to me the agitation that I felt when suddenly a shot swept the

fragrant mint beneath my bounds, or when amid the bushes of wild

quince my nose touched the cold copper of a snare. Give back to me the

dawn upon the waters from which the skillful fisherman withdraws his

dew-laden petal of the eglantine which had fallen upon the grass. Give

back to me my weakness, oh thou, my dear heart. And go, and say unto

God, that I can no longer live with Him."

color of stubble.

And Francis said:

"If you die you will become your Paradise."

* * * * *

the Paradise of men began. Rabbit turned his head, and read at the top

of a sign-post on a plate of blue cast-iron where an arrow indicated

"Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anything coming?" This pale

dryness, how magnificent it was, and how filled it was with the bitter

fragrance of mint.

And Rabbit saw a horse and a covered cart approaching.

It was a sorry nag and dragged a two-wheeled cart and was unable to

move except in a jerky sort of gallop. Every leap made its disjointed

skeleton quiver and jolted its harness and made its earth-colored

mane fly in the air, shiny and greenish, like the beard of an ancient

mariner. Wearily as though they were paving-stones the animal lifted

This doubt was a leaden grain of shot which had just passed through

the nape of his neck behind his long ears into his brain. A veil of

blood more beautiful than the glowing autumn floated before his eyes

in which the shadows of eternity rose. He cried out. The fingers of

a huntsman pinioned his throat, strangled him, suffocated him. His

heart-beat grew weaker and weaker; this heart which used to flutter

like the pale wild rose in the wind dissolving at the morning hour

when the hedge softly caresses the lambs. An instant he remained

motionless, hollow-flanked and drawn-out like Death itself in the

grasp of his murderer. Then poor old Rabbit leaped up. He clawed in

Suddenly his hair stood erect, and he became like unto the stubble of

summer where he formerly dwelled beside his sister, the quail, and the

poppy, his brother; and like unto the clayey earth which had wetted

awaited him at the heart of the wild sorrel. The tears which he shed

were like unto the fountain of the seraphs at which sat the old fisher

of eels repairing his lines. He was like unto life, like unto death,

like unto himself, like unto his Paradise.

END OF THE ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT

The poet looked at his friends, his relatives, the priest, the doctor,

and the little dog, who were in the room. Then he died. Some one wrote

his name and age on a piece of paper. He was twenty-eight years.

As they kissed his forehead his friends and relatives found that he

was cold, but he could not feel their lips because he was in heaven.

And he did not ask as he had done when he was on earth, whether heaven

was like this or like that. Since he was there, he had no need of

anything else.

"Put out the wine to cool, we are about to dine with the _Bon Dieu_

under the green arbor of the Garden of Paradise."

His father said to him:

"Go down and cull of the fruits. There is none that is poisonous. The

trees will offer them to you of their own accord, without sufferance

either to their leaves or their branches, for they are inexhaustible."

The poet was filled with joy in being able to obey his parents. When

he patted it. Beside it were all the animals he had loved best while

on earth: a little red cat, two little gray cats, two little white

cats, a bullfinch, and two goldfish.

own birthplace here on earth, in the high reaches of the Pyrenees, all

filled with lilies and pomegranates and cabbages.

The _Bon Dieu_ had laid his hat and stick on the ground. He was garbed

like the poor on the great highways, those who have only a morsel of

bread in their wallet, and whom the magistrates arrest at the town

gates, and throw into prison, since they know not how to write their

name. His beard and hair were white like the great light of day, and

was very soft:

and lame Pierre was there and Jeanne and still another Jeanne.

Then the poet rose to do them honor, and said unto them:

"Sit down in my place, it is meet that you should be near God."

And God smiled because he knew in advance what their answer would be.

"Our happiness is service. This puts us close to God. Do you not serve

your father and mother? Do they not serve Him who serves us?"

way again like the poor on the great highways, those who have only a

morsel of bread in their wallet, and whom the magistrates arrest at

the town gates, and throw into prison, since they know not how to

write their name.

CHARITY CHILDREN

which ignoble science had hung the placards of their maladies.

They were sad, very sad, for it was a day of festival. Their tiny arms

"We are the daughters of misery, of scrofula, and of syphilis. We are

the daughters of daughters of shame."

"I," said one, "was dragged out of a cesspool where in her distraction

my mother, the servant of an inn, had thrown me." Another said: "I

was born of a child with an enormous head that had a red gap in the

forehead. My father killed my mother, and he killed himself."

Still others said:

rose from the medicaments which the good sisters had prepared, as

though from censers by the side of the child martyrs, who sat up in

their narrow cots like white, weary flowers.

The sovereign Master said to them:

"Here I am. I heard your call, and am waiting to condemn those that

caused you to be born. What torment do you implore for them?"

Then the souls of the children sang like the bindweed of the hedges.

THE PIPE

Once upon a time there was a young man who had a new pipe. He was

smoking peacefully in the shade of an arbor hung with blue grapes. His

wife was young and pretty; she had rolled up her sleeves as far as her

elbows and was drawing water from the well. The wooden bucket bounded

against the edge, and shed tears like a rainbow. The young man was

happy smoking his pipe, because he saw the birds flying hither and

heart his young wife, and was proud of her lithesomeness and her firm

and smooth breasts that were like two ripe apples.

The devoted son wept for these, his best and oldest friends, and, at

night, he sobbed in the arms of his pretty wife.

The young man, as I have said, was smoking a new pipe.

But I have forgotten to say that he had an old spaniel of whom he was

very fond and whose name was Thomas.

and the good father's deaths. When he was called he could barely drag

himself along by the paws of his fore-legs.

apples.

The young man said nothing. He placed a poor old collar around the

neck of Thomas, and with a line which his mother had once used to

hang clothes upon, he dragged him along to a huge town, where the two

dwelled together in sorrow and want.

The young man had now become an old man, but he was still smoking his

new pipe which too had become old.

One evening Thomas died. People came from the police department, and

old hat, and in this he wrapped his pipe.

Then he threw a cape, greenish with age, about his feverish shoulders,

and dragged himself painfully to a little square near by, taking care

that no policeman should see him. He knelt down, and dug in the earth

with his finger nails, and devoutly buried his old pipe underneath a

tuft of flowers. Then he returned to his dwelling-place and died.

overgrown with brambles, nettles, and soapwort.

And the angel said to the poet:

poplar.

"At last the waters will bring you the great luminous Night."

INTELLIGENCE

One day the books which contained the wisdom of men disappeared by

"We are the custodians of human genius. We will recall the noblest

inventions of the wisest of men and the greatest of poets and have

them graven in immortal marble. They will represent only the supreme

summits of achievement since the beginning of the world. Pascal shall

be entitled to but one thought, Newton to but one star, Darwin to

but one insect, Galileo to but one grain of dust, Tolstoi to but one

charity, Heinrich Heine to but one verse, Shakespeare to but one cry,

Wagner to but one note...."

Then as the scholars summoned their thoughts to recall the

THE TWO GREAT ACTRESSES

I wish I could find new words to depict the gentleness of a little

prostitute whom we met one evening in the center of a large, almost

deserted square. The little prostitute was wearing wretched boots that

were too large and soaked up the water. She had a parasol covered like

an umbrella, and a little straw hat, the lining of which surely bore

the words: _Derniere mode_.

She had a weak little voice, and she was intelligent. She was

I encountered her many times, after ten o'clock, when she was weary

with seeking, often in vain, for any first-comer who would go with

her.

that she looked at her trade as an important task, however ungrateful

it was. For a long time she waited thus for the train to the suburb

where she lived.

One evening she asked if she might go with me to the end of the

street.

We came to a great lighted square where there was a large theater. On

represented Sarah Bernhardt in the costume of Tosca, I believe. She

wore a stiff rich robe and held a palm in her hand. And I called to

And I had a desire to cry out with grief at this meeting face to face

of the two. And I said to myself:

"They are both born of woman. One holds a palm, and the other an old

umbrella so shabby that she does not dare to open it before me.

"The one trails an admiring throng at her feet, and the other tatters

of leather. The one sells her sorrow for the weight of gold and not

a sob comes from her mouth that does not have the clinking sound of

gold. Not a single sob of the other is heard."

"But the other, she is an actress of God. She plays a part so great

and so sorrowful that she has not found one man who understands her

and who is rich enough to pay her.

"And the great actress has never attained, even in her most beautiful

roles, the true genius of sorrow which makes the little prostitute

rest her forehead upon me."

She was a dainty and delicate little creature who worked in a shop.

She was, perhaps, not very intelligent, but she had soft, black eyes.

a bowl.

And like her gentle mistress the little cat had sad, kind eyes. She

warmed herself on the window-sill in the sun beside a pot of basil.

Sometimes she licked her little paw, and used it as a brush on the

short fur of her head. Sometimes she played with a mouse.

One day the cat and the mistress both found themselves pregnant,

beautiful tom-cat who also went his way.

One day the little working-girl received a letter from the handsome

fellow who had deserted her. He sent her twenty-five francs, and spoke

of his generosity to her. She bought charcoal, a burner, and a sou's

worth of matches. Then she killed herself.

When she had entered heaven, which a young priest had at first tried

to prevent, the dainty and delicate creature trembled because that she

was pregnant and that the _Bon Dieu_ would condemn her.

But the _Bon Dieu_ said to her:

in the great Hospital of Divine Mercy, she saw that God had arranged a

surprise for her. There in a box lay the cat she loved, and there was

also a pot of basil on the window-sill. She lay down.

She had a pretty, little, golden-haired daughter, and the cat had four

sweet, delightfully black kittens.

THE LITTLE NEGRESS

charts, and in my feverish brain I hear the roaring of monsoons.

What then? Must I, in order to have an interest in this present life,

exhume that which, perhaps, I led before my birth, between two black

thin clasped hands toward me. And I saw that her bare arms were

covered with the blows of a lash.

"Who did this to you, Assumption?" I asked.

She did not answer, but all her limbs trembled, for she did not

understand, and wondered, perhaps, whether I too was about to inflict

some brutality upon her.

Gently I removed her garment, and saw that her back also was wounded.

I washed it. But she, frightened by such kindness, fled for refuge

forward, then the other, and then a knee. I thought she was directing

her attention toward the food in order to eat. But to my astonishment,

I saw her crawl on hands and knees toward a corner of the room, where

I had left a few flowers lying. She rose up quickly, and with a sudden

movement seized them.

* * * * *

It was perhaps a hundred and fifty years after this adventure

occurred, that I met Assumption again. At least I was convinced that

it was she. It was in Bordeaux at the _Restaurant du Perou_. She

THE PARADISE OF BEASTS

Once on a rainy midnight a poor old horse, harnessed to a cab, was

drowsing in front of a dingy restaurant from whence came the laughter

of women and young people.

And the poor spiritless animal with drooping head and shaking limbs

made a sorry spectacle, as he stood there waiting the pleasure of the

roisterers, that would at last permit him to go home to his reeking

stable.

understood that there was no difference between the monotonous

unchanging screech of a turning wheel and the shrill voice of a

prostitute.

He reached the gate of heaven. A great scholar, who was waiting for

St. Peter to come and open the gate, said to the horse:

"What are you doing here? You have no right to enter heaven. I have

the right because I was born of a woman."

And the poor horse answered:

sucked out by leeches. I have come to ask the _Bon Dieu_ if she is

here."

heavenly meadow the horse was filled with joy in finding again his old

companions in misery and in seeing them happy forever.

There were some who had drawn stones along the slippery pavements of

cities, and they had been beaten with whips, and had finally fallen

under the weight of the wagons. There were some who with bandaged

eyes had turned the merry-go-rounds ten hours a day. There were mares

killed in bullfights before the eyes of young girls, who, rosy with

joy, watched the intestines of these unhappy beasts sweep the hot sand

of the arena. There were many more, and then still more.

who smiled upon them. They played with the end of a string patting

it lightly with an important air, out of which they made a sort of

mystery.

The good mother-dogs spent their time nursing their little ones. The

fish swam about without fear of the fisherman. The birds flew without

dread of the hunter. And everything was like this.

There were no men in this Paradise.

There is in the look of beasts a profound light and gentle sorrow,

that it is undignified for a man, I would kneel before such patience

and such torments, for I seem to see a halo around the heads of these

mournful creatures, a real halo, as large as the universe, placed

there by God Himself.

Yesterday I was at a fair, and watched the merry-go-round. There was

an ass among the wooden animals. The sight of it almost made me weep,

because I was reminded of those living martyrs, its brothers.

I wanted to pray, and to say to it: "Little ass, you are my brother.

They say that you are stupid, because you are incapable of doing evil.

* * * * *

At the same fair I heard the shrilling of a bagpipe. F. asked me:

"Doesn't it remind you of African music?"--"Yes," I answered, "at

Touggart the bagpipes have the same nasal note. It must be an Arab

who is playing."--"Let us go into the booth," he said...Dromedaries

were on exhibition there.

A dozen little camels, crowded like sardines in a can, were stupidly

going round and round in a sort of trench. These creatures which I

of dancing women. They raised their poor verminous necks toward God,

and toward the miraculous leaves of some imaginary oasis.

Ah! what a prostitution of God's creatures. Farther along there were

rabbits in a cage. Then came goldfish, that were offered as prizes of

a lottery. They swam about in blown glass bowls, the necks of which

were so narrow that F. said to me: "How did they get in?"--"By

squeezing them a little," I answered. Still farther on were living

chickens, also lottery prizes, spun around in a whirligig. In the

center a Tittle milk-fed pig, mad with fear, was crouching flat on his

stomach.

chickens hanging beside their living sisters.

My heart swells at these memories. An infinite pity overcomes me.

OF THINGS*

*Some of the instances here are purely imaginary. I invented them so

that I might more deeply penetrate into the heart of these things.

black candle a man is driving nails into a shoe. Two children stretch

their hands toward the hearth. A blackbird sleeps in its wicker cage.

into their humility.

The God of the poor watches over them, the simple God in whom I

believe. It is He who makes an ear of grain grow from a seed; it is

He who separates water from earth, earth from air, air from fire, fire

from night; it is He who blows the breath of life into the body; it

is He who fashions the leaves one by one. We do not know how this is

done, but we have faith in it as in the work of a perfect workman.

I contemplate without desiring to understand, and thus God reveals

Himself to me. In the house of this cobbler my eyes open as simply

like us, sorrowful or happy. When I notice a diseased ear of wheat

among healthy ears, and see the livid stain on its grains I have a

quick intuitive understanding of the suffering of this particular

thing. Within myself I feel the pain of those plant-cells; I realize

their agony in growing in this infected spot without crushing one

another. I am filled with a desire to tear up my handkerchief, and

bandage this ear of wheat. But I feel that there is no remedy for a

single ear of wheat, and that humanly it would be an act of folly

to attempt this cure. Such things are not done, yet no one pays

any special attention if I take care of a bird or a grasshopper.

Nevertheless I am certain that these grains suffer, because I feel

feels that it is perfectly happy swaying on its stem, for does not

everybody say simply, "It is a pity to cut it," and thus affirm and

preserve the happiness of this flower?

A few days later I went to the child's home. His mother was crying

in the kitchen. On the mantelpiece stood a poor little toy. I recall

perfectly that it was a small tin or leaden horse, attached to a

little tin barrel on wheels.

His mother said to me: "That is my poor little Louis's wagon. He is

dead. Would you like to have it?"

Then a flood of tenderness filled my heart. I felt that this _thing_

had lost its friend, its master, and that it was suffering. I accepted

when I came home, with my eyes full of tears, I confided the little

horse and barrel to my mother. She has forgotten the whole incident.

The belief that things are endowed with life exists among children,

animals, and simple people.

I have seen children attribute the characteristics of a living being

to a piece of rough wood or to a stone. They brought it handfuls of

grass, and were absolutely sure that the wood or stone had eaten it

when, as a matter of fact, I had carried it off without their noticing

it.

I think it is only an education, born of false vanity, that has robbed

man of such beliefs. I myself see no essential difference between the

thought of a child who gives food to a piece of wood and the meaning

of some of the libations in primitive religions. Do we not attribute

to trees an attachment to us stronger than life itself when we believe

that one planted on the birthday of a child that sickens and dies will

wither and dry up at the same time?

I have known things in pain. I have known some which are dead. The sad

clothes of our departed wear out quickly. They are often impregnated

with the same disease as those who wore them. They are one with them.

ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses. A piece of furniture gnawed

by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of

a violin suddenly out of tune, such are the ills which move me.

quality which we should admire all the more, because it had the virtue

of devoting itself in silence, without selfish interest, and with the

passiveness of faith?

Is there not something sublime and radiant in the thing that acts

toward man, even as man acts toward God? Does the poet know any more

what impulse he obeys, than does the clay? From the moment when

they have both proved their inspiration, I believe equally in their

The sadness which disengages from things that have fallen into disuse

Things tenderly cared for show their gratitude to us, and are ever

ready to offer us their soul when once we have refreshed it. They are

like those roses of the desert which expand infinitely when a little

water brings back to their memory the azure of lost wells.

In my modest drawing-room there is a child's chair. My father played

with it during his passage from Guadeloupe to France when he was

_seven_ years old. He remembered distinctly that he sat on it in the

ship's saloon, and looked at pictures which the captain lent him. The

island wood of which it was made must have been stout for it withstood

_seven_. On my work-table she had found an old book with plates of

flowers. When I entered the room I found her sitting on the little

chair in the lamplight, looking at the charming pictures, just as once

a long time ago her grandfather had done. And I was deeply touched.

And I said to myself that this little girl alone had been able to

make live again the soul of the chair, and that the gentle soul of the

chair had bewitched the candor of the child. There was between her and

this object a mysterious affinity. The one could not help but go to

the other, and it could be awakened by her alone.

Things are gentle. They never do harm voluntarily. They are the

The prisoner, whom no human soul can any longer console, must feel

tenderly toward his pallet and his earthen jug. When everything has

But it is not only out of the silence of things that is born their

sympathy for us. They have secret harmonies. Sometimes they weep in

the forest which Rene fills with his tempestuous soul; and sometimes

they sing on the lake where another poet dreams.

* * * * *

the fore, when one hears best the thousand voices of things. Two or

three times in my life I have been present at the awakening of this

boundless and peaceful world in which the blades of grass lean toward

one another till morning, and the dew rustles imperceptibly, and the

seeds at each moment's beat raise the whole surface of the plain.

It is the soul alone which can apprehend these other souls, this

flower-dust joy of the corollas, these calls, and these silences that

create the divine Unknown. It is as if one were suddenly transported

to a strange country where one is enchanted by langorous words, even

though one does not understand very clearly their meaning.

Nevertheless I penetrate more deeply into the meaning whispered

by these things than into that hidden in an idiom with which I am

But this language of things is not wholly auditory. It is made up

of other symbols also, which are faintly traced on our souls. The

impression is still too faint, but, perhaps, it will be stronger when

we are better prepared to receive God.

It is objects which have been my consolation in the grievous events of

my life. At such moments some thing will catch my eye particularly.

I who know not how to make my soul bow before men have prostrated it

before things. A radiance emanates from them which may be outside the

memories that I attach to them, and it is like a thrill of love. I

purple solanaceous plants of autumn? And then there are still other

delightful dispositions which are due far less to the artifice of

man than to the consent of certain species to regard others as their

the scuttling hen cluck! There are the flowers of simple loves, the

flowers of the young wife who will dry the blue lavender to scent

her coarse sheets. And in this garden grows also the flower of the

rondel--the humble gilliflower with its simple perfume. There is also

the faithful box, each leaf of which is a small mirror of azure, and

the hollyhock in which the sweet and pure flame of melancholy

corollas burns; they are the flowers of religion vowed to silence and

austerity.

And I love also the flora of the meadows: the meadow-sweet swayed by

the breezes, rocked by the murmur of the brook. Its perfumed crown is

flowers_, such as the ground-lilac, the belladonna-amaryllis, the

crown-imperial. Elsewhere they would die. Here they persist, guarded

by the favor of the age-old trees, strange trees, the names of which

have disappeared. And these affected and distinguished blossoms raise

their swaying heads only when, murmuring across the liquadambars and

the maples, the wind moans like Chateaubriand.

* * * * *

The very mournfulness of the little town is pleasing to me; I love its

streets of dark shops, the worn thresholds, and the gardens. In the

twines and flows away.

The little place is charming when the grasshopper shrills in the

summer's elms and the autumn wind scours it, or when the rains streak

it. There is a little public garden that Bernardin de Saint Pierre

would have loved; in May the night there is dense, blue, and soft in

the chestnut-trees.

For years I have lived here, whence my grandfather and a great uncle

departed toward the flower-covered Antilles. They listened to the

roaring of the sea; robes of muslin glided upon the verandas, and they

When I go to my little farm I say to myself that this is where they

once were. They brought their luncheon in a little basket, and one of

...This guitar or another I heard in the courtyard of my Huguenot

great-aunts, one summer's evening when I was four years old. The

courtyard slept in the white twilight, the roofs shed an unimaginable

tenderness upon the climbing rosebushes and the bright paving-stones.

Some one sitting on a beam was making merry at the expense of my

childhood and my white apron. My great uncle sang some melody from the

capital. I can see him again, standing upright with his head thrown

exaggerated and charming bow.

everything, which disturbs me. The laugh of my detractors has grown

wearied, and I have become indifferent to what I am. Yet I have become

grave toward myself and others. It is with an apprehensive joy that I

regard the heedlessness of the happy. I have learned what misery

may spring from love, what blindness is born of a glance. And it is

because of what I have suffered that I would bestow a sad and slow

caress on those who have not yet known anything but happiness.

* * * * *

The open door, the blue sky, the watering of the grass and the

Hearts and choirs of primroses in the moist, shadowy mosses of the

woods; long threads of rose and blue dew floating and swinging and

suspended--from what?--in the immaterial morning; tree-frogs with

golden eye-lids and white throbbing throats; furze whose perfume of

faded peach and rose follows along the roads, already torrid....

Iris, cries of jays, turtledoves, mountains of blue snow which are

rocks of azure, green fields laid out in squares, brook rolling

a golden pebble in the silence; first foliage of the waters, icy

trembling of the body beside the springs when the sun lies burning on

your hands....

Slender alders; fiery marshes where toward noonday puffing out their

throat, the hoarse gray frogs climb up on the coriaceous plants,

while slowly from the deep of the shady and gilded mire rises a bubble....

Setting of the cherry sun; nocturnal snow of a fruit-tree; green and

transparent shadowing of the lanes; summit of little hills at seven

o'clock where the trees are like sponges which little by little blend

into the severity of the uniform curve which swells and rises sharply.

Starless night; violet night in which the white sandals of a beloved

pagan can hardly be distinguished, and dense bristling of slender, dry

trees; pallor of a limestone slope, and water in which something casts

Night; fire; lines of shadow blended with shadows of lines; fire;

only the rosy bust of a girl. It slips into the night....

* * * * *

I return from a journey. The recollection of a maroon reflection of a

boat in the canal, the color of gray fish, makes my memory quiver. I

dream of white tulips.

I have returned at night. The croaking of frogs has greeted me from

the depths of the damp meadow. My heart, do not burst!... Do not burst

like the lilacs of the flower-garden whose fragrance I alone have

soul the droning of the harmoniums of poor churches.

My life, behold my life, ardent and sad like a flame which

burns through too warm a summer night beside the open window. An

imperceptible breeze has suddenly swelled out the curtain of muslin

like my heart.

* * * * *

In the garden the perfume of the lilacs suddenly make me feel ill

because I am horribly sad.

toys.

And you, oh lilacs, have also haunted an orchard which I knew well in

I love the creatures of the night, the screech-owls with their

graceful flight, the bats, the badgers, all the timid beasts which

glide through the air or in the grass and of which we know so little.

What festivals do they hold amid the plants, their sisters?

At the hour when man is at rest, the rabbits, silvered by the dew,

bound over the mint of the furrow and hold their conventicles; the

their soft and humid yellow light; the mole bores the meadow; the

nightingale sobs like a fountain; the owl utters sad laughter as if it

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