Tender and naïve, Abel drew closer to her without saying a word, and tried to collect Catherine’s tears with his long, dark, wavy hair.
“Amour,” the pretty peasant girl said then, “is a suffering...”
“Oh, no!” Abel continued. “One ought to be happy. If my fay presents herself to my gaze, I sense that I shall love her; then I wouldn’t dare approach her; I would respect her and admire her without saying anything to her, for it would seem to me that speaking might soil her soul; I would be content to think about her. I wouldn’t take her by the hand as with you, but I would love to respire the flower whose perfume she had respired; and if it were a rose, it would then have an odor a thousand times sweeter. I would prefer to feel pain with her than pleasure with others; when she had gone, I would still see her, always. She would be my mother, my father and my sister all at the same time: everything to me. Everything would come to me from her: light, happiness, joy. If she spoke far away from me, I would sense her words, for I would accompany her everywhere. In sum, I would live in her, she would be my morning, my day, my sun, more than all nature...”
“Enough! Enough!” said Catherine, sobbing.
“You’re weeping?” he said. “Why? Are you in pain?”
“Yes,” she said. “Look, that village you can see is nothing but pains and torments.” And Catherine, deflecting his attention, described for him the intrigues and troubles of the hamlet.
Abel did not understand any of that speech, except that the people it concerned were unhappy. Then he exclaimed: “Well then, let them do as I do! Let them have a cottage, a garden, and they’ll be happy. Let them come here—I’ll console them!”
“There are misfortunes that can’t be soothed...”
“That’s true,” said Abel, thinking about his grief when he had lost his father. “But they haven’t all seen their parents die?”
“Oh,” she said, “there are other woes. We have in the valley a young woman whose story I’ll tell you, the next time I come…if I come…and you tell me if she can be consoled...”
“If you come?” repeated Abel. “Why wouldn’t you come?”
Catherine tried to make him understand the ideas of propriety and morality that are the basis of society, but Abel did not understand any of it, and replied: “I don’t know why you’re forbidden down there to do what gives you pleasure.”
Catherine looked at Abel for a long time with a painful sentiment, and went away slowly.
Chapter V
Amour in the Village
Catherine, a young woman devoid of education, ignorant and naïve, nevertheless perceived Abel’s ingenuousness, and could not explain it. What he had said to her about fays was for her the object of great mediations. Finally, she consulted the curé in order to discover whether fays existed.
The curé, a sufficiently learned man, easily deduced, from the nature of Catherine’s questions, that she had a powerful motive for asking them; then, it was quite natural that he should confess the young woman. Catherine, too simple to resist the curé’s questions, told him everything that had happened.
The latter fell into a profound astonishment on learning that a young man so close to the state of nature existed in the present century. Ignorant of the circumstances that had brought Abel to that point of credulity and savagery, the curé imagined that he was a young man who had lost his mind, and he strove to demonstrate to Catherine that she was running grave dangers in the company of that extraordinary being. He also proved to her that fays were imaginary individuals created by pure fantasy, and to make her understand he read her and explained to her the tale of Peau-d’âne, a fable by La Fontaine, and an Oriental tale, and he urged her not to return to the hill again.
Catherine, on leaving the curé, thought that Abel was not mad, and that she was not running any danger in his company except the greatest danger of all: that of loving without the hope of being loved. In order to succeed, she resolved to make one last effort with her friend on the mountain, by telling him the story of the young female reaper.
She therefore went one morning, and, casually sitting down beside him, she began by telling him that fays did not exist; then she tried to make him understand the curé’s arguments.
“Catherine,” Abel replied, gravely, “no one will ever prove to me that there is only us in nature. Who is it that has made all that we see? It’s a great djinni. There is the fay of the flowers, the fay of the waters, the fay of the air. Are you not borne, like me to love something outside yourself?”
“Oh yes,” she said.
“Well, can you not imagine flowers that don’t fade, and a day that has no night? All of that is found in the land of the fays; the fays live beyond the skies, for the skies are the parvis of their temple and the stars are their footprints. When a tempest covers the sky it’s because the evil djinn have escaped from their prisons or have broken the bottles in which they were enclosed. Catherine, don’t you sometimes have a desire to be elsewhere than where you are? Don’t you desire to fly in the air, and confound yourself in an amorous adoration like that I have for a fay?”
“Yes,” she said, very softly, “I’m a Christian and I love God.”
“God!” said Abel. “Who is he?”
“It’s him who made us in his image, to serve and adore him,” she said, in accordance with her catechisms.
“Oh, I understand,” said Abel. “God is the king of fays and djinn.”
“But the curé told me that there were no fays,” she said, with chagrin.
“Who is the curé?” asked Abel, immediately.
It was impossible for Catherine to make Abel understand what a curé was. She embarked on an explanation of the social order, but could not finish her explanation because she became entangled within it. Finally, she gave up, concluding that a curé was a man who did not marry because he had to love no one other than God, to pray to him for everyone, and to dress in black.
“One doesn’t pray to God oneself, then?” Abel said, and went on: “But if your curé has shown you in a book that fays don’t exit, I can show you in another that they do!” He ran to fetch a volume of tales, and showed her the illustration of the apparition of the fay Abricotine.
“Since you want there to be fays, I’ll believe in them,” she said, blushing, “And if even if there aren’t, believe that your error is sweeter to me than the truth.”
“Catherine,” he said, with the infantile joy and naïve curiosity of a young squirrel running from branch to branch, playing with every fruit, “you promised me a story; will you tell it to me, for I love to hear you speak…?”
Catherine then felt a movement in her heart that strongly resembled that of fear.
In fact, her own fate was about to be decided.
The Story of the Young Reaper
“At the last harvest,” she said, indicating the fields of the valley, “there came from Lorraine—that’s a distant country where the inhabitants are poor and come in spring to help with our crops—there came, as I said, a young woman, with her mother. They were both very poor. The mother was old, but in spite of her infirmities, she made the journey with her daughter.
“Her daughter’s name is Juliette; she’s as pretty as a rose that is just opened, and under her big straw hat, with her blonde hair, she’s like a violet hiding under a dry leaf. Her arms are round and as smooth as the branch of a young birch tree, and once, her smile was as gracious as a spring morning. They both came to that farm you can see in the distance, on the far side of the village; they asked to help with the harvest, and it was permitted to them.
“The farmer has a son, a handsome young man, tall, well-made and sun-tanned; he does the plowing and drives the carts; he’s the most skillful in the village at shooting with a bow; he knows how to read and write, and sings in the church on Sunday. Finally, it’s him who directs the harvesters and all the farm workers.
“He was in the farmhouse when Juliette and her mother presented themselves; as soon Juliette saw him,
she went pale and felt disposed to love him, because he was handsome.”
“If I loved,” said Abel, interrupting, “I’d only love for beauty...”
“Juliette apparently supposed,” Catherine went on, “that the young man’s soul was like the envelope, and the poor child, before knowing whether she would be paid in return, let herself cherish the farmer’s son.
“Then, she only ever reaped in the fields where he was; she watched him covertly, and if he stopped somewhere, she could not bear anyone else to cut the ears that he had brushed. If he sat down on a sheaf, she put its stalks on her head. In sum, she always tried to be near him, so that, when he complained about the heat, she presented him with an earthenware jug full of water, which she carried with her, and which became sacred to her as soon as his lips had touched it; it was noticed that she could no longer bear her poor mother to drink from it. And she preferred, poor as she was, to buy another, and, in spite of her weakness, to carry two instead of one.
“When Antoine spoke, she trembled inside, and collected the slightest sounds of that cherished voice; if he spoke to her, she blushed and dared not look at him. In sum, she loved him with all the force of her soul, seizing the present moment ardently and not thinking about the future.
“The mother perceived that her daughter had changed, for, while still having as much love for her, Juliette had distractions. One day, when Antoine had helped Juliette to pick up her bundle, and their hands and gazes had met, she let her mother carry the burden of which she was accustomed to relieve her.
“Then, that evening, the mother said to Juliette: ‘My child, the air of this region doesn’t suit you; let’s go back to Lorraine,’ Juliette replied that, for her, Lorraine was now here. The mother saw that there was no longer any remedy, and they continued bringing in the crop.
“Antoine was not unaware for long of the amorous feelings that Juliette had for him, because he saw her one night, in the farmyard, sitting on a stone and not sleeping; she was looking by turns at the sky and the part of the house where he slept. As it was dark and she thought everyone was asleep, that everything was quiet, and nothing could be heard but he sound of the clouds rolling through the air, she blew a kiss toward Antoine’s bedroom. That mute and silent adoration, that secret amour, pleased the young man, who became more attentive to Juliette thereafter than he had been before...
“Are you listening?” Catherine asked Abel.
“Yes, yes,” replied the young man, who seemed to be dreaming.
Then Catherine repeated her phrase, looking at him, and continued: “And Antoine gave Juliette less work than the others. When it was too hot he told her to rest, and she rested with her mother, because it was him that had said it to them. At table, he made sure that she was well served, and one day, he put a flower in her place. Juliette took the flower, and hid it in her bosom—and that flower, although withered, is still there.
“One evening, when everyone was in bed, Juliette and Antoine went to sit down under a tree in the garden of the farm and they talked for a long time. Antoine was charmed by the young woman’s grace and wit. From then on they loved one another ardently, and in secret. Juliette was very happy when she saw that her love was shared by the man she adored, and she yielded enthusiastically to the hope that nothing could oppose their happiness.
“When she saw that Antoine was smitten with her, they exchanges roles; it was Antoine who amorously embraced everything she carried or touched; he watched her reaping, and helped her, as well as her mother, who, in spite of her long experience, began to believe that it would all end well. Then the old mother smiled, on seeing the farmer’s son dance with Juliette in the evenings, and not embracing her in the quadrille, where everyone embraces, which seemed to her to be a good augury.
“Finally, one evening, coming back to the farm, Juliette who had taken Antoine’s arm, said to him: ‘My friend, whom I love amorously, you’ve given me a flower of the earth and a thousand other flowers that come from the heavens; in return, I can give you this ribbon that serves me as a belt; take it, and remember that, in offering it to you, I’m giving you myself.’
“Antoine took the ribbon, and kept it; he wanted a kiss, but Juliette refused.
“They came to understand one another with a glance, to read in their eyes, and could no longer be apart. They confounded their hearts and savored the delights of a delicate and pure love. For them, there was no more time or weather, no season or earth; they were all soul, and individuality had ceased; for they finished up adopting one another’s gestures, speech and mannerisms, thinking alike; in sum, Antoine was all Juliette, and Juliette all Antoine.
“Then, one morning, when Juliette had been weeping because the farmer had talked about the end of the harvest and paying the reapers, Antoine told his father that he loved Juliette and wanted to marry her. That same evening, the farmer, who wanted to marry his son to me, threw Juliette off his farm, after giving her what he owed her; then he told his son that he would never consent to his marriage with the young woman from Lorraine, because she was too poor.
“Juliette left without weeping, but she was as pale as a corpse; she was taken in by another farmer, for whom she and her mother work without being paid, but she doesn’t want to leave the area where Antoine lives, and the poor girl is still glad to breathe the air that he breathes.
“I went to find her one morning and I said to her: ‘Juliette, be certain that I will never marry Antoine, and if you need anything, you’ve found a friend in me who will help you in anything, with pleasure.”
“That’s good!” exclaimed Abel, clapping his hands like an overexcited spectator. Catherine was nonplussed, so violent and sweet to her heart was the joy that praise caused her, which only concerned the soul.
“Since that time,” she continued, “Juliette has no other pleasure than seeing Antoine in church, and sometimes perceiving him in the fields; they rarely meet, but then they talk to one another with an extreme voluptuousness, swearing themselves one to the other. However, Juliette reproaches herself for having brought the anger of his father down on Antoine’s head, because the farmer has told his son that if he doesn’t marry the woman he gives him for a wife he’ll disinherit him by selling his property. Juliette is sad, and hopeless; she’s consuming herself, and resembles a young flower eaten away by a worm. The whole village likes her and pities her, but she’s dying of amour.
“Now,” Catherine added, “what remedy can you find for such evils?”
Abel remained silent.
“But suppose,” Catherine continued, “that Antoine hadn’t loved Juliette, and that Juliette had always adored him. Tell me whether there could exist, for a soul full of love, a greater woe?”
As she pronounced the last words, her voice trembled; she looked at Abel with anxiety, and awaited his response, as a summer flower fatigued by the sun awaits the evening dew.
“It seems to me,” Abel replied, in an indifferent manner, “that true love always ends up vanquishing all obstacles; the good fays always triumph...”
Will I triumph? Catherine wondered.
From that day on, Catherine often went to talk to Abel, and the poor child loved the chemist’s son with the same ardor with which Juliette loved Antoine.
Meanwhile, the rumor spread within the village that there was a young man in the cottage on the hill as beautiful as the day, ravishing and celestial, and that an infernal demon served him; that he had inherited from the chemist the power to command nature; that he had conversations with fays and goblins, which were understood under the name of spirits; and finally, that he was sometimes seen in the evening talking to a revenant that fluttered like a shade. Those rumors ran around the entire area; what accredited them was that the curé preached a sermon forbidding young women to go to the hill.
Meanwhile, Abel loved Catherine, but as a veritable sister, and he still nurtured his sweet dreams. He was all the more devoured by the desire to see a fay because his dreams often offered him fantastic image
s, which he seized ardently, and which he sometimes believed, on awakening, that he had really seen.
He made his confidences to Catherine, who held back her tears, but who, as she went away, wept to see herself disdained for imaginary beings, which the curé had told her could never exist. She hoped that her turn would come.
She always came to see Abel in the morning, because it was morning when she had met him for the first time, so her excursions to the hill had not yet been noticed by anyone; in any case, her father, knowing her innocence and the horror that he had inspired in her for the hill, did not conceive any suspicion.
However, when Catherine perceived one day that she had to love Abel without any hope of being loved by him, she began to grow pale.
The change in her face and her behavior did not escape the eye of the cuirassier sergeant Jacques Bontems, who paid court to her every evening. He noticed that for some time, he had not been seen as kindly by Catherine—who, comparing him with Abel, whose manners were natural, elegant and naïve, no longer found Bontems’ brusque tone, casual gestures and language in good taste. Nevertheless, he still flattered himself that he might marry her, for he had received a letter that gave him a great deal of hope.
In fact, his friend the office clerk had just been promoted to the important position of the minister’s personal assistant. It was then that he wrote a petition to the minister to have the position of tax-collector, and he sent it to his friend to put on His Excellency’s desk at the first opportunity. He spent a long time drafting his petition, but finally settled, after a fortnight’s reflection, on the curious document that we shall transcribe literally.6
Monseigneur
Your Excellency will be surprised to learn that in the commune of V*** there is for a tax-collector an old blockhead who, in the machine of with Your Excellency is the soul, is an ungreased wheel: that being so, Jacques Bontems, sergeant, to whom, in parentheses, a retirement pension has been refused because he lacked one year of service, when he had been expressly licensed; given that Your Excellency was not minister then, one could not make him any reproach, but he is nevertheless without pension.
The Last Fay Page 5
