“I have already told you that Roux, before his act of desperation, was not a great talker, and that he lived a rather shut-in life, but I must also tell you that when he spoke, he spoke well, especially when he wanted to explain something. If he took a fancy to make a speech, he brought out for you phrases and words that seemed to come from another tongue, but that astonished you without giving you any desire to laugh.
“He spoke in patois, like the rest of us, because it is the most convenient language and because we are used to it, but he spoke French perhaps as well as you do and not like us who get the words wrong half the time.”
Old Finiels gave me a laughing, sidelong glance:
“You speak patois very well, Monsieur André, but you would have to go a long way to speak it as well as Roux spoke French.”
All the listeners began to laugh. These mountaineers could not understand the pleasure I took in talking to them in patois. If they admired me a little because I spoke their language almost as well as they did, they never missed a chance to point out to me the mistakes that slipped into some of my phrases.
This was a very friendly malice, and perhaps it was also, unconsciously, a way of getting even, the search for a basis of equality between them and myself.
Though they knew that I was of their race, through birth and through many years of a mountaineer’s life, these men felt that I was different because, as they said, “I had studied in many cities.” I am no longer a peasant, like my grandfathers whom they knew, and in their minds this difference raised me above them. It would have deprived them of all confidence in me if I had not shown them some weakness, and this weakness they found in my taste for their tongue, in my little errors of syntax or semantics. These little errors—which they corrected with a smile—compensated in their eyes for the superiority which my studies gave me; they permitted us to meet on an equal footing like people of the same origin who, when everything is said and done, are all equals and all limited by the same weaknesses and the same uncertainties.
It is for this reason that I have been able to retain all their confidence, as if I were a peasant of their valley, a mountaineer of their mountain; and this reason, far from seeming to me paltry or disproportioned to its results, seems to me, on the contrary, marvellously symbolic and quite as noble as their confidence itself.
The errors which they observed in my patois phrases were not, in fact, simple material errors, a lack of experience and mechanical training: they were, on the contrary, the mark of my difference and a sort of confession of my acquired weaknesses; they came from a literary knowledge of their language, a veritable modification of the spirit. And they were quite right to see in them nothing but errors, childish errors which it is right to reprove and correct, even when they have a learned origin and are justified by the dictionaries and the manuals of philology.
But they know I am grateful, none the less, for this knowledge of their language. It has brought me their daily confidence and just now this story of Roux which they would probably not have related thus to anybody who did not belong to their race, who could not answer them in the speech of Sauveplane, Saint-Jean, and Bessède.
It is even surprising that Finiels did not tell me this story in patois, as he had already told me many others, thus imposing the langue d’oc on all his listeners and on myself.
Only a subtle chance had determined today the choice of the French language, and I believe I have found the cause in the slightly emphatic character of the first phrases of my old friend. The almost solemn declaration with which he began the story of Roux could only have been made by him in French, as when a witness in court he could use only the French tongue to take oath and give his testimony. … When the laughter was over and the few raïoles2 rejoinders unloosed by this buffoonery had died down with the laughter, Finiels resumed the thread of his story, thus putting an end to my reflections.
“So there was nothing miraculous in the fact that this boy spoke well, since he could do so before his act of folly, whenever he wished. But all the same, what we heard of the talks which he gave on the mountain appeared to us very extraordinary, and we wondered if this manner of speaking was not a sign. … A man who talks well is always possessed by something, by something greater than himself: the avaricious and the egotistical never succeed in speaking well and their language becomes confused whenever they try to say anything. Thus the speeches of Roux, reported by those who had met him in some spot on the mountain, made everyone reflect, and this became still worse on the day when Deleuze, after having met him on the mountain, began to defend him, in his turn.
“You know Deleuze: he is a man who is as much listened to in the country by believers, whether Huguenots or Catholics, as he is by those who do not attend either church. And this is only right, for he knows how to tell the truth about everything, and because in sixty years he has not made a single enemy in the valley. Besides, he is a man of property who is both thrifty himself, and at the same time gives to those who are in need through no fault of their own. All these things Deleuze does because he is a believer and because he wishes to put the Scripture into practice, and I can tell you that if all those who belong to the chapel resembled him a little, even remotely, they would see me no doubt more often at service, and I should not be the only one to go. …
“Well, towards the end of the fine days of 1915, Deleuze, who had gone up on the mountain for mushrooms, met Roux in a deserted part of the plain of Montals.
“They had a long talk about religion and the times and Deleuze could find no fault with anything Roux the Bandit said. On the contrary he was amazed by the way in which this boy justified his words and his acts. When he tried to say something or explain himself, he uttered first a few phrases of his own, then he quoted passages from Scripture that said the same thing.
“Deleuze has spoken to us often about this meeting because, curious as we were to know the details of it, we gave him a good opportunity to make us listen to the word of God. … He has even set a marker in my wife’s Bible at a few of the passages which Roux had quoted to him that day. I am going to find them again, and I think I still remember the way in which they are arranged.”
Finiels rose and took up the heavy black Bible which his wife had placed in the chimney corner, behind the salt-box decorated with lozenges and the multi-coloured calendar of the Maison Nisolle. … It was the big common Bible which the peddlers of 1830 had left in all the houses on the mountain, “The Holy Bible, or the Old and the New Testament—stereotyped edition from the version revised by J. F. Ostervald, published by the Protestant Biblical Society of Paris, 1823.” On every page, two long columns of crowded fine type held your attention forcibly, fixed it upon a verse until, weary of the monotony of the page and the characters, it freed itself from the bondage of the printed text and remained solitary, in a kind of dream, with the verse already read.
Finiels turned over the leaves of this Bible, looking for the little markers that were placed between the pages. When he found a marker, he kept the page with a finger and began to read a few passages to himself, going from one to another, as if to find the proper sequence and the key to a complex construction.
Then, like a child with a school-book, following the lines with his finger and no longer moving either his hand or his body, Finiels set himself to give a meaning to all these passages:
“When Deleuze began to reproach Roux for his behaviour, without accusing him of anything definite, could the boy have answered better than by this phrase from the Psalms: ‘Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults.’ But when Deleuze began to reproach him for not having been willing to enlist, Roux the Bandit had no difficulty in showing him that the Scripture forbade making war. I do not read you these passages, because everybody knows them and nobody disputes them. Certainly, Deleuze would have been the last to do so, and he agreed at once with Roux on this point. But he told him that it was not for him to set this example when wiser men than he submitted to the laws of
the world. Listen now to the reply which the Scriptures offered Roux, and tell me if one could speak with more wisdom: ‘The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.’ How many other passages of the Scriptures seem made on purpose for Roux; first to express his misery, like this:
“ ‘I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to mine acquaintance: they that did see me without, fled from me, I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind; I am like a broken vessel.’ Then how could you find better words than these to affirm his confidence: ‘Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.’ And do you not think that there is a sort of promise that applies especially to the story of Roux in this other passage:
“ ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.’
“You see, there are plenty of good reasons in these passages, and I don’t need to go on to make you realize that, talking in this way, Roux and Deleuze fell into agreement about many things. They agreed so well that when Deleuze got up to go because night was coming on, Roux asked him to say a prayer with him, before leaving him alone on the mountain.
“You know, it is a custom of those who attend church to say their prayers out loud, in each other’s presence, in order to strengthen and give themselves courage. For my part, I believe this is a good custom: and we all make use of it more or less when we tell each other our troubles. I even believe that I am doing about the same thing when I am ploughing a bit of bad land with old Bloun and I talk to him all the time to encourage him to pull hard. …
“So Deleuze and Roux the Bandit prayed together in this lonely nook of the mountain. It is a lost spot, behind Montals, in the midst of the beech trees, in a valley full of springs and little streams. Under the beeches, there are heavy swards, more than a hundred years old perhaps and dotted with mushrooms after the autumn rains.
“Deleuze, who had placed his basket on the grass, fell on his knees under a tree: Roux did the same and Deleuze made his prayer. When he had finished, Roux the Bandit began to pray in his turn, and in such a manner that Deleuze believed he felt a benediction pass with each of his words. …
“When the prayer was finished, Roux and Deleuze rose, facing each other, in the heavy darkness that was falling on the mountain. Deleuze has repeatedly told us that at this moment he felt Roux firm in his belief and filled with the certitude that he should persevere in the same way, in that way which he had chosen from a clear and definite belief and not fleeing like an animal driven by fear. …
“But the night was coming on. Deleuze had a good two hours’ walk to make before he reached his farm, and this through the steep short cuts which are hard going after dark. Just as he was leaving, Deleuze wished to let Roux know that he did not condemn his conduct in itself, but that he thought it useless:
“ ‘It would have been necessary for all the men in the world to climb up together on the mountains of their own countryside when they were told to go and fight; then perhaps the Lord would have come and sat in the midst of them. … But you are all alone on your mountain. …’
“But as Deleuze was going, Roux shouted to him through the darkness this phrase from the Psalms:
“ ‘There shall be an armful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountain; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.’
“Upon these words, Deleuze left Roux the Bandit on the mountain, and as though it had happened purposely the wind rose that moment, the first wind of winter that brought the bad weather over our country.
“All that winter, we heard no more talk of Roux: in the bad weather no one goes up the mountain, and we ourselves never went toward Sauveplane, but always over by the valley. Besides, Roux could not have stayed at his mother’s, for, four or five times, the gendarmes came down there without warning, in the morning, and they never found anybody there. So the boy must have stayed on the mountain, in the midst of the snow, as he had done the preceding year.
“People said that he lived on the very top of Luzette, in a grotto that overlooked the slope of Borie. The thing was quite possible, but it would not prevent him from suffering from the storms or from risking his life in the snow as he went out to get food. They say, however, that he had arranged things like a watch-tower, raising a wall of sharp stones before his cave.”
“And that is no lie,” Panard asserted. “I saw this hiding-place—this watch-tower, if you prefer—some time after Roux had left the mountain. It was still quite new and did not look deserted.
“We came near passing it without seeing it, but the shepherd of Randon, who was with us, pointed it out to us. He said to us:
“ ‘There is Roux’s second house.’
“And when we said he was crazy, he answered:
“ ‘I know what I am saying, and I don’t need to say how I know it. Come and see.’
“It was on the highest slope of Luzette. We climbed up through that little meadow which separates the last rampart of the crest from the great rocks that fall sheer above Borie. At the end of this meadow, there is a spring, and below the rampart there are two or three caves. Before the largest, Roux had raised a wall. At the foot of this wall he had placed a bench, and from this spot he could see the whole valley. … From these heights, you followed the windings of the road and the curves of the paths, as if it were a picture and, except at night or through the fog, no one could have approached without being observed two hours in advance.
“It seemed that Roux had cut some inscriptions on the flat stones of his cave. Those who were with us had read all sorts of stories there, and some words. …”
“What words?”
“I can’t tell you. I don’t read much and I couldn’t bother to read what he wrote there on the stones, for that is always most difficult. … But it must have been inscriptions of God’s Word, some passages from Scripture or bits of hymns. …
“Well, this wall stopped up half the cave. On the left hand, on the side that was still open, there was a row of utensils that Roux had manufactured. There were several kinds of stone mortars, such as you still find on farms. He must have used them for making meal from the ears of rye which he gathered in abandoned fields on the mountain, and I think he must have baked his bread there in the worst of the bad weather, for on one side, in a hole in the cliff, he had a sort of oven arched over with flat stones. …
“On the other side, over by the wall of loose stones, you saw a sort of bed of fir branches, arranged between this wall and the side of the cave; a few tufts of grass and mosses made the pillow, and it was as well arranged as was possible for a solitary man who has only his hands, stones from the mountains, and branches from the forest. …”
“That wouldn’t help much,” Finiels resumed, “a wall of dry stones, fir needles, and the vault of a cave would not count for much in this country where the houses are no good for winter unless they have walls a yard and a half thick and well-joined double doors. … It must have been the earth that kept him warmest, and the snow also, for they always have a kind of natural softness and never bite like water or stone. … You can imagine this existence: the privations and the loneliness of this boy always at prayer in the midst of the snow.
“This new winter was as rough as the last; if the snow came a little later on the mountain, it stayed there longer and the storms were perhaps more severe than the year before. When we heard no more talk of Roux and saw this bad weather cover the vineyards, we began to think again that he was dead.
“People said: ‘He must have been eaten by wild beasts, we shall find nothing but his bones after the snow is gone.’ ”
“Eaten by wild beasts.” I smiled as I heard Finiels use this formula.
I know that i
n his mind, as in that of all the peasants of these mountains, this phrase evoked the idea of a mysterious world. I found in it that creative tendency of the cosmogonal and zoological fables and legends, that instinctive exaggeration of all natural forces.
These mountaineers believe seriously in the existence of a whole redoubtable fauna, a terrible and monstrous bestiary. This is not from ignorance of the animals that really live in their forests. On the contrary, they know these intimately and they have even amassed precise observations about each one, that show them to be a race of predestined naturalists.
But alongside of this almost scientific knowledge, they leave room for fabulous fancies: the animal that runs away and disappears, the bird’s flight that you cannot follow, the insect that glides under stones, give birth to imaginary species, to exceptional and terrible creatures.
The Beast of Gévaudan once came rambling over these mountain regions. It must have rested its snout and its throat on the great flat rocks that overlook Sauveplane; its horned foot traced the ridges that furrow the granite of Aire de Côte and from age to age it is reborn in the imagination of the mountain and valley people. Beside it, this great apocalyptic and diabolic beast, swarm a thousand less alluring species that are almost as formidable and quite as fantastic: the viper that is smaller than a worm and kills in an instant, the wild boar that charges man and is armed like a fighting bull, the wild squirrel that attacks you like a tiger-cat, and the birds, the great birds of prey, that eat people’s eyes: the eagle that is two yards long, the hawk with the iron beak, and the flocks of five hundred crows that fall in one swoop on their victim. In reality, only harmless animals feeding on carrion infest these mountains: except for the vipers that may cause instant death in hot weather, all the other beasts are helpless before man. The few remaining wolves that hide in the most secret coverts of the forest are cowardly and small in size; the wild boars flee at the least approach; and the birds of prey are content to trace great circles over the path of isolated travellers.
Roux the Bandit Page 6
