Le monarque 👑📜

Plongez dans l’univers fascinant de *Le monarque* de Pierre Mille, une œuvre captivante qui explore les complexités du pouvoir, des luttes royales et des intrigues de cour. 📖✨

Cette histoire riche en émotions vous transporte à une époque où le destin des royaumes se décide dans l’ombre des palais et des intrigues politiques. Découvrez un roi, ses dilemmes, ses choix et l’impact de ses décisions sur son entourage et son peuple. 👑🔮

*Le monarque* est une réflexion profonde sur le pouvoir et ses conséquences, un récit où l’honneur et la loyauté s’entrelacent. Un voyage littéraire inoubliable, plein de rebondissements et de révélations. 🌟🎭

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**Navigate by Chapters or Titles:**
00:00:21 Chapter 1.
00:21:06 Chapter 2.
00:30:21 Chapter 3.
00:55:05 Chapter 4.
01:09:13 Chapter 5.
01:20:04 Chapter 6.
01:30:13 Chapter 7.
01:39:23 Chapter 8.
01:47:17 Chapter 9.
02:42:02 Chapter 10.

In ‘The Monarch,’ Pierre Mille immerses us in the story of a fascinating, noble yet complex character navigating the maze of politics and power. This captivating tale explores the personal dilemmas and difficult choices of a man confronted with the demands of his rank and principles. Prepare to discover a work where human psychology and political issues are brilliantly intertwined. Chapter 1. How I Met the Monarch. Espélunque is a village that borders the valleys of the two Gardons, after having said hello to the Cévennes, not far from Nîmes, if you like, impossible to cannonade from the top of the ramparts of Avignon, if you had the fancy, lower than Ganges, higher than Bernis, at the same height as Maillezargues, well supplied with vines, well garnished with stones, very devoid of trees – except for wild fig trees and dwarf oaks here and there – windy from the mistral like the devil’s forge, dry enough to kill a donkey eight months of the year, dripping with water, ten days moreover, like the face of a poor widow on the day her husband is buried, comfortably populated with citizens, but better padded with sheep, especially abundantly peppered with goats, humped like the skull of an old judge, perfumed like the body of a beautiful girl, because of a pile of grasses growing on the bare lime, one does not know how, by the special grace of the Lord,–moreover the bravest country on earth because of all these things, and that the men there have good stature, good teeth, good feet, good eyes, and common sense so jocular and cold at the same time, that the world which was not born in Espélunque cannot understand Espélunque: and that is why, you understand, the world is always rolled. So, once, around Easter, I was there at my friend Cazevieille’s, in beautiful warm weather, a royal sun, nothing to do and the holidays in perspective. It is not an easy thing to celebrate a holiday, even Easter, in the countryside. We do what we can. On Good Friday, we eat lean, Protestants or Catholics, and the next day the very good people kill a pig. The others come to see, and it is a distraction; but it is not enough. On Sundays, there is the office or the mass, depending on the worship, and it is still a distraction, because we get dressed. But that only interests women. One year, by great luck, there were municipal elections. The drummer came to the town hall square, which is also the square of the church and the temple, he beat very well, and then said while singing: “The citizens who want to vote for the mayor, Monsieur Cazevieille—he is my friend—and the other municipal councilors, will give them great pleasure!” So everyone went to vote; and afterward some went to the Republican circle, which is reactionary, or to the Socialist circle, which is republican. But such occasions for rejoicing are too rare. Even before Easter with flowers, Cazevieille worried that I would be bored, for he is a good host. “If only,” he said, “you could eat some ortolans next Sunday , or a canepetière!” But the hunting season is closed. I have too much respect for the laws of my country to imagine that birds could be driven out of the sky in the month of nests. So, seeing this as nothing more than a manifestation of southern fantasy, I resolved to respond with a northerner’s exploit, and declared to Cazevieille that I was going, at once, to bathe in the Gardon. And why not? Through the valley of the Vidourle, the breeze was blowing from the southeast, almost summery already, laden with the scents that, on its passage, it had stolen from the almond trees of the plain, from the vines on the hillsides, now in flower. The very bed of the torrent would still be frozen, I had no doubt: but its course wanders like the conversations of the country; I knew where to find puddles, good puddles not very deep, all warmed by the good sun… The bath was excellent, and, at the moment when, with a fresh head and rejuvenated flesh, I crossed the Gers bridge to cover on foot the short league that separated from the Espélunque, I met a brave man who was carrying in a basket a pound or two perhaps of still-wriggling fish. It was Touloumès, whom you will meet again, I think, in the course of this story. In exchange for some small change, he was willing to give me his catch. Cazevieille welcomed me like some kind of hero. I thought he was going to say to me: “Come on, you didn’t bathe, you want to make people believe! We don’t bathe at this time of year. You only took a little walk. It’s good, it’s healthy: sweat washes away.” I was insulting his generosity, he didn’t think for a moment to doubt my courage. No, he was proud of me! Something of my feat was going to reflect on him, the first to know it, the first to tell about it. But seeing the small fish I was bringing, he asked in a cheerful tone: “What is all this beautiful fish? There must be something contagious in the southern air,” for I answered without thinking: “Hey! I caught it! ” “Well!” said Cazevieille, “how? We lent you a line, did you find a net? ” “No,” I said, “swimming: you see a fish, Cazevieille, you dive in. It runs away, you tire it out, you charge it, you corner it between two stones; it lets itself be caught! There! I wanted to make fun of him a little, to show that if we wanted, we northerners, we could invent jokes too—and I couldn’t imagine that he would swallow that one. He listened to me very seriously. “You have to know how to do it,” he said simply. I know some who fish by hand: the Monarch, for example. In the morning, when the fish is numb… But you, in broad daylight and swimming… He was happy, that’s all, without any skepticism. And twenty times, during that day, he made me blush with shame by approaching people. “There’s a Parisian at my house,” he would say, “a Parisian… He’s amazing! He bathes in the Gardon, it’s still winter, hey! And he catches fish by hand…” I could finally hope that my confusion was at its peak when we saw Touloumès arrive. I should have foreseen it; but it’s a common error among city dwellers to assume that the people they meet on the roads are passers-by they will never see again: in the countryside there are no passers-by, everyone knows each other. “He’s amazing!” Cazevieille repeated to him, pointing at me. Let me introduce you to a colleague! He catches fish by hand! “True?” said Touloumès. “Oh! It may be, it may be… Monsieur loves fish, that’s for sure, I sold him some! I would have liked to go underground: they both laughed without malice. Cazevieille would have been very proud to have in his house a Parisian who caught fish by swimming. But he didn’t hold a grudge against me for having invented a story. If it was no longer glorious, it was still amusing. He simply said, without complaint: “Since you like fishing, we’ll take you there tomorrow. With Touloumès and the Monarch: it will be grand! That’s why, the next day, we were fishing with a seine net. And Cazevieille talked to me, with eloquence and ease, about the illustrations of the country. “It’s a certain thing, my dear fellow,” he said to me, speaking voluptuously through his nose through his pipe, “the homeland of heroism and gallantry is here. It has been proven since the time of the Camisards, and of Estelle and Némorin. Estelle, Némorin, and Cavalier are the three glories that are revered at the foot of the Cévennes, on the banks of the two Gardons, that of Anduze and that of Alais. And never tell the inhabitants of Ners, or of Lédignan, or of Massane, or of Savignargues, that Estelle and Némorin did not exist: they would not believe you, and you would pass for a bad spirit.” I was all the less inclined to discuss since, in water up to my shoulders and naked as a hand, I found myself very busy pushing with my feet and my stomach, through a pool that remained in the dry bed of the Gardon, the pocket of a long net whose right end Touloumès, on one bank, was nonchalantly pulling. The left end was held, on the other bank, by a person who had just been introduced to me, and whose name and appearance had made the deepest impression on me . It was the Monarch. The Monarch wore espadrilles on his feet without socks, old trousers held around his waist by a red string, and his flannel shirt, which was not fresh, no longer had any buttons. But he was freshly shaven, and so thin, lively and swaying in his indolence, that he made me think of a greyhound at rest. “Watch out,” he said, turning his fine mouth with very white teeth towards me . “There is a hole in the middle of the pond.” I dove in, proud to show off my swimming skills, applying myself to holding the weights of the net against the pebbles, at a depth of two meters. And when I had pulled the bag out of the hole, and had found my footing, I stood up with vanity! “You’re not just making him put his feet in the water, with your heroism,” I said to Cazevieille. “It’s to please you,” he replied. “It amuses you to wade. It’s true that I went there with all my Parisian soul: there is none purer in the world. I was told that at the bottom of this puddle were hidden pike as big as my leg, perch as big as my arm, and even “beasts that no one knew what they were.” But above all the water was good, what is called good: fresher than the air, yet warm enough not to freeze the body, and not stagnant because it communicated with the hidden currents that continued to filter through the depths. Under my bare toes the drowned pebbles remained warm, remaining in contact with those of the bank, with the luminous rocks of the hills, with all the earth brightened by the sun. Sometimes willow roots wound around me, on purpose, I could have sworn, and I shuddered with anxiety and pleasure. Very small fish, which had nothing to fear from the mesh of the trap, and which this commotion simply amused, came to peck at my legs with the tips of their pointed heads, and I was as happy as a savage. That is why I despised Cazevieille’s laziness. With voluptuous slowness I exhausted the duties of my task. The net reached the other end of the pond, and we brought it gently to land, taking care to hold the weights underneath. … Fisherman, speak quietly! The King of the Seas will not escape you! sang the Monarch at the top of his voice. But the King of the Seas, I imagine, had gone to visit another part of his empires and it was we who were caught: seven or eight gudgeon, three chub, a dozen and a half bleak: in all a small pound of bad whitebait. It was for this fine result that I had “waded” for an hour. “And the pike? And the perch?” I asked indignantly. “Didn’t you see them slip away?” said Touloumès. “Ah! the scoundrels! A pike of at least eight pounds! It’s your fault: you didn’t know how to keep the net properly. ” I shrugged my shoulders without replying. This setback did not prevent us from going to sit in the shade to lunch with appetite on a sausage that smelled of garlic, two cold chickens—Cazevieille once again lamented that the hunting season was not open—and bread whose crust, baked in the Provençal style, was hard to break the teeth. All washed down with white wine from old vines. Around us, the landscape was so unruly that one would think one was not in France. On the limestone cliffs that overlook it, no one has ever tried to sow a grain of wheat or to transplant a vine. Nothing grows there but wild bushes, and a wild fig tree, here and there, whose fruit only goats and children eat. As for the bed of the Gardon, half a league wide, it belongs to no one. In winter, it rolls with water like a Rhone. In the summer, it spreads pebbles, grass, and poplars. The main industry of the riverside residents is to send sheep to graze there when the hydrographic service announces a flood. The sheep are drowned, the poor animals, and the rest is the business of the deputy and senator of the district. A good flood, if it falls during a general election, is a fortune for the country. “… Look,” Cazevieille told me, who had consistency in his ideas, ” look at the Monarch, he’s a hero. If you knew about the chivalrous act he performed last year… ” “But first,” I asked, “why are you called the Monarch?” The Monarch raised his eyebrows in astonishment. “You don’t know,” he said, “you really don’t know? It’s because I don’t do anything. So, I live like a king. ” This definition of the monarchical regime had the merit of summarizing, in its striking brevity, the conception that people have had of it since democracy began to flow freely among us, or perhaps even before. I made a sign that I was beginning to understand. “We set out together to eat up my land,” he continued, “the phylloxera and I; but I did everything I could to go faster than the phylloxera, and I succeeded.” When it was over, I began to be happy. Today, I go to one person to hunt, to another for the grape harvest, to everyone’s house for weddings and baptisms. I always have time to talk, having nothing to do. Without me, people would die of boredom. I am a child of light. I come and go, I laugh, I sing opera, and there are always elections going on somewhere. Do you think they can hold an election without me? What do I cost? A glass of wine and a meal. What do I give? Eh! I give myself! “It’s well paid,” said Cazevieille seriously. “I do what I can,” acknowledged the Monarch. “Show me someone more obliging? Men have no joy when I’m missing, and women yearn to see me, for they love me.” I only give them good advice, and I’m cheerful. “And your act of heroism? ” “It’s nothing,” he said modestly. “Only Madame Beauvoisin, from Souvignargues, had once expressed the desire to have me for dinner, and it so happened that Monsieur Beauvoisin was not there. I have the greatest respect for this lady and for nothing in the world would I have wanted her reputation to be compromised. That is why, Monsieur Beauvoisin having returned unexpectedly, I locked myself in a large wardrobe, the key to which his wife kept in her pocket. ” “You’ll see!” said Cazevieille proudly. “I managed to sleep as best I could. A night passed very quickly. But would you believe, sir, would you believe that at one o’clock in the morning the house caught fire and Madame Beauvoisin, in her excusable confusion, fled without freeing me!” The fire had started in the kitchen, I could hear the flames roaring, I said to myself: “There they are climbing the stairs, good! There they are on the landing, the bitches, there they are coming in… and I want to leave!” Kicks, punches, thrusts, I gave that devil’s wardrobe a hard time! But it was too good a piece of furniture. “And you didn’t call? ” “I couldn’t call because of the honor of the mistress of the house . I’d rather die! But it was here that heaven sent me an inspiration. I gathered all my strength, and I roared like a bull: “Save the furniture!… Save the furniture!” This made Monsieur Beauvoisin and his friends come and get the wardrobe. “Huh!” said Cazevieille, “you wouldn’t have thought of that, in the North! ” “Hey!” I replied, “you didn’t even invent your story!” I know it: it’s an old fable. But Cazevieille replied to me, in his just severity: “When you told us that you had caught fish while swimming, did we discuss it? We must always believe what is beautiful, because it is more pleasant.” It was a lesson. Personal, but also general. It made me penetrate deeper into the souls of my friends: they wanted to consider existence only as a pleasant play of their imagination. Cazevieille, moreover, did not insist. Even, recognizing impartially that the fishing had not been very successful, he said only to the Monarch: “If only we could hunt, is it not so, if we could hunt? ” “That remains to be seen!” replied the Monarch. He added nothing, but the next day had a completely confidential conversation with Tiennou, who is a bit simple and takes parcels to the railway when by chance he needs to earn money: this is twice a month, in good season. Then it happened that one fine morning the neighbor Peyras found all his chickens strangled in his farmyard. Not only the chickens, but the geese, the ducks, the turkeys, in short everything; and this gave something to talk about, for the matter, and because the gendarmes came expressly from the cantonal capital. They questioned Tiennou. The gendarmes are very fond of making Tiennou confess, when something unpleasant happens in Espélunque. They draw up a report stating that “the crime was committed by an irresponsible person,” and the investigation goes no further. So it is quite true, as you see, that an innocent person is a blessing for a country. But this time, Tiennou wouldn’t admit anything. He said, “It’s the wolf!” The gendarmes frowned and asked, “What wolf? ” “It’s the wolf of Espélunque,” Tiennou repeated. “Near Espélunque there is a large hole whose opening is roughly circular, with a sort of cavern at the bottom, where you can find absolutely nothing interesting. It is from this cavern on the limestone plateau that the village takes its name. I tried hard to demonstrate that Tiennou was even more stupid than usual, since the little shepherds took their sheep to graze every day on the edge of the hole, and nothing had ever happened to the sheep, the shepherds, or the shepherdesses. But, to my great surprise, Cazevieille, who is mayor, assumed an excessively thoughtful air. He said, “It could well be!” The gendarmes were moved. And I don’t know how it happened, but everyone at Espélunque declared, on the first day, that it might well be, and on the second day that it was certain, that it was a wolf that had wrung the necks of the Peyras poultry. On the third day all the shepherds and shepherdesses had seen the wolf. On the fourth day, they telegraphed to the prefect to obtain authorization for a gun hunt, and on the sixth day, the authorization arrived. I represented to Cazevieille that, within living memory, a wolf had never been seen in the region, that these animals usually hide under impenetrable thickets, and that neither dwarf oaks nor fig trees were sufficient dwellings for these ferocious beasts; that a simple weasel could have done all the harm. He replied to me indignantly: “Do you know the fountain of Massane, Estelle and Némorin’s own fountain? I knew it.” –Well, in Estelle and Némorin’s time, there were wolves, since Florian says so. So there may well be some now. If I had told him that Estelle and Némorin didn’t exist, he would have torn out my eyes. I should have kept quiet. The next day we hunted, with the help of all the adults able to bear arms, those from Espélunque, those from Satinettes, Valflaunes, Garrigues, Combas, Montpezat, Fontanès, Souvignargues; even hunters from beyond Quissac and Sommières came. We searched the cave, uttering very wild cries. Many crows were nesting there. I don’t know how it happened that while firing shots to drive the wolf away, some of these crows were hit. At the sound of the gunfire, some hunters shouted that they had seen the beast, and the hunt descended onto the plain: two hundred men armed to the teeth, heavy with cartridges and mad with joy. Ah! they were jumping over the vines, and trotting over the aubergines, and crushing the young beans! The rifles were going off, going off all by themselves and all the time. The gendarmes were on horseback. They went from one to the other, they shouted: “You saw it, you saw it, where is it?” They were answered: “I think it’s to the right… or to the left… or that way, towards the west. ” I was going mad, I was galloping on foot with the gendarmes on horseback, I went from one to the other, I returned from the other to the other. And, when my back was turned, it was as if on purpose: bang! bang! At last, I saw the Monarch. He aimed carefully, fired, assumed a jubilant expression, ran, leaned toward something . I said to him: “You hit him!” He replied coldly: “Perhaps if we had let him grow, he would have become a wolf! He was a fine hare, weighing well over six pounds.” He put it in a large pocket of his jacket, behind his back, and set off again. And across the whole country, from the Vidourle to Brestalou, they shot, shot, shot, until nightfall. I am surprised that it did not rain, as it seems to happen in great artillery battles. Finally we reached Espélunque. Everyone looked radiant, except for the gendarmes. Once back at the house, the Monarch emptied the large pouch that swelled on his back. He took out the hare, two partridges, and a dozen sparrows , which he solemnly named ortolans. “And the others in the village?” I asked. “The others! They have them too, ortolans and blackbirds, perhaps, and wood pigeons, and tourdes… It’s an Easter celebration, this, an Easter celebration, sir! ” “So,” I said, upset, “there was no wolf, did you know there was no wolf?” The Monarch suddenly became very serious. “Perhaps there was a wolf,” he said. “Nothing proves there are no wolves. Since there were, in Florian’s time, you know!” We did n’t see him completely, it’s true, we didn’t kill him, that’s certain; but it was a patriotic duty to look for him. Especially when the hunting season is closed. Such was my first encounter with the Monarch. Of the various episodes of his life, which will be the subject of what follows, there are some of which I was an eyewitness, others which were revealed to me by public voice alone. The fact is that the Monarch, in fact, is the glory of Espélunque. He has his historiographers, he has his commentators and even his disciples: I only held the pen under their dictation. Chapter 2. His Discretion. The Monarch—whose real name is Juste Claude Bonnafoux—had wanted to let me know: as much as he is a friend of men, he is a friend of women. This is true: however, he boasted a little, and it is important in this respect that we understand each other clearly. The Monarch is the friend of ladies, but he was not frequently honored with their supreme favors. In this rural corner of Provence, as well, I think, as in many other rural regions, the impossibility of hiding anything of their slightest actions imposes on most women a prudence which almost always preserves their virtue. Feeling perpetually spied on, those who are married remain faithful to their husbands. Only poor Bécougnan is mentioned, in Espélunque and the surrounding area, for having had misfortunes; and today he is a widower: so that no longer counts. Or else, if these ladies fail in marital faith, they fall so low when it is known, that they can hardly refuse anyone—and then they are no longer interesting. There remain the girls, whom the devil sometimes tempts; and yet, at the foot of these Cévennes where Catholics and descendants of the old Huguenots spy on each other, there is more jollity in the talk than adventures in the families. This is even why the Monarch had to marry, as you will see later. But the truth is that, until his marriage, his conquests were quite rare. He was nevertheless congratulated on having obtained the good graces of Madame Fumade. This had done no harm to anyone: Madame Fumade was a foreigner; and, against foreigners, everything is permitted. For this lady, who had come to spend a month in Maillezargues, to get some fresh air, with her friends Fabrenouze, was not from the region, not even from Nîmes. She was believed to be from the North, that is to say from Valence, perhaps from Lyon. In any case, it was quite certain that she was not put like the other ladies. Not only to go to mass, but quite often even to walk alone in the countryside, she wore, under her large hat of very fine straw, decorated with two or three light roses, a “suit” of nankeen color such as had never been seen, and which threw the female population of Espélunque into great agitation . She usually added to this toilet, already sufficient to attract attention and jealousy, a parasol whose color matched that of her costume, and thread gloves. The general opinion was that Madame Fumade was a person of easy morals. By an unusual coincidence, opinion was not entirely mistaken. Madame Fumade belonged to that pleasant category of women who, after having devoted the first forty years of their lives to virtue, to their husbands, and even to their country, to whom they have given defenders, think that it is time to offer something to themselves, and then lead, if one can speak thus, the life of a bachelor. They put into it disinterestedness, ardor, and yet some wisdom: understand by that that they avoid great passion, that is to say, great sorrows. When gray hairs come , they will be good people, their experience will be useful to future generations. Perhaps they will even keep useful and grateful advisers, having been prudent enough not to have loved them too much . During one of her solitary walks, Madame Fumade had met the Monarch, whose appearance had charmed her. With his trousers rolled up as high as he could on his thighs, his flannel shirt open, bravely facing the cold water of the Gardon, he fished by hand! Yes, it was not, as it was for me, a joke, Cazevieille had not lied to me! Running his agile fingers under the rocks scattered in the torrent, under the roots of the trees, under the hairy grasses, the Monarch sometimes felt the belly of a fish tremble, numbed by these icy waves, which still had a taste of snow: and he took it by the gills, quickly. And how beautiful he was to look at, with his skin the color of pale orange, his black eyes, his thin nose that fell over his mustache, and his lean greyhound torso, which would have leaped gladly if it had not preferred even more to yawn while stretching! Feeling that he was being watched, the Monarch went to lie down in the sun on a large flat stone, under the guise of warming himself. Then he sang, for his own pleasure and for seduction. He sang If I Were King, then Vincent’s grand aria from Mireille, Faure’s Alleluia d’Amore and various other romances, such as Vogue, Ma Swingelle! He sang these things, which were to his taste, in a true and sentimental voice; and it was for his own satisfaction, it was also to please, finally it was because singing, in his mind, enlarged the scene: so much does he need to put something a little artificial somewhere, when he experiences a true feeling! But Madame Fumade, without being aware of it, was like him: she felt very tenderly moved, with a touch of desire, a foretaste of voluptuousness. Such was her first encounter with the Monarch; So it is not surprising that she made some arrangements to see him again. But when at the club, or at the Muraton café, in front of the Monarch, one risked a few flattering allusions on this subject, he maintained the distinguished silence of men of the world who know what they owe to the reputation of women. He was admired all the more for it, with a touch of jealousy. Bécougnan, no doubt because he was deceived by his wife, has kept a sort of grudge against the entire sex. This is doubtless why he echoed the unfortunate rumors that were circulating about the reputation of Madame Fumade. The Monarch behaved like a true knight. “Bécougnan,” he said majestically, “a foreigner who comes to Espélunque is under the protection of all the gentlemen of the commune!” They appreciated all the more the detour he took to defend Madame Fumade, without appearing to invoke a personal motive, that everyone was aware of things. For if he manifested, in the circle, such noble reticence, he did not have, is it not true, the same reasons for not confiding in a friend; love lives on discretion, it is understood, but also on confidences! He therefore kept Touloumès privately informed of the progress of his love “with a woman of the world,” and Touloumès then shared it with those who might be interested, that is to say a large number of people. Touloumès did not hide from his friend that people were a little worried that everything until now, between him and Madame Fumade, had taken place in conversation; and the Monarch lowered his head, humiliated. One day at last, he was able to say to Touloumès: “I am going to win at last, friend, I am going to win! Tomorrow I will have everything I can desire.” But swear to me in turn that you will remain silent. No one, understand, no one must know: a shadow of indiscretion, Touloumès, and I will kill you or I will kill myself! “But,” Touloumès objected, “that’s because you know how to do it so well, Monarch. What if by chance you were joking? People will think you were joking. ” “They won’t be able to believe it,” he replied. “Look towards Tornac tomorrow. I won’t tell you any more, and no one will ever know any more. Look towards the Tornac tower tomorrow, around four o’clock. ” They looked. Nearly half a league up, straight and harsh against the sky, the old fortress raises its chipped skeleton above the Gardon. A tree has grown on its almost inaccessible summit, the grove of holm oaks that surrounds it makes its base invisible, and no one frequents it more than tourists, in the autumn or spring. The Gardon, swollen by the winter rains, shakes pebbles at its feet, and behind its ruinous mass, one can still see another dry hill, bristling with sparse olive trees, already very distant on the pale horizon. … The Monarch appeared, leaving his house. People rushed as if to follow him. “Gentlemen!” he said with a shocked air. “Truly, gentlemen! ” murmured Touloumès. “Think of the discretion he must maintain!” Indeed, the way in which the Monarch disappeared was miraculous. If he had taken the Garrigues or the Gardon, no one saw anything. He had vanished! But they saw, coming from the bridge of Gers, a yellow umbrella. The umbrella danced along the torrent. On the clear road, she slipped away behind the Marble Horn, where the quarrymen are, and after ten seconds appeared a little closer, a little higher: she was going up towards Tornac, nothing was more certain. She was seen, she was lost because of the winding path that climbs, she disappeared behind the grove of holm oaks; and nothing more was seen. “What does that prove, Touloumès?” asked the eight hundred inhabitants of Espélunque, all grouped on the side of the stream that overlooks the torrent. “What does that prove? The lady has come to Tornac, but the Monarch, go and see if he is there! ” “Patience!” replied Touloumès. But he was as worried as the others. … Suddenly, a small flag stood up, as it were all by itself, at the top of the tower, a small white flag, all pale and light. “I’ll have to give you a sign,” the Monarch had said to Madame Fumade. “The climb is steep, there’s no point in doing it if I ‘m not there. I’ll give you a sign, discreetly. ” He had given a sign, so he was there. Madame Fumade was able to make sure of it, and didn’t complain. The inhabitants of Espélunque didn’t either, because of the flag. And this adventure further increased the Monarch’s glory, as well as his reputation as a very discreet gentleman. Chapter 3. The Monarch’s Wedding. The day the Monarch learned that Madame Emma, ​​whom he had met in Nîmes, received from her brother in Marseille, every quarter, an income of one hundred francs, which made, good God! four hundred francs a year, it was not avarice, but astonishment and timidity that gave him so much emotion. He did not guess that if Madame Vidoulenc confided in him that, for her part, the splendor of the Monarch’s clothing, which she had just compared with the modesty of her own attire, inspired in her a feeling of humiliation. The Monarch wore a suit made with alternating yellow and purple checks, a rich and singular shade that only the plumage of certain birds in nature can recall, but with less brilliance. His shoes, also yellow, which he had just had polished in a street in Nîmes, near the place where the bronze effigy of the Emperor Hadrian stands, shone so brightly that he could have seen in them, if he leaned his body a little, his soft Italian-style hat, the color of burnt bread. The white of his shirt front was enhanced with a scattering of small red flowers; the low, soft collar was adorned with a red regatta. Thus the Monarch appeared, under the setting sun, like a symphony of gold and purple; and for his very person, it was lively, slim and sharp, valiant and noble. This magnificent suit was his only fortune; the Monarch possessed nothing else in the world. You remember, he had had vines, in the past, but the phylloxera had eaten them, and he helped the phylloxera to the extent of his own means, which are vast, ingenious and diverse. At this time, he has nothing left but a small garden, around a hovel, and when he really needs money too much, he rents himself out to the rich. But in general, as much as possible, he does nothing, and it is for this reason that he is called the Monarch, and for no other. For life is life, go on, it is good! There are weddings, there are births, there are even burials. There is the rain, which keeps people at home, and they are bored, they need someone; the sun, which cheers them up, and they need someone to sing to them. There is hunting, there is fishing, and the grape harvest, and the time when the people of Lyon come to buy cocoons. At Espélunque, we cannot take those to whom we want to be polite to the Opera, so we delegate the Monarch to them. He is joy, he is light, he is music; and his supple and slightly mad soul is only voluptuous with innocence. The very career he has embraced demands it, and I have told you so. If one wants to remain a friend of families, one must not cause trouble. Also the Monarch would have greatly desired the presence, at Espélunque, of a young and independent widow. But there were none left, since Madame Fumade’s departure, and that was why, sacrificing all his savings, Bonnafoux had acquired this magnificent suit: he wore it to go to Nîmes and seduce hearts. That was how he had met Madame Vidoulenc, a widow, precisely, but whose virtue had imposed itself on him. He was ignorant of the manners required to court the ladies of the city: it is not like in the country. He saw sometimes, when he risked a somewhat bold word, the wings of a straight and fine nose quiver slightly; he distinguished the secret ardor which raised for a moment the corners of Madame Emma’s mouth , as if she had been savoring a warm strawberry in the act of melting. But she had never let anything fool her except her waist. And now, he discovered that she was rich at four hundred francs a year! The distances seemed to him to grow immeasurably, he saw her as completely inaccessible as those for whom, down there, he was sometimes asked to sing an aria from Mireille or from If I Were King, and whom he was forced to respect in the interest of his industry; his sensual and naive heart was in despair. A few silver coins still jingled at the bottom of his pocket: he took Madame Emma to have a Madeira at the Café Peloux. This gesture, and the splendor of things around him, began to give him the illusion of fortune. He bathed in a warm atmosphere, he only met people who did nothing, who seemed never to have anything to do, like him! They lived with a contagious and communicative ease, they sat on the terraces with their faces blooming. The evening air smelled of anise, because of the absinthe, and frangipani, for the acacias. A gentleman dressed in a distinguished manner, like the Monarch, was selling tickets for a lottery where one could win a red partridge. Wisely convinced that one never wins, the Monarch did not care to incur this expense. While he looked disdainfully at the partridge, a sudden imagination made him say: “I kill as many of these beasts as I want, at my house!” And it is true that the Monarch poaches. But Madame Emma, ​​who admired him, said naively: “At your house, is it not, on your land? ” “On my land,” said the Monarch, almost without meaning to, “but he would have had so much trouble admitting that he had nothing!” “On my land and that of the neighbors.” We go to one, we go to the other… Madame Emma reflected. “They are vines,” she affirmed. She was still thinking of the Monarch’s lands. He tried to answer evasively : “In the Gard, they are generally vines, sometimes also mulberry trees, when the soil is rich and the water is close by. In the mountains, they are herds. ” “You have herds too!” said Madame Emma. She was moistening her lips with a glass of Madeira; he had asked for some absinthe, the treacherous and generous essence of which was already intoxicating him. “Yes…” he said, “sheep.” He would have just as easily said onagers or cockleburs. Yet he had thought of sheep, because they are more common animals , and also because he really does own a goat. But while he was speaking, he felt remorse. A kind of discretion, or jealousy, unconsciously drove him to paint the thousand troubles of the rich who have the misfortune to have fields, vineyards, and livestock: phylloxera, which he knew well; mildew, poor sales, and, for the sheep, sheep pox, anthrax, the floods that sweep the length and breadth of the vast Gard valley: the poplars like straws , the sheep like drowned rats. But alcohol soon breathed gaiety, enthusiasm, a kind of ironic optimism into his being. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, “it doesn’t matter. In general election years , our deputies make us pay for our floods. It pays off! ” He had said “we” in a kind of delirium of pride and because in Provençal country everyone triumphs over the favors they obtain from the government and the Chambers. It’s like a patriotic victory won over the people of the North. And that proves that the deputy “knows what he’s doing.” “Yes,” said Madame Emma, ​​thoughtfully, and not sensing the degree of transcendent skepticism to which the Monarch had risen, “we’re in trouble. ” “Bah!” he said, “we have our manager!” He said this because, in his imagination, which was becoming excited, he saw in his mind the managers of those who do not themselves promote their property, skillful, strong, and crafty men, harsh to the locals and treacherous to their masters. “Do you have one? ” “By Jove!” cried the Monarch, carried along as if by a torrent. “If I have one, it’s a former officer. Ah! the mastiff!” An idea came to him, blown by the intoxication rising in his brain. He called the bellhop from the Café Peloux. “Stay here,” he said, “I have a telegram to give you.” And while, carried away by her own dream, seeing vine branches, fragrant horned rams, oxen dragging carts, and all the hens in the henhouse, and all the cocks, and the geese with their bellies trailing, Madame Emma looked over her shoulder, he wrote an imperious and vague telegram to a manager who did not exist and whom he called: “My dear commander!” “I call him ‘my dear commander,'” he repeated. “He is a man from the North: he is vain.” The hunter carried the telegram. The Monarch cared nothing for it. He had addressed it to “Poulbot, manager, the Espélunque,” and there was only the Espélunque in all this who could be found. He knew that this was not enough for the dispatch to arrive. He was calm. Never
was he prouder, more in love, more irresistible than in the minutes that followed. His genius prevailed. He had generosity, he had simplicity, he had grace . It was at that moment that he realized that Madame Emma was weakening. “Monsieur Bonnafoux,” she said, “do you really want me?” The Monarch made a proud gesture. The gold of the sunset fell in gold pieces on his gold-colored jacket. It was the apotheosis of an apotheosis, it gleamed. “But you know that I am an honest woman,” she continued. ” How proud my brother in Marseille will be to know that I am so well married…” That is how the Monarch became engaged. The time he spent courting her was atrocious and delicious. He sank with anxious voluptuousness into his imaginary lies, he invented a royal and diamond-studded romance–and everything that really happened to Espélunque, the hail, the rains, the drought, the mistral, the horses that died, the cows that gave birth to two calves, the growth of alfalfa, the rise in wine spirits , it was to him that all these things happened. He lived a hundredfold, millionaire, grandiose existence. He annexed Espélunque as a prime minister might incorporate France. Espélunque was his, he felt truly rich, and he was loved. The wedding worried him a little, but damn it, it was to take place in Nîmes, where he was not known, and to provide for it with dignity, he borrowed. As witnesses, they were Touloumès and Bécougnan. He had only taken them into his confidence, and they were discreet for the moment, because the story was beautiful, and they wanted to see the end. The Monarch explained, moreover, that he had no family, poor thing. Ah! That’s one of the disadvantages of having inherited! When Emma’s brother came from Marseilles, the day before the wedding, with his wife, he dazzled her with his black frock coat, which he had rented, and his white cravat. The dinner, at Manivet’s, was sumptuous. The couple and the two witnesses then took the train to Gers, which is the nearest station to Espélunque. The Monarch, gloriously, took first-class cars. Touloumès and Bécougnan had second-class cars. “The poor things!” said the Monarch in a noble and discreet voice. And he made them board with him, paying the supplement. He preferred not to be alone with Madame Emma. The thought of the catastrophe, inevitable and imminent, was beginning to tighten his heart. The brother from Marseille planted two kisses on his sister’s cheeks. “We are very happy!” he said. “If our friends from Marseille could see you…” The wife of the brother from Marseille was there, all yellow with jealousy. Yet, she kissed the new Madame Bonnafoux all the same. One can hate rich relatives; one must not quarrel with them. In the carriage, the Monarch was gloomy. Of the money he had borrowed, he had nothing left, and now he saw again the sad hovel where they were going to arrive, the dark night, the misery of the next day; above all, he dreaded the confession, the terrible confession. At the station at Gers, however, he made a last effort to delay the outcome. His genius awoke: “I don’t see my carriage,” he said. “I had, however, telegraphed my coachman.” “He will have taken your manager to the Blanduze fair to sell your sheep,” said Touloumès coldly. They had to walk two leagues to the Espélunque. But the air was mild; in the undergrowth, from the almost dried-up bed of the two Gardons, fireflies rose like stale sparks. Little
waterfalls sang. There was also the almost painful palpitation of the tender little stars. The sky was sublime; voluptuousness fell from it . The village was all dark and asleep when they arrived there, and Madame Emma was almost fainting, without being able to tell herself whether it was from fatigue or desire. Touloumès and Bécougnan had disappeared into the night. The Monarch opened a door amidst the disjointed stones. “It’s here,” he said, in a low, unhappy voice. There was nothing in this hovel, and there was everything, as is customary among the wretched: the bed, too narrow even for one, the hearth with the pot, the table, a few wooden chairs, a hutch, some hanging rags, and the supply of wood, some uprooted vines , piled up in a corner. “What is it?” said Emma, ​​astonished. “Where are we?” The Monarch, as if to better withstand the blow he anticipated, settled himself on his two spread legs. He was not proud. “This is my home,” he said humbly. “It’s all I have, my Emma… I had lied. ” Emma understood. She gasped and began to cry. Then, walking towards her husband, she dug eight nails into his ears at once. He felt no pain, but the slow flow of blood bothered him like spider’s scabs. Mechanically raising his hands, he brought them back to his face, which appeared, by the light of a candle, smeared with rouge, ridiculous and upset. The Monarch had placed Madame Emma’s suitcase on the ground, and she made a gesture to take it back. “You can go,” he said, “I lied to you: it’s your right.” And he added, in despair: “The marriage is not consummated. It’s null!” But Madame Emma cried: “Marriage! Eh! Consummated or not, it’s a marriage. Poverty, I know all about it, I’m not afraid of it, Bonnafoux. But my brother in Marseilles! ” “Well?” asked the Monarch, without understanding. “Him, to whom I told that I was making such a fine marriage! And my sister-in-law, whom I had disdained, and I had so much pleasure from it! What am I going to confess to them now?” She had started to cry again, hot tears. And the Monarch understood: she was worthy of him; she had no needs, no! But pride and imagination. His face lit up: “Vai,” he said, “is that all? Don’t I know how to joke? Haven’t I proven that I know how to joke? Emma, ​​Emma, ​​you’ll see! ” They embraced on the miserable bed. And, in the voluptuous shade, they meditated, together this time, another great plot. Even when the water of the Gardon has no waves or falls, when it is content to run, a little briskly, with a pace both regular and hurried, over the arena and the pebbles of the bottom and the banks, the sound, the very small sound of its light waves is so pleasant! It is like the fresh breath of a very young girl. The Monarch went down to her. His bare feet trod a beach of beautiful yellow sand, but so narrow that if the water nymphs still come to dance there in the evening, in truth their size must have diminished over time, that they are hardly bigger today than dolls. Above his head the trees join in a cradle; further on, they fall back almost to the level of the vague bed of the river. This hollow place is hidden, green, discreet, imperceptibly melodious. Resolutely the Monarch entered the water, which did not reach his mid-knees. His lithe body bent down, his arms browned but well-made, the arms of a man who doesn’t exert himself too much, but who exerts himself all the same, who works, if you like, but for pleasure, lowered themselves with a gentle, cautious, almost coaxing gesture: he was bringing towards him an old red wool blanket, which he carried towards the bank with such delicate care that one would have thought he was gliding on the light water, instead of walking. He spread it on the sand, took out his knife, which he sharpened on a sandstone, and began to shear it, as if he were shaving a person’s cheek, with alert precautions, precise calculations in all his movements. When he had finished this strange work, unfolding a piece of black lustrine, he gravely spread the product of his harvest on it and ran his knife over the blanket a second time. And all these thin threads, which now formed a sort of wet porridge, he poured into a bowl and stirred it slowly. When he had skimmed the surface, in the hollow of the wooden vessel a few shiny grains appeared and trembled, barely larger than points. needle. He sighed and threw the blanket back into the water, propping it up with stones. Footsteps sounded. A man stopped on the road above the Gardon. It was Touloumès. “Hey! Monarch,” he said, “are you still looking for gold? It’s a poor man’s job, sinner! ” The Monarch disdained to reply. “Since he still rolls a little gold, the Gardon!” Sometimes a speck clings to the bristling fleece entrusted to him. And by scraping it patiently afterward, then putting it back in the torrent, and always, and always, for hours, from dawn to night, one sometimes earns, during the day, when one is lucky, a small two-franc coin. The Monarch knew well that it is a poor man’s job! But he had no other, for the moment, and what he picked up there was gold, no less! What glittered was gold. Quantity is nothing, there is the word! He was looking for gold, he thought of gold, he saw a little, he held some in the palm of his hand. It was also that the moment was coming, that he would have to keep his word, invite his wife’s brother and his sister-in-law, who believed him to be so rich, owner of so many meadows, vineyards and herds. That is why, for weeks, in order to receive them and pay off the debts imposed on him by his glorious marriage, he toiled like a galley slave, gold prospector in the Gardon, threshing wheat in the barns, keeper of horses, oxen, heifers and heifers at the fair of Blanduze. He had even been paid to sing at the wedding, Bonnafoux, the benevolent one, who had always boasted of being generous with what he had, having no money! And he had been very surprised to see that they so easily put a white coin in his half -open palm: he was like a wild goat that doesn’t want to believe it when you stroke it! At last someone said to him: “But we know, Monarch. Go! Touloumès has spoken to us: you want to play the rich, once. It’s for the magnificence.” And they laughed, without malice. The curls of their mouths and the gleam of their eyes condescended to his plan. Then he understood: they were with him because the story was beautiful, because they were not from the country, those he wanted to deceive, and because everyone wanted to be an accomplice, for the love of art, of lies, of gaiety, which are perhaps three words for the same thing, and also, come on, out of patriotism, for the honor of Espélunque! They asked him: “Monarch, when is the great celebration?” And there came a day when, having amassed the necessary sum, he was able to say: “It’s for tomorrow!” Madame Bonnafoux was very happy. She was wearing a lady’s dress, ordered from Nîmes, and for the past eight days her hands, which she had kept in the shade and indolence, had become whiter. Sometimes she kissed them, amazed; then she threw the Monarch a look full of great love, because she admired his genius. They went to fetch the brother of Marseille and the sister-in-law in a landau they had rented from Blanduze. The two dappled-grey horses that pulled it had roses under their ears and shook their heads as they trotted as if swinging censers. The door panels gleamed with a count’s crown, gilded on a background of thick, glossy black lacquer. It was the same carriage that was used for the prefect’s rounds, and when the two guests got out of the carriage the Monarch went to meet them with a brave face, his step brisk and proud, a bouquet in his hand for the lady. Madame Bonnafoux kissed her sister-in-law on each cheek, with an air of welcome, pleasure, and dignity all at once. It was like the reception of a princely couple by kings, such as one sees painted, almost every year, in the picture newspapers; and all those who were there were proud of it, so well done, honorable and lifelike was it. The horses resumed at a longer trot, their legs high, the road to Gers, the same one that the Monarch had taken with the new bride, a few months before, their hearts filled with such a dark and heavy worry. How everything had changed, bathed in an atmosphere of ease and glory! The first days of autumn had come; in the morning wind, indulgent and warm, the very poplars seemed to drop pieces of aged gold onto the sumptuousness of the waters and the grasses, onto this elegant chariot, and soon onto this procession! For, beneath the footsteps of a cavalcade, the echoes of the embankment could be heard singing. For once, the Monarch was astonished! It wasn’t in the program, he hadn’t hoped for so much: but they had run to meet him, the young men of Espélunque, mounted on the farm horses, heavy, sonorous beasts, broad-chested and plump-rumped, garlands of paper flowers falling over their withers; and their riders, each in turn or all together, fired their rifles. They hadn’t done that in the country since the day Captain Dreyfus was pardoned! They cried: “Long live Monsieur de Bonnafoux! ” “But you’re not noble, Monsieur Bonnafoux,” said the sister-in-law, astonished. “You know,” he replied modestly, “here they like to exaggerate. It’s for flattery, nothing more. But it looks good on a fine day. ” He had pretended, to invite them to the inn, that his house was entirely given over to the workmen: “A woman’s fancy,” he said lightly. But they welcomed him, at the Café Muraton, in such a respectful manner and with such a noble meal! “Go, go,” said Father Muraton, “drink this wine, it’s good: it’s from Monsieur Bonnafoux’s harvest. And that hare, what a smell! It was killed on his land: they fatten those long ears there! ” The Monarch was excited. Never could a truly rich man have enjoyed such a sincere and full welcome, such sympathy without ulterior motives. They loved him, yes! They loved him all the more because they had no reason to envy him. They loved him for being only the poet of fortune. Ah! how good, joyful, delirious, and easy it was! He himself admired himself for having been the creator of this magnificent tale. He was like an acclaimed orator, like a theater king, a millionaire, but illusory and consequently without worries: such are the sublime advantages of fiction. He dreamed of one last stroke, of a dazzling invention that would crown his work. Leaving his guests with Madame Emma, ​​he went to find the one who, at the Espélunque, was the rich man in truth, the one of whom he was only the false image, but illuminated by genius. “Monsieur Racamond,” he said, “would you not give me, for today only, the key to your mazet? ” And truth smiled at lies, adopted them, became their accomplice, married them, always for the love of what is not, the only joy of this miserable universe: Racamond gave the key to his mazet! The Monarch returned, saying: “We could now take a little tour towards my country house in the middle of the vines…” Freshly repainted with whitewash, with its roof of undulating tiles, like little red waves, the house bloomed all white, amidst the vines; and, in front of its portico with its columns of light wood, two palm trees, sheltered from the mistral, dropped vast green leaves from the scales of their rough trunks. The Monarch’s guests entered, moved and almost astonished. There were pieces of furniture covered with light-colored covers, a piano, engravings depicting a hunter helping a beautiful girl cross a ditch, or two young married people exciting, in its oblong cage, the eloquence of a parrot. At the back of a bedroom, the canopy of a majestic rosewood bed sheltered a photograph. Outside, the grape harvest was going on. Children, girls, women, young people laughing in their eyes, were plucking from the sides of the bushy vines, whose leaves were turning a little red, the innumerable bunches of almost black grapes whose grains were bursting in the baskets. The air around them had the scent of a honeycomb just plucked from the hive. “And is this beautiful vineyard yours?” asked the brother from Marseille. astonished. “There was some light rain last week,” said the Monarch without answering directly, like a great lord: “the wine will be good this year. ” … When the guests had been brought back to the Gers station, drunk on fortified wine, sun, and splendor, but silent and chewing a jealous desire, Emma threw two tender and passionate arms around the Monarch’s neck. He was looking at the clouds of the sunset. He seemed to want to steal more imaginary treasures from them, amethysts, rubies, topazes, to make a crown for himself. “That’s the only truth!” he said seriously, thinking of so many illusions. The next day, while they were still dozing in their too-small bed, the postman knocked twice sharply at their door. The Monarch opened it: “It’s a letter for madame,” said the postman politely. While he was walking away towards Massane, Emma opened the envelope. It was from her brother in Marseille. She read: “We are very happy to see that you are so well married, my dear sister. So, since you are so comfortable, surely it will not bother you to no longer receive your annuity of four hundred francs, for we ourselves have great need of it…” And poor Emma burst into tears. Chapter 4. A Distressing Story of Touloumès and the Indulgent Gendarme. I believe I have already made it clear that the Monarch is not, at Espélunque, a “respected” man. Respect goes to the rich, and the Monarch is poor, not in heart, like Francis of Assisi, but cynically, like Diogenes; or even to virtuous people: the Monarch knows no virtue in himself, much less does anyone recognize any in him. But we admire him, we enjoy him, we love him: because he is cheerful, because he is carefree, because he is an “inventor,” not to say a poet, because he is not far from Ulysses and closer to Panurge; because he could be brave, if he were not so prudent, and generous, if he had the wherewithal. We would not want to be the Monarch and yet we are grateful to him for existing: he displays faults or vices that most around him possess; but, with him, they are lovable. And finally, there is nothing like attracting sympathy as not having the right to respect. Everyone showers him. Many feed him. Cazevieille, who is mayor, protects him. Falgarette, who is a pharmacist, apologizes for his indulgence towards him by affirming that he is very intelligent. Peyras, who is not intelligent, follows him to see what he will do. Bécougnan, who is sometimes a little melancholic because his home has known private dramas, but who is not without resembling the Monarch a little, envies him because he would like to be more like him and listens to him like a cheerful song–and everyone treats him with a shade of condescending familiarity. They are not afraid to contradict him, they are not afraid to mock him, even if it means obliging him later: in this country of clear and light mind, no one can be offended by a joke. Only Touloumès remains reserved. Yet Touloumès has money, Touloumès has vineyards, a press, cellars, securities in his drawer; he is a large landowner. And he is a good hunter, a fisherman as skillful, even more passionate than the Monarch. But in front of the Monarch he shows—he wouldn’t admit it!—something resembling a slightly fearful deference. The Monarch can say to him: “Touloumès, I didn’t get taken for a ride by a man from the North!” This man from the North was an Alsatian gendarme. And Touloumès wouldn’t like anyone to mention this adventure, which dishonors him. It was one day that he was fishing in the Gardon. The winter had been rainy, but warm; and, although it was only the end of January, snowdrops were already poking their heads through the sparse grass. Under the trees, which, like a trellis, crossed their branches above the fast, narrow, winding river, and whose very pure water appeared black because of the fallen leaves, shipwrecked since months already and rotting at the bottom, these first flowers of the year came out in clumps their little white urns, chilly, without perfume, but as if amazed that it was warm enough for the mystery of fertilization guarded by their candid corollas to be accomplished. The mossy earth, when one set foot on it, rejected the water like a sponge, and the air was still full of the smell of things that slowly decomposed on the banks, during the mortal months, months without heat and almost without light when vegetation stops. But sometimes, however, for a few seconds, the south wind brought with it, like good news, scents of resurrection raised very far away, in the countries where the plants had begun to bud. Touloumès cautiously went down to the bank. Having recognized the spot he had baited the day before, he began to raise, with small, patient and skillful movements, his beautiful four-section fishing rod , tipped with a blackthorn tip and another made of split bamboo. He attached his line to it, tipped with a Florence root, solid and sinewy in appearance, and a single, brand-new hook, the color of a blue beetle’s elytra. Since, for fishing, he despised the cooked wheat of common fishermen, he placed on this hook a light ball, the size of a pea, made of bread crumbs, honey, and asafoetida; having taken the depth of the water with a sounding, he lowered his line so that the bait remained free, about ten centimeters from the bottom… And then there was nothing left in his soul but a passionate calm, a kind of serene intoxication : he was fishing! Azure and gray fell alternately on his eyes from the heights of the sky. Sometimes a shower trickled over the waterproof ticking that covered his hunting vest and his large, soft woolen underpants; and he saw nothing but the cork float, which, on the water, trembled in the downpour; but he waited patiently, knowing that the fish come more readily to the bait after the rain. Sometimes, on the contrary, the sun shone, the bare trees, above the peaceful, black river, took on a very soft lilac hue in the distance, and from time to time a tench or a chub bit: it was the great battle, the duel, less unequal than one might think, between the struggling fish, furious in its pain, and the man who brings it slowly, suffocated, to the landing net, then to the game bag full of wet grass. Then Touloumès put out a new bait, his arm proud, still exalted by the patient vigor displayed in the struggle. However, above his head, he heard footsteps approaching , both cautious and majestic, on the soft grass. He turned around: a gendarme was there, watching him curiously. Touloumès was not at all worried: he was not fishing during prohibited times, the river belongs to everyone, his conscience, in short, did not reproach him for anything. The gendarme, moreover, only asked, in a sympathetic and low voice, as if he were afraid of frightening the fish: “Are they biting? ” “Yes!” replied Touloumès with a silent nod. He lowered his satisfied eyes to the open game bag where the beautiful fish were still moving: the shiny roach, almost like carp, but slimmer; the chub with pale yellow eyes and a black spot. Their backs were a dark green that faded to blue on the ribs; their sides and bellies shone with a pearly white that quivered in agony. The gendarme, having looked in his turn, declared that it was a fine catch. Suddenly the float shot out, making a right angle with the bank, and diving before Touloumès had even set the hook. The long rod bent so suddenly that one would have thought it was going to break. But Touloumès, although moved to the heart, had nevertheless kept his cool. With pursed lips , he let the float float as far as the line would allow, pulled, and released more line… Very bright green and shimmering ochre, white reflections, brilliant green fins, a A strong, sharp head, that was what finally appeared on the surface of the water, at the very moment when the captured fish gave such a tremendous blow with its tail that Touloumès’s arm was almost dislocated. Once again he gave up the line. “What a fine thing!” said the gendarme, with a good Alsatian accent, “what a fine thing! Ah! if you were going to lose it!” And he held out the net himself when the leaping prey returned near the edge. Prisoner, the fish filled the net, the shaft of which bent beneath its body. We saw its green head, its even greener throat, the color of a meadow, its yellow eyes and its yellow lips smacking desperately. “How big it is!” said the gendarme with an air of admiration. “It is big, big… as one of my feet! And what is it? I have never seen one like it. ” “It is a shadow!” replied Touloumès, who boasted of knowing all the fish in France. It’s a grayling. It’s a rare fish here: it will have been carried off by the floods. And it must be disoriented, starving, to have bitten into a pellet. “Ah!” said the gendarme, still in a very gentle voice, “is it a grayling?… Good God, it’s so annoying! ” “Why is that?” asked Touloumès, who continued to look at his catch with pride. “From October 15 to January 31, fishing for grayling is prohibited: decree of May 18, 1878… It’s prohibited, prohibited! I must draw up a report for you. Good God, it’s so annoying! ” “But I didn’t do it on purpose, come on, catching a grayling!” cried Touloumès. “It’s not my fault if that one got caught on my line!” You fish with a fly, first of all, the grayling, and I was fishing with a ball. I’ll put it back in the water, if you like. “He’d die of his wound,” said the policeman. “Pollution of waterways ! It’s forbidden. Good God, it’s annoying!” His whole attitude revealed infinite compassion, tender kindness . Hope returned to Touloumès’s soul. He took a forty-sou piece from his pocket. “No, no, sir!” said the policeman, evading the offer with a gesture, but without indignation. “Don’t worry. We’ll issue a fine , but that’s no reason for the matter to continue. I’ll arrange that: we’re not brutes. I’ll state the circumstances of the case. For a grayling to lose such a fine catch, what a misery! ” “Lose my catch?” asked Touloumès. “Yes,” said the gendarme, “I must confiscate it. Good God , it’s annoying!” Touloumès doubted that he had the right to confiscate in this case. But he didn’t protest, hoping that abandoning his catch would soften the heart of this very polite gendarme. “You’re not confiscating my fishing gear, are you?” he said with a smile, to put on a brave face. “No, sir, no,” said the gendarme. “We’re not Turks. Take it all away, go on! ” Touloumès, barely stifling a sigh, began to gather up his bait balls and the box in which he had put his large groundbait balls. “You can see you know how to fish!” said the gendarme flatteringly. “What are those balls?” “It’s the Florent mixture, an ancient mixture, but the best,” declared Touloumès with a little vanity: “croton cascarilla, clay, frankincense bark, myrrh, barley flour soaked in wine, pig’s liver, garlic, and fine sand. It’s marvelous. And it doesn’t smell bad, it’s delicate. ” “And it amuses the fish, it intoxicates them,” said the gendarme. “It’s stupid to say it intoxicates them,” protested Touloumès, “it’s absolutely stupid! ” “Of course, of course!” conceded the ever-voluntary gendarme. “Well, goodbye, sir, and all my regrets. ” “Gendarme,” asked Touloumès timidly, “will it all go well ? ” “Don’t worry,” said the gendarme, “these are minor misfortunes. You have your conscience on your side, don’t you?” Touloumès had his conscience on his side. And this gendarme had been so polite that when he got home, he thought of little else but the loss of his catch and his game bag. It was therefore with profound astonishment that he received, a few days later, a summons to appear before the criminal court of Blanduze, “for contravention of the ordinances and decrees on the policing of fisheries, fishing offenses, insults to a law enforcement officer, and attempted corruption of a civil servant.” “Ah! the pig!” moaned Touloumès, thinking of the gendarme. However, he still hoped, deep down, that this was only a mistake. His good faith could not fail to be revealed in broad daylight at the hearing, and it would be clear how things had turned out. But no one would have thought of putting so many lies into a summons. This one had been poorly written; the report had surely not been understood ! The attitude of the gendarme, whom he encountered pacing back and forth in full uniform on the Place du Palais, confirmed him in this opinion. Candor, indulgence, and goodwill were painted on the features of this modest servant of the State. “What a surprise!” he said, going straight to Touloumès. “Huh? So it’s followed its course! I would never have believed it. They have to be tough at the Public Prosecutor’s Office! But I’ll arrange that, come on, I’ll arrange that; I’ll testify in your favor. ” Hope returned to the soul of the worried fisherman. And when his case was called, he waited confidently for the gendarme’s explanations. The gendarme, indeed, spoke amiably. “On January 22, 1910,” he said, “I had to issue a ticket to the accused for fishing, during prohibited times, for a fish that he recognized as a grayling. ” “For example!” cried Touloumès, “it was I who told him the name of the fish. He didn’t know anything about it, that policeman. Oh! How stupid I was! ” “Upon my observation that it was a prohibited fish,” continued the policeman, “the accused here present replied lightly that it was rather rare to have the good fortune to catch it in the Gardon, and showed no regret. Having drawn up a report for him, he tried to offer me a two-franc piece, and, on my refusal, tried to hide bait balls whose intoxicating composition , harmful to fish, he then had to confess to me. Having reproached him for it, as being contrary to the decrees and ordinances, the accused showed no regret for his conduct and called me an idiot, being in uniform and issuing fines in the exercise of my duties. “Ah!” cried Touloumès, the crap… But his lawyer silenced him, fearing that he would aggravate his case. Touloumès was sentenced to a fine of three hundred francs and eight days in prison “only,” the maximum being three months “in consideration of the fact that he had not yet suffered any punishment,” and that he was of good character, which his defense lawyer pointed out. The latter hastened to follow him out of the court, fearing that his client would engage in some disastrous demonstration. Touloumès, in fact, had rushed towards the gendarme. But the gendarme looked at him with an air of benignity that lent something sublime to his face, both gentle and manly. And before the condemned man had opened his mouth: “Huh,” he said, “they salted you! But I know the jailer of the prison, and if you want… ” Touloumès had refused to listen to any more. Chapter 5. The Tiennou. The Tiennou himself, the one who is a little innocent, poor thing, and who, at the instigation of the Monarch, accused the wolves of having devastated the henhouse at Peyras, the Tiennou has a history. Alone at Espélunque, and even as far as Sommières or Maillezargues, the Tiennou “knows the North.” He crossed it once, in all directions, under the guidance of Mr. Maillecoche, director of the Cirque des Deux Mondes. But his travels were of little use to him because his head is rather weak. The general opinion he brought back is that France is not a good country: this judgment, which is reckless and even unjust, is nevertheless based on personal experience. Tiennou’s ideas are limited to the satisfaction of his most immediate needs, and when he has eaten, he is happy. Fortunately, nature was kind to him. Tiennou is hungry, he is hungry very often: but his taste is devoid of critical sense. Maillecoche had discovered him long ago in Alais, in the Gard department, at the time when the menagerie of the Cirque des Deux Mondes had just lost its last resident: a cheetah, who had died of an attack of acute rheumatism. The only and last attraction of a decaying establishment , this cheetah had been during his life a precious animal, both ferocious and tame. He would break the backs of any dog ​​that the fanciers were willing to put up against him, then immediately let himself be dressed in a nightcap and a dressing gown, and pretend to go to bed with Madame Maillecoche, undressed in a chaste and gallant manner. The death of this animal was ruinous, because the finances of the menagerie did not allow for a replacement. It was then that Maillecoche had luckily come across Tiennou, whose voracity filled him with admiration. Tiennou eats anything. He has iron teeth, a stomach like articulated bronze, and above all a total lack of smell. Anything is good to him, provided that it can calm an ever-regenerating appetite . Maillecoche, who had seen him one day in a cabaret, eating silkworm chrysalises for a few sous, had hired him to play the savage. This combination was economical. A wild animal must be bought. A man is paid by the day.
But Tiennou, in the long run, became cowardly at work, and Maillecoche, after a while, no longer recognized him. His savage sometimes said, with a melancholy air: “I’m always hungry, but I’d rather eat good things!” And he made himself some “aigue boulide,” which is a mixture of boiled olive oil with garlic, in order to digest the meals he prepared in front of the public. This refinement outraged Maillecoche because it is unlikely that a savage would smell of garlic: it arouses doubts in the spectators. However, he gave in to this whim because he saw clearly that Tiennou’s stomach was getting out of order. He pushed his solicitude to the point of giving him quinine. But Tiennou’s health could no longer bear even the indulgent energy of these encouragements. “I’m hungry,” said Tiennou, “I’m still hungry. But I only like vegetables now. I’d like to eat vegetables, Monsieur Maillecoche! ” He was finally experiencing that supreme torture: the disgust of everything offered to him, while his entrails continued to be torn by a perpetual desire for food. It was thus that Monsieur Maillecoche’s troop reached Chamery, in the heart of Champagne. Tiennou was still groaning. His concern for his native land grew within him at the same time as the torture of his viscera. “Ah!” he said, “how I would like to go away, to return there, to eat figs: there are some on all the roads, and they belong to no one. Or watercress: there are some in all the fountains! And also a grape. They give them away, when it’s the grape harvest, they give them to all who want them!” Beyond the curtain, under the tent, the villagers of Chamery were growing impatient. “Come on, get out!” said Maillecoche. “There are some grapes in Champagne too. You’ll have some after the performance… Madame Maillecoche, let go of the gramophone. ” The gramophone, switched on, squeaked out the Marche de Sambre et Meuse in a hoarse voice, and Mr. Maillecoche left the wings to give the usual speech to the people. His black suit, though a little worn, was perfectly proper. Behind him, above the platform where he was delivering the spiel, the painted canvases of the fairground tent represented a boa constrictor on a palm tree, in the act of swallowing a Negro; a rhinoceros piercing a lion with a single blow of its horn; a deep-sea diver defending a young girl against a shark with his axe; Joan of Arc burned by the English, the destruction of Saint Pierre de la Martinique by the volcano, and a man completely naked, except for a loincloth of green leaves around his waist, brick-red skin, a crown of yellow feathers on his head, gnawing alive the skull of a missionary who wore the Dominican robe. Maillecoche placed his top hat on the pedestal table that served as a counter, and Madame Maillecoche, whose swimsuit represented the scales of a fish, no doubt a mermaid, prudently took up this precious headdress to put it even further away, sheltered from the too eloquent gestures of her husband. Then, putting on a megaphone, he let out several magnificent roars. Then, lowering this funnel, he pronounced in his natural voice: –Yes, ladies, yes, gentlemen, the savage of the Archipelago of Thieves, whom you are about to see, would feed on human flesh if the administration allowed him. When he travels by train, we are obliged to pay for a reserved compartment for him, and even then we are obliged to put a muzzle on him closed by a padlock, the keys to which only I have: here it is! He took from under the counter a fencing mask painted red and green and extended by a beard of horsehair. “Such ornaments,” he said, “are indispensable to make him accept the wearing of this iron armor; for savages, as Messrs. Claude Bernard, Hovelacque, Pasteur, immortal benefactor of humanity, Monsieur Thiers and President Roosevelt himself have so aptly said, are big children who must be taken by their weakness. Let the depth of my words and the extent of my knowledge not surprise you. My name is Maillecoche, and it is pronounced the same in English and in French, doctor of the faculty of Tiflis, Minnesota, United States, and if I travel the most distant countryside to practice the generous diffusion of the most recent discoveries of science, this devotion to the modest tasks of popularization has been rewarded by the testimonies of admiring esteem of several journalists, and of His Majesty the Emperor of the Turks Abd ul Hamid: he is not yet dead, but peace to his soul! Such were the resounding words that he threw to the inhabitants of Chamery. Half improvised, half recited from a motif learned by heart, he himself was enchanted by their lyrical incoherence. In the country, the grape harvest had just been completed. The wine of the year promised to be good and the Champagne winegrowers said to each other, proudly: –The wine will sell for a high price, this time! We’ll pave the streets with hundred-sou coins ! “And we’ll lay them straight, not flat!” replied others. However, before entering Maillecoche’s shack, they hesitated, in view of the twenty-five centimes they would have to pay. Then, to persuade them, his mouth twisted inward, the showman shouted these words, in a language they could not understand: “Brama, Tiennou, brama, thumb!” And from beneath the very planks burst forth fierce cries, inhuman indeed, which rent the air. “There he is roaring, the savage, gentlemen,” said Maillecoche. “Come in, come in! You will see what you have never seen. This evening he will eat stones, raw meat, glass, animals dead and alive, furred and feathered. He would eat man, I tell you, if I didn’t hold him back!” But don’t worry, he’s chained up: I ‘m wary of his morals and I’m obeying the precautions dictated by the police commissioner. One by one at first, then in fairly compact groups, the villagers decided to enter. The parade was over, they piled onto the benches. In front of them rose a platform made of planks placed on trestles and closed by canvas curtains painted in a crimson velvet. The showman, leaving the platform, half-opened these curtains and entered what one might call the wings. A man just like the one depicted on the sets of the tent, naked to the waist, his body and face dyed with walnut stain, a crown of yellow feathers on his head, a loincloth of artificial grass around his body, was sitting on a chair. Madame Maillecoche, who had not taken the time to take off her mermaid fish costume, was finishing a moving tattoo on his chest : an eagle with outstretched wings carrying off a black woman. A cloud with blue swirls added to the beauty of the design and served to hide the breasts. “Are you ready, Tiennou?” asked Maillecoche in Provençal. “You can see that,” said Tiennou in the same dialect. ” But I’m hungry, Maillecoche, I’m so hungry: will there be tomatoes?” Maillecoche replied in an authoritative and significant voice: “We’ll have dinner when you’ve eaten.” Once again, in the gramophone funnel, the brassy stanzas of Sambre and Meuse resounded, and, to the last strains of this patriotic anthem, Tiennou leaped onto the platform. Maillecoche had encircled his torso with an iron chain, the end of which he held in his hand. And Tiennou danced a war dance. He heard it repeated, once again, that he had devoured entirely and without remorse the pious missionary, his spiritual father. He ground under his teeth the artificial stones, made of sand mixed with sugar, with which Maillecoche skillfully replaced the pebbles and fragments of red brick passed to him by the public. He chewed a piece of raw rabbit. All the same, the job wasn’t too hard today! He had often had to force his jaws on filthy animals. What a joy if things went more or less smoothly this evening! But a half-drunk peasant pulled a field mouse from his pocket, and everyone laughed. “Take a bite of it anyway,” said Maillecoche in a low but imperative voice. And he added for the audience: “The savage from the Thieves’ Archipelago wouldn’t back down from a rhinoceros! ” Then, his heart rising, in a barbaric voice, in a language that could seem to everyone like that of the South Seas, Tiennou shouted: “Si me lou fas mangea, dise que sey d’Alais! ” The showman understood what that meant: “If you make me eat it, I ‘ll say I’m from Alais!” The scandal would have been too great: savages are not born in Provence. Maillecoche didn’t insist. But Tiennou, disgusted all the same, had returned to Espélunque: he decidedly preferred carrying the luggage of travelers arriving from Gers by railway. Chapter 6. The Ball. … That day, when the Monarch returned home, the stars shone very brightly in the dark, dry air: it was past ten o’clock in the evening, a long time to stay awake in this village of Espélunque, where people usually have supper at sunset or thereabouts. Madame Emma had remained standing to wait for him, for it is hardly proper for a wife to go to bed before her husband. She said, with a submission that implied a slight reproach: “How late you’re back!” The Monarch assumed a grave and almost sublime air, but remained silent. It was not that he did not want to speak, but he judged that his words would have more majesty if he took a moment first: in the South, they have preserved a very subtle sense of the effects of eloquence. Suspending the expression of one’s thoughts for a few moments is not one of the least reliable. “Are you coming from the circle?” asked Madame Emma. The Monarch only replied with a gesture, without opening his mouth: but he put, in this simple inclination of the head, a magnificent expression of sadness. He had bent his neck like a gladiator admitting defeat, with indestructible pride. He owed it to himself, having said long ago: “I am half Roman. It is the blood that demands it. In Provence, we are all half Romans.” “Yes,” he said, “I come from the circle: The Jesuits triumph!” And he held out his hands with infinite nobility. In Espélunque, which has eight hundred inhabitants, there have always been two circles: the first, considered reactionary, was formerly called the Republican Circle; the second, which is republican, was called the Socialist Circle. But, little by little, these names themselves fell into disuse. As it became evident that republicans are no more socialist than reactionaries are republicans, they ended up seeming too obviously devoid of meaning. Espélunque is a small town entirely populated by vineyard owners. For them, the Revolution was truly made in 1789: they are all equal, reasonably prosperous, and have nothing more to desire than a small place, from time to time, for their sons, sometimes a decoration of Agricultural Merit and tax exemptions, or even compensation for a disaster in the six months preceding the general elections. But for this population with a very lively imagination, and who deeply enjoy all oratorical demonstrations, political struggles are a cerebral sport. Without them, one would live in profound boredom. It is therefore a real concern for the Monarch’s compatriots to find themselves in a situation of disagreement every four years. To use their own expression, they are “against.” Fortunately, recent events have restored some interest in religious conflicts. One of the circles of Espélunque is therefore today anticlerical, and the other clerical. The first bears the epithet of Masonic, although there is only one Freemason in the country, aged eighty-two, and a Bonapartist. The other committee is called the Jesuit Circle, although at no time have Jesuits been seen in the region. But there is an old convent, perched on Mount Saint Peyre, and bought by Abbot Restif, who set up an orphanage there. The Masonic circle’s first duty is to believe that Abbé Restif is plotting dark plots there, in concert with the other supposed Jesuits, who meet on Saturday evenings at Madame Foucharesses’s, a barmaid. … The Monarch took off his hat as if saluting a mourning and finally pronounced: “It’s ruin! The allied parties of reaction triumph. It wasn’t enough that there hadn’t been the slightest hailstorm here, it wasn’t enough that they had floods elsewhere, nay, earthquakes that legitimized the intervention of the public authorities; and we, nothing! Our president Mestrelou, that scoundrel Mestrelou, the controller, has just left with the cash register: he’s taking seven hundred and fifty francs, the traitor! We will be the laughingstock of Europe. ” Madame Emma didn’t flinch. This news left her indifferent. She raised her head, more attentive, when her husband added: “And he didn’t run off alone! He has ridiculed the entire committee : he has taken with him the wife of one of our own, the wife of Peyras, the good citizen. That’s where we are: the party will not recover from such a blow!” He swallowed a mouthful of water and said, in a soft and modest voice: “They have appointed a new president: it’s me. A terrible responsibility now weighs on my shoulders. It is up to me to save the party. ” “You will save it, Juste!” said Madame Emma proudly. But the Monarch fell silent again, in order to show clearly that he was concentrating his thoughts on difficult problems. It appeared, moreover, the very next day, that Mr. Mestrelou’s financial indelicacy and his ill-considered flight with Madame Peyras had produced the most deplorable effect. Not that, at another time, great importance would have been attached to these events. But, at the time of the general elections, malicious importance was placed on exaggerating them. At the sessions of the committee which sits at Madame Foucharesses’s, the immorality of the members of the committee which holds its meetings at the Muraton café was emphasized. The children of the orphanage founded by Abbé Restif, deplorably advanced for their age, when they passed in front of the windows of this café, sang vague things in which it was a question of a “cuckoo.” This, as we know, is the ancient pronunciation of the popular term that designates deceived husbands. The Monarch bowed under the weight of these political insults. Sometimes, he raised proud and sorrowful glances towards Mont Saint Peyre, lair of the “Jesuits,” according to the party doctrine. “They triumph,” he repeated, “they triumph! ” The committee he presided over, plunged into shame and uncertainty, found nothing to decide, in these difficult circumstances, except that the party needed “a new platform.” Then it became the Monarch’s fixed idea to find a platform. But no matter how hard he racked his brains, he discovered nothing. Although the words he used to deplore his grief were excessive and redundant, they expressed a sincere feeling. What pleased him in the political struggle, as he conceived it, as did all the inhabitants of Espélunque, was that this struggle was ideal and voluntary. It was art, it was a game. One must then imagine a booed actor: what a shame! “Just, what are you thinking about?” his wife would ask him sometimes when she saw him dreaming. “I’m looking for the platform!” he would say. And having never thought except in images, but according to concrete things, it seemed to him that he could find this platform only in the water that flowed under the bridge of Gers, the undulating flight of the crows, the changing and prestigious aspect of the clouds. The members of the committee often followed him, affecting before the world a confident countenance that was not in their hearts. It was not necessary to show the enemy that one was discouraged, buffoon! It was necessary to hold one’s head high, to flaunt it, for God’s sake! Thus walked behind him Pierre Honoré Falgarettes, the pharmacist; Touloumès, the hunter; Bécougnan, Peyras, the same one who had just been abandoned by his wife, Muraton, and even M. Cazevieille, the mayor. All, like him, were trying to find the platform. On Twelfth Night, a gust of mistral, coming down the Rhône, made the sky clear and the air very crisp. Suddenly, as the melancholy troop was going up the old road to Nîmes, with a slow and majestic step, shivering in the north wind, the Monarch, whose eyesight is piercing, seized Muraton’s arm: “Don’t you see something over there?” he asked ardently, pointing with his finger at the northern horizon. “What I see,” said Muraton, “I see… I see their lair!” It was the orphanage of Abbé Restif that he meant to describe. The old convent, on the steeply sloping hill, looked like a fortified castle. Its rugged appearance truly helped the mind to imagine that things were happening there, and the newly gilded cross on the bell tower rose victoriously, shining with a clear brilliance, like that of frozen lightning. “But above, sinner, above, near that cloud, in the sky? ” “I can’t make out anything,” said Muraton. “I see a point,” said Touloumès, the hunter. “A point! You who have good eyes, look better, friend, look! ” “It’s a balloon!” declared Touloumès. For a few minutes, in the kind of delicious languor one feels when staring at things floating in the sky, everyone contemplated the balloon. It was growing visibly. Its oblong shape was soon distinguished , then a small tricolor flag attached to a guy rope, which sometimes waved, held by an invisible hand. When it passed under the shadow of a cloud it sank slightly towards the earth, and as soon as the sun shone on it again it rose again, more brilliant, a golden yellow, just like those corks that float at the end of a fisherman’s line. “And now,” Touloumès suddenly shouted, “what is this balloon?” The members of the committee remained silent. It was a balloon like all balloons, eh! No more. “Think, Touloumès,” continued the Monarch, inspired; “think, Bécougnan! Is there somewhere, in Massane, in Gers, in the Espélunques, as far as Uzès or Montpellier, a votive festival, a reason for that a balloon be lifted? “There is no votive festival,” declared Touloumès. “A fair, then, or agricultural shows? ” “There is neither fair nor show,” admitted Bécougnan. “And you see where it is passing, the balloon,” continued the Monarch; “you see above what it is making signs, the flag: above the chapel of Saint Peyre. Well, it is…” He paused for a second, and everyone looked at him questioningly, waiting for decisive words. He drew them from the depths of his chest, like a roar: “It is the Jesuits who are communicating!” uttered the Monarch. Everyone remained fixed on the ground, dazzled and convinced. “Monarch,” said Falgarettes at last, “you have found the platform. The party is saved. ” “I believe so,” replied the Monarch modestly. This was, in fact, the almost general opinion at Espélunque. The balloon, in its course towards the south, carried with it the memory of the misfortunes of Peyras, of the betrayal of Mestrelou. Through it, the Jesuits had communicated. It was not believed with reason, but with imagination, and that was enough. Even, at the outpouring of Madame Foucharesses, the adversaries only made weak protests; they themselves were flattered, because the supposition was pleasant and marvelous. Chapter 7. The Queen of Cyprus. The Monarch, in ordinary times, is of a sobriety of which he takes some pride. “For,” he says, “like all great intellectuals, I cannot bear drink.” He takes only his absinthe, every evening, an absinthe which he makes last two hours, skillfully, by diluting it with water each time he dips his lips in it. And it’s not for the absinthe, it’s for the sugar. Good proof that dogs don’t like the Monarch: he never deigned to give them a single one of the three pieces that were placed next to him, on a saucer. This alone, according to him, proves that he is not an alcoholic: a true alcoholic has a horror of sugar. Such, at least, is his assertion. Apart from this daily aperitif, the Monarch is content with one or two glasses of white wine in the morning, and two liters of wine with each meal: alcoholics have a horror of wine. And this little wine from the Gard is so superior to that of the Hérault, isn’t it? It is light, it is fresh; you can see that the grapes from which it comes grew on the mountain. It is not an intoxicating beverage; you drink it to quench your thirst: it is the water of the worker. As for real water, pure of any mixture, the Monarch considers it a dangerous liquid. No one drinks pure water , except Parisians. Those are different. The Monarch once saw one who rejected all other beverages like poison. This man had inspired a deep pity in him, which his courtesy alone prevented him from showing. “Don’t be embarrassed, sir,” he said ingenuously, handing him the carafe. “This year, it’s pouring out!” It is only during election time that the Monarch makes an exception to his regime: but it is his duty as a member of the socialist committee of Espélunque. “I am on the socialist committee,” he explains, “because the republican committee is monarchist.” Such is his way of thinking. He is patriotic and freethinking, a friend of enlightenment and full of respect for the sisters of charity; finally, he fears innovations. “It is good, ” he exclaimed one day eloquently, “to talk about reforms. It is imprudent to make them!” The sub-prefect then said of him that he was a useful man. He learned it and was proud of it, for he inwardly loves the powers. That is why, during election time, he does not leave the Muraton café, which then takes the title of “Permanence,” inscribed in black letters above his door on a strip of white calico. The Monarch is happy. He improvises magnificent oratorical poems, he greets the dawn of new times. Words, for him, sensually evoke images; he stretches out his hands to grasp them. From two o’clock to five, while Muraton only opens cans, democracy still appears to him only as an abstraction; but, at aperitifs, there it is becomes, in truth, an eternal and living Minerva. He speaks of her as a divine mistress, he sings of her, he praises her, he kisses her. And when he says: “We will throw her obscure enemies into the mud!” he physically feels like a Hercules slaying monsters, he proudly contemplates the muscles of his arms. Muraton never shows him the account of the drinks drunk during the election period. The candidate settles this later, and with gratitude. The quinquinas follow the cans, the vermouths the quinquinas, then the generous bitters and the enthusiastic absinthes. We sing. Bécougnan, Muraton and Touloumès first persist in the Internationale. The Monarch, a little disdainful of such a banal hymn, follows it with the Mute of Portici, recalling the heroic and insurrectionary role that this musical drama played in the Brabant revolution. And finally, by dint of singing, we sing anything, anything that is beautiful: the Blessing of the Daggers, O great Saint Dominic, and Halt there, halt there, the mountaineers are there. Then, the Monarch intones: Everything is, in this low world, Only a game, only a game! It is the grand air of the Queen of Cyprus, and Bécougnan, Muraton, Touloumès, all the assistants, Madame Muraton herself, respond in chorus: The true sage slings him A little, a little. They have beautiful voices, all the same, and the Monarch a “great” voice. They sincerely admire each other, fulfilled, ardent, delighted, and an obscure feeling, but one that the crowd shares, makes them bless the Republic, which gives them such leisure. … That day, however, when the Monarch finally left the café, it was only because of his delirium that he did not realize that his legs did not have as much solidity as his brain felt in lucid enthusiasm. From the center of Espélunque to the summit of Massane, where he lives, the slope is steep, although the road rises in harmonious bends. He attacked it with great courage, raising his arms to the sky. It was to express the democratic exaltation he felt, but also to keep his balance. He declaimed: “We will mount an assault on all reactions!” and brandished his right hand as if he were holding a saber. This gesture suddenly brought him to the pavement, which his foot struck violently, but he did not notice. The essential thing was that, in the magnificent avenues of his brain, he continued not to flinch. “Determined to maintain her rights, resolutely peaceful, France, leaning on her sword, will wait without moving, immobile and proud, for attacks from outside.” This sentence from his candidate’s program came back to him, and he repeated it with a majestic air. This gave him the opportunity to stop. He sucked in air, felt his body pointing forward, and took a few hurried steps. What astonished him was to see so clearly all the things he was thinking about, and so confusedly the external objects. But he also had the impression that someone was shouting behind him. It was the kids from Espélunque. Barely a few minutes had passed since the Monarch had left the Café Muraton, and already all the kids of Espélunque knew that the Monarch was drunk. No one has ever properly explained the cause of the tiresome curiosity that young people show toward drunkards. They stubbornly refuse to leave them in peace, even though they hold no grudge against anyone and , on the contrary, feel only feelings of universal sympathy. The youth of Espélunque, filled with a tumultuous and boundless joy, pursued the Monarch. A vague fear, however, kept them at some distance behind him, and when he turned around, with the contemptuous and indignant air that he assumes in public meetings to crush his opponents, frroutt… one could hear that dull and terrified noise of flocks of sparrows fleeing a stack of wheat as its owner approaches. Then the troop returned, quivering, importunate, frightened and yet bold, transported with an insolent joy. and disastrous. Suddenly, Milou Dehodencq, the son of Dehodencq, precisely, a reactionary, conceived an idea that one can, at such a tender age, call brilliant. It also inspires the highest idea of ​​his intrepidity. Alone, without support, without anyone having suggested anything to him, approaching stealthily the lost and glorious Monarch, very gently he took him from behind, very gently he made him turn around, very gently he gave him the necessary impetus… the Monarch, now, had his back to his home in Massane, where Madame Emma, ​​his worried and severe wife, was waiting for him, and his face towards the Espélunque. His blurred eyes did not notice it. He was in the clouds, he was soaring, beating the air with his hands, which he always waved like wings. And even walking should have been easier for him: he was coming back down. But as he raised his feet with each step for the ascent he thought he was making, he seemed like a heavy ship whose prow was plunging into the swell; and I don’t know if it was for this reason that he felt a little seasick. The kids from the Espélunque, roaring with joy in his wake, gave him the impression of the storm. And it seemed so beautiful to him that he began to laugh heartily. And so, undulating, magnanimous and gentle, he found himself in front of the Café Muraton. Madame Muraton, who saw him from her door, said to him with a little concern: “Is it you again, Monarch?” He replied, with a kind smile, and without being surprised: “Is it you again too, Madame Muraton?” The kids from the Espélunque were now keeping a good distance. A great silence reigned. The Monarch was not surprised by anything. The fact that, having walked exactly the number of steps that should have taken him home, into his house, he was once again in front of the Muraton café seemed to him only a favorable phenomenon: his tongue was very dry. “I would like,” he said, “a white wine with seltzer.” His wishes were orders. They served him without discussion. Once seated, the universe regained its balance for him, and the seltzer did him good. He raised his glass toward the setting sun, as if in greeting, spat to clear his throat, and gave with all his heart: The true sage scolds him A little, a little. But the fool is amused by it Very much, very much, And he never accuses Fate, fate! Then, a long shudder of admiration shook the Espélunque, and even the kids were moved: the Monarch, even when he was drunk, sang in tune! This did him the greatest honor. Chapter 8. The Ghost of Caussanel. It was Bécougnan, not the Monarch, it must be admitted, who was the hero of the story I am about to tell. But he took such great pleasure in it that it would be a great insult to him, as well as to his friends, not to give him his place here. … The season was so mild, the spring so early, that, towards the middle of February, in this plain of the Gard, there were already almond trees in blossom, birds making love, and flies. So many flies in fact that, to protect themselves from them, they had stretched in front of the open door that light curtain made of multicolored glass tubes, threaded on thin cords, which is customary throughout Provence. The warm south-east wind stirred it gently, and made it sing.
Outside, a fat pig was rummaging in the dunghill, followed by cackling hens; and in the room, sitting in front of a siphon of fizzy lemonade, for he had refused any other beverage, being a member of an anti-alcohol league as well as of the Society for Psychical Research and of the International Bureau of Spiritism, whose headquarters are in London, Mr. William Simonson was taking notes. “Yes, sir,” Bécougnan told him, “it was in this room that the ghost returned; fourteen nights in a row, at midnight striking, it returned: and I saw it as I see you. It is a mistake to believe, as is done in your country, that there are ghosts only in the North; there’s everything in the South, sir, it’s an opulent land, a privileged land, a land where nothing is lacking. Only, we’re not afraid of ghosts, we don’t allow them to do whatever they want, like in your country. We’re brave, you know! “This house where you are, I bought it cheap, when poor Caussanel died, who hanged himself. It was phylloxera that caused it. I remember how he used to say, our Caussanel, at the time when everyone was putting their savings in Panama: “–Invest my money! Invest my money! Here, there are vines, and that should be enough! Will it give me fifteen of the hundred like my vineyard, your Panama? ” And ever higher up the coast, behind the house, pulling up the wild fig trees, pulling up all the undergrowth, he made his Carignan and Aramon plants climb. He put all his money into it, he mortgaged his property on the plain to fertilize his stones… And then phylloxera came. So he borrowed against everything else: from the notaries, from the Crédit Foncier; he tried every drug, he dug wells as deep as the Espélunque to fetch water, and drown his vines. And in the end, when the others, who had waited with their stomachs in their throats, saw that there was a way to do it, with the American vines, and they began to replant, he was out of breath, and he was harvesting nothing but stamped paper: a whole cartload of stamped paper. He had turned all yellow like his vine branches and twisted with misery like the dying vines. That’s why he hanged himself, when they put up the notice to sell him, sell the house, the cellars, the land, the furniture, in short everything. He hanged himself, I tell you. When these gentlemen of justice came in, he was walking around a rafter, above the fireplace, and he had tied all his stamped paper to his feet, kilos of stamped paper! He seemed to be looking at them, sticking his tongue out at them. “This isn’t a country where people usually despair, and that made a bad impression. When the house and the property were put up for sale, no one wanted to buy anything. And then we had already bled ourselves dry to restore the value of what we had: nothing but empty pockets, in the country. I was the only one who was happier, because of the death of Uncle Bécougnan, the one who ran a tobacconist’s in Nîmes, rue de la Grille. So, I bought, in the end, after the auction fell, and cheaply , it must be said, very cheaply! “But then, the first night I slept there, I woke up at midnight—I don’t know why I woke up, it’s as if we ‘re warned… Mr. William Simonson nodded: we’re always warned when ghosts arrive. He only noted this new case, which confirmed so many previous experiences. –… I woke up, and what did I see: poor Caussanel coming in through the closed door. He didn’t seem to notice me, he didn’t hurt me—have you ever heard of a ghost hurting anyone? These shadows have no strength!—crossed the whole room, heaving soul-shattering sighs, went and stood in front of the fireplace, took a rope from his pocket, brought forward a chair, climbed up on it, tied the rope to the rafter, and hanged himself. I called to him very softly: “—Caussanel! Caussanel! “He said nothing, absolutely nothing. He was hanged, that’s all. ” “Caussanel,” I said to him, “you’ve already done it! ” I thought this observation would impress him. It was reasonable. But it was as if he hadn’t heard anything. And he remained there, sir, until the cock crow. “That is common,” declared Mr. William Simonson. “In cases of violent death , and especially when this death is voluntary, the “shell” of the suicide renews its act of criminal destruction indefinitely. We have already collated numerous examples of this. ” “At the cock crow,” continued Bécougnan, “he disappeared without my being able to see how, which does not surprise me, since he was a ghost, and I was careful, you understand, not to tell the story: there are always people who are jealous when you have bought something under good conditions. I also thought that once would be enough for Caussanel and that he would be discouraged from going out at night to start hanging himself again. However, I must admit to you that until the big clock in the church had struck twelve the following evening, I could not get to sleep. It bored me, it worried me. And he reappeared, exactly as the day before, made all the same gestures, and hanged himself once more. I said to him: “Caussanel, what you are doing is stupid! It can’t be of any use to you. Do you want me to have masses said for you? ” But he shook his head around his rope, negatively. “In the morning, I went to find the priest to explain the matter to him. I went to see him even though I was a Protestant, because pastors in France can do nothing against ghosts, while priests have the right way. And the priest told me that he would come at the right time to perform the exorcisms and bless the room, since the apparitions were the work of the devil. But that didn’t suit me, because of the neighbors: since I didn’t want to let them know, the neighbors! So I replied: “Mr. Priest, we are no longer in the Middle Ages! ” “You could,” interrupted Mr. William Simonson, “draw a magic circle below the place where the ghost was hanging itself, shut yourself in it, and point the point of a naked sword at it at the hour of its apparition . This method has often given, the literature on the subject affirms, excellent results. “I didn’t know,” declared Bécougnan, “and this presence of Caussanel, who was determined to hang himself, bothered me for fourteen days, as I told you. But, in the end, when I saw that the hour was about to strike, I took a rope myself, I tied it to the rafter, I made a noose in the rope, and I hanged myself. Yes, sir, I hanged myself! ” “Well…” said William Simonson, hesitating. He didn’t know this way of chasing ghosts, and he found himself disconcerted. “I hanged myself,” confirmed Bécougnan. “But I had placed a little stool under my feet so as not to lose my breath. And when poor Caussanel made his entrance, he was so used to it that he came to within two steps of me without looking at anything, without seeing me. He was still as yellow, as melancholy, and rummaged in his pocket for his rope.” Then I stirred a little. He looked up and saw me. Sir, I have never seen a more crestfallen face! He opened his mouth and spoke. For the first time, he spoke! He said: “There’s someone! ” And immediately, still sighing heartbreakingly, he went back through the door. And he never came back, sir, never. I had disgusted him. Mr. William Simonson closed his notebook with a snap. His eyes were bulging out of his head. Then he went away, like a ghost. And, like him, he was disgusted. Chapter 9. The Monarch’s Wager. The Monarch’s costume, his beautiful costume that he had taken from the wardrobe for the journey, astonished the people of Lyon a little: they had never seen anything more dazzling. He himself felt a little secretly embarrassed by it. In the café where he had just stopped, that beautiful café near the theatre, which had seduced him because of its mirrors, its gold and its Italian name, he instinctively took off his large soft felt hat, the colour of burnt bread, of which he was so proud, and placed it with a discreet gesture beside him. But no one like the Monarch, in this city where the rules of true elegance are unknown, which does not come without some sumptuous splendour, wore a shirt whose white breastplate was decorated with a scattering of small red flowers, a turned-down collar which revealed very low his brown throat, thin and knobbly, nor that narrow oxblood regatta which was still illuminated by a large diamond, a glass diamond, but almost resembling it. Nor did he see a alone among these jackets like his, tight, tight on the hips, and whose resounding yellow, dotted with little purple dots, made him look like a young duck lost in the middle of a flock of crows. Among all these sad and dark people, he felt like a lantern at the bottom of a cellar. And although he told himself that it was the lantern that gave light, he had the impression that this dark cellar was saying to him: “This is not your place: you shock me!” But he was more irritated than confused. He despised these people from the North, he sensed with disdain that the slowness of their thought deprived them of joy, while leaving them with the desire to mock what they did not understand or had never seen. This was all the same to him , the Monarch, now launched into politics, become a personage whom the prefect had summoned, and who had appointed the deputy. A deputy with whom he addressed himself informally! He proudly felt the pocket of his bright jacket to feel once again the railway “pass” with which the deferential administration had paid him homage: a second-class permit, from Nîmes to Lyon. A man who travels for free is no longer a common man; the Monarch was aware of having become one of the great men of the earth, for the great men of the earth, in France, are those who are rich enough to pay for everything, or sufficiently above the common laws to pay for nothing. He wanted to say this thing, and many others. On the train, he had met people to talk to; he even did himself the justice of having talked all the time, and in an interesting way. But, since he had been in this filthy city, people looked at him like a curious animal, they moved away, and that was all. They didn’t know him , it’s true, but they could well have guessed that he wasn’t someone like the others. For years he had not been taken for someone like the others! However, at the table which was just next to his, people began to talk aloud. The Monarch immediately presumed that they could not be people from Lyon. Parisians, no doubt: it seems that Parisians are almost like people from the South: in fact, in reality, now, they are almost all people from the South! The Monarch listened. There was talk of a cavalry raid carried out by reserve officers. And it seemed to him that they were talking about it a little as he would have talked about it: because it was a topic of conversation, because, after all, it was just as well to talk about that as to talk about anything else. Surely, they were not cavalrymen; it was better: men who like to talk about great things that they don’t know, and which are beautiful, because it is much better than talking about what one knows, and which is boring… What are the best horses, thoroughbreds or Tarbais, whose ancestors themselves, like the thoroughbreds, came from Arabia? What is the gait to give to the animals to allow them to run a long distance? And they also mentioned the resigned resistance of the Paris cab horses, which die from the effort, but cover, until the time of knackery, their seventy kilometers a day. It had been too long since the Monarch had opened his mouth. And a subject like that, a general subject, a subject like those debated in the evening, at the Espélunque circle, on which everyone, let’s see, can have an opinion! He brought his glass of absinthe to his lips, set it back on the table with a small, decided clink, which attracted attention, and abruptly turned his chair. “Gentlemen,” he said, “gentlemen… ” There were three of them, around that marble table, there, beside him: a decorated gentleman, in a frock coat, small, thin, almost as thin and thin as the Monarch himself, and two others, who wore motorists’ suits. Rich people, that was certain. And poseurs, who assumed a slightly pinched air, to show that they were not used to being interrupted by consumers who did not were presented. But the Monarch didn’t care. The Monarch doesn’t care about anything when he wants to talk. Does anyone talk like him? Don’t people always listen to him? “Gentlemen,” he said, “I don’t know what your northern horses are like ! I don’t know them, and what you say about them doesn’t make me want to know them. Sinful! Young ladies, old ladies… A Camargue horse, a horse from my country, can travel a hundred kilometers with a man on its back! ” “A week?” said the little decorated gentleman lightly. “A day! I’m speaking seriously. I beg you to listen to me seriously. ” “That’s good, sir, that’s good!” said the decorated gentleman, with a bored air. Then, raising his eyes and considering the Monarch, he began to smile. He smiled because the Monarch was a man from the South, and he didn’t believe it, it was obvious. And this ironic incredulity made the Monarch’s blood boil. These people from the North, who mock you without saying so, politely: there’s enough to kill them! “How do you know?” asked one of the motorists, laughing. The truth almost came from the Monarch’s lips: “Because I’ve always heard it said. It’s something that’s not up for discussion, that has never been discussed.” But he thought that they would laugh in his face, and said, carried away by his imagination as much as by his eloquence: “I know, good God!” he said, “because I’ve done it, and not once, not twice, but dozens, hundreds of times; riders, horses, like those of the Camargue! Whoosh!… It’s because you haven’t seen them!
” One of the motorists declared calmly: “But I’d like to see, I’m only too happy to see.” And here, I’ll bet you twenty-five louis that you wouldn’t do it! “Sir,” replied the Monarch proudly, “I’m not an aristocrat, I don’t count in louis! ” “Five hundred francs, if you like. And five hundred francs for a hundred-sou piece. ” “If you bet five hundred francs, sir,” said the Monarch with a noble air, “it’s five hundred francs that I owe you if I lose. I have them. ” In his life, he had never had that sum in his hands, nor before his eyes. It seemed improbable to him. Consequently, it added to the improbability of the challenge. They were all jokes, all that, no less, they were jokes! We could go for it. “Well! That’s settled,” said the driver. “And where will we see you accomplish this equestrian feat? ” “Pardon?” said the Monarch. “I ask you where on earth we must go to witness our defeat. To your place, probably? Tell us which town or country has the honor of possessing you? ” “It’s at Espélunque, thirty kilometers from Nîmes, on the road to Sommières, and I am Monsieur Bonnafoux!” said the Monarch, a little pale, but magnificent. And he added, like a man of the world: “To whom do I have the honor of addressing myself?” “Daniel Malavial, lieutenant of the ship… Here is my card! ” “Bouffre!” said the Monarch, astounded. In his life, he had never owned a horse. In his life he had never known if it was true, this thing they say, that a Camargue horse can travel a hundred kilometers with a man on its back. And now things were getting serious, now he had bet five hundred francs that he would prove it to be true. And with a naval officer at that! “Sir,” he said, “I said a hundred times. I guarantee it’s a hundred times!” He presumed that there was every advantage in exaggerating. This sailor wouldn’t wait a hundred days in a row at the Espélunque for the bet to end, perhaps? “Let’s say twice, in two consecutive days,” said his terrible antagonist mildly. “Is that settled? ” “Is that settled,” accepted the Monarch, defeated on this new ground. However, a lifeline appeared to him. He clung to it with the energy of despair. “Sir,” he said, “I have my business, I’m not going back now to l’Espélunque. Before three months, it will be impossible, absolutely impossible for me to find a minute… “Well!” said the other, pitiless, “it’s understood: in three months, to the day. It will be a charming automobile ride. Goodbye , dear sir! The Monarch’s diplomacy had gained him three months. He was breathing. Three months! Had he himself remembered a promise of ninety days? He judged others by himself. It was over, that affair was mourned. However, on the train that carried him the next day toward the southern sky, he was melancholy, he was almost mute! As he offered his pass to the conductor, his hand brought back at the same time the card of the one who had challenged him: Daniel Malavial, lieutenant of the ship, Toulon… Daniel Malavial! If he came back in three months, however, that imbecile? Pay him his five hundred francs? Why not five hundred thousand! He had nothing. That wasn’t what worried him. But he, the Monarch, cheated by people from the North! His glory was crumbling. He thought of crazy things: of war, which might break out: then he would owe himself only to his country; of a long journey: but where to go? Suddenly, his face lit up. He had found it! He had found it, he was saved, the day seemed radiant, he smiled at the people, he spoke to them; finally he was himself! Hardly had he returned home, without saying anything about his dark worries to anyone, than he went to find his deputy, in Blanduze. They were on vacation, the deputy was in Blanduze: it was a joy! “You must do me a favor,” he said. I have a friend, a great friend… It was in Lyon that I became friends with him, you don’t know him, but it’s between us, for life and death: Lieutenant Malavial, ship’s lieutenant. He’s in Toulon at the moment, but he’s a sailor, you know! A sailor who loves nothing but the sea. He dreams of returning to the China Seas. Couldn’t you get him a fine command, in the China Seas, right away? “Certainly,” said the deputy, “certainly!” And he made a note. “It will be done,” he said, “as soon as I return to Paris.” The absinthe the Monarch drank that evening at the Espélunque club had never seemed so good to him. And he also paid for that of Touloumès, Peyras, Bécougnan, he would have paid for it to the whole world. “I have just secured a fine promotion for someone,” he said confidentially. And it warms the heart to have done good! From the day the Monarch—at least, such was his firm conviction—was freed from this bet that he hardly knew how to keep, by procuring for his fatal antagonist, through the intermediary of the deputy of Blanduze, a command, a very fine command in the seas of China, he cut an even greater figure than in the past before the inhabitants of Espélunque: for they knew nothing of the secret motives that made him act; they saw only his powerful thought, extended, to protect them, to those steel ships, bearing the flag of France, which float on seas whose names are unknown. —So, Monarch, they said to him, you are interested in naval
matters ? If he was interested in them! He was passionately interested in them: but one did not need to know why. So he assumed a grave air, nodding his head, and they asked him questions. The Monarch always answers questions: he has that miraculous memory of people who know how to speak, who love to speak, who naturally spread their words, like trees dropping fruit. The more rare, unusual, and the more unknown the words he had read in the newspapers, years and years ago, were, the more clearly he remembered them; and their magnificence, as they came out of his mouth, made his eyes shine. Like all true specialists, he held the great battleships, which he called “the giants of the sea,” against torpedo boats and even submarines, “that naval dust.” He knew the names of the ships, he cited their tonnage. And sometimes, at sunset, over his half- drunk absinthe, to which he added water to prolong the pleasure, he would pronounce thoughtfully: “It’s time! We’re lowering the flag!” This terrible ship’s lieutenant, whose challenge had made him shudder, now that he hoped never to see him again, he felt filled with a completely paternal affection for him. “I love him like my son, ” he confided to his friends in the circle… “If the sharks don’t eat him, we’ll make a frigaton of him.” He didn’t know exactly what a frigaton was, and besides, no one thought to ask. But the very weight of this almost Italian ending seemed to them all to carry the superlative. It was thus that, by the sheer force of his imagination, the Monarch had restored his own confidence. So it was without apprehension that one morning he recognized the handwriting of Malvaize, the deputy, on a letter brought to him by the postman. It was stamped Paris. “That ‘s it,” he thought, “the Malavial has his command. That good Malavial!” Decidedly, the ship’s lieutenant now appeared to him as nothing more than a friend. By dint of saying it, he believed it. He even felt a little sad at not being able to let this brave sailor know that it was to him, the Monarch, that he owed his luck. He opened the letter joyfully, and his arms fell to his sides, suddenly frozen. “My dear friend,” wrote the deputy, “Lieutenant Malavial is on regular leave for six months. The regulations are opposed to your wishes. A thousand regrets…” The Monarch turned pale. Discouragement, even fear, had just entered his soul, at the same time as rage. “Ah! the pig!” he cried. Madame Emma, ​​who heard him, turned very pale at seeing him so pale. “Monarch,” she said, “what’s the matter with you, poor thing? What has just happened to you? ” “Nothing,” he said. “But these Parisians will never do the smallest thing for the South! ” That was all. For the first time in his life, the Monarch had a secret; he carried in his head something that could not be said, not to Madame Emma any more than to anyone else, still less to Madame Emma than to anyone else, something that could humiliate him! He was going to be tricked by people from the North, he was going to lose face, at Espélunque itself, in his own country, before his own fellow citizens. Everyone saw clearly, however, at the club, on the evening of that fateful day, that there was something wrong, and he himself felt that he could not remain completely silent. Could anyone believe, could anyone in the world believe, that the Monarch would, for a single day, remain silent? It would have been to lend itself to all suspicions. Besides, his heart was too full. “I have broken my word in Paris,” he said bitterly. “He doesn’t have his command!”
Everyone understood that it could only be a question of Malavial, lieutenant of the ship. They all knew Malavial. For six weeks, Malavial had been “the sailor,” the only sailor in the universe for the Espélunque. ” It’s a great misfortune for the navy,” said Bécougnan, distressed. “The navy,” replied the Monarch abruptly, “it’s f… uted!” And, in truth, such an intimate mixture had taken place in his mind between the fervent desire he had to see Malavial command a fine ship in the seas of China and his terror of seeing him fall at home, that he was sincere. He was not crying over himself, he was pitying France. We have often seen ministers overthrown imbued with the same feeling: thus the anxiety of the Monarch himself increased his sensitivity, raised it to that of what we can call, if we are not picky, our political elite; and, under the influence of misfortune, he became sentimental. Spring had just been reborn. This sentence, an exact translation of a Latin hemistich, only has its full meaning in these blessed countries where the first suns, as soon as they strike the ground still swollen with the beneficial rains of winter, make flowers bloom everywhere: flowers by the hundreds of thousands, flowers by millions of flowers of every color, foraged by bees whose hairy legs, overloaded with pollen, look like golden pistils; and one would think of other flowers, flying away! There is the pink magnificence of the almond trees; there are the violets, the delicious little violets, at the edge of the woods; and, in the undergrowth, the tender gaze of the periwinkles; there are all the brambles, radiant with white stars; there are, on the mountain, all those thorny and rough plants, whose loves smell of the wild; and the vine itself, when the sap rises, has its own scent. The Monarch wandered in these sensualities, melancholic, bitter and completely new, not recognizing himself. In other years, he had been happy, at this same season, but as unconsciously as any of these flowers. Now that his heart was so heavy and his soul so dark, he felt quite different; he opposed things, he resented their happiness, but he saw them as he had never seen them before. Then he thought angrily: “All this proves nothing, nothing, nothing!… except that the weeks pass! In three weeks, in two weeks, in eight days, the three months will be over! And then…” Then, it would be the end of his royalty. Of his illusory royalty, of his royalty of laziness, of pleasure, of romances and politics. Everyone would be making fun of him: not just these Parisians, but everyone ! He would no longer be clever, he would no longer be the Monarch. His only hope, at that hour, came from the fact that he judged others according to himself: when one says, is it not so: “I will do that in three months,” one never does it, one no longer thinks about it. We only do things that we do right away. He was so tired of being unhappy that he clung to this reasoning like a drowning man. In those final days, he regained almost all his calm, all his gaiety; he slept! And at the advent of the first day of the fourth month, upon waking in the morning, he said good morning to the sun. He wasn’t there, eh! He wasn’t there, Malavial, lieutenant of the ship? So he would n’t come. That was the end of this nightmare! And even, let’s go further, put things at their worst, suppose that he arrived tomorrow. Could n’t he answer her: “I promised for this date, not for another?” Obviously, as an excuse, it wasn’t brilliant. But, all the same, all the same… At one o’clock in the afternoon, he distinguished an automobile, at the bottom of Massane, where the fountain of Estelle and Némorin is. She stopped at the crossroads, as if to secure her route, and then, making up her mind, began to climb the hill. And the Monarch felt his shirt stick to his back. He was sweating coldly. It was them: he was suddenly, by a certain presentiment, sure that it was them. The horn of the automobile bellowed.
Having seen Hernani play in Nîmes, he remembered the horn of Ruy Gomez: his executioners were announcing themselves. But this reminiscence gave him courage. He belonged to an old race, whose bravery needs literature. And, immediately, his resolution was made: above all, the Espélunque must not know that he had engaged in a challenge that he was going to lose. So he got out in front of the automobile, coldly, as if he were elsewhere, like a man taking a walk. It was definitely them! He recognized the chauffeurs’ caps and the small, thin, decorated man. Undaunted, he held the middle of the road. “Hey, you!” said the one at the wheel, locking his brake. The Monarch brandished his large felt hat, like a true knight. “Ship Lieutenant Malavial?” he asked in a clear voice. “It’s me, sir,” said the small, thin man. “I’m Monsieur Bonnafoux. You see, I was waiting for you!” Then, speechless, full of admiration, they saluted. In front of the stopped automobile, the Monarch kept his proud expression. Inwardly, he was torn, he was annihilated, but he showed nothing. In the presence of the catastrophe that had finally occurred, the two The magnificent and seemingly contradictory qualities of his race had come together to keep him upright. On the one hand, in reality, he only saw the most immediate consequences of events; on the other, the distant future always appeared to him as an immense land, fertile in chimeras, where one can discover what pleases, what will not happen. And this is simply the clearest and happiest form of the feeling of life: the feeling of life is always optimistic in a healthy man. If it had been otherwise, the Monarch would not even have tried to fight, he would have confessed, he would have humbled himself: “Gentlemen, I spoke without thinking: you know well what a joke it is, you have heard about it… I cannot do what I told you, and I cannot pay you. I am only a poor man, the poorest man here, and a kind of poet. My words have no importance. And you, you are rich men: be content to have taken a walk.” That was what he could say, and perhaps these people were expecting him to say it to them. They had only come to take a walk, in fact. But the Monarch did not think about it for a minute. The salutary and naive impression that filled him at that moment was that he was handsome in his attitude; it gave him courage. And, at the same time, he thought only: “I told them I would do a hundred kilometers on horseback. Hey! Do I even have a horse? I only have a goat! I must find a horse.” That is all. That is what is called bravery, when you think about it. But the Monarch didn’t even know he was brave: he was himself, ingenuously. The engine of the machine continued to roar, making the whole body shudder like the belly of an enormous cicada; the exhaust gases, behind the car, raised the dust from the road. And the Monarch’s voice, suddenly, sounded like a bugle: “My commander, gentlemen!” he said… “I hope we are among people of the world!” The lieutenant and his two companions gave a slight start. They had before them the Monarch’s felt hat, his Chinese duck-colored suit, his flowered shirt, and yet they didn’t even have the slightest desire to laugh. That’s what it is to have the tone: a completely naked man, if he is very eloquent, if he has the tone, he can make people believe he is dressed! The “commander” nodded his assent . “Well, gentlemen,” continued the Monarch, “don’t you think that these challenges of honor should be settled calmly and discreetly? Would you be satisfied if we were delivered to the curiosity of the populace? From the place where you are to Montbrul, it’s fifty kilometers. Find yourself here tomorrow, at dawn, but don’t say anything to anyone. That’s all I ask of you. Can I count on you? ” “But, fifty kilometers…” objected one of the drivers. “…That’s only half the journey? Gentlemen, I will return the same day,” replied the Monarch gently. If he spoke with this assurance, it was because he was not thinking, for the moment, either of returning or even of leaving. He only conceived one thing: first, that no one should know anything about Espélunque, and second, that he had no horse. The rest was nothing: the rest, he told himself he had done it! It was still just a story. The motorists accepted the plan and turned back. “Barrier, who is this guy?” Malavial simply asked the one at the wheel. He nodded: “I thought he was a joker. Probably, he’s a madman.” The madman watched them for as long as he could, appearing, then disappearing, and reappearing again at random on the bends in the road. He was worried that they would look at him too; he wanted to maintain, as long as necessary, the dignity of his attitude. The vigorous automobile slowed down on the descents, then gathered momentum to climb the hills like a bloodthirsty beast. “How stupid,” he thought bitterly, “how stupid that there should still be horses, since they invented these machines!” Now that this little cloud of moving dust was beginning to get lost in all the airy powder that the midday hour gilded, a dark melancholy made him bend his shoulders. In front of his friend Muraton’s café, Touloumès called out to him. For the first time in his life he didn’t answer. But he straightened his chest, nonetheless, saying “Hello! Hello!” with a quick gesture of the hand, like a busy man. And it was true that he was busy! Good God! He had never been so busy, nor so surprised to be so: the Monarch is a man who knows no worries, he “talks to himself” from day to day, he lives in imagination. Today, he was forced to realize something he had said: he felt the irritated awareness that these people from the North were doing him an injustice, forcing him, like fools who don’t know the rules of the game, to leave his game. He passed Touloumès by a few steps, then, struck by a sudden idea: “Do you know,” he said, “if Racamond is at home?” “Racamond the Protestant?” Touloumès said. “Sure! I saw him just now, with his valet, bringing in his harrow. Why? ” “Nothing,” replied the Monarch, who was thinking. “I have business with him. Is that enough for you? ” This was not the Monarch’s usual manner. And this made an impression on Touloumès, who did not insist. The Monarch returned home, with an even step, by force of will, but with his head bowed, so as not to have to speak to anyone. He was tired. The sight of men tired the Monarch! He had not, since his birth, felt this impression. It was also because he had never meditated, never desired solitude in order to meditate: he was advancing at this hour in a new world, so strange to him that he wanted to stretch out his hands, as when one enters a dark room. Madame Emma served him salad with two hard-boiled eggs, cut into small pieces, and then a little cold bacon, leftover from the previous evening’s supper. Such was Madame Emma’s custom: she always served the vegetables first, because that kills most of the appetite; and meat then is nothing more than a kind of dessert, a luxury. She was economical. But she remained standing to serve him, as was proper, and, since her husband remained silent, she did not speak to him . However, this very silence was so new that it seemed dreadful to her. Her heart was heavy. The Monarch swallowed a glass of brandy, wiped his mouth, and stood up. “Monarch,” she said, “where are you going? It’s siesta time, and the sun is already hot! ” “If anyone asks you,” the Monarch said roughly, “you’ll say you don’t know. ” Racamond lived, a little outside Espélunque, in one of the most beautiful farmhouses in the village. His wife was pious, he was austere. This Huguenot, descended from the Cévennes, had an aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and the grave air of a Moor. And, surely, he was not a Latin: he took everything seriously. One of his ancestors had been killed alongside Roland, the Camisard; his grandfather had been assassinated during the White Terror. He retained pride in this; it gave him a nobility; and, full of compassion for those who were not Calvinists, he did not, however, wish for their conversion. He was grateful to Heaven, he was pleased with himself, he was rich; he was not cheerful. The Monarch found him still at table, with his wife and his five children, three sons and two daughters. They made him sit down, they offered him the brandy. He drank. Then, without hesitation, knowing this time the formidable power of the fixed idea: “Monsieur Racamond,” he said, “do you need Pie Douze tomorrow? ” “Why?” asked Racamond, astonished. Pie Douze was the Camargue horse that he had bought last year in Avignon; and he had first called him Pie Dix because this horse is piebald and also because, being a Protestant, Racamond is anticlerical; then Pius Twelve, on the representations of his wife who had reminded him that he should not upset the priest. Pius Twelve has not yet existed. So, is it not, one can… The Monarch blushed slightly. “It’s for… for me to walk!” he said. Then, Racamond, the one who is not cheerful, put his hands on his stomach and began to laugh, but to laugh! And his three sons, one of whom had the face of a Roman and the other two of Arabs, seeing that he was laughing, saw that it was permissible to laugh. They looked at the Monarch’s legs , they looked at his buttocks, they looked at his bust. And they began to laugh again, and Madame Racamond and her two daughters, brunettes with hair in flat bands, freckles on their cheeks, and beautiful eyes, lowered their noses to their plates, for the sake of decency. “But, Monarch,” said Racamond, catching his breath, “it’s been… it’s been twenty years since you last rode a horse? ” “Eighteen!” corrected the Monarch, “eighteen! When I was doing my service in Nîmes, in the artillery. But don’t refuse me, Monsieur Racamond. It’s… it’s for my health. ” Racamond reflected. The Monarch was a dubious character, and, according to his way of seeing things, immoral. But a character all the same, in the country. Such was the excuse he was willing to give himself. Deep down in his soul, hidden from his own conscience, there was another feeling: that the air he breathed had poured its indulgent poisons upon him, that he loved the Monarch, the indolent Monarch, the lustful Monarch, but a singer, but a storyteller, but magnificent, but innocent, despite everything, and a poet, well, yes, a poet! He replied: “It will be as you wish, Monarch.” And, as he rose to lead him to the stables, everyone rose, out of respect, but also out of curiosity. They accompanied him. Pie Douze had a fine head on a thick but sinewy collar, an Isabella robe , dry legs, a sloping rump. But all this was hairy, ill-kept, barbaric: a beast like all those people who were there, of good breeding, and peasant. Seeing him, the Monarch suddenly felt a shiver that froze his spine. Like the condemned man being led to the scaffold, he had just seen the executioner, the machine, and his body was recoiling. He asked, however, with the most indifferent air he could muster: “They say they can travel a hundred kilometers, a man on their backs, those beasts? ” “They say so,” replied Racamond vaguely. “They say so?” said the Monarch, worried. “But you’ve never done it? ” “No, of course,” admitted Racamond. “That’s just a saying . ” “That’s just a saying!” echoed the three sons . “And that’s enough for you!” shouted the Monarch, carried away by a sudden rage. “That ‘s enough for you! You’re no better than the rest of the country, then! A country of jokers, a country of jokers! A country where we talk and talk—and we never do… anything! Aren’t you ashamed?” The others bowed their heads. It was true, all the same. Their religion had instilled in them the habit of communal examinations of conscience, and they silently acknowledged their fault, wondering only at the mouth that heaven had chosen to reproach them for it. “Finally,” said the Monarch with a sigh, “I will come for the horse tomorrow at six o’clock. ” And he walked away, gloomy. At five-thirty in the morning, at the same spot as the day before, at the very top of the hill, near Massane, the automobile was waiting. Woken too early from their sleep, Malavial’s companions yawned. They felt the cold of the breaking dawn on their shoulders, and, in the gray dawn, their mood darkened. The adventure, now, seemed ridiculous to them. One of two things: either the madman, the joker, Tartarin, the man in short, whoever he was, would not come, or else it would be necessary to follow him, follow him all day, for twenty-five leagues, and start again the next day. Unless he died on the way, he or his beast, or both of them together. And then it became tragic, it was an unbearable responsibility for them. Decidedly, the best thing was that he didn’t come! “He won’t come!” Barrier concluded, expressing his hope. “So,” asked Malavial, hesitating, “the twenty-five louis?” “Well, you won’t pay them, nor will he either. Do you think he ‘s solvent? You haven’t looked at him. Let’s get out of here. We’ll go to lunch in Carcassonne. It seems Carcassonne is very nice.” He had barely uttered these words when the Monarch appeared. And the Monarch was on horseback! The Monarch was coming towards them, gravely, with small steps, a little pale, but more or less comfortably seated on his steed , whose gait was demure, and which, delighted by the fresh air, nodded a little, making the red woolen pompom dance on its forehead.
Yes, it was indeed the Monarch, in truth, a little stiff, fearing a fall.–Ah! sinful, what a night he had spent, how his teeth had chattered!–He had changed his gold-colored suit for the humble breeches he wore when fishing and I don’t know what kind of smock, all green at the back and whose sleeves, shrunk by so many showers, revealed his wrists to mid-elbow. But his large felt hat, which he had kept, gave him in spite of everything a Spanish and cavalier air , but he was thin, and long, and supple, and swaying, but he had the air of bravado, of living bravado, while he thought: “Damn it! I hope I don’t get colic!” and he changed his reins from his right hand to his left, from his left hand to his right hand—that was about all he remembered of his old lessons at the artillery barracks in Nîmes—to give himself a relaxed air. During his long and painful insomnia, he had been tossing and turning over a problem in his head: whether he should ride in front of the car, or in the very courtyard of Racamond’s mazet. In the courtyard of the mazet, that would make him a good kilometer further, but no one would see him mount! He preferred that, not to be seen mounting: afterwards, if it went well, well, it would go better! And his brandished felt hat traced a circumflex accent in the air above his head . “Gentlemen,” he said, “I regret going ahead of you: you will go very slowly!” But you understand, don’t you, that it’s me who must regulate the pace. This was another thing he had thought about at length. If he took the lead, he would be seen better, from the car, he would be seen all the time. He would be seen, he would let it be seen, that he was not a well-practiced rider. But, if he accompanied the carriage, this woman had such a habit of going fast! And Pie Douze would certainly want to follow her: it is the mania of horses, no less, not to want to be overtaken! The Monarch was averse to great paces. That was why he had taken this course. He went and placed himself a hundred meters away then turned around: “Slowly, isn’t it, gentlemen, slowly!” And yet, determined to do anything, as if he were throwing himself into an abyss, he set off at a trot, gently urging his beast with the side of his foot and not with his heel, because he had spurs. His spurs, his old regimental spurs, how he had hesitated before taking the courage, the heroic and desperate courage to fasten them to his old shoes! But he was the Monarch, he was no other! He was always seduced, carried away, enraptured by the outward side of things, by the stagecraft, the theater. He was a rider today, eh? So he must have had spurs. He had spent an hour filing the rowels, he had made an appearance of them, an imitation, a joke of spurs. But all the same, all the same, he was still afraid of them! He didn’t like to remember that he had them, and yet he said to himself: “I ‘ll get sick if I forget that I have them.” And yet Pie Douze went on. He went on, at that rather fast and fortunately gentle little trot that supple animals of his race have. He was of his country; he had blood and philosophy, he did not strain himself, but he did not tire himself, and he went on. The Monarch leaned on the cantle of the saddle, which was quite high and like a Moorish one, and thought, with ingenuous astonishment: “But I’m holding on, I’m holding on, I’m holding on!” These words seemed to rise from the very ground of the road, with the noise of the horseshoes: “I’m holding on, I’m holding on, I’m holding on.” He felt that light intoxication that comes from the blood shaken by the first minutes of the race. Then he put his horse back into a walk. They crossed Gissac, Eygurande, Maillezargues, Combarelle, Villeneuve, and the people were astonished by this strange procession: a rider who was not hurrying, and, behind him, this automobile which was going around like a turtle. We were not yet halfway through the first stage, this Montbrul which, in the Monarch’s mind, now a little obscured, seemed to recede into a fabulous distance, to become an imaginary city, an impossible place of rest, of freshness, of stillness, such as one can only see in dreams or… or when one is dead. Now he reflected: “How long, how long this road is. I’m going to clatter, clatter, clatter! Either it will be the horse. Or both of us!” The horse held firm, however. He seemed to understand what was being asked of him, he set himself up to a walk or a faster pace. But the Monarch was beginning to feel intolerable pain all along the muscles of his thigh. At a walk, he longed to trot. Trotting along, like a man whose nerves are being pulled, one by one, with pliers, he longed for the moment when these horrible jolts would end. And then, without his knowing how, blissful minutes of complete insensitivity would come. And then the song rustled again in his ears, that song which seemed to be coming now, immense and fateful, from the olive trees, the meadows, the vineyards, the green wheat: “I stand on it, I stand on it, I stand on it!” His face was drawn, his mouth bitter, his eyelids reddened by the wind and the sand, his eyes flickering like someone who is about to die. And Pie Douze stretched out his legs. At Calmettes, at the summit of the great causse, he heard someone calling him from the automobile, and it seemed to him that someone was stopping his horse. It was he himself who had pulled on the reins, but he hadn’t suspected it. We were going to have a bite to eat, we were hungry, in the car! And the motorists stretched out their arms, as if they were tired, poor things, as if they were tired! Awakened from his torpor, the Monarch sneered. He saw Malavial offering him his hand with a sort of respect. Then he dismounted, put his left foot heavily on the stirrup, and almost fell onto the road. But this rest did him good. He ate almost without speaking, he drank white wine, coffee, cognac. It was he, after half an hour, who stood up, saying, with a slightly bewildered air: “On the road, gentlemen, on the road!” He no longer knew where he was. On horseback, it was his thighs that were causing him pain; Standing, he felt a terrible heaviness in his loins, and even in his shoulders . Without false shame, he used a milestone to get back in the saddle. He never knew how he got to Montbrul. He watched someone else struggle, trot, and torture him. It was both unpleasant and indifferent. It was also very curious. He was insane. And at Montbrul, they had lunch! First of all, the Monarch wasn’t hungry. A bed, a bed, couldn’t they give him a bed? Instead, he heard a voice saying to him: “What are you having?” And he replied, out of habit: “An absinthe!” He drank it in one gulp, poured himself two more glasses of water over it, and then began to make recommendations for Pius Twelve, in a flat, even voice. Then, sitting up in his chair, he said, in a voice a little weak, but even and calm: –Commander, you must have been very bored! And the other, the other who did not know all that had happened in the head, in the heart, in the body and the tortured loins of the Monarch, was nevertheless moved, without knowing why… There was champagne, there were fine dishes, there were toasts, gallantly offered, and the Monarch stood his ground, he spoke, he discoursed, he rose above himself. In his enthusiastic brain, he already saw himself returning home, he was no longer afraid, he despised his rags. What! Wasn’t half the journey already covered? If Pie Twelve could hold out, he would. He felt powerful, freed from his weight, undaunted. After coffee, his eyes shone, he wanted to get up. His companions were almost afraid, hearing him cry out. For he cried out, the poor man, putting his hand to his aching loins. All his muscles, at that hour, seemed twisted, tangled, bound together. It was dreadful, atrocious, crushing. “Aches, eh?” asked Lieutenant Malavial, with an air of sincere pity. “Aches!” replied the Monarch, intrepidly, “I’m not familiar with aches! A slight pain in my stomach: I’m quite prone to them, after meals… Just the time to go to the chemist’s, and I’m yours. ” He went out, perfectly straight, perfectly handsome. But, out of sight of his torturers, he only advanced bent double and showed M. Cazalès, the chemist, a ravaged face, a frightening face, the face he would have one day, when he was very old, in his final illness. “Cazalès,” he said, “Cazalès, you know me. You’ll give me an injection of morphine right away! ” “And the prescription?” said the pharmacist, stunned. “You don’t give morphine, you don’t give a morphine injection without a prescription!” The Monarch had already taken off his jacket. He grabbed Cazalès by the throat. “If you don’t give me a morphine injection right now, do you hear, I’ll strangle you, right here, right now, in front of your jars!” Ten minutes later, the formidable and magical drug had produced its effect. The Monarch no longer felt anything, the Monarch’s head was in the clouds, he was humming, he was laughing his head off. He had cut himself a hazel stick, he mounted his horse and pushed Pie Douze alongside the automobile. “Shall we not have a chat?” he said. “The road is so long!” And for three hours, he talked. Pie Douze also withstood the test. In the end, however, he became heavier and softer, between the legs of his rider. At Calmettes, he had to be rested, rubbed down, given oats and sugar. But when he smelled the country air, when he crossed the bridges of Gers, between the two Gardons, he raised his nostrils toward the red sunset, inhaled the air, neighed slightly, and set off at a gallop. The Monarch tottered in his saddle. “Well,” he cried, “well?” But he was still drunk, unconscious, sure of himself. He resumed his seat and gave himself up. The automobile, behind his back, quickened its pace. From the hunting gallop, the horse, excited by this noise, passed into a racing gallop. The Monarch tottered again and grabbed the mane. Hurrah! Hurrah! He would arrive, he would arrive! It was the end, it was the goal, it was victory! The Monarch, in front of the closed door of the Racamond mazet, jumped from his saddle, unaided, in a single movement. He was astonished to feel his trembling legs buckle beneath him. “See you tomorrow, gentlemen,” he said in his beautiful voice. “You know we must begin again.” At nine o’clock, Touloumès, Bécougnan, Peyras, and all the others were at the club, drinking their coffee. The door opened and the Monarch entered, supported by Madame Emma. The poison he had taken no longer coursed through his veins; he was swaying, each of his steps tore at his nerves, he felt in the region of his heart like the prick of invisible needles. But his eyes shone. “He wanted to come,” explained Madame Emma, ​​stretching out her hands to apologize. I wanted to put him to bed, put poultices on him… If you saw!… But he wanted to come. The Monarch sat up with difficulty. “Listen,” he said with a proud air, “I didn’t want to tell you, because… because I thought I couldn’t do it. But I can do it. And, by Jove! We’re going to screw the Parisians!” The night after his victory, the Monarch slept soundly. At times, a little sweat came to his forehead: a passing bout of fever, the revenge of his tormented muscles, of all his blood burned by great fatigue. Then, he would turn over in his bed, but without consciousness, annihilated; and Madame Emma, ​​who watched over him, would gently wipe his damp hair. He had said to her: “At five thirty, wake me, massage me, do whatever you want: but, whatever the cost, I must go again.” I only have to do it once more, to win! And, since I’ve already done it once… ” And he had said this in a broken, shivering, childish and aged voice all at once, because he couldn’t take it anymore: but, with such confidence! For it was always his imagination that dragged him along; when he had thought of something, it was as if it had come true; all his life, like that, he had lived two or three days ahead… Emma was obedient. At the right time, she woke him. The Monarch sat up and gave a cry of pain. His body no longer had any joints, it was like a board, a stiff board, without hinges, made of very hard wood. And, immediately, disgust came over him, an immense, insurmountable disgust. He saw the road, and he had already traveled it, and it was long, rough, odious, painful, cruel. Why start it again? He had shown his strength, a strength he didn’t even believe he possessed, it must be said. So he could renounce; now, no one would laugh! The bet? Well! He had won once, lost once: he had nothing to pay, it was even. And, while Madame Emma was rubbing her poor, ailing kidneys with brandy and grinding a candle elsewhere, a little lower down, he said with a sigh: “You’re going to find them, these Parisians, you’ll tell them… you ‘ll tell them what you like, that I’m ill, that it’s postponed until another time, until next year!” At that very moment the hooves of a whole cavalry echoed on the road. An impetuous, triumphant, insolent gallop, distant at first, and then closer, and then in front of the door. Halt! And nothing more but the iron-shod hooves of impatient beasts striking the stone. Racamond entered. “Monarch,” he said, almost respectfully, “I’m bringing Pie Douze to you… No need for you to come all the way to my house to ride him, you must save your strength, Monarch!” And, in the still pale air of early morning, the three Racamond sons appeared behind their father: booted, spurred, hats in full swing, short whips in hand. “We’ll give you a bit of riding, Monarch, we’ll ride with you to do you honor.” And the Monarch fell onto a straw chair at the head of his bed, collapsed. He hadn’t thought of that, he hadn’t thought that the whole country, now, the whole country was waiting for him, to see him pass, to applaud him, to be there at last: to take part in the adventure, and to talk about the adventure, and to praise the adventure! “Racamond,” he said modestly, “it’s your horse, not mine… I don’t want anything bad to happen to your horse.” “He’s good,” said Racamond with a convinced air, “he’s good, don’t worry .” He even added generously: “All I ask is that you don’t kill him before we arrive… It’s for the country, you bastard!” And the Monarch, a prisoner of the enthusiasm he had unleashed, mounted Pie Douze: Racamond himself, the rich man, held his stirrup! Pie Douze was freshly groomed, dashing, shiny, sprightly, he shook brand new red wool pompoms in his ears. And, in front of him, behind him, around him, there was all of Espélunque, the eight hundred inhabitants of Espélunque, standing, dressed, hurrying to watch him leave. Bécougnan and Touloumès embraced him. Cazevieille did more: he took off his hat, remained, his bald forehead offered to the morning wind, as if in veneration. And Peyras gave him a new riding crop, with a silver handle: “Gift of the Socialist Circle,” he said. “We’ll put the inscription on your return, Monarch!” The roar of the automobile was heard. “Gentlemen,” the Monarch asked gallantly, “did you sleep well?” The three strangers looked at this crowd, without understanding. “Who are these horsemen?” Malavial finally asked. “My friends!” the Monarch replied: “the cavalry of Espélunque. You will see others, if I am not mistaken.” He was not lying. From all points of the horizon, as they climbed towards Les Calmettes, squadrons rushed. They knew. The news had spread all night; they had awakened the people. Behind the Monarch, overcome with pride, dizzy with fatigue, drunk with the cries he heard, there were soon twenty horses, then fifty, then a hundred, stamping, trotting, getting back into step, according to his paces, him their leader, him their master! Plowmen unhitched their plows, mounted bareback on the heavy stallions. Women, old people, children, men, followed in carts. They met the carriage of Doctor Destenave, from Vézenobres. The doctor did not yet know the news. He thought that somewhere there had been a great misfortune, a vast fire, a disaster, war: for it looked like an emigration. But when he knew what it was, he too followed the crowd: the little red and white striped canvas awning that shaded his carriage looked like a flag. Sometimes some riders gave way; sometimes others came. In the villages, people clapped their hands, stood at the windows; and the Monarch, one fist on his hip, stirrups out, saluted, his face wide. At Calmettes, there are three young men and an old soldier, Pourcherol, who have started a “bugle school.” The bugle school sounded. And the mayor offered an honorary snack. M. d’Amblevade, who lives nearby, came to see the horse and gave some advice. Someone shouted: “Long live the Republic!” He replied: “Long live France!” and shook the Monarch’s hand. This was judged very well. It was a cavalry regiment, it was an army of foot soldiers that arrived at Montbrul, and four gendarmes, also on horseback, naturally, escorted this large crowd from the limits of the commune to the main square where tables had been set up, because there was going to be a banquet there. And there was a banquet, where the Monarch was at the table of honor, with the mayor of Montbrul on his right and Lieutenant Malavial on his left. With champagne, the mayor raised the health of M. Bonnafoux, “the hero of southern horse racing.” The Monarch responded with a toast to the French navy. His beautiful voice was heard; his words were not heard. All the time he stood, there was only acclamation. And, suddenly, walking among the tables, a young woman was seen approaching, with rosy cheeks, ardent eyes, heaving breasts, holding a child in her arms. She raised him above her head; and the little one, who wore nothing but a purple flannel shirt on his soft body, delighted to be perched so high, waved his bare thighs. “Look at him carefully,” said his mother, “look at him carefully! It’s the Monarch of Espélunque. When you’re big, little one, you’ll be able to say you saw him!” Young men and beautiful girls, having slipped into the stable, devastated Pie Douze’s mane and tail, to keep a souvenir of this famous beast. When the Monarch got up from the table, he was tottering. It was too much; so much sun, so much fatigue, and the glory! But no one noticed. Four young men had lifted him up in their outstretched arms, sitting on their shoulders. He only had to descend from this shield onto his horse, and he found himself there as if on a throne, above the crowd, now silent, so moved was she. He bowed, and, his loins heavy, turned Pie Douze’s head towards Espélunque. Then, this transported people found their voice again: “Farewell, go, Monarch, farewell!” The women cried: “Blessed be the mother who bore you!” He could not take it anymore, however. His fatigue intoxicated him much more than the champagne and this unheard-of favor which drove him like a bloody goad. He jumped from walk to trot, from trot to walk, without ever finding for a second the forgetfulness of his body, which he would have liked to throw away like one pulls a tooth. And someone shouted: “He’s going to fall!” He had let go of the reins and, looking without seeing anything, his eyes dull, let himself fall into the outstretched hands. They laid him down on one side of the road; a thousand disordered cares nearly killed him. And he thought: “They ‘re going to put me in one of their carriages. They’ll do well. I’ve had enough.” A quarter of an hour later, he heard himself shout: “It’s better, eh! Monarch! It’s over. You can get back on, now!” And he was put back on his horse. Thus, a heroic victim of himself and his compatriots, he finished his journey. Of all that there is in nature, he could see only the mile markers. A league from Espélunque, he felt faint again. His head was spinning; he passed his hand over his eyes: the air seemed to him full of black flies. Two fresh riders, who had just arrived, approached him, boot to boot, and placed their hands on his shoulders. This support was like a caress to him. Then, a few minutes later, he said courageously: “Leave me, I can finish on my own.” He had just thought of the bet. He wanted to win it, win it without there being any argument, didn’t he? But he asked for a drink, for water, like a poor martyr. Pie Douze hastened his run. He was covered in foam; his tendons were stiffening. But it was over, for him too. He neighed softly, his head towards the dark coolness of the stable. And, suddenly, it was the Marseillaise! The brass instruments of all the bands: that of Maillezargues, those of Sommières, Villeneuve, Sébazac, Malaruc en Montagne; the brass instruments of all the bands were playing the Marseillaise! A rustling of leaves made him raise his eyes: he was passing under a triumphal arch: “To Juste Bonnafoux, honor of Provence !” They had erected a triumphal arch for him; it was for him, it was for him, this thing there, this greenery, these flowers, this sovereign’s porch. “Long live the Monarch! Long live Pie Twelve!” How many had come there! Two thousand, three thousand, perhaps! And they were his people; he was truly the Monarch. He felt that he was being stopped, that he was being dragged. He fell. People supported him, breathing in his face a breath of garlic and victory. Lieutenant Malavial came to shake his hand. He let them do it, astonished, his face drawn, his mouth bitter. But, as the one who had challenged him slipped a blue note between his fingers, he found the strength needed to say: “It was for fun, sir!” However, he put the note in his pocket. Lieutenant Malavial got back into his car. People jeered around him; he was the vanquished; The people are rarely pitiful to the vanquished. It was better to leave. In the growing darkness, the engine quickened its course. A few moments later, someone in the car said: “That’s not only Tartarin, that man, he’s… he’s also Don Quixote!” Chapter 10. The Farewell. This last exploit of the Monarch, and the most surprising, I must admit that I did not witness. I was very far from Espélunque, then. A new Herodotus, I had to limit myself to writing its history from the dictation of the hero himself and of trustworthy witnesses, if it is permissible to use this expression here: Touloumès, Bécougnan, Cazevieille, Racamond, in short all the others. And very often, at this hour, they no longer say “the Monarch” but “our Monarch.” Do not see in this, however—the nuance has its value—any sign of submission or obedience. They only intend to express by this a sort of pretension to some vague and undivided property over the person, just as, not far away, we say “our Tour Magne” or “our Aliscamps.” The Monarch belongs to them, the Monarch is a phenomenon that they are proud to show, something also like a representative type—I would prefer to say a caricature, but a glorious one—of the whole race. Thus, an Englishman would hardly be flattered to hear himself told that he absolutely resembles John Bull: but he readily admits that all Englishmen taken together “are” John Bull. For the Monarch to continue to please, it is essential that one can continue to be amused by him. He should not take himself seriously! And it is not impossible that after his last victory, he manifested this inclination. When I saw him again, he spoke of himself in a different way, he still consented to laugh at others, but, in laughing, he forgot himself too much. I believe that people held it against him, I believe—so true is it that men envy any semblance of superiority in their contemporaries—that a dark plot was hatched against him. They no longer made him talk, they made him “go.” That makes a difference. As for me, who wanted to keep my confidence and my admiration for him, I said to myself: “Patience! This will not last, he is too shrewd not to notice that people are making fun of him.” He may have noticed it, but he was too happy to talk and listen to himself. Like children, with the same unconscious perversity, he was determined to make noise until someone would say to him: “Shut up! You’re unbearable.” But precisely, they didn’t want to tell him this; they preferred, to mock him, to entertain him in his fatal conceit. Touloumès, Bécougnan, Falgarettes, Peyras, had secret meetings among themselves from which I was excluded. It was not difficult for me to sense that they were meditating “something.” But what? People were suspicious of my indiscretion and no doubt they were not wrong: every historiographer ends up feeling sympathy for the subject of his study: I ​​had sympathy for the Monarch, that was too obvious. I could neither warn him nor even intervene on his behalf: for I knew nothing until the very moment the conspirators’ plan was revealed in his presence, and even then I was hardly more perceptive than he: we did not see the blow coming. But what art of preparation, what diplomacy to bring the conversation to the inevitable point where the Monarch, seduced, would fall into the trap! That he had kept some grudge against Malvaize, Blanduze’s deputy , who had not been able to obtain “a command” for Lieutenant Malavial, no one was unaware. And now the time of the general elections was about to return. The general elections! What the Monarch loves best in life: six weeks of joy, grandiose oratorical battles, even more precious café chatter, drunkenness, fraternities and exaltation. So he was put on the general elections. I said that the Monarch too often assumed a tone of authority. He did not depart from it, discussing, at length, “the Malvaize case,” Malvaize banished from the unified socialist party “for having agreed to write a favorable report on this mining concession in the colonies, you know!” The Monarch was becoming tiresome, and I suffered from it. It was then that Touloumès, astute, suggested: “That’s something we hadn’t wanted to tell you yet, Monarch: but what if you ran against him? We would form a committee. Yes, all of us, Monarch, a fine committee. What a campaign you would run!” And I was afraid, I assure you, I was very afraid. They wanted to trap him, to enjoy, for six weeks, the effervescence of his hopes, the exasperations of his vanity, the grandiloquence of his speeches. Because giving him a voice, just one, no ! We like to laugh, but we know his interests. It was even salt the most piquant part of the joke, that he didn’t have a voice, in the end! I wondered anxiously: “What will he answer, good God, what will he answer?…” For you know him well now, I hope? You know that only people from the North, unaccustomed to it, could imagine that he is a little mad, whereas there is not , in his brain, however always buzzing, a single grain of madness; but only imagination. He likes to imagine things that are not yet, to make a story where all is well, where all ends well, as he pleases and at his whim, naturally, since he puts into it only what he wants. And it was so beautiful to build, this tale, with which he was tempted! He was so capable of saying “yes”, thinking as he did so many other times: “It didn’t happen, it will never happen. It’s just something we talk about tonight, among ourselves, for glory and for pleasure. Tomorrow we won’t think about it anymore.” And then to commit ourselves, without wanting to, as always, because tomorrow others would still be thinking about it, and he, the poor Monarch, having said “yes,” would not know how to say “no”! So I expected everything, everything, I assure you: modesty, which would be false and dangerous modesty, oratorical delirium, which would be verbiage, gratitude to his executioners, which would be dreadful! – I expected everything, except the event: the Monarch didn’t even seem to hear! It was a new Monarch—in which one could still distinguish the old one, for it was still a role!—but a role that amused him all the more because he had never played it before, a role “within,” no longer outside, all in moderation, in reticence, in silence, in order to gallantly decline what was offered to him, without touching it, without compromising himself, without diminishing himself. He did not even seem to hear, I repeat! To reproduce his skillful and delicate speech, one would need all the decent dignity of indirect speech, such as only the great Latins knew how to practice: “That Malvaize, after all, was the man of the country, that he knew its customs, that it was no longer, in our days, a question of great politics, for which a man above the common people is needed, but only of particular advantages to be obtained for individuals. For, in general, has anyone had anything to desire, for twenty years, for forty years, since the Empire? If we are workers, it is possible. But we are not workers, at Espélunque, we are owners, we have vineyards, meadows, our house. So what can we wish for? Favors, compensation, places for the children. “Aren’t you distillers, is n’t the privilege of distillers an advantage given to the North over the South, can’t you burn all the marc from your harvests in the still, drink it at home, without paying anything, and even take it out afterwards to sell it quietly, in the country, without being bothered? What do you lack, come on?” And the Monarch repeated his words, of which he was proud: “I’m happy for us to talk about reforms, but I don’t want them carried out!” And for all that, wasn’t Malvaize the right man? The others bowed their heads. They bowed their heads because their coup hadn’t succeeded, they bowed their heads because they felt they had been exposed, and also because, revealed in this way, the little down-to-earth motives of what they called their political opinions humiliated them a little. They thought: “If you had any vines, if you were one yourself, a distiller, you wouldn’t speak so clearly! It’s true, all that, it’s true. But it doesn’t have to be said!” Touloumès nevertheless dared to raise his voice: “Monarch,” he said, “that doesn’t prevent you yourself, just now, from hiding the fact that Malvaize was expelled from the Unified Socialist Party… ” “Does that mean anything to you?” the Monarch hissed in his face. “Try saying it, do you?” You’re like everyone else, you don’t care… It’s no longer unified? Then it will be independent. Socialist independent: that sounds better. He thought for a second, and added: “It’s even better, to land a ministry!” Peyras was slow-witted. That’s why he was imprudent enough to insist: “But you, Monarch, then, you, you don’t want anything? ” “Yes!” said the Monarch. Everyone breathed; and they looked at each other, full of hope. The Monarch wanted something; so there was always a way to make it happen.
“What?” they said. The Monarch gave them a circular glance, domineering, imperious—and deeply ironic. “I want,” he said, “I want… ” He seemed to hesitate, as if seized with terror before an immense dream. “Speak, Monarch, speak! ” “I want,” he said, putting his hand over his mouth as if to stop the expression of this bitter desire… “I want the Nobel Prize!” There was silence. They hadn’t thought of that; they were crushed. The Nobel Prize was too far away; they didn’t know how to get the Nobel Prize. The Monarch left with an air of disdain, victorious. A few days later, I left Espélunque. The Tiennou put my light suitcase on a wheelbarrow, so as not to tire himself, and went down very quietly to the station. I followed him a few steps behind, and the Monarch drove me, because he loved me. He was a little melancholic. That didn’t surprise me: he likes to put on airs. I was leaving: he was putting on a sad air. That was my supposition. It wasn’t entirely without foundation, but yet it wasn’t all. “I’ll come back,” I told him, “we’re on a date!” He bent his back even more. “You’ll see me older!” he said. “People like me shouldn’t grow old.” Sometimes, you see, sometimes, when I’m not talking, I imagine what I’ll be like, what I’ll look like, soon: oh! nothing good, nothing beautiful! The Monarch with white hair, does he have the right to be the Monarch? It’s like a tenor who has lost his voice. Worse! Like a child to whom someone says: “You’re grown up, now it’s no longer time to play, work!” And I played, I’ve never done anything but play all my life, that’s all I know. But what if I were to stop knowing? When you get older, play no longer amuses, you no longer invent, you no longer find. I’ll make my old faces: they will sadden me, they will sadden others even more… In the past, for our elders, there were games that lasted, that were big, that were taken seriously: war, look, war! We embarked on crazy things, we got out of them, as I get out of my imaginations, by other imaginations, by aplomb, by courage that served, while I had some, all the same, eh? All the same , courage, but to serve no purpose. And when it was over, at the time of retirement, we were not interrupted, when we joked: because people knew that we had done things for real, instead of “doing it”… Come on, here is your train… Tiennou, put the suitcase in this compartment. Farewell, sir, farewell!… He had saluted, with his fine gesture. The train left. Leaning out of the window, I saw the Monarch one last time. He was turning, along the Gardon, towards the corner where the quarrymen are. The rumbling of the engine could not entirely prevent me from hearing: he was singing! Everything in this world is just a game, just a game! … The worries of the Monarch never last very long. THOSE OF THE NORTH THE FELIBRE OF THE NORTH We were many years, at the Café Jean, which is on rue de la Gare, in Lille, before knowing why Justus Vandermeersch Podocius had become a félibre. It seems to me useless, I think, to insist on this point that Vandermeersch Podocius indicates undeniably Flemish origins . M. Vandermeersch means M. Desmarais, and for Podocius, we no longer know anything at all: it probably goes back to the learned era when we northerners Latinized our family names; and I don’t know Latin. Vandermeersch Podocius, who is a man of pleasant company, as we speak in Lille, is in the habit of affirming that the union of these two patronymics proves that he is from a great family: for, he said, it is only when one is many children of the same father and mother that one is obliged to extend oneself over two names to be recognized. As you see, it is a very witty joke, and of the philosophical kind. It is that he has all the good qualities of our race: easily hilarious, but reasonable; passionate, but thoughtful. Like him, all of us, more or less, seem like good children who put their fingers in their ears to learn their lesson. Suddenly they are removed: then it is recreation. We know how to have fun. The people of the South, the Parisians, they joke: it is not the same thing; for pleasure, it is much inferior! That’s why we were shocked that Vandermeersch Podocius had become a félibre. It’s not patriotic. Of course, you have to be part of a society, it’s necessary. The difference between men and women is that men are part of a society; women are part of a brotherhood: there are the Rosati. Why didn’t Vandermeersch Podocius become a Rosati? And he was born in Verlinghem: he could have become a member of the Enfants de Verlinghem. Whereas a félibre, besides being dishonest for the North, there are no félibres in Lille; so, we can’t meet. I know very well that Justus speaks all languages, because having been obliged to learn French for his business—he travels for the Cammaërt, the large wool comb factory—he found it very easy to continue; all the same, that’s no reason. But, the other evening, he gave us his reason. “It was when I fell in love,” he told us, “and at first out of gratitude. And then, I saw that it was useful: it’s better than being a mason. Even a mason! Well, just think! It was then that we understood why he had let himself get bogged down in it for so long without telling us the truth, even for fun; here, you can believe that we are no less resourceful than elsewhere, and not only the traveling salesmen, who do volume because they have opportunities. It’s not a privilege: everyone in the North knows more or less what you have to do to talk to bitches; but you don’t say anything about it, it’s not the way things are done. Especially when you’re married, eh? Justus, he was married. Not happily, but married, that’s a fact. As proof, when Madame Vandermeersch Podocius had sold out too much doing nothing—having coffee—I was talking to the lady at the door opposite, and he was saying: “Good God, good God! Luckily there’s a last judgment! And when the Angel from the bad place is reeling off your guts on his big sword, I’ll be sitting there watching, at the right hand of this Almighty Father!” We all have religion, then, and respect for the home. We’re discreet when it comes to our little tricks. So it wasn’t surprising that Justus knew a child, but for him to have admitted it, he must have been extraordinarily communicative that evening. Let’s be clear: that is to say, he spoke a little about this little girl, just enough for the story, but no more, and we never knew her name, her address, or anything at all that could help us recognize her. Was she blonde? It’s quite possible. More like a brunette? You can look it up. Here’s her description; and now, I’m sure, you’ll find her among the five hundred thousand, there’s no mistaking it. In any case, you know as much as I do, because Justus only says to us: “It’s a good thing, eh, to have a little friend like that to go for a walk with? We’re quite happy. She talks what she wants, all the time; we don’t listen to her; when we look at her, we don’t think about anything, we mind our own business, it’s like a blowjob, and it’s sweet. We’re going along this Boulevard de la Liberté, where it’s all full everywhere.” from these beautiful hotels, we cross the Vauban garden, and after that it is the Promenade du Préfet, that is called, with climbs, you go up, descents, you go down, in these ditches of the old fortifications, and with these green benches, too, where we hold each other by the waist during the day, and we do whatever we want, for the end of the day, as soon as it has fallen, the quarter of an hour dark: the passers-by, under the trees, they would have to look, to see you, and no one ever looked: it is not proper, you know, to bother each other. “When I wanted to go for a walk like that, with the child, I sent her a note the day before, to tell her where it was the place that she should wait for me, because the errands, for business, it is rare if it is every day in the same direction. And then there you go… You can never know, a minute in advance, what troubles are going to happen: because, if you knew, they wouldn’t happen! I had just put a card at that main post office, Place de la Préfecture, where I told her: “Tomorrow, at six o’clock, we’ll be waiting at the M bus station.” It’s a good place, that station, and the name, isn’t it, lends itself to saying witty things. Well, I went back home, after putting this paper in the box, and what did Mrs. Vandermeersch say to me: “–Tomorrow, Justus, at the stroke of six o’clock, like that, couldn’t you wait for me at the M bus station? I’ll just have come back from seeing my sister, right here! ” My whole body tightened like the skin of a plucked chicken. This little girl, if she would signal me, just as soon as my lady arrives! I shout: “What are you saying, Mrs. Vandermeersch? ” She replies: “What’s that extraordinary? ” It was true. It was once her idea that I wait for her, a natural idea. And instead of acting angry, I reply very calmly: “I’m going out for a minute to buy some tobacco. ” I go out, like that! I run to that main post office, I was crazy, thinking: “The collection hasn’t been done, they’ll give me back this postcard.” The first employee I see behind a counter, I try to talk sense into him: he stares at me as if I were a dog! “–None of my business! he says. “–And who’s business is it, then? “–It’s nobody’s business,” he said. “It’s forbidden to return letters! ” My shirt was all wet behind my back. And you can’t do anything to a man behind a counter. I asked politely: “–The postmaster! Mr. postmaster! I’d like to speak to Mr. postmaster. “–Oh! That’s fine, he’s doing it: if you like! The postmaster, he was receiving in an office. I shouted: “–Mr. postmaster, there, in that box, the outer box, is a letter, a letter I wrote… to a person… Here’s the person’s name, and they mustn’t receive it. It would be a disaster! ” He answered me, shrugging his shoulders: “–What do you want me to do about it? A letter, from the moment it’s been put in the box, becomes the property of the addressee, the one you sent it to, if you prefer. “It’s the rules… ” “Sir… ” He opened the door, that heartless fellow! He opened the door to throw me out !
“It’s the rules! I tell you. ” I looked at him. He wasn’t from the North, that one. With his round head, his little black mustache, his almond-shaped eyes, the color of burnt hazelnut, and then his accent, his ridiculous accent: another one from that Provence, surely, eh? The whole government belongs to them! And just think! We’re the ones who make the children , and they’re the ones who make the civil servants! They put them everywhere, at home, in Lille, in Tourcoing, in Roubaix, in Seclin, in Lens. Everywhere, you find them everywhere! I would have killed that one. But what good would that have done? To get revenge? It’s good to get revenge, but to succeed is even better, eh? I remembered one of the principles of my profession: “Justus, task not to rub the customer the wrong way, try to please him, Justus!” “Please him? And how, please him? “It’s the rules,” he said, that moko, instead of listening to me, it’s the rules! I’ll slap you in the face, me, the rules!… Suddenly, inspiration came to me. I remembered Nîmes, the Café Peloux, the Arena, the Magne tower where I had seen so many while selling wool for the Cammaërts, seen so many who looked like him! ” “Siès not from the Gard?” I shouted in his patois. “He raised his head. “–You say?” he said. “–Say: Siès not from the Gard? Are you from the Gard? ” He said: “Yes, yes,” and he looked completely hidden and lost. So, I continued, in his dirty Provençal, and I told him that I too was from the Gard and the surrounding area of ​​Nîmes, from La Calmette. Do I know! “But he gave me back my letter! ” And since then, we have been friends. He still thinks I am from the Gard, and since he writes verses, he wanted me to call myself a félibre. That is why I am a félibre. And this thing, I repeat, will also be useful in politics, in Lille!” MR. STUYVAERT’S DAY Every morning, as God intended, Mr. Napoléon Stuyvaërt gets dressed to go to his office on rue du Molinel, at Dujardin Verkinder, where he is an accountant. He begins by opening the window, not to freshen the air, but to see if he should not put a hunting vest over his flannel vest, and under his shirt, for he is chilly, a little arthritic, and the air of Lille is treacherous, full of humidity, particularly at the change of seasons. His toilet completed, he goes down to the kitchen, and, having first taken a glass of gin, in order to chase away the bad effects of the fog, he drinks his coffee with milk, which is heating on the fire, while eating slices of buttered bread. On the walls, the red copper and tinned iron saucepans sparkle like enormous jewels; the heavy table, made from a single block of oak and already passed through black soap, caresses the eye with a milky shine; and the backs of the chairs, the very chest of the coffee grinder , even the handle of the leather for polishing knife blades have been rubbed with wax. That day, Madame Stuyvaërt was not in the kitchen. Her husband was surprised at first: she always got up before him, so that everything would be in order. But, generally, she attended his lunch. Then suddenly Mr. Stuyvaërt thought: “I’m stupid! It’s Saturday: she’s already washing ‘dehiors’.” Having thus calmly savored the last drop of his café au lait, he put on his overcoat, put on his hat, and opened the door. He had not been mistaken: Madame Stuyvaërt was washing outside. Squatting on the sidewalk of this little street in the suburbs of Lille, where the houses, all alike, stretched out the red bricks of their single story, with a brush, soap, and sand, the reflection of which was a little green, she scrubbed the three steps of the threshold; and, as it was a work of art, her heart was light and her eyes bright. She shouted at once : “Don’t move, Napoleon! What a mess you’d make under the door again. Wait until I put my apron on this step!” But Napoleon thought that, despite his weight, he could gain momentum over the obstacle the virgin candor of these steps presented to him. So he jumped, spreading his arms, then turned around, his face cheerful, because the glass of gin still excited his blood a little. His ears were disconcerted to hear: “These men, how disgusting! I told you to wait until I put my apron on this step, Napoleon!” By jumping onto the wet pavement, Mr. Stuyvaërt had spurted four or five small droplets of blackish mud onto the immaculate threshold. Feeling guilty, he decided to leave without asking any more, so as not to cause trouble. He returned at six o’clock, having completely forgotten the incident. His key creaked in the lock, and he went in. The small hall, paved with cubes in Maubeuge earth, alternately white and black, was, at this hour, completely dark, and he saw nothing in the kitchen except the pot au feu, lit from below by the red-hot stovetop. He shouted: “Where are you, Élodie, at this hour?” “Here,” she replied, “in this dining room. I haven’t finished washing these windows yet! ” He entered the dining room, a room that was only used on special occasions, and more as a parlor. Madame Stuyvaërt, up on a ladder, was washing the window panes. She had pulled up her skirt around her thighs with a safety pin to make panties, for she was modest. This gave her husband ideas, who pinched her calves. This gesture brought her out of the cares that absorbed her, but to remind her that men have no cleanliness. “Jesus my God!” she said. “I’m sure you weren’t careful going up the steps!” Mr. Stuyvaërt hadn’t been. He remained silent. Élodie climbed down from her ladder, and, kicking off the runners on her feet, went, in her stockings, with a lamp, to look at the threshold. “That’s what I said,” she said. “You’re no more careful than a pig… than a pig on its dunghill. Everything has to be started again.” And she began again… They dined late, and there was nothing to eat but the stew, because on Saturday, cleaning day, there’s no time to cook . Mrs. Stuyvaërt spoke only stern words. Her work had left her arms red and her hands chapped; Her blond hair , in straight, straight locks, escaped the comb and pins; her face was too shiny. Mr. Stuyvaërt looked at her without pleasure, and remained silent. When he had finished his meal, he got up and took up his overcoat. “Where are you going, Napoleon?” asked his wife. “To my party,” he said. “Tomorrow is the Broquelet festival, and we are going to Esquermes to play a fantasy about the Huguenots. ” “Are you taking your saxophone? ” “No,” he replied. “I know my part.” And, without being softened by this solicitude, he added, with a sullen air: “I’m going to my party because, to my party, I don’t always have to look where I’m walking! ” “So much the better,” replied Élodie placidly: “I haven’t finished!” The headquarters of Mr. Stuyvaërt’s company is in the “Temple de Lucine” tavern, run by Philogone Delœil, on the corner of Rue Royale and Rue Négrier. The tavern bears this sign because Philogone Delœil’s wife is a midwife. And, as his customers say, she has a pretty name to complement the sign, it inspires confidence. Mr. Stuyvaërt met Verdonck, Delemer, Tirlemont, and all the others there that evening. The atmosphere was warm, the tankards cold, and after the tankards, they made burnt gin with cloves. Mr. Stuyvaërt, as the hour progressed, felt more at ease, happy, and fulfilled. The juniper warmed his stomach and his head, and when he lit his pipe with its bright copper bowl full of burning coals covered with ash, he thought: “How good life is! How good it is when there are only men! ” But he went no further, without malice, almost without rancor, knowing that there are also women, and that this is necessary. Only, he made a comparison in his mind between rain and good weather, and he preferred good weather… They listened to the reading of the society’s budget by the treasurer, they drew up the program of new pieces to be rehearsed, they played a game of piquet, then another, while drinking a new bowl of burnt juniper, and Mr. Stuyvaërt said, stretching out his legs, voluptuously: “It can’t last forever! ” “What can’t last forever?” asked Delemer. Mr. Stuyvaërt was thinking about the fine weather. It was over, it was time to go to bed. But he said nothing about it, being very reserved about household affairs. These are matters that concern no one else. He only replied: “The pleasure of your company.” And, bowing, shaking hands, he lit a last pipe and left. The trams were no longer running, he made the journey on foot, happy to feel his solitary footsteps ringing on the cobblestones. He felt generous, benevolent, amiable, despite everything. It bothered him to go home, but nothing is made to order, neither gaiety nor sadness; it comes when it wants, and he was cheerful. Besides, he remembered that the next day he would go to Esquermes, to play a fantasy about the Huguenots. He would be outside all day, with the same friends, with men, wouldn’t he? Men! It would be another good day. He made a noisy and unobstructed entrance into his home. But immediately , his heart sank a little. His wife shouted from the first floor: “Napoleon!” Napoleon! He asked: “What’s the matter now? ” “Napoleon, take off your shoes… because I also washed the stairs after dinner!” If it had been any other day, he would have gotten angry in the end. But he felt nothing but a feeling of hilarious bliss, kept within the bounds of a sly joy by the awareness he had of being at home, that is, at his wife’s. He took off his shoes… And then, a wider smile lit up his face. He also took off his frock coat and waistcoat.
“Napoleon!” He went into his kitchen, sat down on a chair, undid his trousers in a jiffy, and then took off his shirt, his drawers, his hunting waistcoat , and his flannel waistcoat. And the sensation of his own nudity, in the dark night, cheered him up even more. He went to get a small night lamp from the hall and saw himself. Then he was amazed. “Napoleon! What a time it takes you to take off your shoes!” He silently climbed the stairs and appeared in the bedroom , naked as a worm, very tall, very fat, his legs slightly apart for balance, and his hands on his stomach. Elodie looked at him with a slightly shocked expression: “You’re all naked now? I told you to take off your shoes…” But Mr. Stuyvaërt winked viciously and replied: “I was afraid of dirtying the walls!” His revenge fell flat. Mrs. Stuyvaërt replied blandly: “Napoleon, I hadn’t washed them.” And her husband, at that moment, distinguished on the chest of drawers a gigantic thing , which shone like a comet. It was his saxophone. Madame Stuyvaërt had polished it, in turn, like the doorknobs, like the dining room pendant light, like the brass instruments in the kitchen. It was now the most beautiful saxophone in Lille!… “She’s a good woman, all the same,” he said to himself, moved. And that night, they were very happy… THE BURIAL OF MADAME STUYVAERT … Mr.
Stuyvaërt remained standing because everyone was standing and , first of all, being the first mourner, it was up to him to set an example. However, as his back hurt, due to a little rheumatism, he leaned with both palms, arms outstretched, on the back of his prie Dieu, whose muslin cover perpetually slipped under his black gloves, made of icy leather. For the widower, rebelling against the advice of Madame César Stuyvaërt, his sister-in-law, had refused to accept the suede, whose matte tone is more suitable: he had replied that suede, on the hands, gave him goosebumps .
To look at those who had come, throwing back his powerful neck, which formed a roll over the false collar, he raised his broad head and his reddened eyes: he had cried a lot, poor Mr. Stuyvaërt, these last two days, he really missed his wife! And then, he had to receive at his home his brother César and his sister-in-law, who had rushed from Mons for the funeral, and also Uncle and Aunt Delebecque, those two good old men, who had come from Ronchin. At each arrival, it had been necessary to start the story again, to tell how it had come, this pneumonia, to tell the last moments. And, the more Mr. Stuyvaërt told them, the more he felt the irreparable sadness and bitterness, for he had strong feelings, but rather slow, and the idea of ​​the thing, the idea that it was over, completely over, had only fallen from him little by little… The service was interrupted. Before it resumed, for the solemn rite of consecration, everyone left their place to go to the offering. The priest, standing on the last step of the altar, made those who passed before him kiss a shining paten which he wiped each time, for cleanliness, with a batiste pad. An acolyte, to his left, distributed images and inscriptions inviting prayers for the deceased; another, to his right, held out a tray onto which, at regular intervals, small coins fell: a few gros sous, sous, and also many of those small centimes which, in French Flanders, have remained in common use. And, sometimes, the acolyte, to encourage generosity, cleared away this pile of copper, revealing the five-franc écu that Mr. Stuyvaërt, the first, had thrown onto the resounding metal. There is no other! Mr. Stuyvaërt said to himself with a certain pride. I am the only one who has put in a hundred sous. Caesar only gave twenty: he could have used his two francs.” Inwardly, he felt some satisfaction at the small superiority thus obtained over his brother, who had always treated him like a little boy, giving as his reason that an eldest is an eldest, and consequently the head of the family. He was also pleased to note that the priest directed a rather dark look at the members of his society, the “Trompette de la Monnaie,” who remained quite calmly on their chairs, their wooden or brass instruments in their hands or in front of them, instead of turning behind the catafalque to go and kiss the good Lord, paying: this is because the members of the society thought that by offering the ceremony the contribution of their talents, they were already doing all their duty. Mr. Stuyvaërt himself, at funerals, had never behaved differently. His society, which was anticlerical, entered the church all the same, so as not to offend the families. But it had discovered this economical and radical way of proving that it did not like the clergy. However, the procession continued. First came the senior mourners, austere and ceremonious, then the trampling mass of relatives, friends, suppliers, and finally three “little old men” delegated by the poor of the hospice, in blue smocks, and very well-behaved, who brought up the rear of the male procession. Then came the women. The senior mourners, their faces invisible under the heavy black veil, whose crepe folds seemed frozen in long tears, at once dark and brilliant; the ladies of the third order, Élisa Verkinder and Léonore Hauchecuisse, who are all that remain of the old béguinage, which was destroyed years and years ago, and who now live in boarding school with the Ursulines. Élisa is blind, and Léonore, who is eighty-six years old, was dragging her by the hand, her hollow, lipless mouth closed over her toothless jaw. Then the ladies of the neighborhood, the neighbors, the archconfraternity of the Virgin, the very old young ladies who will not marry, the less past, who have already done Saint Catherine’s hair, but still hope, and the youngest, who have kept all their voices to sing at the services of the month of Mary. They all passed, hands joined, eyes lowered, and the most pious, with their hair smoothed and pulled back, out of modesty, with the almost excessive oval of their peaceful faces, their clear, incredibly pure gaze, and their long waists under old-fashioned corsets , which made their bellies bulge, had the air of their resurrected sisters, their sisters of four hundred years ago, those who are painted on the reliquaries and the parchment of the books of hours. But others wore a city hat, the least conspicuous they could find. They looked ingenuous, or greedy, or evaporated, or vicious: Mademoiselle Élodie Carouge, Mademoiselle Zulime Lamberquin, Mademoiselle Caroline Malmouche, Mademoiselle Sidonie Vandergraët. They came of all ages and sizes, of all tastes and for all tastes, and without meaning to, little by little, Mr. Stuyvaërt, silently, to himself, named them. His brother César, motionless, stern, and upright, gently placed his hand on his shoulder from behind. Then he started and stared straight ahead, like a child caught in a sin. When the offering was finished, the officiant hastened the end of the mass. Men came, in heavy boiled leather hats; They carried the coffin out of the church to the hearse, which moved off. This was the big moment for the members of the “Trompette de la Monnaie.” Positioning themselves on both sides of the funeral carriage, they gave their instruments, to soften the mouthpieces, a lick of their tongues moistened with saliva, glancing sideways at Delemer, the clarinet, their band leader, who walked in front of them. The tiny music stand that most of these instruments carried remained empty: for all the members of the band, since childhood, had known the piece that was going to be played, they knew it by heart, and a tradition already three-quarters of a century old imposed it on the occasion: Desrousseaux’s P’tit quinquin, transposed into minor. Sleep, my little quinquin, Min gros pouchin, Min gros rojin. You’ll make me sad If you don’t sleep until tomorrow. This childish air, whose rhythm is so dry and the leaps so short, now, in the old style in which our fathers combined their first unisons, how it was changed, grown, solemn, heartbreaking! We forgot the words, or rather these words remained in the background of thought, they took on another meaning, they said “There, there: have you understood, at this hour? Everything we imagine a cause for joy is only a reason to despair. … We will go to Jeannette’s courtyard… Yes, it’s a kid being rocked by his mother, isn’t it, and his mother thinks only of him, his mother doesn’t think she will die… Walks , sunshine, a woman holding a child by the hand: there it is, now, the walk–to the cemetery! Here she is, the woman, in this terrible plank outfit which is the last outfit, everyone’s outfit , in the end, for eternity! What is the popular genius, instinctive, cynical, ferocious, still imbued with the spirit of the Middle Ages, who invented this fierce disguise, this musical masquerade which makes mourning and horror with dawn, courageous motherhood, ingenuous misery, bravely borne? But perhaps it also means: “It will go on, come on, it will go on, life! Do you think that’s the end of that, that you’re going to bury? But there will always be children who are born, who are rocked, who are pampered and who will grow up. And then, after… After? Sleep, my little quinquin: everything ends with sleep.” And Mr. Stuyvaërt, who knew that tune well, and who knew that it had to be like that, Mr. Stuyvaërt had a heavy heart in his chest. He lamented for his wife, who was no more, and he lamented for himself. For it is for oneself above all, such is the infirmity of human nature, it is for an amputation of soul, of body, of habits, from which one suffers unbearably, that one mourns those who are leaving. Mr. Stuyvaërt saw again the mornings and the days, and the evenings and the nights, the meals and the bed, the house and the walks. “I am alone,” he said to himself, “I am alone! Is it possible that I am all alone?” And he was seized with terror at the thought that, all alone, he was good for nothing, not even for making his café au lait. He was unhappy like a good man, and like a natural man. “How good she was,” he said to himself, “how good she was!” But that meant also: “What will become of me without her?” The fortifications were seen. The procession crossed the large drawbridge dating from Vauban, and the road turned towards the nearby cemetery. Caught sideways by the view, the black herd could be seen from one end to the other, between the high red walls and the trees of the counterscarp. Then, the widower no longer took his eyes off this spectacle, walking almost backward. His brother César said to him: “Napoleon, this is not proper. We must look ahead. What are you thinking, Napoleon?” Without thinking, quite simply, Mr. Stuyvaërt replied: “I will never see so many women together again. All our acquaintances have come, César, all those who are up for grabs: this is an opportunity.” And, meanwhile, tears streamed down both his cheeks. BERTY
Every morning, around ten o’clock, the three old ladies Werquin, Gertrude, Mélanie, Bertha, sitting on their doorsteps in front of their lace drums, would say, turning their heads toward the top of Rue de Comines: “Here comes Monsieur Jeunennebien, taking his young lady to the ladies of the Saint Esprit.” And Monsieur
Jeunennebien would approach, holding the top of the pavement, walking with a step that was still firm despite his great age, with that air of pride, happiness, and rejuvenation of grandfathers holding their granddaughters by the hand. He was always freshly shaven, the deep wrinkles that hollowed out his cheeks lent irony to his slightly dry face, and every moment, without meaning to, out of an instinctive need for protection and pleasure, he would run his hand over Marie Louise’s light hair . This hair fell quite low on a very straight, slightly stiff back, and Marie Louise would hurry, holding her black satchel by the strings. She still had the square waist that little Flemish girls keep until the day when puberty opens their throats, which then swing on their thinned belt like a peony bud on its stem. And Berty, the fox terrier, preceded the procession, sniffing at all the cellar vents, barking at the horses’ hocks, jumping at the legs of the cyclists, nibbling at the very hubs of the carriage wheels , and striving to make the road three times longer for himself , for his own pleasure. “That will make a beautiful girl, Mademoiselle Marie Louise,” said Gertrude. “Yes!” replied the other two, sincerely. They had no jealousy, living entirely in God, and having never thought of marrying. “And Monsieur Jeunebien takes her to these ladies of the Holy Spirit, and to high mass every Sunday.” It’s very proper of him, very proper, because… Mélanie stopped, so as not to commit the sin of gossip. But her two sisters had understood. M. Jeunennebien was a liberal. He was said not to like priests; it was even said that he only went hungry on Good Friday. “And to think that his name is Jeunennebien!” Gertrude simply whispered. This pun had been valid for sixty years. Berty came running up, sniffed again, and unceremoniously jumped onto Gertrude’s knees, knocking over the lace drum. Mélanie got up and went to get her a rusk. “Love!” the three spinsters said with conviction. Marie Louise said “good morning” to them as she passed, and M. Jeunennebien bowed, gallant and courteous as King Leopold. The three Werquin ladies rose and curtsied. “You’re very good to spoil that beast,” said Mr. Jeunennebien. “She’s unbearable! One of these days, I’ll shoot her. ” “Jesus!” cried Mélanie. “Such a beautiful little animal of God! You’re just joking, Mr. Jeunennebien.” But Marie Louise tightened her lips. She knew that her grandfather was n’t joking. He didn’t like dogs, and Berty was unfortunately the one who could least find favor in his eyes. He added to the perpetual agitation of his race all the faults of youth. The universe appeared to her as an immense and vague thing, made of a infinity of plots, each with a different odor, and on which, consequently, it is important to institute a series of experiments from the point of view of flavor, and also of resistance to the fangs that irritate your gums. Mr. Jeunennebien was so sure of the place where he put his slippers, at the foot of his bed, that he jumped into them in the morning, with his eyes closed; but he could not find them and fell back on his bare feet. It was because Berty had taken them away, then torn them to pieces, into a thousand small shapeless pieces, which he sniffed voluptuously. He also loved chickens, but to pluck them, and the rabbits in the hutch, but to break their backs. And also tulips, but not for the same reasons as Mr. Jeunennebien: he chewed them. That is why, every day, Mr. Jeunennebien announced that he was going to get rid of Berty. Marie Louise begged: “Wait, Grandfather! It’ll pass.” But he replied: “I’ve been waiting for three months. Strychnine balls and buckshot weren’t invented for Christians.” At the midday dinner that followed this conversation with the Werquin girls, Berty was very good, by chance. He stayed very quietly close to Marie Louise, only putting his paws on her knees when he smelled the smell of a dish; but Marie Louise gave him nothing but a little pat on the head, because Grandfather didn’t like dogs being fed at the table; and Berty didn’t insist, sitting on his backside, his whole nervous body quivering, but without groaning. Even at coffee time, he slipped away silently and was never heard from again. M. Jeunennebien wiped his mouth, folded his napkin carefully, and went into the living room. He was in a good mood, he was humming… Suddenly, he felt a pang of relief and shouted: “By God! He hadn’t sworn three times in his life.” This blasphemy was hurled so loudly and seemed so dreadful that not only was Marie Louise completely shaken by it, but also the “subjects,” who abandoned the pantry, the cook, the maid, and the laundry girl. Because there was a fire, for sure, or the large china bowl was broken. “By God!” repeated M. Jeunennebien. Berty, stretched out like a sphinx on all fours, was finishing devouring one of the legs of the porcelain sideboard: a Dutch sideboard, inlaid with island wood and ivory. It was the ivory that had tempted him. He had said to himself: “Is this thing invincible? Isn’t it less hard than my teeth?” It had given him a lot of trouble, but he had prevailed. He raised his lively eyes, full of innocent joy. Mr. Jeunennebien reached the stairs. “Grandfather,” said Marie Louise, “where are you going? ” Mr. Jeunennebien was going to get his rifle. But this single question stopped him cold. He knew that one mustn’t “grab” little girls of twelve. It’s bad for their health. So he went back to Berty and attached a leash to his collar. Marie Louise repeated, almost as painfully: “Grandfather, where are you going? ” “To the vet, little one,” he said in his turn, in an almost pleading voice . “He’ll get rid of him for us; you see there’s no way we can keep him. ” “But it’s to kill him, Grandfather; It’s to kill him, isn’t it? Mr. Jeunennebien remained silent. “What do you want us to do with him?” he said finally. “We can give him away! I’m happy to give him away, Berty, I’m happy to. But we mustn’t kill him, Grandfather! ” “And who do you want us to give him to? That’s taking a step back to jump better. After two weeks, we’ll put a stone around his neck. ” “There are those Werquin girls,” declared Marie Louise, enlightened. “They love him so much. They said so again this morning! ” “All right,” replied Mr. Jeunennebien. “Let me have my nap. We ‘ll see later.” But he was no sooner asleep than Marie Louise had the servant take her to the Werquin girls’ house. And she took Berty away. “Miss Gertrude,” she said, “will you take our dog? Grandfather doesn’t want it anymore. ” The three old maids clasped hands. “Jesus, my God! Such a pretty dog. Will you give him to us? Is that really true?” They brought their three wrinkled faces together to be licked, all together. A vague feeling of motherhood, ridiculous, deviant, touching, deliciously upset their entrails. “What should we give him?” asked Miss Mélanie. “Milk soup, carrots, a little meat every day,” said Marie Louise. “Oh! I know he’ll be happy at your house…” And she left, her heart heavy. As Monsieur Jeunebien and Marie Louise were passing through the dining room one evening, they heard the doorbell ring. “It’s Miss Gertrude,” announced the maid. “She’s come on an errand.” Mademoiselle Gertrude came in, curtsied, and remained standing. “Sit down, Mademoiselle Gertrude, sit down,” said Monsieur Jeunennebien. Mademoiselle Gertrude sat down and accepted a small glass of anisette. “I’ve come for Berty,” she began timidly. Monsieur Jeunennebien sniggered. “Eh, you’ve had enough already? You’ve had less patience than I have. That doesn’t surprise me. Send him to the vet, I tell you, to the vet! ” “Oh!” said Mademoiselle Gertrude, “that’s not it. Love! He’s spoiled like a little child. He’s young, he’s teething, that’s all. I only came to ask you… ” “What?” Monsieur Jeunennebien asked abruptly. “I came to ask you if we should give him meat on Fridays too.
” Then, old Jeunennebien suddenly said to him in a moved voice: “You’re a saint, Miss Gertrude, a saint… because you don’t eat meat on Fridays, eh? ” “No,” Miss Gertrude admitted, “and here, probably, he’s been used to it… ” “You can make him fast on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays if you like!” cried the old liberal in a spiteful voice. “No, Mr. Jeunennebien, no!” said Miss Gertrude with a sigh; “we’ll give him some all the same… ” THE CRIME OF MR. BABELON To Doctor Gosset. For over an hour, Mr. Babelon, a second-year teacher at the high school in Wattinnes-sur-Deule, had been waiting his turn in the large living room before the rector’s office. Sometimes his mind was amused by contemplating the delicate door-tops, painted in monochrome around the light garlands carved in solid wood, which a great lord dispossessed by emigration had involuntarily bequeathed, with all the rest of his mansion, to the bishops of the city, and which now the separation of Church and State has just passed into the secular, but still austere, hands of the University. Then his anguish would seize him again, like those nagging grips like penknife stabs that heart patients suddenly feel under the left breast, and which make them turn pale. His brand-new black gloves, wet with cold sweat, became unbearable to his irritated fingers. He would take them off in small strokes and dry his hands. But at least, for a few minutes now, he had been alone, he no longer had to disguise his discomfort in front of the colleagues who had come to ask for some favor or some deserved advancement, and who had been waiting in the antechamber with him: “What, you here, Monsieur Babelon, you here, my dear colleague? Is there a vacant first-year class in your high school? For surely you never leave Wattinnes, I know you: you were born there, you have your habits there, and for twenty-five years… Hey, you say?… I’m mistaken, twenty-eight years you’ve been teaching there… And Madame Babelon? In good health now? She had been ill, I believe? Completely recovered? Come on, so much the better, so much the better!” Monsieur Babelon turned pale. He would have cried for nothing. Did they do it on purpose, these people, did they know?… In his clean-shaven, honest, and naive face , his thin, delicately drawn lips—the best thing he had, said Madame Babelon, who admired him as she had in the early days of their marriage—his lips, reshaped by the diction exercises required by teaching, had a little painful quiver. Yes, it was a relief for him to be alone, to no longer have to answer, to lie. And what if it could last! Or what if he left without seeing the rector? Yet he had requested this audience: he had to go all the way! The usher opened the door, bowing slightly, without speaking. Then he turned and Mr. Babelon followed, his heart in his heels. “Mr. Babelon, second-year teacher at the Wattinnes high school!” announced the usher. But this time, his bow was more profound, ceremonious: a bow for the rector. And the rector raised his eyes with an air of interest, with an air more sincerely attentive than he must have had during previous visits. He no longer remembered Mr. Babelon’s face at all. Mr. Babelon had always been an excellent professor, whose knowledge was superior to his modest duties and whose teaching methods were impeccable. He would have made an excellent professor of rhetoric, at a time when rhetoric had not yet sunk into the upheavals that secondary education has undergone. His thesis on the Song of William with the Short Nose is a monument of clear and solid erudition, and sometimes the venerable Cimier of the Institute read before his colleagues of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres communications from Mr. Babelon that did not appear without merit to the learned assembly. And now this Mr. Babelon had become a rascal, a scoundrel. There he was, making himself impossible at Wattinnes-sur-Deule! The rector, while considering his subordinate, nodded his head: “Another one,” he mused, “who has suffered what I call the crisis of the return of age among virtuous men. I will cite this example in Paris when I want to excuse, in a report, those of our young professors who throw away their gourm.” Mr. Babelon heaved a deep sigh, raising the supplicating hands he had just re-gloved towards his superior. “I am listening to you, Mr. Babelon,” said the rector, completely courteous. The professor brought his hands back to his chest. The words would not come out. “Mr. Rector,” he said finally, “I have received, I have here, in my wallet,” he made a gesture of tearing out the paper that was burning him, “the official letter informing me of my transfer. I have been appointed ninth-grade professor in Toulouse, Mr. Rector: in Toulouse!” “It’s a big city,” the arbiter of his destiny declared coldly, ” a city undeniably more pleasant than Wattinnes. And you won’t always remain a ninth-grade teacher. I admit that these duties are beneath your merit, but it depends only on you, on your attitude, to soon obtain better… In fact, it was necessary to act quickly, Mr. Babelon, in your interest… In your interest! I hope we understand each other. ” “Before God, before men, before you, Mr. Rector,” poor Mr. Babelon declared solemnly, “I swear to you that, on the contrary, I understand absolutely nothing! ” “I wish you had realized it yourself… If you are sincere, if you discover nothing in your conscience that accuses you, it is more serious. It would not be good for your career to plead irresponsibility, Mr. Babelon! You are accused of having made obscene speeches on several occasions in front of your students, who repeated them to their parents. And you didn’t stop there: you put your money where your mouth is. What am I saying, action! You drew infamous drawings on the blackboard that you didn’t even have the basic decency to erase. Inspector Ducros saw them. I have his report here, on my desk! These deplorable diagrams represent… He lowered his voice modestly: “They represent the woman’s sexual parts!” Then Mr. Babelon jumped up, enlightened, suffocated, stunned. “That was it! Oh! My God! That was it… How strange!” he murmured. “Yes, I can feel it, my behavior may have seemed reprehensible, scandalous. And yet, it’s so natural… I was born in Wattinnes, in the house where my parents were born. My wife was born in Wattinnes, she was my cousin, and you’re not interested in those confidences, Mr. Rector, but if ever there was a happy marriage, it’s ours. Our only regret is not having had a child, perhaps because… well, you’ll understand later. But, as we grew older, we became each other’s child, the caressed, adored, pampered child.” Feelings change when you’re no longer a young husband and wife, and you still love each other, and you love each other more and more. The concern you have for the other becomes the concern you would have for a child: that the one you love continues to live and is happy while living. It’s not me, above all, who cares about the residence at Wattinnes. I’ve nurtured ambitions, I’ve seen myself as a university professor, a lecturer at the Sorbonne, and then, who knows? I’m as good as Cimier, after all! But my wife held on to her habits, to her church, to her friends, to her land at Merville, where we go in the summer: and I stayed where I was, Mr. Rector, without a shadow of regret, happier and happier because she was perfectly happy. And she rewarded me for it; I was perpetually carried, bathed in her delicious intimacy. That’s how we ended up accepting our situation with joy. When I came back from giving my class, she would say to me: “How are our kids?” We all know that I was a father, for these kids, we don’t know that for twenty years they had something like a mother who knew them all by name! And then, one day her character changed. She had mood swings, tears; she grew accustomed to the thousand little, slightly painful incidents that occur in life. Finally, she lost weight, she paled, she suffered. I called the doctor, and he said to me: “It’s…” I don’t dare tell you the name anymore, since it seems that it’s bad, since we shouldn’t talk about these things, which are nevertheless very sad. It seems that people die from it. You understand: that people die from it! And what would have become of me if she had died? So, I thought of nothing else. We have been to all the doctors in the world, we have been to all the waters, and I have read all the books, all the books on these diseases. It is a result of our intellectual education: we need to know, scientifically, what makes us suffer or what makes our own suffer. And when I met colleagues and they asked me for news of Madame Babelon, I answered bluntly, – I was too full of this dreadful subject: “–Alas, she has a tumor!” “And I said where! They reproach me for it: ah! dirty province! dirty province! ” It may be that I also said it to my students. We had spoken to them, they knew, and she loved them so much! They were my friends. And then I could no longer hide anything from anyone. My head was too full of this dreadful worry… In the end, they said to me: “–There is only one operation that can save her. ” Save her or kill her, is it not? You never know. How many times have I reread my books, those terrible books full of tragic images! Finally, we made up our minds; we went to Paris for the operation… Mr. Rector, you don’t know what surgery is like now! It’s admirable, it’s splendid, it’s superhuman, it’s… it’s clean! They saved my wife! They saved her!… When I came back with her, cheerful, healthy, and good, affectionate almost as before, I was overcome with joy. And I wanted to get down on my knees before that surgeon. I spoke about it to Everyone! In class, my students asked me, once again: “And Madame Babelon, sir, how is she? ” And I told them, too, that she was saved, that she had been operated on, that it was magnificent. Now that I think about it, they were making fun of me. They asked questions: “Really, we don’t understand… No! But how do we do it? ” So, I told them everything, explained everything, and I drew the picture on the board, I recognize it. There you go, Mr. Rector! His pure and naive eyes had reviewed, during this story, all the details of the operation. And he repeated, convinced: “But it’s true! You can’t imagine how beautiful it is!” The Rector felt sorry for him, seeing him so sincere. But what! The scandal was still flagrant. Wattinnes is a small town, like all small towns. He could not go back on his decision. The professor returned to Wattinnes crushed. His wife was waiting for him, anxious. Madame Babelon was cured; however, she no longer had her former even temper. “Is it settled?” she asked. “No!” replied her husband. And he explained why. “He confessed. ” “I was indiscreet, Julie!” he said humbly. Then Madame Babelon, who was from Wattinnes, understood that exile was indeed inevitable. She saw “her kids” looking at her waist and sneering when she passed in the street, and she saw the ladies of Wattinnes pursing their lips. Her despair inspired cruel words. And the specter of marital hatred, the most terrible of all, of recriminations that would never cease, rose for the first time between the spouses. Monsieur Babelon broke off. He went to hide in his study. His eyes wandered over the shelves of his library, over his books, his beloved books, which hadn’t changed place for twenty-eight years. And now he had to shake all that up, hit the road, towards new faces, without being sure of finding on his wife’s the affectionate smile for which he had sacrificed everything. “How wicked the world is,” he murmured, falling into his old armchair; “how stupid and how wicked it is!” And he sobbed quietly for a long time, his head in his hands. Thus ends ‘The Monarch’, a poignant story that reminds us of the heavy responsibilities of power and the sacrifices it imposes. Pierre Mille offers us a reflection on human nature , on the quest for justice, and on the fragile balance between ambition and morality. Thank you for listening to this journey through time and the thoughts of a man torn between his duty and his desires.