Complete Works of Emile Zola (1792 page)

“Listen,” then said Sidoine to the brigand. “First of all you shall not have my purse, and for a very good reason. Besides, I think it right to inflict a slight chastisement on you. Everything considered, that which is should be; I cannot let you eat in peace, when I have just left a poor fellow dying of hunger. Brother Médéric will one day read me the statutes, so that I may return and hang you in due form. To-day I will content myself with washing your ugly face in the pond at my feet. Drink sufficient for three days, my friend.”

Sidoine loosened his hold, and the thief fell into the pond. An honest man would have been drowned; the rogue saved himself by swimming.

The travellers continued on their way without looking back, Sidoine still holding his peach, and Médéric pondering over the three last meetings.

“My beauty,” suddenly said the latter, “you string your sentences together in fine style now. You never spoke so well before.”

“Oh!” answered Sidoine, “it is a habit easy to acquire. I no longer fight, I talk.”

“Be quiet, please, I wish to acquaint you with some serious reflections. I am reconstructing in my mind the sad state of society, which has been able to place before us in less than an hour, an honest man dying of hunger, a rogue who has had enough to eat for three days, and a powerful man rendered impotent. There is much to be learned from this.”

“No more teaching, for pity’s sake, brother. I simply wish to believe that to-day we have met men of peculiar races which have not yet been described by any traveller.”

“I understand you, my beauty. I have read many curious details in old books. There are countries where the inhabitants have but one eye in the centre of the forehead, others where their bodies are half man and half horse, others still where their heads and chests are all one. Without doubt we are now crossing a country where people carry their minds in their heels, which prevents them judging things clearly, and makes them act and speak in a remarkably absurd manner. They are monsters. Man created after the image of his Maker, is a far superior being.”

“That is it, brother Médéric, we are in a land of monsters. Now look! Do you see this fourth beggar whom I was expecting, coming towards us? Is he not sufficiently ragged, thin, famished, and scared? For certain he is walking on his mind, as you were saying just now.”

The man who was approaching kept to the edge of the ditch, delighting in performing feats of equilibrium. He advanced, his hands behind his back, carrying his head high; his thin clothes hung on his poor body, his face expressed I know not what strange medley of happiness and suffering. He appeared to be dreaming, on an empty stomach, of a rich and plentiful feast.

“I shall be unable to understand the world at all,” resumed Sidoine, “if this vagrant refuses my peach. He is dying of hunger, and seems to be neither a rogue nor an honest man. The thing is to offer it him politely. Brother Médéric, undertake this delicate task.”

Médéric stepped down to the ground. As he stood on the tip of Sidoine’s shoe the man noticed him.

“Oh!” said he, “what a pretty little insect! My charming fellow, do you drink dew and feed on flowers?”

“Sir,” answered Médéric, “pure water disagrees with me, and I cannot endure perfumes, for they give me the headache.”

“Hallo! the insect speaks! What a fortunate meeting! You relieve me of great embarrassment, my charming beetle.”

“So, you admit you are hungry.”

“Hungry! did I say that? Certainly I am ever hungry.”

“And you would willingly eat a peach?’

“The peach is a fruit I appreciate, on account of the velvety down of its skin. But thank you; I cannot eat. I have at last found what I have been seeking for the past hour,”

“Well,” said Sidoine, out of patience, “what were you seeking, my famished one, if it was not a morsel of bread?”

“Good!” exclaimed the poor fellow, “a second find! A giant in flesh and blood. Sir giant, I was seeking an idea.”

At this answer Sidoine sat down by the roadside, anticipating long explanations.

“An idea,” resumed he, “what sort of dish is that?”

“Sir giant,” continued the man, without answering, “I am a born poet. You are aware that poverty is the mother of genius. I have therefore cast my purse into the stream. Since that happy day I leave to fools the sad task of seeking their food. I, who no longer need to trouble myself with this detail, seek for ideas along the roadside. I eat as little as possible, in order to acquire as much genius as I can. Do not waste your pity on me; I am really only hungry when I do not meet with my precious ideas. What fine feasts I have occasionally. Just now, on seeing your graceful little friend, two or three exquisite stanzas came to my mind; a harmonious metre, rich rhymes, and a most brilliant conclusion. Imagine if I did not have my fill. Then, when I beheld you, I honestly feared the after effects of such a treat. I had an antithesis, a very good antithesis; the most dainty morsel that can be served to a poet. You see for yourself that I cannot accept your peach.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Sidoine after a moment’s silence, “this country is even more absurd than I thought. Here is a strange madman.”

“My beauty,” answered Médéric, “this is a madman, but a harmless one, a generous beggar, giving men more than he receives at their hands. I feel that I love the highways and the pleasant chase after ideas as he does. Let us weep or laugh, if you will, at seeing him great and ridiculous; but pray let us not place him in the same category as the three monsters we met a while ago.”

“Rank him as you please, brother,” resumed Sidoine in a bad temper. “The peach is still on my hands, and these four fools have so disturbed my thoughts concerning the fruits of the earth, that I dare not bite it.”

The poet, meanwhile, had seated himself by the roadside and was writing with his finger in the dust. A pleasant smile brightened his haggard face, giving a childlike expression to his worn features. In his dream, he heard Sidoine’s last words, and as though waking up he said:

“Sir, is that peach really in your way? Give it me. I know of a bush near here which is idolised by the sparrows of the neighbourhood. I will place your offering upon it, and I can promise you that it will not be refused. To-morrow I will come for the stone and will plant it in some corner for the sparrows of future springs.

He took the peach and resumed writing.

“My beauty,” said Médéric, “our offering is now bestowed. To ease your mind I would point out to you that we are returning to the sparrows what belonged to them. In regard to ourselves, as men do not enjoy providential food, we will endeavour not to eat what Heaven sends us any more. Our passage through this country has given rise in our minds to new and sad problems. We will study them shortly. At present let us be satisfied with seeking the Kingdom of the Happy.”

The poet was still writing lying down in the dust, his bare head exposed to the sun’s rays.

“Hallo! sir,” Médéric called out, “can you direct us to the Kingdom of the Happy?”

“The Kingdom of the Happy?” answered the madman, raising his head; “you could not have applied to any one better informed. I often visit that country.”

“What! is it near here? We have traversed the world without finding it.”

“The Kingdom of the Happy, sir, is everywhere and nowhere. Those who follow the beaten tracks with eyes wide open, those who seek it like a kingdom of the earth displaying its towns and fields to the light of day, will pass it by, their whole life long, without ever discovering it. Extensive though it be, it occupies but little space in this world.”

“And the road to it, I pray you?”

“Oh! the road is plain and direct. In whatever country you may find yourself, whether at the north or south, the distance is the same, and with a stride you can cross the frontier.”

“Good!” interrupted Sidoine; “this concerns me. In which direction must I take that stride?”

“It does not signify in which direction, I tell you. Come, let me introduce you. First of all close your eyes. Good. Now, raise your leg.”

Sidoine, with closed eyes, and his leg in the air, waited a moment.

“Set down your foot,” ordered the poet; “now you are there, gentlemen.”

He had not moved from his dusty bed, and was quietly finishing a stanza.

Sidoine and Médéric were already right in the centre of the Kingdom of the Happy.

XI

A MODEL SCHOOL

“Have we reached our destination, brother?” asked Sidoine. “I am tired and in great need of a throne to rest on.”

“Let us walk on, my beauty,”  answered Médéric. “We must become acquainted with our kingdom. The country seems to me peaceful. We shall be able to lie late a-bed in the morning, I think. To-night we will rest.”

The two travellers crossed towns and fields, gazing around. Earth having saddened them, they found relaxation in the clear horizons and silent crowds of this isolated corner of the universe. I have said that the Kingdom of the Happy was not a paradise of streams flowing with milk and honey, but a country of subdued light and saintly quietude.

Médéric understood the admirable equilibrium of this kingdom. A ray the less and it would have been night; one ray more and the light would have been overpowering. He said to himself that here must be the abode of wisdom, where man consented to mete out to himself both good and evil, to accept his condition under heaven without rebelling either by his affections or his crimes.

As he and his companion advanced, they came upon a barn, surrounded by iron railings, and standing in the centre of a field. Médéric recognised the model school founded by the charming Primrose for her dear animals. He had long wished to know the results of this attempt at perfection.

He made Sidoine lie down at the foot of the wall; then both, resting their foreheads against the railings, were able to contemplate and follow in all its details, a strange scene which completed their education.

At first sight they did not know what curious creatures were before them. Three months’ pampering, of mutual instruction and frugal diet, had quite tired out the poor animals. The lions, bald and mangy, looked like enormous gutter cats; the wolves carried their heads low, and were more crestfallen than homeless dogs; as to the other beasts of a delicate kind, they lay pell-mell on the ground, displaying naught but fleshless ribs and elongated muzzles. The birds and insects were even less recognisable, having lost their beautiful colourings and gloss. All these miserable creatures were trembling with hunger and cold, no longer being what the Almighty had created them, but finding themselves on the other hand perfectly civilised.

Médéric and Sidoine succeeded, by degrees, in recognising the various animals. In spite of their respect for progress and the benefits of instruction, they could not help pitying these victims of good. It is sad to see creation decay.

The animals of the model school dragged themselves moaning to the centre of the barn; there they ranged themselves in a circle. They were about to hold a council.

A lion, having preserved most breath, spoke first.

“My friends,” said he, “the dearest wish of us all who have the happiness to be shut up here, is to persevere in the excellent spirit of brotherhood and perfection which we are following with such astonishing results.”

A grunt of approval interrupted him.

“There is no need for me,” he resumed, “to go through the delightful list of the rewards which await our efforts. We shall constitute a single people in the future, we shall have but one language; whilst it will be a great joy for each of us to be no longer himself and to ignore who he is. Have you pictured the delight of that hour when distinction of races will cease to exist, when all animals will have only one thought, one taste, one interest? What a glorious day, my friends, and how merry it will be!”

Another grunt testified to the unanimous satisfaction of the assembly.

As our prayers are hastening the advent of that day,” continued the lion, “it would be advisable to take measures to ensure our witnessing its arrival. The regimen pursued here, up till now, is certainly excellent, but I think it is not very substantial. First of all we must live, and we are growing thinner and thinner; death cannot be far off if, in the praiseworthy desire to feed our souls, we continue to neglect feeding our bodies. It would really be too absurd to attempt to reach a paradise which we could not enjoy, on account of the means employed to attain it. A radical reform is necessary. Milk is a very moralising food, of easy digestion, which singularly softens customs; but I think I sum up all opinions in saying that we can no longer stand milk, that nothing is more tasteless, and finally, that we require a more varied and less sickening ordinary.”

A perfect ovation of howls, and a noise of opening and closing of jaws greeted the orator’s concluding words. The hatred of milk was popular amongst these worthy animals, who had lived on this luscious beverage for three months. The daily bowl made them feel ill. Ah, how sweet a little gall would have seemed to them!

When silence reigned once more the lion resumed:

“My friends, the subject of our discussion is therefore decided on. We are holding a council to proscribe milk, and to replace it by a food which would, whilst fattening us, at the same time assist us towards good thoughts. Thus we are each going to propose our dish; then we will decide in favour of that which receives the greatest number of votes. That dish will henceforth constitute the ordinary for all of us. I think it useless to impress upon you the frame of mind that should guide you in your choice. It is the utter abnegation of your personal tastes, the search for a food that would suit each one equally well, and above all afford guarantees of morality and health.”

At this point of the address enthusiasm was at its height. Nothing is pleasanter than to lay stress upon morality when the stomach has been previously lined. One sole thought, a touching unanimity of feeling ruled the assembly.

The lion, on his side, discoursed in an humble and affable manner. His eyes cast down, he would have converted his brethren of the desert, he presented such an edifying spectacle.