International Short Stories: French Part 30

"Your miserable birds; all the birds that you let stay here! Pretty soon they'll be building their nests in your soup-tureens!"

"I haven't but one."

"Haven't they got the idea of laying their eggs in your letter-box! I opened it because the postman rang and that doesn't happen every day. It was full of straw and horsehair and spiders' webs, with enough feathers to make a quilt, and, in the midst of all that, a beast that I didn't see hissed at me like a viper!"

The abbe of St. Philemon began to laugh like a grandfather when he hears of a baby's pranks.

"That must be a tomt.i.t," said he, "they are the only birds clever enough to think of it. Be careful not to touch it, Philomene."

"No fear of that; it is not nice enough!"

The abbe went hastily through the garden, the house, the court planted with asparagus, till he came to the wall which separated the parsonage from the public road, and there he carefully opened the letter-box, in which there would have been room enough for all the mail received in a year by all the inhabitants of the village.

Sure enough, he was not mistaken. The shape of the nest, like a pine-cone, its color and texture, and the lining, which showed through, made him smile. He heard the hiss of the brooding bird inside and replied:

"Rest easy, little one, I know you. Twenty-one days to hatch your eggs and three weeks to raise your family; that is what you want? You shall have it. I'll take away the key."

He did take away the key, and when he had finished the morning's duties--visits to his paris.h.i.+oners who were ill or in trouble; instructions to a boy who was to pick him out some fruit at the village: a climb up the steeple because a storm had loosened some stones, he remembered the tomt.i.t and began to be afraid she would be troubled by the arrival of a letter while she was hatching her eggs.

The fear was almost groundless, because the people of St. Philemon did not receive any more letters than they sent. The postman had little to do on his rounds but to eat soup at one house, to have a drink at another and, once in a long while, to leave a letter from some conscript, or a bill for taxes at some distant farm. Nevertheless, since St. Robert's Day was near, which, as you know, conies on the 29th of April, the abbe thought it wise to write to the only three friends worthy of that name, whom death had left him, a layman and two priests: "My friend, do not congratulate me on my saint's day this year, if you please. It would inconvenience me to receive a letter at this time. Later I shall explain, and you will appreciate my reasons."

They thought that his eye was worse and did not write.

The abbe of St. Philemon was delighted. For three weeks he never entered his gate one time without thinking of the eggs, speckled with pink, that were lying in the letter-box, and when the twenty-first day came round he bent down and listened with his ear close to the slit of the box. Then he stood up beaming:

"I hear them chirp, Philomene; I hear them chirp. They owe their lives to me, sure enough, and they'll not be the ones to regret it any more than I."

He had in his bosom the heart of a child that had never grown old.

Now, at the same time, in the green room of the palace, at the chief town of the department, the bishop was deliberating over the appointments to be made with his regular councillors, his two grand vicars, the dean of the chapter, the secretary-general of the palace, and the director of the great academy. After he had appointed several vicars and priests he made this suggestion:

"Gentlemen of the council, I have in mind a candidate suitable in all respects for the parish of X------; but I think it would be well, at least, to offer that charge and that honor to one of our oldest priests, the abbe of St. Philemon. He will undoubtedly refuse it, and his modesty, no less than his age, will be the cause; but we shall have shown, as far as we could, our appreciation of his virtues."

The five councilors approved unanimously, and that very evening a letter was sent from the palace, signed by the bishop, and which contained in a postscript: "Answer at once, my dear abbe; or, better, come to see me, because I must submit my appointments to the government within three days."

The letter arrived at St. Philemon the very day the tomt.i.ts were hatched.

The postman had difficulty in slipping it into the slit of the box, but it disappeared inside and lay touching the base of the nest, like a white pavement at the bottom of the dark chamber.

The time came when the tiny points on the wings of the little tomt.i.ts began to be covered with down. There were fourteen of them, and they twittered and staggered on their little feet, with their beaks open up to their eyes, never ceasing, from morning till night, to wait for food, eat it, digest it, and demand more. That was the first period, when the baby birds hadn't any sense. But in birds it doesn't last long. Very soon they quarrelled in the nest, which began to break with the fluttering of their wings, then they tumbled out of it and walked along the side of the box, peeped through the slit at the big world outside, and at last they ventured out.

The abbe of St. Philemon, with a neighboring priest, attended this pleasant garden party. When the little ones appeared beneath the roof of the box--two, three--together and took their flight, came back, started again, like bees at the door of a hive, he said:

"Behold, a babyhood ended and a good work accomplished. They are hardy and strong, every one."

The next day, during his hour of leisure after dinner, the abbe came to the box with the key in his hand. "Tap, tap," he went. There was no answer. "I thought so," said he. Then he opened the box and, mingled with the debris of the nest, the letter fell into his hands.

"Good Heavens!" said he, recognizing the writing. "A letter from the bishop; and in what a state! How long has it been here?"

His cheek grew pale as he read.

"Philomene, harness Robin quickly."

She came to see what was the matter before obeying.

"What have you there, sir?"

"The bishop has been waiting for me three weeks!"

"You've missed your chance," said the old woman.

The abbe was away until the next evening. When he came back he had a peaceful air, but sometimes peace is not attained without effort and we have to struggle to keep it. When he had helped to unharness Robin and had given him some hay, had changed his ca.s.sock and unpacked his box, from which he took a dozen little packages of things bought on his visit to the city, it was the very time that the birds a.s.sembled in the branches to tell each other about the day. There had been a shower and the drops still fell from the leaves as they were shaken by these bohemian couples looking for a good place to spend the night.

Recognizing their friend and master as he walked up and down the gravel path, they came down, fluttered about him, making an unusually loud noise, and the tomt.i.ts, the fourteen of the nest, whose feathers were still not quite grown, essayed their first spirals about the pear-trees and their first cries in the open air.

The abbe of St. Philemon watched them with a fatherly eye, but his tenderness was sad, as we look at things that have cost us dear.

"Well, my little ones, without me you would not be here, and without you I would be dead. I do not regret it at all, but don't insist. Your thanks are too noisy."

He clapped his hands impatiently.

He had never been ambitious, that is very sure, and, even at that moment, he told the truth. Nevertheless, the next day, after a night spent in talking to Philomene, he said to her:

"Next year, Philomene, if the tomt.i.t comes back, let me know. It is decidedly inconvenient."

But the tomt.i.t never came again--and neither did the letter from the bishop!

JEAN GOURDON'S FOUR DAYS

BY EMILE ZOLA

SPRING

On that particular day, at about five o'clock in the morning, the sun entered with delightful abruptness into the little room I occupied at the house of my uncle Lazare, parish priest of the hamlet of Dourgues. A broad yellow ray fell upon ray closed eyelids, and I awoke in light.

My room, which was whitewashed, and had deal furniture, was full of attractive gaiety. I went to the window and gazed at the Durance, which traced its broad course amidst the dark green verdure of the valley. Fresh puffs of wind caressed my face, and the murmur of the trees and river seemed to call me to them.

I gently opened my door. To get out I had to pa.s.s through my uncle's room.

I proceeded on tip-toe, fearing the creaking of my thick boots might awaken the worthy man, who was still slumbering with a smiling countenance. And I trembled at the sound of the church bell tolling the Angelus. For some days past my uncle Lazare had been following me about everywhere, looking sad and annoyed. He would perhaps have prevented me going over there to the edge of the river, and hiding myself among the willows on the bank, so as to watch for Babet pa.s.sing, that tall dark girl who had come with the spring.

But my uncle was sleeping soundly. I felt something like remorse in deceiving him and running away in this manner. I stayed for an instant and gazed on his calm countenance, with its gentle expression enhanced by rest, and I recalled to mind with feeling the day when he had come to fetch me in the chilly and deserted home which my mother's funeral was leaving. Since that day, what tenderness, what devotedness, what good advice he had bestowed on me! He had given me his knowledge and his kindness, all his intelligence and all his heart.

I was tempted for a moment to cry out to him:

"Get up, uncle Lazare! let us go for a walk together along that path you are so fond of beside the Durance. You will enjoy the fresh air and morning sun. You will see what an appet.i.te you will have on your return!"