章节正文
grateful nor ungrateful, never to be unprepared for an event, nor
taken unawares by an idea; to live, in fact, with the requirements of
the masses ever in his mind, to spread the protecting wings of his
thought above them, to sway them by the thunder of his voice and the
keenness of his glance; seeing all the while not the details of
affairs, but the great issues at stake--is not that to be something
more than a mere man? Therefore the names of the great and noble
fathers of nations cannot but be household words for ever."
There was silence for a moment, during which the guests looked at one
another.
"Gentlemen, you have not said a word about the army!" cried Genestas.
"A military organization seems to me to be the real type on which all
good civil society should be modeled; the Sword is the guardian of a
nation."
The justice of the peace laughed softly.
"Captain," he said, "an old lawyer once said that empires began with
the sword and ended with the desk; we have reached the desk stage by
this time."
"And now that we have settled the fate of the world, gentlemen, let us
change the subject. Come, captain, a glass of Hermitage," cried the
doctor, laughing.
"Two, rather than one," said Genestas, holding out his glass. "I mean
to drink them both to your health--to a man who does honor to the
species."
"And who is dear to all of us," said the cure in gentle tones.
"Do you mean to force me into the sin of pride, M. Janvier?"
"M. le Cure has only said in a low voice what all the canton says
aloud," said Cambon.
"Gentlemen, I propose that we take a walk to the parsonage by
moonlight, and see M. Janvier home."
"Let us start," said the guests, and they prepared to accompany the
cure.
"Shall we go to the barn?" said the doctor, laying a hand on Genestas'
arm. They had taken leave of the cure and the other guests. "You will
hear them talking about Napoleon, Captain Bluteau. Goguelat, the
postman, is there, and there are several of his cronies who are sure
to draw him out on the subject of the idol of the people. Nicolle, my
stableman, has set a ladder so that we can climb up on to the hay;
there is a place from which we can look down on the whole scene. Come
along, an up-sitting is something worth seeing, believe me. It will
not be the first time that I have hidden in the hay to overhear a
soldier's tales or the stories that peasants tell among themselves. We
must be careful to keep out of sight though, as these folk turn shy
and put on company manners as soon as they see a stranger."
"Eh! my dear sir," said Genestas, "have I not often pretended to be
asleep so as to hear my troopers talking out on bivouac? My word, I
once heard a droll yarn reeled off by an old quartermaster for some
conscripts who were afraid of war; I never laughed so heartily in any
theatre in Paris. He was telling them about the Retreat from Moscow.
He told them that the army had nothing but the clothes they stood up
in; that their wine was iced; that the dead stood stock-still in the
road just where they were; that they had seen White Russia, and that
they currycombed the horses there with their teeth; that those who
were fond of skating had fine times of it, and people who had a fancy
for savory ices had as much as they could put away; that the women
were generally poor company; but that the only thing they could really
complain of was the want of hot water for shaving. In fact, he told
them such a pack of absurdities, that even an old quartermaster who
had lost his nose with a frost-bite, so that they had dubbed him
Nezrestant, was fain to laugh."
"Hush!" said Benassis, "here we are. I will go first; follow after
me."
Both of them scaled the ladder and hid themselves in the hay, in a
place from whence they could have a good view of the party below, who
had not heard a sound overhead. Little groups of women were clustered
about three or four candles. Some of them sewed, others were spinning,
a good few of them were doing nothing, and sat with their heads
strained forward, and their eyes fixed on an old peasant who was
telling a story. The men were standing about for the most part, or
lying at full length on the trusses of hay. Every group was absolutely
silent. Their faces were barelyvisible by the flickering gleams of
the candles by which the women were working, although each candle was
surrounded by a glass globe filled with water, in order to concentrate
the light. The thick darkness and shadow that filled the roof and all
the upper part of the barn seemed still further to diminish the light
that fell here and there upon the workers' heads with such picturesque
effects of light and shade. Here, it shone full upon the bright
wondering eyes and brown forehead of a little peasantmaiden; and
there the straggling beams brought out the outlines of the rugged
brows of some of the older men, throwing up their figures in sharp
relief against the dark background, and giving a fantastic appearance
to their worn and weather-stained garb. The attentive attitude of all
these people and the expression on all their faces showed that they
had given themselves up entirely to the pleasure of listening, and
that the narrator's sway was absolute. It was a curious scene. The
immense influence that poetry exerts over every mind was plainly to be
seen. For is not the peasant who demands that the tale of wonder
should be simple, and that the impossible should be well-nigh
credible, a lover of poetry of the purest kind?
"She did not like the look of the house at all," the peasant was
saying as the two newcomers took their places where they could
overhear him; "but the poor little hunchback was so tired out with
carrying her bundle of hemp to market, that she went in; besides, the
night had come, and she could go no further. She only asked to be
allowed to sleep there, and ate nothing but a crust of bread that she
took from her wallet. And inasmuch as the woman who kept house for the
brigands knew nothing about what they had planned to do that night,
she let the old woman into the house, and sent her upstairs without a
light. Our hunchback throws herself down on a rickety truckle bed,
says her prayers, thinks about her hemp, and is dropping off to sleep.
But before she is fairly asleep, she hears a noise, and in walk two
men carrying a lantern, and each man had a knife in his hand. Then
fear came upon her; for in those times, look you, they used to make
pates of human flesh for the seigneurs, who were very fond of them.
But the old woman plucked up heart again, for she was so thoroughly
shriveled and wrinkled that she thought they would think her a poorish
sort of diet. The two men went past the hunchback and walked up to a
bed that there was in the great room, and in which they had put the
gentleman with the big portmanteau, the one that passed for a
negromancer. The taller man holds up the lantern and takes the
gentleman by the feet, and the short one, that had pretended to be
drunk, clutches hold of his head and cuts his throat, clean, with one
stroke, swish! Then they leave the head and body lying in its own
blood up there, steal the portmanteau, and go downstairs with it. Here
is our woman in a nice fix! First of all she thinks of slipping out,
before any one can suspect it, not knowing that Providence had brought
her there to glorify God and to bring down punishment on the
murderers. She was in a great fright, and when one is frightened one
thinks of nothing else. But the woman of the house had asked the two
brigands about the hunchback, and that had alarmed them. So back they
came, creeping softly up the woodenstaircase. The poor hunchback
curls up in a ball with fright, and she hears them talking about her
in whispers.
" 'Kill her, I tell you.'
" 'No need to kill her.'
" 'Kill her!'
" 'No!'
"Then they came in. The woman, who was no fool, shuts her eyes and
pretends to be asleep. She sets to work to sleep like a child, with
her hand on her heart, and takes to breathing like a cherub. The man
opens the lantern and shines the light straight into the eyes of the
sleeping old woman--she does not move an eyelash, she is in such
terror for her neck.
" 'She is sleeping like a log; you can see that quite well,' so says
the tall one.
" 'Old women are so cunning!' answers the short man. 'I will kill her.
We shall feel easier in our minds. Besides, we will salt her down to
feed the pigs.'
"The old woman hears all this talk, but she does not stir.
" 'Oh! it is all right, she is asleep,' says the short ruffian, when
he saw that the hunchback had not stirred.
"That is how the old woman saved her life. And she may be fairly
called courageous; for it is a fact that there are not many girls here
who could have breathed like cherubs while they heard that talk going
on about the pigs. Well, the two brigands set to work to lift up the
dead man; they wrap him round in the sheets and chuck him out into the
little yard; and the old woman hears the pigs scampering up to eat
him, and grunting, HON! hon!
"So when morning comes," the narrator resumed after a pause, "the
woman gets up and goes down, paying a couple of sous for her bed. She
takes up her wallet, goes on just as if nothing had happened, asks for
the news of the countryside, and gets away in peace. She wants to run.
Running is quite out of the question, her legs fail her for fright;
and lucky it was for her that she could not run, for this reason. She
had barely gone half a quarter of a league before she sees one of the
brigands coming after her, just out of craftiness to make quite sure
that she had seen nothing. She guesses this, and sits herself down on
a boulder.
" 'What is the matter, good woman?' asks the short one, for it was the
shorter one and the wickeder of the two who was dogging her.
" 'Oh! master,' says she, 'my wallet is so heavy, and I am so tired,
that I badly want some good man to give me his arm' (sly thing, only
listen to her!) 'if I am to get back to my poor home.'
"Thereupon the brigand offers to go along with her, and she accepts
his offer. The fellow takes hold of her arm to see if she is afraid.
Not she! She does not tremble a bit, and walks quietly along. So there
they are, chatting away as nicely as possible, all about farming, and
the way to grow hemp, till they come to the outskirts of the town,
where the hunchback lived, and the brigand made off for fear of
meeting some of the sheriff's people. The woman reached her house at
mid-day, and waited there till her husband came home; she thought and
thought over all that had happened on her journey and during the
night. The hemp-grower came home in the evening. He was hungry;
something must be got ready for him to eat. So while she greases her
frying-pan, and gets ready to fry something for him, she tells him how
she sold her hemp, and gabbles away as females do, but not a word does
she say about the pigs, nor about the gentleman who was murdered and
robbed and eaten. She holds her frying-pan in the flames so as to
clean it, draws it out again to give it a wipe, and finds it full of
blood.
" 'What have you been putting into it?' says she to her man.
" 'Nothing,' says he.
"She thinks it must have been a nonsensical piece of woman's fancy,
and puts her frying-pan into the fire again. . . . Pouf! A head comes
tumbling down the chimney!
" 'Oh! look! It is nothing more nor less than the dead man's head,'
says the old woman. 'How he stares at me! What does he want!'
" 'YOU MUST AVENGE ME!' says a voice.
" 'What an idiot you are!' said the hemp-grower. 'Always seeing
something or other that has no sort of sense about it! Just you all
over.'
"He takes up the head, which snaps at his finger, and pitches it out
into the yard.
" 'Get on with my omelette,' he says, 'and do not bother yourself
about that. 'Tis a cat.'
" 'A cat! says she; 'it was as round as a ball.'
"She puts back her frying-pan on the fire. . . . Pouf! Down comes a
leg this time, and they go through the whole story again. The man was
no more astonished at the foot than he had been at the head; he
snatched up the leg and threw it out at the door. Before they had
finished, the other leg, both arms, the body, the whole murdered
taken unawares by an idea; to live, in fact, with the requirements of
the masses ever in his mind, to spread the protecting wings of his
thought above them, to sway them by the thunder of his voice and the
keenness of his glance; seeing all the while not the details of
affairs, but the great issues at stake--is not that to be something
more than a mere man? Therefore the names of the great and noble
fathers of nations cannot but be household words for ever."
There was silence for a moment, during which the guests looked at one
another.
"Gentlemen, you have not said a word about the army!" cried Genestas.
"A military organization seems to me to be the real type on which all
good civil society should be modeled; the Sword is the guardian of a
nation."
The justice of the peace laughed softly.
"Captain," he said, "an old lawyer once said that empires began with
the sword and ended with the desk; we have reached the desk stage by
this time."
"And now that we have settled the fate of the world, gentlemen, let us
change the subject. Come, captain, a glass of Hermitage," cried the
doctor, laughing.
"Two, rather than one," said Genestas, holding out his glass. "I mean
to drink them both to your health--to a man who does honor to the
species."
"And who is dear to all of us," said the cure in gentle tones.
"Do you mean to force me into the sin of pride, M. Janvier?"
"M. le Cure has only said in a low voice what all the canton says
aloud," said Cambon.
"Gentlemen, I propose that we take a walk to the parsonage by
moonlight, and see M. Janvier home."
"Let us start," said the guests, and they prepared to accompany the
cure.
"Shall we go to the barn?" said the doctor, laying a hand on Genestas'
arm. They had taken leave of the cure and the other guests. "You will
hear them talking about Napoleon, Captain Bluteau. Goguelat, the
postman, is there, and there are several of his cronies who are sure
to draw him out on the subject of the idol of the people. Nicolle, my
stableman, has set a ladder so that we can climb up on to the hay;
there is a place from which we can look down on the whole scene. Come
along, an up-sitting is something worth seeing, believe me. It will
not be the first time that I have hidden in the hay to overhear a
soldier's tales or the stories that peasants tell among themselves. We
must be careful to keep out of sight though, as these folk turn shy
and put on company manners as soon as they see a stranger."
"Eh! my dear sir," said Genestas, "have I not often pretended to be
asleep so as to hear my troopers talking out on bivouac? My word, I
once heard a droll yarn reeled off by an old quartermaster for some
conscripts who were afraid of war; I never laughed so heartily in any
theatre in Paris. He was telling them about the Retreat from Moscow.
He told them that the army had nothing but the clothes they stood up
in; that their wine was iced; that the dead stood stock-still in the
road just where they were; that they had seen White Russia, and that
they currycombed the horses there with their teeth; that those who
were fond of skating had fine times of it, and people who had a fancy
for savory ices had as much as they could put away; that the women
were generally poor company; but that the only thing they could really
complain of was the want of hot water for shaving. In fact, he told
them such a pack of absurdities, that even an old quartermaster who
had lost his nose with a frost-bite, so that they had dubbed him
Nezrestant, was fain to laugh."
"Hush!" said Benassis, "here we are. I will go first; follow after
me."
Both of them scaled the ladder and hid themselves in the hay, in a
place from whence they could have a good view of the party below, who
had not heard a sound overhead. Little groups of women were clustered
about three or four candles. Some of them sewed, others were spinning,
a good few of them were doing nothing, and sat with their heads
strained forward, and their eyes fixed on an old peasant who was
telling a story. The men were standing about for the most part, or
lying at full length on the trusses of hay. Every group was absolutely
silent. Their faces were barelyvisible by the flickering gleams of
the candles by which the women were working, although each candle was
surrounded by a glass globe filled with water, in order to concentrate
the light. The thick darkness and shadow that filled the roof and all
the upper part of the barn seemed still further to diminish the light
that fell here and there upon the workers' heads with such picturesque
effects of light and shade. Here, it shone full upon the bright
wondering eyes and brown forehead of a little peasantmaiden; and
there the straggling beams brought out the outlines of the rugged
brows of some of the older men, throwing up their figures in sharp
relief against the dark background, and giving a fantastic appearance
to their worn and weather-stained garb. The attentive attitude of all
these people and the expression on all their faces showed that they
had given themselves up entirely to the pleasure of listening, and
that the narrator's sway was absolute. It was a curious scene. The
immense influence that poetry exerts over every mind was plainly to be
seen. For is not the peasant who demands that the tale of wonder
should be simple, and that the impossible should be well-nigh
credible, a lover of poetry of the purest kind?
"She did not like the look of the house at all," the peasant was
saying as the two newcomers took their places where they could
overhear him; "but the poor little hunchback was so tired out with
carrying her bundle of hemp to market, that she went in; besides, the
night had come, and she could go no further. She only asked to be
allowed to sleep there, and ate nothing but a crust of bread that she
took from her wallet. And inasmuch as the woman who kept house for the
brigands knew nothing about what they had planned to do that night,
she let the old woman into the house, and sent her upstairs without a
light. Our hunchback throws herself down on a rickety truckle bed,
says her prayers, thinks about her hemp, and is dropping off to sleep.
But before she is fairly asleep, she hears a noise, and in walk two
men carrying a lantern, and each man had a knife in his hand. Then
fear came upon her; for in those times, look you, they used to make
pates of human flesh for the seigneurs, who were very fond of them.
But the old woman plucked up heart again, for she was so thoroughly
shriveled and wrinkled that she thought they would think her a poorish
sort of diet. The two men went past the hunchback and walked up to a
bed that there was in the great room, and in which they had put the
gentleman with the big portmanteau, the one that passed for a
negromancer. The taller man holds up the lantern and takes the
gentleman by the feet, and the short one, that had pretended to be
drunk, clutches hold of his head and cuts his throat, clean, with one
stroke, swish! Then they leave the head and body lying in its own
blood up there, steal the portmanteau, and go downstairs with it. Here
is our woman in a nice fix! First of all she thinks of slipping out,
before any one can suspect it, not knowing that Providence had brought
her there to glorify God and to bring down punishment on the
murderers. She was in a great fright, and when one is frightened one
thinks of nothing else. But the woman of the house had asked the two
brigands about the hunchback, and that had alarmed them. So back they
came, creeping softly up the woodenstaircase. The poor hunchback
curls up in a ball with fright, and she hears them talking about her
in whispers.
" 'Kill her, I tell you.'
" 'No need to kill her.'
" 'Kill her!'
" 'No!'
"Then they came in. The woman, who was no fool, shuts her eyes and
pretends to be asleep. She sets to work to sleep like a child, with
her hand on her heart, and takes to breathing like a cherub. The man
opens the lantern and shines the light straight into the eyes of the
sleeping old woman--she does not move an eyelash, she is in such
terror for her neck.
" 'She is sleeping like a log; you can see that quite well,' so says
the tall one.
" 'Old women are so cunning!' answers the short man. 'I will kill her.
We shall feel easier in our minds. Besides, we will salt her down to
feed the pigs.'
"The old woman hears all this talk, but she does not stir.
" 'Oh! it is all right, she is asleep,' says the short ruffian, when
he saw that the hunchback had not stirred.
"That is how the old woman saved her life. And she may be fairly
called courageous; for it is a fact that there are not many girls here
who could have breathed like cherubs while they heard that talk going
on about the pigs. Well, the two brigands set to work to lift up the
dead man; they wrap him round in the sheets and chuck him out into the
little yard; and the old woman hears the pigs scampering up to eat
him, and grunting, HON! hon!
"So when morning comes," the narrator resumed after a pause, "the
woman gets up and goes down, paying a couple of sous for her bed. She
takes up her wallet, goes on just as if nothing had happened, asks for
the news of the countryside, and gets away in peace. She wants to run.
Running is quite out of the question, her legs fail her for fright;
and lucky it was for her that she could not run, for this reason. She
had barely gone half a quarter of a league before she sees one of the
brigands coming after her, just out of craftiness to make quite sure
that she had seen nothing. She guesses this, and sits herself down on
a boulder.
" 'What is the matter, good woman?' asks the short one, for it was the
shorter one and the wickeder of the two who was dogging her.
" 'Oh! master,' says she, 'my wallet is so heavy, and I am so tired,
that I badly want some good man to give me his arm' (sly thing, only
listen to her!) 'if I am to get back to my poor home.'
"Thereupon the brigand offers to go along with her, and she accepts
his offer. The fellow takes hold of her arm to see if she is afraid.
Not she! She does not tremble a bit, and walks quietly along. So there
they are, chatting away as nicely as possible, all about farming, and
the way to grow hemp, till they come to the outskirts of the town,
where the hunchback lived, and the brigand made off for fear of
meeting some of the sheriff's people. The woman reached her house at
mid-day, and waited there till her husband came home; she thought and
thought over all that had happened on her journey and during the
night. The hemp-grower came home in the evening. He was hungry;
something must be got ready for him to eat. So while she greases her
frying-pan, and gets ready to fry something for him, she tells him how
she sold her hemp, and gabbles away as females do, but not a word does
she say about the pigs, nor about the gentleman who was murdered and
robbed and eaten. She holds her frying-pan in the flames so as to
clean it, draws it out again to give it a wipe, and finds it full of
blood.
" 'What have you been putting into it?' says she to her man.
" 'Nothing,' says he.
"She thinks it must have been a nonsensical piece of woman's fancy,
and puts her frying-pan into the fire again. . . . Pouf! A head comes
tumbling down the chimney!
" 'Oh! look! It is nothing more nor less than the dead man's head,'
says the old woman. 'How he stares at me! What does he want!'
" 'YOU MUST AVENGE ME!' says a voice.
" 'What an idiot you are!' said the hemp-grower. 'Always seeing
something or other that has no sort of sense about it! Just you all
over.'
"He takes up the head, which snaps at his finger, and pitches it out
into the yard.
" 'Get on with my omelette,' he says, 'and do not bother yourself
about that. 'Tis a cat.'
" 'A cat! says she; 'it was as round as a ball.'
"She puts back her frying-pan on the fire. . . . Pouf! Down comes a
leg this time, and they go through the whole story again. The man was
no more astonished at the foot than he had been at the head; he
snatched up the leg and threw it out at the door. Before they had
finished, the other leg, both arms, the body, the whole murdered
- grateful [´greitful]
a.感谢的；令人愉快的 (初中英语单词) - thunder [´θʌndə] n.雷 vi.打雷 vt.吼出 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- lawyer [´lɔ:jə] n.律师；法学家 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- retreat [ri´tri:t] v.&n.退却；撤退；放弃 (初中英语单词)
- overhead [´əuvə,hed] ad.当头 a.在头上的 (初中英语单词)
- peasant [´pezənt] n.农民；庄稼人 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- barely [´beəli] ad.公开地；仅仅 (初中英语单词)
- visible [´vizəbəl] a.可见的；明显的 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- diminish [di´miniʃ] v.减小，缩小 (初中英语单词)
- forehead [´fɔrid] n.额，前部 (初中英语单词)
- maiden [´meidn] n.少女 a.未婚的 (初中英语单词)
- background [´bækgraund] n.背景；经历；幕后 (初中英语单词)
- attentive [ə´tentiv] a.注意的；殷勤的 (初中英语单词)
- absolute [´æbsəlu:t] a.绝对的 n.绝对 (初中英语单词)
- poetry [´pəuitri] n.诗；诗意 (初中英语单词)
- plainly [´pleinli] ad.平坦地；简单地 (初中英语单词)
- bundle [´bʌndl] n.包，捆；包袱(裹) (初中英语单词)
- throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
- downstairs [,daun´steəz] ad.在楼下 a.楼下的 (初中英语单词)
- suspect [´sʌspekt, sə´spekt] v.怀疑；觉得 n.嫌疑犯 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- punishment [´pʌniʃmənt] n.罚，刑罚 (初中英语单词)
- fright [frait] n.惊吓；恐怖；怪人 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- wooden [´wudn] a.木制的；呆板的 (初中英语单词)
- sleeping [´sli:piŋ] n.&a.睡着(的) (初中英语单词)
- league [li:g] n.同盟；社团 (初中英语单词)
- nicely [naisli] ad.恰好地；谨慎地 (初中英语单词)
- bother [´bɔðə] v.打扰 n.麻烦(事) (初中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- guardian [´gɑ:diən] n.监护人；保护人 (高中英语单词)
- napoleon [nə´pəuljən] n.拿破仑 (高中英语单词)
- ladder [´lædə] n.梯子；阶梯 (高中英语单词)
- heartily [´hɑ:tili] ad.衷心地；亲切地 (高中英语单词)
- fantastic [fæn´tæstik] a.奇异的；荒谬的 (高中英语单词)
- lantern [´læntən] n.灯笼；提灯 (高中英语单词)
- avenge [ə´vendʒ] vt.替...报仇 (高中英语单词)
- canton [´kæntɔn] n.一些国家的行政区 (英语四级单词)
- overhear [,əuvə´hiə] vt.偶然听到；偷听 (英语四级单词)
- whence [wens] ad.从何处；从那里 (英语四级单词)
- wallet [´wɑ:lit] n.(放钞票等的)皮夹子 (英语四级单词)
- inasmuch [,inəz´mʌtʃ] conj.因为；鉴于 (英语四级单词)
- upstairs [,ʌp´steəz] ad.在楼上 a.楼上的 (英语四级单词)
- providence [´prɔvidəns] n.天意，天命，上帝 (英语四级单词)
- glorify [´glɔ:rifai] vt.赞美，颂扬，美化 (英语四级单词)
- staircase [´steəkeis] n.楼梯 =stairway (英语四级单词)
- courageous [kə´reidʒəs] a.勇敢的；无畏的 (英语四级单词)
- countryside [´kʌntrisaid] n.乡下，农村 (英语四级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- shaving [´ʃeiviŋ] n.剃(须)；修面 (英语六级单词)
- cherub [´tʃerəb] n.小天使 (英语六级单词)
- ruffian [´rʌfiən] n.流氓 a.残暴的 (英语六级单词)
- outskirts [´autskə:ts] n.外边；郊区 (英语六级单词)
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