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Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes-Part3_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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and I had to bury my hands in my pockets and trot. People were

trooping out to the labours of the field by twos and threes, and



all turned round to stare upon the stranger. I had seen them

coming back last night, I saw them going afield again; and there



was the life of Bouchet in a nutshell.

When I came back to the inn for a bit of breakfast, the landlady



was in the kitchen combing out her daughter's hair; and I made her

my compliments upon its beauty.



'Oh no,' said the mother; 'it is not so beautiful as it ought to

be. Look, it is too fine.'



Thus does a wise peasantry console itself under adverse physical

circumstances, and, by a startling democratic process, the defects



of the majority decide the type of beauty.

'And where,' said I, 'is monsieur?'



'The master of the house is upstairs,' she answered, 'making you a

goad.'



Blessed be the man who invented goads! Blessed the innkeeper of

Bouchet St. Nicolas, who introduced me to their use! This plain



wand, with an eighth of an inch of pin, was indeed a sceptre when

he put it in my hands. Thenceforward Modestine was my slave. A



prick, and she passed the most invitingstable door. A prick, and

she broke forth into a gallant little trotlet that devoured the



miles. It was not a remarkable speed, when all was said; and we

took four hours to cover ten miles at the best of it. But what a



heavenly change since yesterday! No more wielding of the ugly

cudgel; no more flailing with an aching arm; no more broadsword



exercise, but a discreet and gentlemanly fence. And what although

now and then a drop of blood should appear on Modestine's mouse-



coloured wedge-like rump? I should have preferred it otherwise,

indeed; but yesterday's exploits had purged my heart of all



humanity. The perverse little devil, since she would not be taken

with kindness, must even go with pricking.



It was bleak and bitter cold, and, except a cavalcade of stride-

legged ladies and a pair of post-runners, the road was dead



solitary all the way to Pradelles. I scarce remember an incident

but one. A handsome foal with a bell about his neck came charging



up to us upon a stretch of common, sniffed the air martially as one

about to do great deeds, and suddenly thinking otherwise in his



green young heart, put about and galloped off as he had come, the

bell tinkling in the wind. For a long while afterwards I saw his



noble attitude as he drew up, and heard the note of his bell; and

when I struck the high-road, the song of the telegraph-wires seemed



to continue the same music.

Pradelles stands on a hillside, high above the Allier, surrounded



by rich meadows. They were cutting aftermath on all sides, which

gave the neighbourhood, this gusty autumn morning, an untimely



smell of hay. On the opposite bank of the Allier the land kept

mounting for miles to the horizon: a tanned and sallow autumn



landscape, with black blots of fir-wood and white roads wandering

through the hills. Over all this the clouds shed a uniform and



purplish shadow, sad and somewhat menacing, exaggerating height and

distance, and throwing into still higher relief the twisted ribbons



of the highway. It was a cheerless prospect, but one stimulating

to a traveller. For I was now upon the limit of Velay, and all



that I beheld lay in another county - wild Gevaudan, mountainous,

uncultivated, and but recently disforested from terror of the



wolves.

Wolves, alas, like bandits, seem to flee the traveller's advance;



and you may trudge through all our comfortable Europe, and not meet

with an adventure worth the name. But here, if anywhere, a man was



on the frontiers of hope. For this was the land of the ever-

memorable BEAST, the Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves. What a career



was his! He lived ten months at free quarters in Gevaudan and

Vivarais; he ate women and children and 'shepherdesses celebrated



for their beauty'; he pursued armed horsemen; he has been seen at

broad noonday chasing a post-chaise and outrider along the king's



high-road, and chaise and outrider fleeing before him at the

gallop. He was placarded like a political offender, and ten



thousand francs were offered for his head. And yet, when he was

shot and sent to Versailles, behold! a common wolf, and even small



for that. 'Though I could reach from pole to pole,' sang Alexander

Pope; the Little Corporal shook Europe; and if all wolves had been



as this wolf, they would have changed the history of man. M. Elie

Berthet has made him the hero of a novel, which I have read, and do






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