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urgently needed. He said to me, 'I shall have to go, though I
never care to set out on horseback when I have hardly digested my

dinner, more especially when it is as cold as this. It is enough
to kill a man!'

"For all that, he went. At nine o'clock the postman Goguelat,
brought a letter for M. Benassis. Jacquotte was tired out, for it

was her washing-day. She gave me the letter and went off to bed.
She begged me to keep a good fire in our bedroom, and to have some

tea ready for M. Benassis when he came in, for I am still sleeping
in the little cot- bed in his room. I raked out the fire in the

salon, and went upstairs to wait for my good friend. I looked at
the letter, out of curiosity, before I laid it on the chimney-

piece, and noticed the writing" target="_blank" title="n.笔迹;书法">handwriting and the postmark. It came from
Paris, and I think it was a lady's hand. I am telling you about it

because of things that happened afterwards.
"About ten o'clock, I heard the horse returning, and M. Benassis'

voice. He said to Nicolle, 'It is cold enough to-night to bring
the wolves out. I do not feel at all well.' Nicolle said, 'Shall I

go and wake Jacquotte?' And M. Benassis answered, 'Oh! no, no,'
and came upstairs.

"I said, 'I have your tea here, all ready for you,' and he smiled
at me in the way that you know, and said, 'Thank you, Adrien.'

That was his last smile. In a moment he began to take off his
cravat, as though he could not breathe. 'How hot it is in here!'

he said and flung himself down in an armchair. 'A letter has come
for you, my good friend,' I said; 'here it is;' and I gave him the

letter. He took it up and glanced at the writing" target="_blank" title="n.笔迹;书法">handwriting. 'Ah! mon
Dieu!' he exclaimed, 'perhaps she is free at last!' Then his head

sank back, and his hands shook. After a little while he set the
lamp on the table and opened the letter. There was something so

alarming in the cry he had given that I watched him while he read,
and saw that his face was flushed, and there were tears in his

eyes. Then quite suddenly he fell, head forwards. I tried to raise
him, and saw how purple his face was.

" 'It is all over with me,' he said, stammering; it was terrible
to see how he struggled to rise. 'I must be bled; bleed me!' he

cried, clutching my hand. . . . 'Adrien,' he said again, 'burn
this letter!' He gave it to me, and I threw it on the fire. I

called for Jacquotte and Nicolle. Jacquotte did not hear me, but
Nicolle did, and came hurrying upstairs; he helped me to lay M.

Benassis on my little bed. Our dear friend could not hear us any
longer when we spoke to him, and although his eyes were open, he

did not see anything. Nicolle galloped off at once to fetch the
surgeon, M. Bordier, and in this way spread the alarm through the

town. It was all astir in a moment. M. Janvier, M. Dufau, and all
the rest of your acquaintance were the first to come to us. But

all hope was at an end, M. Benassis was dying fast. He gave no
sign of consciousness, not even when M. Bordier cauterized the

soles of his feet. It was an attack of gout, combined with an
apoplectic stroke.

"I am giving you all these details, dear father, because I know
how much you cared for him. As for me, I am very sad and full of

grief, for I can say to you that I cared more for him than for any
one else except you. I learned more from M. Benassis' talk in the

evenings than ever I could have learned at school.
"You cannot imagine the scene next morning when the news of his

death was known in the place. The garden and the yard here were
filled with people. How they sobbed and wailed! Nobody did any

work that day. Every one recalled the last time that they had seen
M. Benassis, and what he had said, or they talked of all that he

had done for them; and those who were least overcome with grief
spoke for the others. Every one wanted to see him once more, and

the crowd grew larger every moment. The sad news traveled so fast
that men and women and children came from ten leagues round; all

the people in the district, and even beyond it, had that one
thought in their minds.

"It was arranged that four of the oldest men of the commune should
carry the coffin. It was a very difficult task for them, for the

crowd was so dense between the church and M. Benassis' house.
There must have been nearly five thousand people there, and almost

every one knelt as if the Host were passing. There was not nearly
room for them in the church. In spite of their grief, the crowd

was so silent that you could hear the sound of the bell during
mass and the chanting as far as the end of the High Street; but

when the procession started again for the new cemetery, which M.
Benassis had given to the town, little thinking, poor man, that he

himself would be the first to be buried there, a great cry went
up. M. Janvier wept as he said the prayers; there were no dry eyes

among the crowd. And so we buried him.
"As night came on the people dispersed, carrying sorrow and

mourning everywhere with them. The next day Gondrin and Goguelat,
and Butifer, with others, set to work to raise a sort of pyramid

of earth, twenty feet high, above the spot where M. Benassis lies;
it is being covered now with green sods, and every one is helping

them. These things, dear father, have all happened in three days.
"M. Dufau found M. Benassis' will lying open on the table where he

used to write. When it was known how his property had been left,
affection and regret for his loss became even deeper if possible.

And now, dear father, I am writing for Butifer (who is taking this
letter to you) to come back with your answer. You must tell me

what I am to do. Will you come to fetch me, or shall I go to you
at Grenoble? Tell me what you wish me to do, and be sure that I

shall obey you in everything.
"Farewell, dear father, I send my love, and I am your affectionate

son,
ADRIEN GENESTAS."

"Ah! well, I must go over," the soldier exclaimed.
He ordered his horse and started out. It was one of those still

December mornings when the sky is covered with gray clouds. The wind
was too light to disperse the thick fog, through which the bare trees

and damp house fronts seemed strangelyunfamiliar. The very silence
was gloomy. There is such a thing as a silence full of light and

gladness; on a bright day there is a certain joyousness about the
slightest sound, but in such dreary weather nature is not silent, she

is dumb. All sounds seemed to die away, stifled by the heavy air.
There was something in the gloom without him that harmonized with

Colonel Genestas' mood; his heart was oppressed with grief, and
thoughts of death filled his mind. Involuntarily he began to think of

the cloudless sky on that lovely spring morning, and remembered how
bright the valley had looked when he passed through it for the first

time; and now, in strong contrast with that day, the heavy sky above
him was a leaden gray, there was no greenness about the hills, which

were still waiting for the cloak of winter snow that invests them with
a certain beauty of its own. There was something painful in all this

bleak and bare desolation for a man who was traveling to find a grave
at his journey's end; the thought of that grave haunted him. The lines

of dark pine-trees here and there along the mountain ridges against
the sky seized on his imagination; they were in keeping with the

officer's mournful musings. Every time that he looked over the valley
that lay before him, he could not help thinking of the trouble that

had befallen the canton, of the man who had died so lately, and of the
blank left by his death.

Before long, Genestas reached the cottage where he had asked for a cup
of milk on his first journey. The sight of the smoke rising above the

hovel where the charity-children were being brought up recalled vivid
memories of Benassis and of his kindness of heart. The officer made up

his mind to call there. He would give some alms to the poor woman for
his dead friend's sake. He tied his horse to a tree, and opened the

door of the hut without knocking.
"Good-day, mother," he said, addressing the old woman, who was sitting

by the fire with the little ones crouching at her side. "Do you
remember me?"

"Oh! quite well, sir! You came here one fine morning last spring and
gave us two crowns."

"There, mother! that is for you and the children"
"Thank you kindly, sir. May Heaven bless you!"

"You must not thank me, mother," said the officer; "it is all through
M. Benassis that the money had come to you."

The old woman raised her eyes and gazed at Genestas.
"Ah! sir," she said, "he has left his property to our poor

countryside, and made all of us his heirs; but we have lost him who
was worth more than all, for it was he who made everything turn out

well for us."
"Good-bye, mother! Pray for him," said Genestas, making a few playful

cuts at the children with his riding-whip.
The old woman and her little charges went out with him; they watched

him mount his horse and ride away.
He followed the road along the valley until he reached the bridle-path

that led to La Fosseuse's cottage. From the slope above the house he
saw that the door was fastened and the shutters closed. In some

anxiety he returned to the highway, and rode on under the poplars, now
bare and leafless. Before long he overtook the old laborer, who was

dressed in his Sunday best, and creeping slowly along the road. There
was no bag of tools on his shoulder.

"Good-day, old Moreau!"
"Ah! good-day, sir. . . . I mind who you are now!" the old fellow

exclaimed after a moment. "You are a friend of monsieur, our late
mayor! Ah! sir, would it not have been far better if God had only

taken a poor rheumatic old creature like me instead? It would not have
mattered if He had taken me, but HE was the light of our eyes."

"Do you know how it is that there is no one at home up there at La
Fosseuse's cottage?"

The old man gave a look at the sky.
"What time is it, sir? The sun has not shone all day," he said.

"It is ten o'clock."
"Oh! well, then, she will have gone to mass or else to the cemetery.

She goes there every day. He has left her five hundred livres a year
and her house for as long as she lives, but his death has fairly

turned her brain, as you may say----"
"And where are you going, old Moreau?"

"Little Jacques is to be buried to-day, and I am going to the funeral.
He was my nephew, poor little chap; he had been ailing for a long

while, and he died yesterday morning. It really looked as though it
was M. Benassis who kept him alive. That is the way! All these younger

ones die!" Moreau added, half-jestingly, half-sadly.
Genestas reined in his horse as he entered the town, for he met

Gondrin and Goguelat, each carrying a pickaxe and shovel. He called to
them, "Well, old comrades, we have had the misfortune to lose him----"

"There, there, that is enough, sir!" interrupted Goguelat, "we know
that well enough. We have just been cutting turf to cover his grave."

"His life will make a grand story to tell, eh?"
"Yes," answered Goguelat, "he was the Napoleon of our valley, barring

the battles."
As they reached the parsonage, Genestas saw a little group about the

door; Butifer and Adrien were talking with M. Janvier, who, no doubt,
had just returned from saying mass. Seeing that the officer made as

though he were about to dismount, Butifer promptly went to hold the
horse, while Adrien sprang forward and flung his arms about his

father's neck. Genestas was deeply touched by the boy's affection,
though no sign of this appeared in the soldier's words or manner.

"Why, Adrien," he said, "you certainly are set up again. My goodness!
Thanks to our poor friend, you have almost grown into a man. I shall

not forget your tutor here, Master Butifer."
"Oh! colonel," entreated Butifer, "take me away from here and put me

into your regiment. I cannot trust myself now that M. le Maire is
gone. HE wanted me to go for a soldier, didn't he? Well, then, I will

do what he wished. He told you all about me, and you will not be hard
on me, will you, M. Genestas?"

"Right, my fine fellow," said Genestas, as he struck his hand in the
other's. "I will find something to suit you, set your mind at rest----

And how is it with you, M. le Cure?"


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