The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (77 page)

One morning between eleven and twelve Father Goulden and I were both at work, each one thinking after his own fashion, and Catherine was laying the cloth. I started to go out to wash my hands at the pump, as I always did before dinner, when I saw an old woman wiping her feet on the straw mat at the foot of the stairs and shaking her skirts which were covered with mud. She had a stout staff, and a large rosary hung from her neck. As I looked at her from the top of the stairs, she began to come up and I recognized her immediately by the folds about her eyes and the innumerable wrinkles round her little mouth, as Anna-Marie, the pilgrim of St. Witt. The poor old woman often brought us watches to mend, from pious people who had confidence in her, and Mr. Goulden was always delighted to see her.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “it is Anne-Marie! now we shall have the news. And how is Mr. Such-an-one, the priest? How is the Vicar So-and-So? Does he still look as well as ever? and Mr. Jacob, of such a place. And the old sexton, Niclausse, does he still ring the bells at Dann, and at Hirschland, and Saint Jean? He must begin to look old?”

“Ah! Mr. Goulden, thanks for Mr. Jacob, you know that he lost Mademoiselle Christine last week.”

“What! Mademoiselle Christine?”

“Yes, indeed?”

“What a misfortune! but we must remember that we are all mortal!”

“Yes, Mr. Goulden, and when one is so fortunate as to receive the holy consolations of the Church.”

“Certainly—certainly, that is the principal thing.”

So they talked on, Father Goulden laughing in his sleeve. She knew everything that happened within six leagues round the city. He looked mischievously at me from time to time. This same thing had happened a hundred times during my apprenticeship, but you will understand how much more curious he was now to learn all that was going on in the country.

“Ah! it is really Anna-Marie!” said he rising, “it is a long time since we have seen you.”

“Three months, Mr. Goulden, three long months. I have made pilgrimages to Saint Witt, to Saint Odille, to Marienthal, to Hazlach, and I have vows for all the saints in Alsace, in Lorraine, and in the Vosges. But now I have nearly finished, only Saint Quirin remains.”

“Ah! so much the better, your affairs go on well, and that gives me pleasure. Sit down, Anna-Marie, sit down and rest yourself.”

I saw in his eyes how happy he was to have her unroll her budget of news. But it appeared she had other matters to attend to.

“Oh! Mr. Goulden,” said she. “I cannot today. Others are before me, Mother Evig, Gaspard Rosenkranz, and Jacob Heilig. I must go to Saint Quirin, to-night. I only just came in to tell you that the clock at Dosenheim is out of order, and that they are expecting you to repair it.”

“Pshaw! pshaw! stay a moment.”

“No, I cannot, I am very sorry, Mr. Goulden, but I must finish my round.”

She had already taken up her bundle, and Mr. Goulden seemed greatly disappointed; when Catherine put a great dish of cabbage on the table, and said, “What! are you going, Anna-Marie? you cannot think of it! here is your plate!”

She turned her head and saw the smoking soup and the cabbage, which exhaled a most delicious odor.

“I am in a great hurry,” said she.

“Oh! pshaw! you have very good legs,” said Catherine, glancing at Mr. Goulden.

“Yes, thank God, they are very good still.”

“Well, sit down then and refresh yourself. It is hard work to be always walking.”

“Yes, indeed, Madame Bertha, one earns the thirty sous that one gets.”

I placed the chairs.

“Sit down, Anna-Marie, and give me your stick.”

“Well, I must listen to you, I suppose, but I cannot stay long, I will only take a mouthful and then go.”

“Yes, yes, that is settled, Anna-Marie,” said Mr. Goulden; “we will not hinder you long.”

We sat down, and Mr. Goulden served us at once. Catherine looked at me and smiled, and I said to myself, “Women are more ingenious than we,” and I was very happy. What more could a man wish for than to have a wife with sense and spirit? It is a real treasure, and I have often seen that men are happy when they allow themselves to be guided by such a woman. You can easily believe that when once seated at the table near the fire, instead of being out in the mud, with the sharp November wind whistling in her thin skirts, she no longer thought of her journey. She was a good creature sixty years old, who still supported two children of her son who died some years before. To travel round the country at that age, with the sun and rain and snow on your back, to sleep in barns and stables on straw, and three-quarters of the time have only potatoes to eat and not enough of them, does not make one despise a plate of good hot soup, a piece of smoked bacon and cabbage, with two or three glasses of wine to warm the heart. No, you must look at things as they are, the life of these poor people is very hard, every one would do well to try a pilgrimage on his own account.

Anna-Marie understood the difference between being at table and on the road, she ate with a good appetite, and she took real pleasure in telling us what she had seen during her last round.

“Yes,” said she, “everything is going on well now. All the processions and expiations which you have seen are nothing, they will grow larger and more imposing from day to day. And you know there are missionaries coming among us, as they used to do among the savages, to convert us. They are coming from Mr. de Forbin-Janson and Mr. de Ranzan, because the corruption of the times is so great. And the convents are to be rebuilt, and the gates along the roads restored, as they were before the twenty-five years’ rebellion. And when the pilgrims arrive at the convents, they will only have to ring and they will be admitted at once, when the brothers who serve, will bring them porringers of rich soup with meat on ordinary days, and vegetable soup with fish on Fridays and Saturdays and during Lent. In that way piety will increase, and everybody will make pilgrimages. But the pious women of Bischoffsheim say, that only those who have been pilgrims from father to son, like us, ought to go; that each one ought to attend to his work, that the peasants should belong to the soil, and that the lords should have their chateaux again, and govern them. I heard this with my own ears from these pious women, who are to have their properties again because they have returned from exile, and that they must have their estates in order to build their chapels is very certain. Oh! if that were only done now, so I could profit by it in my old age! I have fasted long enough, and my little grandchildren also. I would take them with me, and the priests would teach them, and when I die I should have the consolation of seeing them in a good way.”

On hearing her recount all these things so contrary to reason we were much moved, for she wept as she imagined her little girls begging at the door of the convent and the brother bringing them soup.

“And you know, too, that Mr. de Ranzan and the Reverend Father Tarin want the chateaux rebuilt, and the woods and meadows and fields given up to the nobles, and in the meantime that the ponds are to be put in good condition, because they belong to the reverend fathers, who have no time to plough or sow or reap. Everything must come to them of itself.”

“But tell us, Anna-Marie, is all this quite certain? I can hardly believe that such great happiness is in store for us.”

“It is quite certain, Mr. Goulden. The Count d’Artois wishes to secure his salvation, and in order to do that everything must be set in order. Mons. le Vicar Antoine of Marienthal said the same things last week. They come from above,—these things,—and the hearts of the people must be accustomed to them by the sermons and expiations. Those who will not submit, like the Jews and Lutherans, will be forced to do so, and the Jacobins”—in speaking of the Jacobins Anna-Marie looked suddenly at Mr. Goulden and blushed up to her ears, for he was smiling.

But she recovered herself, and went on:

“Among the Jacobins there are some very good people, but the poor must live. The Jacobins have taken the property of the poor and that is not right.”

“When and where have they taken the property of the poor?”

“Listen, Mr. Goulden, the monks and the Capuchins had the estates of the poor, and the Jacobins have divided them amongst themselves.”

“Ah! I understand, I understand, the monks and Capuchins had your property, Anna-Marie; I never should have guessed that.”

Mr. Goulden was all the time in good-humor, and Anna-Marie said:

“We shall be in accord at last.”

“Oh! yes, we are, we are,” said he pleasantly.

I listened without saying anything, as I was naturally curious to hear what was coming. It was easy to see that this was what she had heard on her last journey.

She said also that miracles were coming again and that Saint Quirin, Saint Odille, and the others would not work miracles under the usurper, but that they had commenced already; that the little black St. John at Kortzeroth, on seeing the ancient prior return had shed tears.

“Yes, yes, I understand,” said Mr. Goulden, “that does not astonish me in the least, after all these processions and atonements the saints must work miracles; and it is natural, Anna-Marie, quite natural.”

“Without doubt, Mr. Goulden, and when we see miracles, faith will return. That is clear, that is certain.”

The dinner was finished, and Anna-Marie seeing that nothing more was coming, remembered that she was late, and exclaimed:

“Oh! Lord, that is one o’clock striking. The others must be near Ercheviller; now I must leave you.”

She rose and took her stick with a very important air.

“Well!
bon voyage
, Anna-Marie, don’t make us wait so long next time.”

“Ah! Mr. Goulden, if I do not sit every day at your table it is not my fault.”

She laughed, and as she took up her bundle she said:

“Well, good-by, and for the kindness you have shown me I will pray the blessed Saint Quirin to send you a fine fat boy as fresh and rosy as a lady-apple. That is the best thing, Madame Bertha, that an old woman like me can do for you.”

On hearing these good wishes, I said, “That old woman is a good soul. There is nothing I so much wish for in the world. May God hear her prayer!” I was touched by that good wish.

She went downstairs, and as she shut the door, Catherine began to laugh, and said:

“She emptied her budget this time.”

“Yes, my children,” replied Mr. Goulden, who was quite grave, “that is what we may call human ignorance. You would believe that poor creature had invented all that, but she has picked it up right and left, it is word for word what those émigrés think, and what they repeat every day in their journals, and what the preachers say every day openly in all the churches. Louis XVIII. troubles them, he has too much good sense for them, but the real king is Monseigneur the Duke d’Artois, who wants to secure his salvation, and in order that this may be done everything must be put back where it was before the ‘rebellion of twenty-five years,’ and all the national property must be given up to its ancient owners, and the nobles must have their rights and privileges as in 1788; they must occupy all the grades of the army, and the Catholic religion must be the only religion in the state. The Sabbath and fête days must be observed, and heretics driven from all the offices, and the priests alone have the right to instruct the children of the people, and this great and terrible country, which carried its ideas of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity everywhere by means of its good sense and its victories, and which never would have been vanquished if the Emperor had not made an alliance with the kings at Tilsit, this nation, which in a few years produced so many more great captains and orators, learned men and geniuses of all kinds, than the noble races produced in a thousand years, must surrender everything and go back to tilling the earth, while the others, who are not one in a thousand, will go on from father to son, taking everything and gladdening their hearts at the expense of the people! Oh! no doubt the fields and meadows and ponds will be given up as Anna-Marie said, and that the convents will be rebuilt in order to please Mons. le Comte d’Artois and help him to gain his salvation—that is the least the country could do for so great a prince!”

Then Father Goulden, joining his hands, looked upward saying:

“Lord God, Lord God, who hast wrought so many miracles by the little black St. John of Kortzeroth, if thou wouldst permit even a single ray of reason to enter the heads of Monseigneur and his friends, I believe it would be more beautiful than the tears of the little saint! And that other one on his island, with his clear eyes like the sparrow-hawk who pretends to sleep as he watches the unconscious geese in a pool,—O Lord, a few strokes of his wing and he is upon them, the birds may escape, while we shall have all Europe at our heels again!”

He said all this very gravely, and I looked at Catherine to know whether I should laugh or cry.

Suddenly he sat down, saying:

“Come! Joseph, this is not at all cheerful, but what can we do? It is time to be at work. Look, and see what is the matter with Mr. Jacob’s watch.”

Catherine took off the cloth, and each one went to his work.

CHAPTER IX

It was winter. Rain fell constantly, mingled with snow. There were no gutters, and the wind blew the rain as it fell from the tiles quite into the middle of the street. We could hear it pattering all day while Catherine was running about, watching the fire, and lifting the covers of the saucepans, and sometimes singing quietly to herself as she sat down to her spinning. Father Goulden and I were so accustomed to this kind of life that we worked on without thinking. We troubled ourselves about nothing, the table was laid and the dinner served exactly on the stroke of noon. At night Mr. Goulden went out after supper to read the gazette at Hoffman’s, with his old cloak wrapped closely round his shoulders and his big fox-skin cap pulled down over his neck.