Monsieur Bergeret in Paris. Anatole France
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may be,” remarked Zoe, “but it is very expensive in Paris at any rate. You must have noticed that while you were house-hunting. I don’t expect you care to see my room; come, Pauline’s will interest you more.”
“Let us go and see them both,” said Monsieur Bergeret, as he obediently promenaded his animal mechanism through the little square rooms hung with flowered paper, pursuing the course of his reflections the while.
“The savages,” he said, “make no distinction between past, present and future. Languages, which are undoubtedly the oldest monuments of the human race, permit us to go back to the days when our ancestors had not yet accomplished this metaphysical operation. Monsieur Michel Bréal, who has just published an admirable essay on the subject, shows that the verb, so rich to-day in its resources for marking the priority of an action, had originally no means of expressing the past, and in order to perform this function forms were employed which implied a double affirmation of the present.”
As he spoke, he returned to the room which was to be his study, which had at first sight seemed, in its emptiness, to be filled with the shadows of the ineffable future.
Mademoiselle Bergeret opened the window.
“Look, Lucien.”
And, seeing the bare tops of the trees, Monsieur Bergeret smiled.
“These black boughs,” he said, “will assume, in the timid April sunlight, the purple hue of their buds; then they will break forth into soft green foliage. That will be delightful. It will, indeed, be charming. Zoe, you are full of wisdom and kindness, a worthy steward and a most endearing sister. Let me kiss you.”
Monsieur Bergeret kissed his sister, repeating:
“You are a good creature, Zoe.”
And Mademoiselle Bergeret’s reply was:
“Our father and mother were both good.”
Monsieur Bergeret would have embraced her a second time, but she protested:
“You’ll make my hair untidy, Lucien, and that I can’t bear.”
Monsieur Bergeret stretched out his hand as he stood by the open window.
“Look, Zoe, to the right. On the site of those ugly buildings used to be the Pépinière. There, our elders have told me, was a maze of paths bordered by green trelliswork windows among the shrubs. Our father used to walk there when he was a young man. He used to read the philosophy of Kant and the novels of George Sand, seated on a bench behind the statue of Velléda. A dreaming Velléda, with hands folded over her mystic sickle, and crossed legs, who was the object of much generous and youthful adoration. The students used to sit at her feet discussing love, justice and liberty. They did not enlist in those days in the party of untruth, injustice and tyranny.
“The Empire destroyed the Pépinière. It was an evil deed, for there is a soul even in inanimate things. The noble ideas of many young men perished with the gardens. How many beautiful dreams and stupendous hopes have taken shape under the shadow of Maindron’s romantic Velléda! To-day our students have palaces with a bust of the President of the Republic over the mantelpiece in the principal room. Who will restore to them the winding alleys of the Pépinière, where they were wont to discuss the establishment of peace and happiness and the liberty of the world? Who will give back to them the garden where, amid the joyous songs of the birds, they repeated the generous sayings of their masters, Quinet and Michelet?”
“No doubt they were enthusiastic enough,” said Mademoiselle Bergeret, “but in the end they became doctors and lawyers in their own provinces. One must resign oneself to the mediocrity of life. You know well enough, it is very difficult to live, and one must not expect too much of one’s fellow-creatures. Anyhow, do you like the rooms?”
“Yes, and I’m sure Pauline will be delighted. She has a charming room.”
“She has, but young girls are never delighted with anything.”
“Pauline is not unhappy with us.”
“No, indeed. She is very happy, but she does not realize it.”
“I am going to the Rue Saint-Jacques,” announced Monsieur Bergeret, “to ask Roupart to put up some shelves in my study.”
CHAPTER VII
Monsieur Bergeret had a great liking and esteem for craftsmen. As he did not indulge in any elaborate appointments, he rarely employed workmen, but, when he did employ one, he tried to enter into conversation with him, being sure of hearing something worth listening to.
So he extended a gracious welcome to Roupart, the carpenter, who came one morning to put up some book-shelves in his study.
Riquet, as was his custom, lay in the depths of his master’s arm-chair, peacefully slumbering. But the immemorial recollection of the perils which surrounded his wild forbears in the forests makes the domestic dog sleep lightly. It should further be said that this hereditary readiness to awaken promptly was fostered in Riquet by the sense of duty. Riquet regarded himself as a watch-dog. Firmly convinced that his mission in life was to guard the house, he was proud and happy in his vocation.
Unfortunately, however, he thought of all houses as being what they are in the country or the fables of La Fontaine, standing betwixt courtyard and garden, of which a dog could make the circuit, sniffing a soil redolent of the odours of cattle and manure. He had formed no idea of the plan of the flat occupied by his master on the fifth story of a great block of buildings. So, unacquainted with the limits of his domain, he was not quite clear as to what he had to guard. And he was a ferocious guardian. Supposing that the appearance of this stranger clad in patched blue trousers, smelling of perspiration and carrying his load of planks, was imperilling the house, he leaped from his chair and proceeded to bark at the man, retreating before him with heroic deliberation. Monsieur Bergeret bade him be silent, and he regretfully obeyed, sad and surprised to see his devotion useless and his signals disregarded. His earnest gaze, turned upon his master, seemed to say:
“So you allow this anarchist to enter, dragging his infernal machine behind him. Well, come what may, I’ve done my duty.”
Then he went back to his chair and slept again. Monsieur Bergeret, abandoning the scholiasts of Virgil, entered into conversation with the carpenter. First he questioned him as to the purchasing, cutting and polishing of different woods and the joining of the planks. He loved to obtain fresh information and he realized the excellence of the vulgar tongue.
His face to the wall, Roupart answered him between intervals of long silence, during which he took measurements. It was then that he discussed panelling and the making of joints.
“A tenon and mortice joint needs no glue if the work is properly done.”
“Is there not also such a thing as a dove-tail joint?” inquired Monsieur Bergeret.
“It’s an old-fashioned affair; they don’t make ’em now,” replied the carpenter.
Thus the professor learned something by listening to the artisan. Having made sufficient headway with his work, the carpenter turned to Monsieur Bergeret. His sunken, large-featured face, his brown complexion, his hair matted over his forehead, and his little goatee, grey with dust, gave him the look of a bronze figure. His smile, which was gentle, but came with difficulty, showed his white teeth and gave him a youthful look.
“I know you, Monsieur Bergeret.”
“Do you really?”
“Oh yes, I know you. That was something a bit out of the common what you did, and no mistake. You don’t mind my mentioning it, I hope?”
“Not in the least.”