Part 31

“That man was your first victory here, was he not?” she said.

“Yes,” he answered; “his conversion would, I thought, give me all Montegnac--and I was not mistaken.”

Veronique pressed Monsieur Bonnet’s hand and said, with tears in her voice, “I am your penitent from this day forth, monsieur; I shall go to-morrow to the confessional.”

Her last words showed a great internal effort, a terrible victory won over herself. The rector brought her back to the house without saying another word. After that he remained till dinner-time, talking about the proposed improvements at Montegnac.

“Agriculture is a question of time,” he said; “the little that I know of it makes me understand what a gain it would be to get some good out of the winter. The rains are now beginning, and the mountains will soon be covered with snow; your operations cannot then be begun. Had you not better hasten Monsieur Grossetete?”

Insensibly, Monsieur Bonnet, who at first did all the talking, led Madame Graslin to join in the conversation and so distract her thoughts; in fact, he left her almost recovered from the emotions of the day. Madame Sauviat, however, thought her daughter too violently agitated to be left alone, and she spent the night in her room.

XVI. CONCERNS ONE OF THE BLUNDERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The following day an express, sent from Limoges by Monsieur Grossetete to Madame Graslin, brought her the following letter:--

To Madame Graslin:

My dear Child,--It was difficult to find horses, but I hope you are satisfied with those I sent you. If you want work or draft horses, you must look elsewhere. In any case, however, I advise you to do your tilling and transportation with oxen. All the countries where agriculture is carried on with horses lose capital when the horse is past work; whereas cattle always return a profit to those who use them.

I approve in every way of your enterprise, my child; you will thus employ the passionate activity of your soul, which was turning against yourself and thus injuring you.

Your second request, namely, for a man capable of understanding and seconding your projects, requires me to find you a rara avis such as we seldom raise in the provinces, where, if we do raise them, we never keep them. The education of that high product is too slow and too risky a speculation for country folks.

Besides, men of intellect alarm us; we call them “originals.” The men belonging to the scientific category from which you will have to obtain your co-operator do not flourish here, and I was on the point of writing to you that I despaired of fulfilling your commission. You want a poet, a man of ideas,--in short, what we should here call a fool, and all our fools go to Paris. I have spoken of your plans to the young men employed in land surveying, to contractors on the canals, and makers of the embankments, and none of them see any “advantage” in what you propose.

But suddenly, as good luck would have it, chance has thrown in my way the very man you want; a young man to whom I believe I render a service in naming him to you. You will see by his letter, herewith enclosed, that deeds of beneficence ought not to be done hap-hazard. Nothing needs more reflection than a good action. We never know whether that which seems best at one moment may not prove an evil later. The exercise of beneficence, as I have lived to discover, is to usurp the role of Destiny.

As she read that sentence Madame Graslin let fall the letter and was thoughtful for several minutes.

“My God!” she said at last, “when wilt thou cease to strike me down on all sides?”

Then she took up the letter and continued reading it:

Gerard seems to me to have a cool head and an ardent heart; that’s the sort of man you want. Paris is just now a hotbed of new doctrines; I should be delighted to have the lad removed from the traps which ambitious minds are setting for the generous youth of France. While I do not altogether approve of the narrow and stupefying life of the provinces, neither do I like the passionate life of Paris, with its ardor of reformation, which is driving youth into so many unknown ways. You alone know my opinions; to my mind the moral world revolves upon its own axis, like the material world. My poor protege demands (as you will see from his letter) things impossible. No power can resist ambitions so violent, so imperious, so absolute, as those of to-day. I am in favor of low levels and slowness in political change; I dislike these social overturns to which ambitious minds subject us.

To you I confide these principles of a monarchical and prejudiced old man, because you are discreet. Here I hold my tongue in the midst of worthy people, who the more they fail the more they believe in progress; but I suffer deeply at the irreparable evils already inflicted on our dear country.

I have replied to the enclosed letter, telling my young man that a worthy task awaits him. He will go to see you, and though his letter will enable you to judge of him, you had better study him still further before committing yourself,--though you women understand many things from the mere look of a man. However, all the men whom you employ, even the most insignificant, ought to be thoroughly satisfactory to you. If you don’t like him don’t take him; but if he suits you, my dear child, I beg you to cure him of his ill-disguised ambition. Make him take to a peaceful, happy, rural life, where true beneficence is perpetually exercised; where the capacities of great and strong souls find continual exercise, and they themselves discover daily fresh sources of admiration in the works of Nature, and in real ameliorations, real progress, an occupation worthy of any man.

I am not oblivious of the fact that great ideas give birth to great actions; but as those ideas are necessarily few and far between, I think it may be said that usually things are more useful than ideas. He who fertilizes a corner of the earth, who brings to perfection a fruit-tree, who makes a turf on a thankless soil, is far more useful in his generation than he who seeks new theories for humanity. How, I ask you, has Newton’s science changed the condition of the country districts? Oh! my dear, I have always loved you; but to-day I, who fully understand what you are about to attempt, I adore you.

No one at Limoges forgets you; we all admire your grand resolution to benefit Montegnac. Be a little grateful to us for having soul enough to admire a noble action, and do not forget that the first of your admirers is also your first friend.

F. Grossetete.

The enclosed letter was as follows:--

To Monsieur Grossetete:

Monsieur,--You have been to me a father when you might have been only a mere protector, and therefore I venture to make you a rather sad confidence. It is to you alone, you who have made me what I am, that I can tell my troubles.

I am afflicted with a terrible malady, a cruel moral malady. In my soul are feelings and in my mind convictions which make me utterly unfit for what the State and society demand of me. This may seem to you ingratitude; it is only the statement of a condition. When I was twelve years old you, my generous god-father, saw in me, the son of a mere workman, an aptitude for the exact sciences and a precocious desire to rise in life. You favored my impulse toward better things when my natural fate was to stay a carpenter like my father, who, poor man, did not live long enough to enjoy my advancement. Indeed, monsieur, you did a good thing, and there is never a day that I do not bless you for it. It may be that I am now to blame; but whether I am right or wrong it is very certain that I suffer. In making my complaint to you I feel that I take you as my judge like God Himself. Will you listen to my story and grant me your indulgence?

Between sixteen and eighteen years of age I gave myself to the study of the exact sciences with an ardor, you remember, that made me ill. My future depended on my admission to the Ecole Polytechnique. At that time my studies overworked my brain, and I came near dying; I studied night and day; I did more than the nature of my organs permitted. I wanted to pass such satisfying examinations that my place in the Ecole would be not only secure, but sufficiently advanced to release me from the cost of my support, which I did not want you to pay any longer.