On Life’s By-Ways

Front matter

KAMAN ATU 00099235

99235

PIERRE LOTI

Contents

PAGE A Nocturne .

= Ce . . . . . I ALPHONSE DAUDET . ; : . . 9 IpLe Pity : : . : . : . 14 My SENEGAL RELATIVE -. F : . - 28 Docs aND Cats. . * : : : - 34 AN AUDIENCE OF THE GREAT SPHINX . ‘ . 43 IMPRESSIONS OF THE THEATRE . . . - 46 Maprip, THE EaRty Days OF THE AMERICAN AGGRESSION ‘ F ‘ : * . : 55 SERENANES ‘ : . . . 103 TRAMPS . : . . . Hil My Last Two Hunts . é 7 A 122 FAREWELL TO THE BasQuE COUNTRY ‘ ‘ « 33 A NIGHT OF FEVER ‘ i : . F “ “Vg2 A SUNDAY IN WINTER . : : . . 154 Easter IsLanp : : : * . : » 165 AFTER READING MICHELET . : s 7 . 220

A NOCTURNE

II

I merely wished to say, to these friends and relatives of his who may read these lines, that he has left a grievous void in my life, and that I loved him as one seldom loves a friend. I was anxious to retain his esteem ; when I wrote, I instinctively sought his approval, and always had him in the background of my mind. Now, a portion of the tender affection I felt for him has been transferred to those rare souls he leaves behind, into whom -his own soul has partially entered.

To-day, in this quiet spot, beneath the warm though sombre and low-lying sky of a winter Sunday, it is he who is constantly appearing before me; with tender respect I dwell in memory upon all the wise and noble thoughts, the indulgent and soothing ideas to which he gave utterance during our last few talks together, on the subject of mankind and life generally. It is with a sense of grief and deep emotion that I remember those dear loving . eyes of the dying man, eyes full of reproach because I shall not be able to see him on the morrow. . . . It was impossible for me to stay another day. .

Of a surety I shall long regret never having seen him again. Still, it is so foreign to my nature to exhibit signs of grief, — however touching and deserving of respect their object

ALPHONSE DAUDET may be,—so alien to my disposition to delight in ceremonies and processions that I feel even nearer to him in this gloomy solitude of mine than I should be in the noisy throng, following the black hearse that’ is about to take him from us for ever. .

I AN OLp HorsE

It is a glorious July sun in Spain. The scene is an immense arena, around which twelve thousand spectators, in breathless excitement, follow the varying fortunes of a bull-fight.

In front of me is a dazzling sight : from top to bottom of the huge amphitheatre, on which the sun’s fierce rays are beating, is a sea of heads that seem to touch one another, broad-brimmed hats, bévets and mantillas ; a waving of white kerchiefs or red paper fans, and over, all this sordid mass of people, clad in tawdry garb, the splendid light and glory ofa Spanish summer,

In the shade, where I happen to be, is a more select —though quite as compact —crowd, equally eager to witness the old national spectacle. Behind and above me are the boxes, in which eleZant seforas appear: an exhibition of gorgeous though cool-looking dresses ; rows of dark faces, lit up with flashing eyes— most of them quite beautiful—and everywhere the time-honoured mantilla and the lofty floweradorned chignon.

The air resounds with frenzied cries; brass instruments alternating with tambourines and museites ; from time to time an anxious silence, a shudder and a tremor that fill the breasts of all, followed by a sudden ironical whistle or by the deafening roar of the crowd, striking on one’s ears like a thunder-clap.

There is a prolonged, ear-splitting trumpet signal as the third bull enters the arena; head and horns erect, he gallops forward, proud and nimble, resembling some enormous gazelle worked up to a state of frenzy. Murmurs of approval run through the crowd, testifying to the beauty of the fighting animal. Carrying heavy riders all decked in ribbons and streamers, lean sorry-looking horses, which have been given their fill of oats, and will shortly, with

- pierced and bleeding flanks, be lying stretched on the gore-stained sand, are now gaily prancing round the track before they go to their doom.

’ Finally the toreros appear, all glittering with

gold, they gracefully advance, and spread their crimson capas before those terrible horns,

- avoiding death by little side leaps, or, more disdainfully, by a twist of their supple loins. The bull is either astonished or amused at finding before him nothing but a mantle, continually fleeing before him, a void, never anything solid or substantial. .. . The commencement is charming ; for the sport appears to be something altogether dainty and graceful ; really, one would say that a perfectly innocent test of speed and elegance between men and beast was taking place, did not pools of blood, left behind from previous contests and imperfectly hidden from view by the sawdust thrown over them, still mark the scenes of deathstruggles the very spots where, but a few minutes previously, some disembowelled horse was gasping in agony... .

It is a poor old horse, dead tired, and probably with the strokes of a merciless lashing still visible, a wretched old one-eyed horse, which is the first to meet the onrush of the lordly animal and be hurled headlong into the dust.

Whilst his rider is heavily rising from the ground, he also regains his feet. There is a deep gash in his chest, from which the blood is streaming.

His meagre flanks quiver with pain and dread. . . . Where shall he flee for safety? ...A moment’s indecision, . . . then, with a pathetic appeal in his eye, he makes for a man standing there, holding out his hands to take the bridle: one of those wretched creatures who, during the intervals, stuff with bran the gaping wounds made by the bull’s horns, or else thrust back the quivering entrails and sew them together with thread, so that the poor beast may again appear before the crowd and repeat the performance.

No doubt the old horse feels quite reassured as he thus entrusts himself to human care, and his poor solitary eye seems to say: “ True, you men have often beaten me, but you have never torn me up, you have never disembowelled me in this fashion. I am sure you don’t want to kill me, do you? I am but a poor beast, and have perhaps been stubborn and lazy at times, but, after all, I have worked so hard for you with this old worn-out body of mine... .’ And he grew quieter as the man -adjusted his saddle and harness and patted him on the back, though with a somewhat bantering air. Then, when everything was ready and the rider again in the saddle, the rascally fellow, with a droll smile addressed to those near at hand, fastened a bandage over the horse’s eye, so that he might rush the more surely to his doom, as he remarked: ‘ Wait a moment, old fellow ... you'll see what’s going tohappento you. Don’t beafraid. . . .”

Oh! What a joy it would be, if the police were not about, what supreme delight to crush that smile on the man’s brutal face and leave traces there of another kind, with a few blows of a cudgel! ...

Mon Dieu! What-pretty senoras are seated behind me, leaning over the sides of the boxes ! White mantillas, black mantillas, great high . combs @ la Carmen, and bouquets of yellow flowers in their dark hair. What a pity that only in these blood-stained arenas is to be seen this old-time finery, so wonderfully adapted to these delicate, pallid faces, with their languid, coal-black eyes! What a pity that Spanish - ladies will not understand that this coiffure lends an air of distinction and mystery to the . countenance! . . . One young woman, especially, in all the beauty of her twenty - five summers, clad in light blue, with tea roses in her breast, was, leaning indolently over the balustrade, in a delightful attitude that set off her superb figure to perfection, almost the. ideal personification of a dark pale~-cheeked senora. ...

The next moment, the poor horse, a bandage now over his eye, and manifesting a certain degree of confidence in spite of the nervous trembling which continued to the end, was led forward by the hand and shamelessly offered up to the bull, which plunged its horn into the poor creature’s breast.

He rolled on to the sand, almost at my feet, and close to the gate upon which I was leaning his lungs burst open, shedding blood in streams

.which gushed up like water from a pump. And the same wretch of a valet, with brutal eagerness, made speed to drag away and place on some other dumb martyr the poor dying animal’s bridle and bit, tearing and gashing his mouth in the process. Then, as the crowd gave signs to indicate that the animal must be killed, the man went back and began to probe about in the region of the cerebellum with an old knife, the ugly grating sound of ‘which could be heard as it encountered bone or cranium. Without a groan or a murmur the horse silently endures the death agony. Aconvulsive’ quiver of the limbs, no more; then the suffering head fell back on to the ground, and he suddenly entered into a state of final peace, unending immobility. It even seemed as though Death -had suddenly imparted somewhat of his ‘calm dignity to this pitiable wreck of mortality.

He, at all events, has finished his course | Set free from everything terrestrial, he has become a thing which no one can ever again ill-treat and torture.

* * * * *

Whereas I, who have not yet finished my course, and over whose eyes it is unlikely that any cruel bandage will be placed when that final moment arrives, in all its horror —I transferred my pity upon myself, and, during those few instants, felt myself to be a more wretched creature than the dead horse.

Then, remembering that only what constitutes physical beauty, the charm..and delight of the eye, does not prove deceptive, I turned - my gaze away from the arena and lookéd up at the beautiful sefova, dressed in light blue, and wearing on her head a white mantilla and in her breast a bunch of tea roses, . . .

II An OLD WoMAN

Bent almost double, a poor old woman was trudging along the mountain track, in all the splendour of the summer evening. She was carrying an enormous load of fallen wood on her back.

It was a solitary spot where I met her— lonely and fair as a dreamland Eden —in Guipuscoa, right in the heart of the Spanish Pyrenees, with their glorious green forests. On every side the proud and lonely peaks, inviolate beneath their mantle of foliage, rose into the azure heights. Down in the dale below, a stream was mirrored, reflecting naught but ivy or fern, or the fresh bright verdure of June. In that pleasant land of shade and rippling waters there was something out of the ordinary, something of regal pomp and fairy brightness in the prodigal magnificence of leaf and flower.

The poor old woman, however, staggering along beneath her burden, had no eyes for this feast of nature. I noticed that her brow was deeply scored with two distressing wrinkles, as she painfully hastened towards some wretched home or other, where no smile, no word of welcome, would greet her. She looked so honest and kind-hearted! So meek, withal, so meek and resigned to her lot! Seeing me approach, she had politely stepped to the side of the road, as though to place a more respectful distance between the vulgar creature she regarded herself as being and the distinguished passer-by whom I represented in her mind.

Mon Dieu ! What could I do to help the meek - old creature a little? A sudden feeling of pity came over me at the sight of those gentle, sorrow-laden eyes of hers. Still, how was I ‘to avoid humiliating her even more? This 21 bundle of wood, so painfully borne on her back, represented a ridiculously small sum of money, and it would have been an easy matter for me to say to her: “ Fling all that away, poor old lady, and accept these small pieces of silver instead.”

But I was afraid of offending her, after all the troublé.she must have had to gather these fallen branches, one by one, in the wood. Besides, the more I looked at her, the less did I feel emboldened to offer alms; her patched ‘garments seemed to be still decent and clean ; certainly she was anything but a beggar, more likely a grandmother living in some modest farm, scorned by her greedy peasant children, who were awaiting her end as a deliverance, or perhaps some obscure worker in the fields, inured to toil.

How beautiful and peaceful, a veritable Paradise, was the country around! There,, for a few rare moments, one seemed to be in the very “midst of some blest retreat, with the ecstasy and exuberance of life all around one, drinking in the enchantment of the season and! the hour—the glorious, placid evening hour.

Close at hand, as well as in the far distance, rose tier upon tier of beech forests, exactly resembling each other, from the low-lying grass and flowers and streams up to the cloud-topped peaks. Beneath, in the limpid river that reflected the mountain summits, were veritable islets of flowers—islets covered with large violet distaff-thistles, pink amourettes, and certain water-plants that blassom out into white clusters.. On the roadside, immediately at-my feet, spread the most exquisite soil, carpeted with those lichens and mosses that grow only in spots which have long lain undisturbed; a soil apparently as old as the world itself, and which. stretched away and was lost in the mysterious vault of that forest of beeches, with their large grey branches spreading in all directions. One felt that, from the beginning of time, none but shepherds and flocks had ever trod these delicate carpets of earth; the peace of long-past ages gently breathed upon the whole of this verdant land... .

By a. strange anomaly, however, the country people who dwell in such Edens have neither eyes to see nor brain to understand, and the old woman, with this heavy bundle of faggots on her back, looked as woe-begone in the midst of these enchanting delights as though she were making her way through the dingy streets of a city slum, with dismal-looking walls on every side.

“Now the road began to ascend, steeper and steeper ; the poor old faggot-picker seemed to _ trudge along with even more painful jerks than before, and a weary sigh from beneath the load of dead wood reached my ears. . . . Where could she be going? And what could possibly. be done to help her ?

Thank Heaven, the village at last came in sight, close by, at a bend of the road—evidently her village, and the goal of her toilsome journey. Perched aloft, with a background of mountains and forests which suddenly seemed to expand, there it stood outlined against the sky, with tiny black houses and church-steeple built in the ancient Basque style ; everything doubtless just as it was two or three centuries ago, the houses growing old, side by side, slowly crumbling away beneath rain and sun ; all arranged, as by a master artist, to delight the eye of man.

And yet, its charm is scarcely perceptible ° to any but strangers, refined and_ fastidious passers-by ; it quite escapes the notice of such as are born and die there. These spots of earth, so ideal in appearance, are the scenes of much sadness, of merely vegetating existences, though Sometimes, it must be confessed, of healthy and exuberant—though brief—youth, and of premature old age, all lonely and forsaken, .. .

I had slackened my pace so as to remain near the old wood-gatherer, and was now walking along, almost by her side.

Together we entered the abandoned, forlornlooking village, at the peaceful evening hour, just before the Angelus began to toll: a few small gloomy streets, two or three tiny shops in which were sold printed calicoes, harness for mules, primitive, rough-looking objects, and finally the venerable church, with its cemetery and its jeu de paume. And all around this collection of old-world beings the lonely silent Cantabrians and their great beech forests. | _,So it appeared as though there were nothing I could do for the poor old woman whom chance had made my travelling companion. She was to go to earth there in one of these dark cots, deposit her burden in a corner, and then, unwelcome most certainly and neglected by all alike, as frequently happens in the case of old peasants who have ceased regular employment, she would fling herself on to her rude couch for the night. On the morrow her aimless deadlydull life would recommence, without hope of mitigation or sympathy of any kind, and would continue right on to the hour of final anguish. ... Oh! the poor old woman, with such a gentle look in her eyes ;, and yet how she filled my heart with pity when I heard that weary sigh as we ascended the hill !

‘Suddenly, at the end of the silent street, a little child made his appearance, toddling along over the black pebbles, as though he had been expecting her, and had now come to meet her. Immediately he recognized the old dame he quickened his pace and held out his hands, as he exclaimed: ‘ Amona!” the Basque word for ‘ Grandmother.” He was between two and three years of age, a poorly, wretched-looking creature, though resembling her, with the same expression, the same kind, honest eyes. A poor little being, smilingly entering upon a life of humble, never-ceasing sorrow, similar to the one his grandmother was about to leave.

“ Amona!’’ She opened wide her arms, and in a rapture of tender joy her countenance instantly became radiant with delight. What mattered the long journey, the disdain and rebuffs of the others, since she had the love of this little child ? No more wrinkles now on her brow ; no more weary sighs ; a single smile had transfigured her countenance. And, as she had doubtless divined my feelings of pity, she turned her eyes towards me, as thoughto make sure that I had seen the child, and seeming to say: Just see what a little dear he is; am I not right in being proud of him? And now, don’t think“any longer that I am to be pitied, with a grandson like mine. . .

Thereupon I resumed my journey, conscious how unnecessary my compassion had been, when, at that moment, the church bell began to toll the Angelus. Hearing the sound, the old woman stood still and made the sign of the cross, whilst on her facé! inclined in prayer, appeared an expression of fervent, simple-hearted faith, that true faith’ which falters before neither old age nor death.

Then, in the peace of that abandoned spot, which was beginning to sink into slumber in the midst of the forests beneath the summer twilight, I, an eternal wanderer who had come to stay a single evening amongst these simple, resigned beings, felt inclined to bow down in a spirit of deep humility, and say: “ Pity me in thy turn, kind old peasant-woman, and pray for the repose of my soul ; for, of the two of us, it is I who am the more wretched, infinitely the more deserving of pity. . . .”

MY SENEGAL RELATIVE

My most indelible impressions of Senegal were obtained during my first autumn in that land, . having been summoned thither by the exigencies of a seafaring life.

I had gone there for a two years’ exile, just as the summer was passing away, and at the time of the rainy season, when the marshes were still covered with a rampant growth of, vegetation, swarming with insects and flies of every description. But these grasses had quickly withered up and the large-winged flies were dead; I had watched the whole of a season’s life fade away beneath the dull, depressing heat of a rainless October.

From childhood I had been preparéd for the strange and melancholy nature of the place by an old neighbour, who was distantly related to my family, and had long dwelt on the isle of Gorée when a young officer. In his garden, where he had a grey parrot and a summerhouse, the walls of which were hung with African

MY SENEGAL RELATIVE weapons and amulets, he would frequently relate to me tales about Senegal: the very name, Gorée, as early as I can remember, possessed a power of evocation which neither distant travels nor the flight of time have succeeded completely in destroying.

On growing up into manhood, it was my turn to sojourn in Senegal, when October was beginning to usher in the dying year throughout the land. In the gloomy village of Dakar, I occupied a temporary abode overlooking the vivid blue roadstead where my ship lay anchored, a cottage built of planks and thatched with straw, which an old mulatto-woman. let to any officer who might be staying in that part of the world.

This mulatto, with her tanned yellow face, was a native of Gorée. Her name was Marie- Félicité, .and she was the unacknowledged daughter of some European who had either left that land half a century previously, or had succumbed to the climate of the colony and now lay buried beneath mounds of sand.

* * * * *

When November came, no rain had fallen for weeks, and about this dry autumn there was something abnormal, something disturbing to one who had hitherto been accustomed to the climate of France.

os 56

I was also informed that, until the fructifying storms and tempests of the following spring, not a drop of water would fall on the sands of this parched land. Besides, one had a kind of physical impression of the fact ; an indefinable feeling of something distinctly arid in the atmosphere proclaimed that the very springs of heaven had dried up, that the‘yearly death of the plants would come about, not from cold, but from drought and thirst... .:- The leaves had all fallen to the ground ; the:few mimosas: and the huge baobabs, visible here and there, were becoming grey-looking skeletons in the dull, colourless monotony of the desert.

One day, during the languid minutes following the noon siesta, whilst lying in the warm shade of the verandah, listening to the chirr. of the locusts, the idea came to me to ask the parchment-visaged mulatto-woman, as she was noiselessly moving about, if perchance she had ever known my old neighbour, who had formerly dwelt on the isle of Gorée, her birthplace. ‘

“Oh! .. .” she exclaimed, raising her long ape-like arms with a dramatic gesture, which at first brought a smile to my face,—‘ Oh! . .. Then you knew him! ... He was my father! .. .”

Thereupon, somewhat impressed in spite of

MY SENEGAL RELATIVE myself, I sat up on my rush-built couch, the better to examine her countenance. .. . But I discovered nothing in her mummy -like features to remind me of my dead old relative.

Still, the thing was not impossible after all ; on questioning her further and comparing dates and events, it even began to seem as though what she said might be true.

In spite of my doubts, this created a sort of additional link attaching me to the hut, to the poor yellow decrepit creature and her desolate ‘old garden, where the sand was daily covered over with innumerable little designs and figures, constantly being effaced and renewed by the silent coming and going of lizards. . Either because I was afraid of causing her pain or because I needed affection of some kind—I was very lonely and very young—I did not dispute her statement, but accepted the tender and childish attentions she lavished on me from that day,even the comic title of “nephew,” which at times she had the audacity to give me. I spent the whole autumn and part of the winter . there, under the loving care of this poor old woman, whose face, beneath a mass of hair done up in curl-paper, became wreathed in smiles whenever I looked at her.

* * * * * _ November came to an end in a uniform 31 monotonous light; every evening the same enormous setting sun sank like a blood-red ball below the horizon. The gigantic baobab close by, wholly stripped of foliage, resembled a dull, pink-grey madrepore ; the dry burning winds had finally scattered and destroyed its leaves.

Then December, January, and’ February followed one another beneath the rays of the same awful, impassive sun, whose face no cloud ever veiled. It was still as hot as ever, as unchangeably beautiful, and yet nothing could live: a sinister omen. -

Around the hut of Marie-Félicité the locusts carried on an uninterrupted chirping, at once feeble and shrill, a sound which grew more irritating about noon and then died away as evening advanced; from time to time, also, could be heard the droning song of a negress, whilst from the direction of the village came the dull grind of the kousskouss pestles, which never ceased pounding away. Above the garden palisades appeared an arm of the gloriously blue sea and endless stretches of yellow sands, whereon a skeleton-like baobab would from time to time raise its huge mass in solitary dignity. Everything around gave me the impression of exile and death, an impression not devoid of a certain degree of charm. . .

MY SENEGAL RELATIVE

And I thought once more of my old relative in my childhood days, of the stories about Senegal he used to tell me, of the amulets on _ his walls and the parrot in his garden. J had a kind of feeling that I was living anew his own youthful days, in times long since past and a land belonging to other periods. . . .

Prologue

Cats are possessed of a shy, retiring nature, cajoling, haughty, and capricious, difficult to fathom. They reveal themselves only to certain favoured individuals, and are repelled by the faintest suggestion of insult or even by the most trifling deception:

They are quite as intelligent as dogs, and are devoid of the yielding obsequiousness, the ridiculous sense of importance, and the revolting coarseness of these latter animals. Cats are dainty patricians, whereas dogs, whatever their social status, retain a parvenu’s lack of cleanliness, and are irredeemably vulgar.

A CaT

_ A cat is watching me. ... He is close at hand, on the table, and thrusts forward his dimly thoughtful little head, into which some unwonted flash of intelligence has evidently just entered. Whilst servants or visitors have been on the spot, he has scornfully kept out of the way, under an armchair, for no other person than myself is allowed to stroke his invariably immaculate coat. But no sooner does he perceive that I am alone than he comes and sits in front of me, suddenly assuming one of those expressive looks that are seen from time to time in such enigmatical, contemplative animals as belong to the same genus as himself. His yellow eyes look up at me, wide open, the pupils dilated by a mental effort to interrogate and attempt to understand: “ Who are you, after all?” he asks. “‘ Why do I trust you? Of what importance are you in the world? What are you thinking and doing here ? ”

In our ignorance of things, our inability to know anything, how amazing—perhaps terrifying—if we could but see into the curious depths of those eyes and fathom the unknowable within the little brain hidden away there! Ah! if.only for a moment we could put ourselves in its place and afterwards remember, what an instantaneous and definite solution—though no doubt terrifying enough—we might obtain of the perplexing problems of life and eternity ! Are these familiar animals our inferiors and far removed from us, or are they terribly near to us? Is the dark veil which conceals from them the cause and end of life more dense than that stretched before our own eyes? . . . No, never will it be our privilege to solve the secret of those little wheedling heads, which allow themselves so lovingly to be held and stroked, almost crushed, in our hands... .

And now he js about to sleep, maybe to dream, on this table at which I am writing ; he settles down as close to me as possible, after stretching out his paw towards me two or three times, looking at me as though craving permission to leap on to my knees. And there he lies, his head daintily resting on my arm, as though to say: ‘Since you will not have me altogether, permit this at least, for I shall not disturb you if I remain so.”