Tales of to-day and other days, from the French ...

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Class P 2* 1

Book Jtsg

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^ Alfred de Musset :

II

My father was so inhuman as to leave me several days in this mortifying situation. Notwithstanc}-

STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD.

ing his violent disposition his heart was in the right place, and I could see by his way of looking at me askant that he would have been glad to forgive and recall me to my home ; my mother, too, was constantly gazing upward at me with eyes that were full of tenderness, and now and then she would even venture to address me with a plaintive little chirrup ; but my horrible white plumage inspired them, despite their better feelings, with a fear and a repugnance against which I clearly saw there was no remedy.

" I am not a blackbird ! " I kept repeating to myself ; and, in truth, as I was preening myself one morning and contemplating my form reflected in the water of the gutter, I saw only too clearly how little resemblance there was between me and the rest of the family. "Kind Heaven !" I said again, "teach me what I am ! "

One night when the rain was coming down in bucketfuls and I was getting ready to go to bed, quite worn out with grief and hunger, a bird came and sat down near me, wetter, paler, and more emaciated than I had believed bird could be. He was of something the same color as I, as nearly as I could judge through the torrents of rain that were streaming down on us ; he had scarcely sufficient feathers on his body to clothe a sparrow respectably, and yet he was a bigger bird than L At first I took him to be some poor, needy wanderer, but notwithstanding the storm that pelted pitilessly upon his almost naked poll he maintained a loftiness of demeanor that quite charmed me. I modestly made him a deep bow, to which he replied w T ithadig of his beak that nearly sent me tumbling off the roof. When he saw me scratch my ear and

STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD.

meekiy edge away from him without attempting to answer him in his own language, he asked in a hoarse, thick voice, to correspond with his bald pate : " Who are you ? "

" Alas ! my noble lord," I replied (fearing that he might give me another dig), " I cannot tell. I thought that I was a blackbird, but I am convinced now that I am not."

The strangeness of my answer, and my apparent truthfulness, seemed to interest him. He approached me and made me relate my history, which I did in all sadness and humility, as befitted my position and the unpleasantness of the weather.

" If you were a carrier-pigeon like me," he said to me when I had finished, " the pitiful trifles that you are bewailing so would not disturb your mind an instant. We travel — that is the way we make our living — and we have our loves, indeed, but I don't know who my father is. Cleaving the air, making our way through space, beholding plains and mountains lying at our feet, inhaling the pure ether of the skies and not the exhalations of the earth, hastening to an appointed destination that we never fail to reach, therein lie our pleasures and our life. I travel further in one day than a man can in ten."

" Upon my word, sir," said I, plucking up a little courage, "you are a bird of Bohemia. 5 '

" That is something that I never bother my head about," he replied. " I have no country ; I know but three things : travel, my wife, and my little ones."

But what is it that you have hanging about your neck there ? It looks like an old twisted curl-paper." They are papers of importance," he answered^

STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD.

bridling up. " I am on my way to Brussels and I have a piece of intelligence for the celebrated banker . . . that will send the price of rentes down one franc and seventy-eight centimes."

" Great Heavens!" I cried, "what a delightful life yours ought to be, and Brussels, I am sure, must be an extremely interesting city to visit. Can't you take me with you ? Perhaps I am a carrier-pigeon, since I am not a blackbird."

"If you had been a carrier-pigeon," he rejoined, " you would have paid me back for the clip of the beak that I gave you a while ago."

"We'll ! sir, I will pay you ; we won't quarrel over a little thing like that. See ! the day is breaking and the storm is passing away. Let me go with you, I beseech you ! I am undone, I have not a penny in the world — if you refuse me there is nothing left for me to do but drown myself in this gutter."

"Very well ! en route ! follow me, if you can."

I cast a parting glance upon the garden where my mother was slumbering. A tear fell from my eye ! it was swept away by the wind and rain. I spread my wings and started forth.

Ill

As I have said, my wings were not very strong as yet. While my guide pursued his flight with the speed of the wind I was puffing and panting at his side ; I held out for some' time, but soon was seized with such an attack of dizziness that I thought I should faint.

"Have we far to go yet?" I asked in a weak

voice.

"No," he replied," u we are at Bourget ; \v$ have but sixty leagues to go/'

I tried to muster up courage, for I did not wish to show the white feather, and flew along for a quarter of an hour longer, but it was of no use, I was quite knocked up.

" Monsieur," ■ I again stammered, "might we not stop for a moment ? I am tormented by a horrible thirst, and if we were just to perch upon a tree "

" Go to the devil ! you are nothing but a blackbird ! " the pigeon responded in a rage and, without so much as turning his head, he continued his mad flight. As for me, everything grew dark before my sight and I fell, senseless, into a field of wheat.

How long my unconsciousness lasted I know not. When I came to, my first recollection was the carrierpigeon's parting remark : " You are nothing but a blackbird," he had said to me. " Oh ! my dear parents," I said to myself, " then you are mistaken, after all ! I will return to you ! you will recognize me as your true and lawful son and will let me have my place again in that dear little bed of leaves down beneath my mother's porringer."

I made an effort to rise, but the fatigue of the journey and the pain resulting from my fall paralyzed my every limb. Scarcely had I got upon my feet when my strength failed me again and I fell over on my side.

Hideous thoughts of death were now beginning to arise before my mind, when I beheld two charming creatures advancing toward me on tip-toe through the poppies and cornflowers. One was a little magpie, io STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD.

very stylishly speckled and of extremely coquettish appearance, and the other was a turtle-dove of a rosy complexion. The turtle-dove stopped when she had approached within a few feet of me, with a great display of modesty and compassion for my misfortune, but the pie came skipping up with the most pleasing manner in the world.

" Eh ! B071 Dieu / my poor child, what are you doing there ? " she inquired in a merry, silvery voice.

" Alas ! Madame la Marquise," I replied (for I thought that she must be a marquise at the very least), " lam a poor devil of a traveler whom his postilion has abandoned here at the roadside, and I am ready to die of hunger."

" Holy Virgin ! what is that you tell me ? " said she. And forthwith she began to flit about among the surrounding bushes, hopping from one to another and bringing me a great provision of berries and small fruits, which she deposited in a little pile at my side, continuing her fire of questions meanwhile.

tk But who are you ? Where do you come from ? The storv of your adventure sounds incredible ! And where were you going ? To think of your traveling alone, at your age ; why, you are only just over your first moulting ! What is your parents' business ? Where do they belong? How can they let you go about in the condition that you are in ? Why, it is enough to make one's feathers stand on end ! "

I had raised myself a little upon my side while she was speaking and was eating with a ravenous appetite. The turtle-dove had not stirred from her position and continued to eye me with a look of pity ; she re-

STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD.

marked, however, that I would turn my head every now and then in a feeble sort of way, and saw that I was thirsty. Upon a leaf of chickweed there remained a drop of the rain that had fallen during the night ; she took it in her beak and timidly brought it and offered it to me ; it was deliciously cool and refreshing. Had I not been as ill as I was, a person of her modesty would certainly not have ventured thus to transgress the rules of propriety.

As yet I knew not; what it was to love, but my heart was beating violently ; I was divided between two conflicting emotions and an inexpressible charm pervaded my being. My clerk of the kitchen was so lively, and my butler showed such gentleness and feeling, that I would gladly have protracted my breakfast to all eternity, but everything has an end, unfortunately, even the appetite of a convalescent. When the meal was ended and my strength had in a measure returned to me I appeased the little pie's curiosity, and related the story of my woes with the same candor that I had displayed the day before in telling them to the pigeon. The pie listened with a deeper interest than the recital seemed to call for, and the turtle-dove evinced a degree of sensibility that was most charming. When, however, I came to touch upon the final cause of all my sufferings, that is to say, my ignorance as to my own identity :

" Are you joking ? " screamed the pie. " What you, a blackbird ! a pigeon, you ! Nonsense ! you are a pie, my dear child, if pie there ever was, and a very pretty pie, too," she added, giving me a little tap with her wing, as if it had been a fan.

" But, Madame la Marquise,"! replied, " it seems to me, respectfully begging your pardon, that I am not of the right color for a pie."

" A Russian pie, my dear, you are a Russian pie ! Don't you know that they are white ? Poor child, how innocent you are ! "

" But how could I be a Russian pie, madame," I rejoined, " when I was born down in the Marais in an old broken porringer?''

" Ah ! the simple child ! Your folks came here with the invasion, my dear ; do you suppose that there are not others in the same case as you ? Confide in me and don't allow yourself to worry ! I mean to carry you off with me right away and show you the finest things in the world."

" And where to, dear madame, may it please you ? "

u To my green palace, pretty one ; and you shall see the kind of life we lead there. When you shall once have been a pie for a quarter of an hour you will never want to hear tell of anything else. There are about a hundred of us there, not those great, common, village pies who make a business of begging on the highways, but all noble and of good family, spry and slender and no larger than one's fist. There isn't one of us that has either more or less than seven black and five white spots ; the rule is unalterable, and we look with contempt on all the rest of the world. It is true that you have not the black spots, but you will have no difficulty in gaining admission on account of your Russian descent. Our time is spent in two occupations: cackling and prinking ourselves. From morning until midday we prink, and from noon till night we cackle. Each of us selects a tree to perch upon, the tallest and oldest that he can find. In the midst of the forest is a great oak that is uninhabited now, alas ! It was the dwelling of the late king Pie X, and we make pilgrimages to it, heaving many a deep sigh ; but, apart from this transitory grief, our life is as pleasant as we could wish. Our women are not prudes nor are our husbands jealous, but our pleasures are pure and honest, because our hearts are as noble as our tongues are merry and unrestrained. Our pride is unbounded, and if a jay or any such common trash happens to intrude his company upon us we pluck him without mercy. For all that, however, we are the most, good-natured people in the world, and the sparrows, the finches and the tomtits who live in our copses always find us ready to protect, feed and help them. Nowhere is cackling carried to greater perfection than among us and nowhere is there less scandal. There are plenty of bigoted old hen-pies who do nothing but say their prayers all day, but the friskiest of our young gossips can go right up to the severest old dowager and never get a scratch. To sum it all up, our life consists of pleasure, honor, chatter, glory, and the clothes we put on our backs."

" That is very nice, indeed, ma'am," I answered, "and it would certainly be a piece of very bad manners on my part not to obey your orders. Before doing myself the honor of following you, however, permit me, I pray you, to speak a word to this good damsel here Mademoiselle," I continued, ad-

dressing the turtle-dove, " I adjure you, speak frankly ; do you think that I am really a Russian pie ? "

At this question the turtle-dove drooped her head and her complexion changed to a light red, like Lolotte's ribbons.

STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD.

"Why, sir, I don't know if I can

" Speak, mademoiselle, for Heaven's sake ! I contemplate nothing that can possibly give you offense ; quite the reverse. You both appear so charming to me that I call Heaven to witness, here and now, that I will make offer of my heart and claw to either of you that will accept them, the very instant that I learn whether I am a pie or something else ; for," I added, lowering my voice a little to the young creature, u I feel an inexpressible turtle-dovish sensation as I gaze on you that causes a strange disquietude within me."

" Why, truly," said the turtle-dove, blushing more deeply still, "I don't know whether it is the sunlight striking on you through those poppies, but your plumage does seem to me to have a slight tint of "

She dared say no more.

" Oh, perplexity !" I cried, " how am I to know what to depend on ? how am I to decide to whom to give my heart when it is divided thus cruelly between you? O Socrates! how admirable was the precept that you gave us, but how difficult of observance, when you enjoined upon us : ' Know thyself ' ! "

I had not tried my voice since that day when my most unlucky song had so disturbed my father's equanimity, and now the idea occurred to me of making use of it as a means whereby I might arrive at the truth. u Parbleu l" Y said to myself, " since monsieur my father turned me out of doors for the first couplet, it seems a reasonable enough conclusior. that the second should produce an effect of some kii^d on these ladies." So, making a polite bow to starf iv^th,

STORY ®F A WHITE BLACKBIRD.

*5 as if appealing to their indulgence on account of the cold that I had caught in the rain-storm, I commenced by whistling, then I warbled, then I diverted my audience with a few trills, and finally I set to singing in earnest, vociferously, like a Spanish mule-driver in a gale of wind.

The little pie began to back away from me, and the louder I sang the further she retreated, at first with an air of surprise, which quickly changed to one of stupefaction, and finally terminated in a look of terror accompanied by deep disgust. She kept walking around me in a circle, as a cat walks around a piece of bacon, sizzling hot, against which she has burned her nose, but of which she thinks she would like to try another taste, notwithstanding. I saw how my experiment was turning out and wished to carry it to a conclusion, so, the more the poor marquise fretted and fumed, the more deliriously did I sing. She stood my melodious efforts for twenty-five minutes, but at last she succumbed and flew noisily away and retired to her palace of verdure. As for the turtle-dove, she had gone off into a sound slumber almost at the very, beginning.

" Delightful effect of harmony ! " I thought. " Oh, my dear native marsh ! Oh, maternal porringer ! More than ever am I firmly resolved to return to you ! "

Just as I was poising myself in readiness for flight the turtle-dove opened her eyes.

" Farewell," she said, " pretty and tiresome stranger ! My name is Gourouli ; don't forget me ! M

" Fair Gourouli/' I replied, " you are gentle, kind and charming ; I would like to live and <lie for you,

1 6 S70RV OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD.

but you are of the color of the rose ; such happiness was never meant for me ! M

IV

The distressing results of my singing could not but sadden me. " Alas, Music ! alas, Poetry ! " I said to myself as I winged my way back to Paris, " how few are the hearts that are able to comprehend you ! "

While pursuing these reflections I ran full tilt into a bird who was flying in a direction opposite to mine. The shock was so violent and so unexpected that we both fell into a tree, which, by great good luck, happened to be beneath us. When we had shaken ourselves and pulled ourselves together a bit, I looked at the stranger, fully expecting that there was going to be a quarrel. I saw with surprise that he was white ; his head was a little larger than mine, and rising from the middle of his forehead was a kind of plume that gave him an aspect half heroic, half comical. He carried his tail very erect, moreover, in a manner that bespoke an excessive intrepidity of soul ; he did not, however, seem to be disposed to quarrel with me. We accosted each other very civilly and made our mutual excuses, after which we entered into conversation. I took the liberty of asking him what was his name and from what country he was.

" I am surprised," he said, "that you do not know me. Are you not one of our people ?"

"Truly, sir," I replied, "I know not of what race I am. Every one asks me that very question and tells me the same thing ; I think they must be carrying out a bet that they have made."

"You are joking, surely," he replied ; "your plumage sets too well upon you that I should fail to recognize a confrere. You indubitably belong to that illustrious and venerable race that is known in Latin as Cacuata, in scientific nomenclature as Kakatoes, and in the vernacular of the vulgar as cockatoos."

" Faith, sir, that may be, and it would be a very great feather in my cap were it so. But favor me by acting as if it were not the case, and have the condescension to tell me to whom I have the honor of addressing myself."

" I am the great poet Kacatogan," the stranger replied. " I have been a mighty traveler, sir, and many are the tiresome journeys that I have made through arid realms and ways of heaviness. I am not a rhymester of yesterday, and my muse has seen misfortune. I have sung love ditties under Louis XVI., sir ; I have brawled for the republic, sung the empire in noble strains, applauded the restoration guardedly ; even in these later days I have made an effort and bowed my neck to meet the demands of this unlettered age. I have given to the world sparkling distichs, sublime odes, graceful dithyrambs, soulful elegies, stirring dramas, blood-curdling romances, vaudevilles in powder and tragedies in wig. In a word, I may flatter myself that I have added to the temple of the Muses some garlands of gallantry, some gloomy battlements and some graceful arabesques. What would you more ? I have grown old in harness, but I keep on rhyming still with pristine vigor, and even as you behold me now I had my mind on a poem in one canto, to be not less than six pages long, when you came along and gave me that lump on my forehead. Nevertheless, I am entirely at your service, if I can be of use to you."

" To tell the truth, sir, you can," I replied, " for I am in great poetic tribulation just now. I won't venture to say that I am a poet, and, above all, a great poet like you," I added, with a low bow, " but nature has kindly fitted me with an organ that makes its existence felt whenever I am joyous or sorrowful. To be entirely candid with you I am absolutely ignorant of all the rules of poetry."

" You need not let that trouble you," said Kacatogan ; " I myself have forgotten them."

" But there is a very disagreeable circumstance connected with my case," I continued; " my voice produces upon my hearers very much the same effect as

did that of a certain Jean de Nivelle upon You

know what I mean ? M

" I know," said Kacatogan. " I have experienced that singular effect in my own person. The cause is unknown to me, but the effect is indisputable."

" Very well, sir. Could you, who seem to me to be the Nestor of poetry, think you, suggest a remedy for this painful state of affairs ? "

" No," Kacatogan answered ; "speaking for myself, I have never succeeded in finding one. When I was young it worried me exceedingly that I should be constantly hissed, but now I never think of it. I think that this opposition arises from the fact that the public read other works than ours : they seem to like to do so."

" I am of your opinion; still, sir, you must admit that it is hard on a well-meaning creature that his audience should take to their heels the very moment

STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD.

*9 that he is seized by a fine inspiration. Would you do me the favor fo listen to me and tell me candidly what you think ? "

" With the greatest pleasure in the world," said Kacatogan ; " I am all ears."

I began to sing forthwith, and had the satisfaction of seeing that Kacatogan neither ran away nor went to sleep. He kept his eyes fixed intently on me and, every now and then, gave a little approving nod of the head accompanied by a low, flattering murmur. I soon perceived, however, that he was not listening at all and that his mind was on his poem. Taking advantage of a moment when I had stopped to breathe, he suddenly interrupted me.

" Ah, that rhyme! I have found it at last !" he said, with a smile and a toss of the head ; " that makes the sixty thousand seven hundred and fourteenth that has emanated from this brain ! And yet people dare to say that I show the effects of age ! I am going to read that to those good friends of mine ; I am going to read it to them, and we'll see what they have to say ! "

So saying he took flight and disappeared, seemingly oblivious of - the fact that he had ever met me.

V

Left thus solitary with my disappointment, there remained nothing better for me to do than profit by the daylight while it lasted and reach Paris in a single flight, if possible. Unfortunately I did not know the way ; my journey with the carrier-dove had been attended with too much discomfort to leave a distinct impression on my memory, so that instead of keeping straight on I turned to the left at Bonrget, and, the darkness descending suddenly upon me, I found myself obliged to look for a night's lodging in

the woods of Morfontaine.

When I reached there every one was making ready to retire for the night. The pies and jays, who, as is well known, are the worst sleepers on the face of the earth, were squabbling and wrangling on every side. The sparrows were squalling among the bushes, swarming and* treading one another underfoot. On the bank of the stream two herons, the George Dandins of the locality, were stalking gravely to and fro, perched on their tall stilts, patiently waiting for their wives in an attitude of profound meditation. Huge crows, already more than half asleep, settled heavily upon the tops of the tallest trees and commenced to drone out their evening prayer. Below, the amorous tomtits were pursuing one another through the copses, while a disheveled woodpecker, marching in rear of his little household, endeavored to marshal it into the hollow of an old tree. Battalions of hedge-sparrows came in from the fields, whirling in the air like smoke-wreaths, and threw themselves upon a shrub which they quite concealed from sight ; finches, blackcaps and redbreasts perched airily upon the projecting branches in little groups, like the crystal pendants on a girandole. From every side came the sound of voices that said as plainly as could be : " Come, wife ! — Come, my daughter ! — This way, pretty one ! — Come here, darling ! — Here I am, my dear !— -Good-night, dear mistress ! — Farewell, friends !— -Sleep soundly, children! "

Imagine what a predicament it was for a bachelor

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to have to take up his quarters in an inn like that ! I thought that I would go to some birds of station similar to my own and request their hospitality. All birds are gray in the dark, I said to myself, and besides, what harm can it do people to have a young fellow sleeping beside them if he behaves himself ?

I first bent my steps toward a ditch where there was * an assemblage of starlings. They were just making their toilet for the night and were devoting the most scrupulous attention to it, and I observed that most of them had their wings gilded and wore patent-leather claws : they were evidently the dandies of the forest. They were good enough fellows in their way and did not notice me, but their conversation was so shallow, they displayed such fatuousness in telling one another of their broils and their love affairs, and they crowded together so coarsely that I could not stand it.

Next I went and perched upon a limb where half-adozen birds of different kinds were sitting in a row. I modestly took the last place, away out on the end of the limb, in the hope that they would suffer me to remain there. As my ill-luck would have it my neighbor was a dove well on in years, as withered and juiceless as a rusty weather-cock on a church steeple. At the moment of my approach she was devoting an affectionate solicitude to the scanty feathers that covered her old bones ; she pretended to be smoothing them, bat she was too much afraid that she might pull one out to do that : she was only counting them over to see if they were all there. I barely touched her with the tip of my wing vvhen she drew herself up as majestically as you please.

•:. " What are you doing here, sir ? " she cried, with a

2 2 STORY OT A WHITE BLACKBIRD.