ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cossacks, by Leo TolstoyThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under theterms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.netTitle: The CossacksAuthor: Leo TolstoyTranslator: Louise and Aylmer MaudeRelease Date: January 18, 2009 [EBook#4761]Language: English*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COSSACKS ***Produced by Steve Harris, Charles Franks and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team.THE COSSACKSA Tale of1852ByLeo Tolstoy (1863)Translated by Louise and Aylmer MaudeChapter IAll is quiet in Moscow. The squeak of wheels is seldom heard in thesnow-covered street. There are no lights left in the windows and thestreetlamps have been extinguished. Only the sound of bells, borneover the city from the church towers, suggests the approach of morning.The streets are deserted. At rare intervals a night-cabman's sledgekneads up thesnow and sand in the street as the driver makes his wayto another corner where he falls asleep while waiting for a fare. Anold woman passes by on her way to church, where a few wax candles burnwith a red lightreflected on the gilt mountings of the icons. Workmenare already getting up after the long winter night and going to theirwork--but for the gentlefolk it is still evening.From a window in Chevalier's Restaurant alight--illegal at thathour--is still to be seen through a chink in the shutter. At theentrance a carriage, a sledge, and a cabman's sledge, stand closetogether with their backs to the curbstone. A three-horse sledge fromthepost-station is there also. A yard-porter muffled up and pinchedwith cold is sheltering behind the corner of the house.'And what's the good of all this jawing?' thinks the footman who sitsin the hall weary and haggard.'This always happens when I'm on duty.'From the adjoining room are heard the voices of three young men,sitting there at a table on which are wine and the remains of supper.One, a rather plain, thin, neat little man,sits looking with tiredkindly eyes at his friend, who is about to start on a journey. Another,a tall man, lies on a sofa beside a table on which are empty bottles,and plays with his watch-key. A third, wearing a short,fur-lined coat,is pacing up and down the room stopping now and then to crack an almondbetween his strong, rather thick, but well-tended fingers. He keepssmiling at something and his face and eyes are all aglow. Hespeakswarmly and gesticulates, but evidently does not find the words he wantsand those that occur to him seem to him inadequate to express what hasrisen to his heart.'Now I can speak out fully,' said the traveller. 'Idon't want todefend myself, but I should like you at least to understand me as Iunderstand myself, and not look at the matter superficially. You say Ihave treated her badly,' he continued, addressing the man withthekindly eyes who was watching him.'Yes, you are to blame,' said the latter, and his look seemed toexpress still more kindliness and weariness.'I know why you say that,' rejoined the one who was leaving. 'To belovedis in your opinion as great a happiness as to love, and if a manobtains it, it is enough for his whole life.''Yes, quite enough, my dear fellow, more than enough!' confirmed theplain little man, opening and shutting hiseyes.'But why shouldn't the man love too?' said the traveller thoughtfully,looking at his friend with something like pity. 'Why shouldn't onelove? Because love doesn't come ... No, to be beloved is a misfortune.It is amisfortune to feel guilty because you do not give something youcannot give. O my God!' he added, with a gesture of his arm. 'If it allhappened reasonably, and not all topsy-turvy--not in our way but in away of its own!Why, it's as if I had stolen that love! You think sotoo, don't deny it. You must think so. But will you believe it, of allthe horrid and stupid things I have found time to do in my life--andthere are many--this is one I do notand cannot repent of. Neither atthe beginning nor afterwards did I lie to myself or to her. It seemedto me that I had at last fallen in love, but then I saw that it was aninvoluntary falsehood, and that that was not theway to love, and Icould not go on, but she did. Am I to blame that I couldn't? What was Ito do?''Well, it's ended now!' said his friend, lighting a cigar to master hissleepiness. 'The fact is that you have not yet loved anddo not knowwhat love is.'The man in the fur-lined coat was going to speak again, and put hishands to his head, but could not express what he wanted to say.'Never loved! ... Yes, quite true, I never have! But after all, Ihavewithin me a desire to love, and nothing could be stronger than thatdesire! But then, again, does such love exist? There always remainssomething incomplete. Ah well! What's the use of talking? I've made anawfulmess of life! But anyhow it's all over now; you are quite right.And I feel that I am beginning a new life.''Which you will again make a mess of,' said the man who lay on the sofaplaying with his watch-key. But thetraveller did not listen to him.'I am sad and yet glad to go,' he continued. 'Why I am sad I don'tknow.'And the traveller went on talking about himself, without noticing thatthis did not interest the others as much as it didhim. A man is neversuch an egotist as at moments of spiritual ecstasy. At such times itseems to him that there is nothing on earth more splendid andinteresting than himself.'Dmitri Andreich! The coachman won't waitany longer!' said a youngserf, entering the room in a sheepskin coat, with a scarf tied roundhis head. 'The horses have been standing since twelve, and it's nowfour o'clock!'Dmitri Andreich looked at his serf, Vanyusha.The scarf roundVanyusha's head, his felt boots and sleepy face, seemed to be callinghis master to a new life of labour, hardship, and activity.'True enough! Good-bye!' said he, feeling for the unfastened hook andeye onhis coat.In spite of advice to mollify the coachman by another tip, he put onhis cap and stood in the middle of the room. The friends kissed once,then again, and after a pause, a third time. The man in the fur-linedcoatapproached the table and emptied a champagne glass, then took theplain little man's hand and blushed.'Ah well, I will speak out all the same ... I must and will be frankwith you because I am fond of you ... Of courseyou love her--I alwaysthought so--don't you?''Yes,' answered his friend, smiling still more gently.'And perhaps...''Please sir, I have orders to put out the candles,' said the sleepyattendant, who had been listening to thelast part of the conversationand wondering why gentlefolk always talk about one and the same thing.'To whom shall I make out the bill? To you, sir?' he added, knowingwhom to address and turning to the tall man.'Tome,' replied the tall man. 'How much?''Twenty-six rubles.'The tall man considered for a moment, but said nothing and put the billin his pocket.The other two continued their talk.'Good-bye, you are a capital fellow!' saidthe short plain man with themild eyes. Tears filled the eyes of both. They stepped into the porch.'Oh, by the by,' said the traveller, turning with a blush to the tallman, 'will you settle Chevalier's bill and write and let meknow?''All right, all right!' said the tall man, pulling on his gloves. 'HowI envy you!' he added quite unexpectedly when they were out in theporch.The traveller got into his sledge, wrapped his coat about him, andsaid:'Well then, come along!' He even moved a little to make room inthe sledge for the man who said he envied him--his voice trembled.'Good-bye, Mitya! I hope that with God's help you...' said the tallone. But his wish wasthat the other would go away quickly, and so hecould not finish the sentence.They were silent a moment. Then someone again said, 'Good-bye,' and avoice cried, 'Ready,' and the coachman touched up the horses.'Hy,Elisar!' One of the friends called out, and the other coachman andthe sledge-drivers began moving, clicking their tongues and pulling atthe reins. Then the stiffened carriage-wheels rolled squeaking over thefrozensnow.'A fine fellow, that Olenin!' said one of the friends. 'But what anidea to go to the Caucasus--as a cadet, too! I wouldn't do it foranything. ... Are you dining at the club to-morrow?''Yes.'They separated.The travellerfelt warm, his fur coat seemed too hot. He sat on thebottom of the sledge and unfastened his coat, and the three shaggypost-horses dragged themselves out of one dark street into another,past houses he had neverbefore seen. It seemed to Olenin that onlytravellers starting on a long journey went through those streets. Allwas dark and silent and dull around him, but his soul was full ofmemories, love, regrets, and a pleasanttearful feeling.Chapter II'I'm fond of them, very fond! ... First-rate fellows! ... Fine!' hekept repeating, and felt ready to cry. But why he wanted to cry, whowere the first-rate fellows he was so fond of--was more than hequiteknew. Now and then he looked round at some house and wondered why itwas so curiously built; sometimes he began wondering why the post-boyand Vanyusha, who were so different from himself, sat so near,andtogether with him were being jerked about and swayed by the tugs theside-horses gave at the frozen traces, and again he repeated: 'Firstrate ... very fond!' and once he even said: 'And how it seizes one...excellent!' and wondered what made him say it. 'Dear me, am I drunk?'he asked himself. He had had a couple of bottles of wine, but it wasnot the wine alone that was having this effect on Olenin. He rememberedallthe words of friendship heartily, bashfully, spontaneously (as hebelieved) addressed to him on his departure. He remembered the clasp ofhands, glances, the moments of silence, and the sound of a voicesaying,'Good-bye, Mitya!' when he was already in the sledge. Heremembered his own deliberate frankness. And all this had a touchingsignificance for him. Not only friends and relatives, not only peoplewho had beenindifferent to him, but even those who did not like him,seemed to have agreed to become fonder of him, or to forgive him,before his departure, as people do before confession or death. 'PerhapsI shall not return fromthe Caucasus,' he thought. And he felt that heloved his friends and some one besides. He was sorry for himself. Butit was not love for his friends that so stirred and uplifted his heartthat he could not repress themeaningless words that seemed to rise ofthemselves to his lips; nor was it love for a woman (he had never yetbeen in love) that had brought on this mood. Love for himself, lovefull of hope--warm young love for allthat was good in his own soul(and at that moment it seemed to him that there was nothing but good init)--compelled him to weep and to mutter incoherent words.Olenin was a youth who had never completed hisuniversity course, neverserved anywhere (having only a nominal post in some government officeor other), who had squandered half his fortune and had reached the ageof twenty-four without having done anything oreven chosen a career. Hewas what in Moscow society is termed un jeune homme.At the age of eighteen he was free--as only rich young Russians in the'forties who had lost their parents at an early age could be.Neitherphysical nor moral fetters of any kind existed for him; he could do ashe liked, lacking nothing and bound by nothing. Neither relatives, norfatherland, nor religion, nor wants, existed for him. He believedinnothing and admitted nothing. But although he believed in nothing hewas not a morose or blase young man, nor self-opinionated, but on thecontrary continually let himself be carried away. He had come totheconclusion that there is no such thing as love, yet his heart alwaysoverflowed in the presence of any young and attractive woman. He hadlong been aware that honours and position were nonsense, yetinvoluntarilyhe felt pleased when at a ball Prince Sergius came up andspoke to him affably. But he yielded to his impulses only in so far asthey did not limit his freedom. As soon as he had yielded to anyinfluence and becameconscious of its leading on to labour andstruggle, he instinctively hastened to free himself from the feeling oractivity into which he was being drawn and to regain his freedom. Inthis way he experimented withsociety-life, the civil service, farming,music--to which at one time he intended to devote his life--and evenwith the love of women in which he did not believe. He meditated on theuse to which he should devote thatpower of youth which is granted toman only once in a lifetime: that force which gives a man the power ofmaking himself, or even--as it seemed to him--of making the universe,into anything he wishes: should it be toart, to science, to love ofwoman, or to practical activities? It is true that some people aredevoid of this impulse, and on entering life at once place their necksunder the first yoke that offers itself and honestly labourunder itfor the rest of their lives. But Olenin was too strongly conscious ofthe presence of that all-powerful God of Youth--of that capacity to beentirely transformed into an aspiration or idea--the capacity to wishand todo--to throw oneself headlong into a bottomless abyss withoutknowing why or wherefore. He bore this consciousness within himself,was proud of it and, without knowing it, was happy in thatconsciousness. Up to thattime he had loved only himself, and could nothelp loving himself, for he expected nothing but good of himself andhad not yet had time to be disillusioned. On leaving Moscow he was inthat happy state of mind in whicha young man, conscious of pastmistakes, suddenly says to himself, 'That was not the real thing.' Allthat had gone before was accidental and unimportant. Till then he hadnot really tried to live, but now with hisdeparture from Moscow a newlife was beginning--a life in which there would be no mistakes, noremorse, and certainly nothing but happiness.It is always the case on a long journey that till the first two orthree stageshave been passed imagination continues to dwell on theplace left behind, but with the first morning on the road it leaps tothe end of the journey and there begins building castles in the air. Soit happened to Olenin.Afterleaving the town behind, he gazed at the snowy fields and feltglad to be alone in their midst. Wrapping himself in his fur coat, helay at the bottom of the sledge, became tranquil, and fell into a doze.The parting with hisfriends had touched him deeply, and memories ofthat last winter spent in Moscow and images of the past, mingled withvague thoughts and regrets, rose unbidden in his imagination.He remembered the friend who hadseen him off and his relations withthe girl they had talked about. The girl was rich. "How could he loveher knowing that she loved me?" thought he, and evil suspicions crossedhis mind. "There is much dishonesty in menwhen one comes to reflect."Then he was confronted by the question: "But really, how is it I havenever been in love? Every one tells me that I never have. Can it bethat I am a moral monstrosity?" And he began to recallall hisinfatuations. He recalled his entry into society, and a friend's sisterwith whom he spent several evenings at a table with a lamp on it whichlit up her slender fingers busy with needlework, and the lower part ofherpretty delicate face. He recalled their conversations that draggedon like the game in which one passes on a stick which one keeps alightas long as possible, and the general awkwardness and restraint and hiscontinualfeeling of rebellion at all that conventionality. Some voicehad always whispered: "That's not it, that's not it," and so it hadproved. Then he remembered a ball and the mazurka he danced with thebeautiful D----. "Howmuch in love I was that night and how happy! Andhow hurt and vexed I was next morning when I woke and felt myself stillfree! Why does not love come and bind me hand and foot?" thought he."No, there is no suchthing as love! That neighbour who used to tellme, as she told Dubrovin and the Marshal, that she loved the stars, wasnot IT either." And now his farming and work in the country recurred tohis mind, and in thoserecollections also there was nothing to dwell onwith pleasure. "Will they talk long of my departure?" came into hishead; but who "they" were he did not quite know. Next came a thoughtthat made him wince and mutterincoherently. It was the recollection ofM. Cappele the tailor, and the six hundred and seventy-eight rubles hestill owed him, and he recalled the words in which he had begged him towait another year, and the look ofperplexity and resignation which hadappeared on the tailor's face. 'Oh, my God, my God!' he repeated,wincing and trying to drive away the intolerable thought. 'All the sameand in spite of everything she loved me,'thought he of the girl theyhad talked about at the farewell supper. 'Yes, had I married her Ishould not now be owing anything, and as it is I am in debt toVasilyev.' Then he remembered the last night he had playedwithVasilyev at the club (just after leaving her), and he recalled hishumiliating requests for another game and the other's cold refusal. 'Ayear's economizing and they will all be paid, and the devil takethem!'... Butdespite this assurance he again began calculating hisoutstanding debts, their dates, and when he could hope to pay them off.'And I owe something to Morell as well as to Chevalier,' thought he,recalling the night whenhe had run up so large a debt. It was at acarousel at the gipsies arranged by some fellows from Petersburg:Sashka B---, an aide-de-camp to the Tsar, Prince D---, and that pompousold----. 'How is it those gentlemenare so self-satisfied?' thought he,'and by what right do they form a clique to which they think othersmust be highly flattered to be admitted? Can it be because they are onthe Emperor's staff? Why, it's awful what foolsand scoundrels theyconsider other people to be! But I showed them that I at any rate, onthe contrary, do not at all want their intimacy. All the same, I fancyAndrew, the steward, would be amazed to know that I am onfamiliarterms with a man like Sashka B---, a colonel and an aide-de-camp to theTsar! Yes, and no one drank more than I did that evening, and I taughtthe gipsies a new song and everyone listened to it. Though I havedonemany foolish things, all the same I am a very good fellow,' thought he.Morning found him at the third post-stage. He drank tea, and himselfhelped Vanyusha to move his bundles and trunks and sat down amongthem,sensible, erect, and precise, knowing where all his belongings were,how much money he had and where it was, where he had put his passportand the post-horse requisition and toll-gate papers, and it allseemedto him so well arranged that he grew quite cheerful and the longjourney before him seemed an extended pleasure-trip.All that morning and noon he was deep in calculations of how manyversts he had travelled,how many remained to the next stage, how manyto the next town, to the place where he would dine, to the place wherehe would drink tea, and to Stavropol, and what fraction of the wholejourney was alreadyaccomplished. He also calculated how much money hehad with him, how much would be left over, how much would pay off allhis debts, and what proportion of his income he would spend each month.Towards evening,after tea, he calculated that to Stavropol there stillremained seven-elevenths of the whole journey, that his debts wouldrequire seven months' economy and one-eighth of his whole fortune; andthen, tranquillized, hewrapped himself up, lay down in the sledge, andagain dozed off. His imagination was now turned to the future: to theCaucasus. All his dreams of the future were mingled with pictures ofAmalat-Beks, Circassian women,mountains, precipices, terribletorrents, and perils. All these things were vague and dim, but the loveof fame and the danger of death furnished the interest of that future.Now, with unprecedented courage and a strengththat amazed everyone, heslew and subdued an innumerable host of hillsmen; now he was himself ahillsman and with them was maintaining their independence against theRussians. As soon as he pictured anythingdefinite, familiar Moscowfigures always appeared on the scene. Sashka B---fights with theRussians or the hillsmen against him. Even the tailor Cappele in somestrange way takes part in the conqueror's triumph. Amidall this heremembered his former humiliations, weaknesses, and mistakes, and therecollection was not disagreeable. It was clear that there among themountains, waterfalls, fair Circassians, and dangers, suchmistakescould not recur. Having once made full confession to himself there wasan end of it all. One other vision, the sweetest of them all, mingledwith the young man's every thought of the future--the vision of awoman.And there, among the mountains, she appeared to his imagination as aCircassian slave, a fine figure with a long plait of hair and deepsubmissive eyes. He pictured a lonely hut in the mountains, and on


ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pierre and Jean, by Guy de MaupassantThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away orre-use itunder the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.orgTitle: Pierre and JeanAuthor: Guy de MaupassantTranslator: Clara BellRelease Date: April 12, 2006 [EBook#3804]Last Updated: February 23, 2018Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: UTF-8*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIERRE AND JEAN ***Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; HTML file by DavidWidgerPIERRE & JEANBy Guy De MaupassantTranslated By Clara BellCHAPTER IâTschah!â exclaimed old Roland suddenly, after he had remainedmotionless for a quarter of an hour, his eyes fixed on the water,whilenow and again he very slightly lifted his line sunk in the sea.Mme. Roland, dozing in the stern by the side of Mme. Rosemilly, who hadbeen invited to join the fishing-party, woke up, and turning her head tolook ather husband, said:âWell, well! Gerome.âAnd the old fellow replied in a fury:âThey do not bite at all. I have taken nothing since noon. Only menshould ever go fishing. Women always delay the start till it istoolate.âHis two sons, Pierre and Jean, who each held a line twisted round hisforefinger, one to port and one to starboard, both began to laugh, andJean remarked:âYou are not very polite to our guest,father.âM. Roland was abashed, and apologized.âI beg your pardon, Mme. Rosemilly, but that is just like me. I inviteladies because I like to be with them, and then, as soon as I feel thewater beneath me, Ithink of nothing but the fish.âMme. Roland was now quite awake, and gazing with a softened look at thewide horizon of cliff and sea.âYou have had good sport, all the same,â she murmured.But her husbandshook his head in denial, though at the same time heglanced complacently at the basket where the fish caught by the threemen were still breathing spasmodically, with a low rustle of clammyscales and struggling fins,and dull, ineffectual efforts, gasping inthe fatal air. Old Roland took the basket between his knees and tiltedit up, making the silver heap of creatures slide to the edge that hemight see those lying at the bottom, andtheir death-throes became moreconvulsive, while the strong smell of their bodies, a wholesome reekof brine, came up from the full depths of the creel. The old fishermansniffed it eagerly, as we smell at roses, andexclaimed:âCristi! But they are fresh enough!â and he went on: âHow many did youpull out, doctor?âHis eldest son, Pierre, a man of thirty, with black whiskers trimmedsquare like a lawyer's, hismustache and beard shaved away, replied:âOh, not many; three or four.âThe father turned to the younger. âAnd you, Jean?â said he.Jean, a tall fellow, much younger than his brother, fair, with afullbeard, smiled and murmured:âMuch the same as Pierre--four or five.âEvery time they told the same fib, which delighted father Roland. He hadhitched his line round a row-lock, and folding his arms heannounced:âI will never again try to fish after noon. After ten in the morning itis all over. The lazy brutes will not bite; they are taking their siestain the sun.â And he looked round at the sea on all sides, withthesatisfied air of a proprietor.He was a retired jeweller who had been led by an inordinate love ofseafaring and fishing to fly from the shop as soon as he had made enoughmoney to live in modest comfort on theinterest of his savings. Heretired to le Havre, bought a boat, and became an amateur skipper.His two sons, Pierre and Jean, had remained at Paris to continue theirstudies, and came for the holidays from time to time toshare theirfather's amusements.On leaving school, Pierre, the elder, five years older than Jean, hadfelt a vocation to various professions and had tried half a dozen insuccession, but, soon disgusted with each in turn, hestarted afreshwith new hopes. Medicine had been his last fancy, and he had set to workwith so much ardour that he had just qualified after an unusually shortcourse of study, by a special remission of time from theminister. Hewas enthusiastic, intelligent, fickle, but obstinate, full of Utopiasand philosophical notions.Jean, who was as fair as his brother was dark, as deliberate as hisbrother was vehement, as gentle as his brotherwas unforgiving, hadquietly gone through his studies for the law and had just taken hisdiploma as a licentiate, at the time when Pierre had taken his inmedicine. So they were now having a little rest at home, and bothlookedforward to settling in Havre if they could find a satisfactory opening.But a vague jealousy, one of those dormant jealousies which grow upbetween brothers or sisters and slowly ripen till they burst, on theoccasionof a marriage perhaps, or of some good fortune happening toone of them, kept them on the alert in a sort of brotherly andnon-aggressive animosity. They were fond of each other, it is true, butthey watched each other.Pierre, five years old when Jean was born,had looked with the eyes of a little petted animal at that other littleanimal which had suddenly come to lie in his father's and mother's armsand to be loved and fondled by them.Jean, from his birth, had alwaysbeen a pattern of sweetness, gentleness, and good temper, and Pierre hadby degrees begun to chafe at ever-lastingly hearing the praises of thisgreat lad, whose sweetness in his eyeswas indolence, whose gentlenesswas stupidity, and whose kindliness was blindness. His parents, whosedream for their sons was some respectable and undistinguished calling,blamed him for so often changing his mind,for his fits of enthusiasm,his abortive beginnings, and all his ineffectual impulses towardsgenerous ideas and the liberal professions.Since he had grown to manhood they no longer said in so many words:âLook atJean and follow his example,â but every time he heard them sayâJean did this--Jean does that,â he understood their meaning and thehint the words conveyed.Their mother, an orderly person, a thrifty andrather sentimental womanof the middle class, with the soul of a soft-hearted book-keeper, wasconstantly quenching the little rivalries between her two big sonsto which the petty events of their life constantly gave rise.Anotherlittle circumstance, too, just now disturbed her peace of mind, andshe was in fear of some complications; for in the course of the winter,while her boys were finishing their studies, each in his own line, shehadmade the acquaintance of a neighbour, Mme. Rosemilly, the widow of acaptain of a merchantman who had died at sea two years before. The youngwidow--quite young, only three-and-twenty--a woman of strongintellectwho knew life by instinct as the free animals do, as though shehad seen, gone through, understood, and weighted every conceivablecontingency, and judged them with a wholesome, strict, and benevolentmind,had fallen into the habit of calling to work or chat for an hourin the evening with these friendly neighbours, who would give her a cupof tea.Father Roland, always goaded on by his seafaring craze, would questiontheirnew friend about the departed captain; and she would talk of him,and his voyages, and his old-world tales, without hesitation, like aresigned and reasonable woman who loves life and respects death.The two sons ontheir return, finding the pretty widow quite at home inthe house, forthwith began to court her, less from any wish to charm herthan from the desire to cut each other out.Their mother, being practical and prudent,sincerely hoped that one ofthem might win the young widow, for she was rich; but then she wouldhave liked that the other should not be grieved.Mme. Rosemilly was fair, with blue eyes, a mass of light wavinghair,fluttering at the least breath of wind, and an alert, daring, pugnaciouslittle way with her, which did not in the least answer to the sobermethod of her mind.She already seemed to like Jean best, attracted, no doubt,by anaffinity of nature. This preference, however, she betrayed only byan almost imperceptible difference of voice and look and also byoccasionally asking his opinion. She seemed to guess that Jean'sviews wouldsupport her own, while those of Pierre must inevitablybe different. When she spoke of the doctor's ideas on politics, art,philosophy, or morals, she would sometimes say: âYour crotchets.â Thenhe would look ather with the cold gleam of an accuser drawing up anindictment against women--all women, poor weak things.Never till his sons came home had M. Roland invited her to join hisfishing expeditions, nor had he ever takenhis wife; for he liked to putoff before daybreak, with his ally, Captain Beausire, a master marinerretired, whom he had first met on the quay at high tides and with whomhe had struck up an intimacy, and the old sailorPapagris, known as JeanBart, in whose charge the boat was left.But one evening of the week before, Mme. Rosemilly, who had been diningwith them, remarked, âIt must be great fun to go out fishing.âThejeweller, flattered by her interest and suddenly fired with the wishto share his favourite sport with her, and to make a convert after themanner of priests, exclaimed: âWould you like to come?ââTo besure I should.ââNext Tuesday?ââYes, next Tuesday.ââAre you the woman to be ready to start at five in the morning?âShe exclaimed in horror:âNo, indeed: that is too much.âHe wasdisappointed and chilled, suddenly doubting her true vocation.However, he said:âAt what hour can you be ready?ââWell--at nine?ââNot before?ââNo, not before. Even that is veryearly.âThe old fellow hesitated; he certainly would catch nothing, for when thesun has warmed the sea the fish bite no more; but the two brothers hadeagerly pressed the scheme, and organized and arrangedeverything thereand then.So on the following Tuesday the Pearl had dropped anchor under the whiterocks of Cape la Heve; they had fished till midday, then they had sleptawhile, and then fished again without catchinganything; and then itwas that father Roland, perceiving, rather late, that all that Mme.Rosemilly really enjoyed and cared for was the sail on the sea, andseeing that his lines hung motionless, had uttered in a spiritofunreasonable annoyance, that vehement âTschah!â which applied as much tothe pathetic widow as to the creatures he could not catch.Now he contemplated the spoil--his fish--with the joyful thrill of amiser;seeing as he looked up at the sky that the sun was getting low:âWell, boys,â said he, âsuppose we turn homeward.âThe young men hauled in their lines, coiled them up, cleaned the hooksand stuckthem into corks, and sat waiting.Roland stood up to look out like a captain.âNo wind,â said he. âYou will have to pull, young 'uns.âAnd suddenly extending one arm to the northward, heexclaimed:âHere comes the packet from Southampton.âAway over the level sea, spread out like a blue sheet, vast and sheenyand shot with flame and gold, an inky cloud was visible against the rosysky in thequarter to which he pointed, and below it they could make outthe hull of the steamer, which looked tiny at such a distance. And tosouthward other wreaths of smoke, numbers of them, could be seen, allconvergingtowards the Havre pier, now scarcely visible as a whitestreak with the lighthouse, upright, like a horn, at the end of it.Roland asked: âIs not the Normandie due to-day?â And Jean replied:âYes,to-day.ââGive me my glass. I fancy I see her out there.âThe father pulled out the copper tube, adjusted it to his eye, soughtthe speck, and then, delighted to have seen it, exclaimed:âYes, yes, there sheis. I know her two funnels. Would you like to look,Mme. Rosemilly?âShe took the telescope and directed it towards the Atlantic horizon,without being able, however, to find the vessel, for she coulddistinguishnothing--nothing but blue, with a coloured halo round it, acircular rainbow--and then all manner of queer things, winking eclipseswhich made her feel sick.She said as she returned the glass:âI never could see withthat thing. It used to put my husband in quite arage; he would stand for hours at the windows watching the ships pass.âOld Roland, much put out, retorted:âThen it must be some defect in your eye, for myglass is a very goodone.âThen he offered it to his wife.âWould you like to look?ââNo, thank you. I know before hand that I could not see through it.âMme. Roland, a woman of eight-and-forty butwho did not look it, seemedto be enjoying this excursion and this waning day more than any of theparty.Her chestnut hair was only just beginning to show streaks of white. Shehad a calm, reasonable face, a kind andhappy way with her which itwas a pleasure to see. Her son Pierre was wont to say that she knew thevalue of money, but this did not hinder her from enjoying the delightsof dreaming. She was fond of reading, of novels,and poetry, not fortheir value as works of art, but for the sake of the tender melancholymood they would induce in her. A line of poetry, often but a poor one,often a bad one, would touch the little chord, as sheexpressed it, andgive her the sense of some mysterious desire almost realized. And shedelighted in these faint emotions which brought a little flutter to hersoul, otherwise as strictly kept as a ledger.Since settling atHavre she had become perceptibly stouter, and herfigure, which had been very supple and slight, had grown heavier.This day on the sea had been delightful to her. Her husband, withoutbeing brutal, was rough withher, as a man who is the despot of hisshop is apt to be rough, without anger or hatred; to such men to give anorder is to swear. He controlled himself in the presence of strangers,but in private he let loose and gavehimself terrible vent, though hewas himself afraid of every one. She, in sheer horror of the turmoil,of scenes, of useless explanations, always gave way and never asked foranything; for a very long time she had notventured to ask Roland totake her out in the boat. So she had joyfully hailed this opportunity,and was keenly enjoying the rare and new pleasure.From the moment when they started she surrendered herselfcompletely,body and soul, to the soft, gliding motion over the waves. She was notthinking; her mind was not wandering through either memories or hopes;it seemed to her as though her heart, like her body, wasfloating onsomething soft and liquid and delicious which rocked and lulled it.When their father gave the word to return, âCome, take your places atthe oars!â she smiled to see her sons, her two great boys, takeofftheir jackets and roll up their shirt-sleeves on their bare arms.Pierre, who was nearest to the two women, took the stroke oar, Jean theother, and they sat waiting till the skipper should say: âGive way!â Forheinsisted on everything being done according to strict rule.Simultaneously, as if by a single effort, they dipped the oars, andlying back, pulling with all their might, began a struggle to displaytheir strength. They hadcome out easily, under sail, but the breezehad died away, and the masculine pride of the two brothers was suddenlyaroused by the prospect of measuring their powers. When they went outalone with their father theyplied the oars without any steering, forRoland would be busy getting the lines ready, while he kept a lookout inthe boat's course, guiding it by a sign or a word: âEasy, Jean, and you,Pierre, put your back intoit.â Or he would say, âNow, then, numberone; come, number two--a little elbow grease.â Then the one who had beendreaming pulled harder, the one who had got excited eased down, and theboat's headcame round.But to-day they meant to display their biceps. Pierre's arms were hairy,somewhat lean but sinewy; Jean's were round and white and rosy, and theknot of muscles moved under the skin.At first Pierre hadthe advantage. With his teeth set, his brow knit,his legs rigid, his hands clinched on the oar, he made it bend fromend to end at every stroke, and the Pearl was veering landward. FatherRoland, sitting in the bows, so asto leave the stern seat to the twowomen, wasted his breath shouting, âEasy, number one; pull harder,number two!â Pierre pulled harder in his frenzy, and ânumber twoâ couldnot keep time with his wildstroke.At last the skipper cried: âStop her!â The two oars were liftedsimultaneously, and then by his father's orders Jean pulled alone fora few minutes. But from that moment he had it all his own way; hegreweager and warmed to his work, while Pierre, out of breath and exhaustedby his first vigorous spurt, was lax and panting. Four times runningfather Roland made them stop while the elder took breath, so as togetthe boat into her right course again. Then the doctor, humiliated andfuming, his forehead dropping with sweat, his cheeks white, stammeredout:âI cannot think what has come over me; I have a stitch in myside. Istarted very well, but it has pulled me up.âJean asked: âShall I pull alone with both oars for a time?ââNo, thanks, it will go off.âAnd their mother, somewhat vexed, said:âWhy, Pierre, whatrhyme or reason is there in getting into such astate. You are not a child.âAnd he shrugged his shoulders and set to once more.Mme. Rosemilly pretended not to see, not to understand, not to hear.Her fair head wentback with an engaging little jerk every time the boatmoved forward, making the fine wayward hairs flutter about her temples.But father Roland presently called out:âLook, the Prince Albert is catching usup!âThey all looked round. Long and low in the water, with her tworaking funnels and two yellow paddle-boxes like two round cheeks,the Southampton packet came ploughing on at full steam, crowdedwithpassengers under open parasols. Its hurrying, noisy paddle-wheelsbeating up the water which fell again in foam, gave it an appearance ofhaste as of a courier pressed for time, and the upright stem cut throughthewater, throwing up two thin translucent waves which glided off alongthe hull.When it had come quite near the Pearl, father Roland lifted his hat,the ladies shook their handkerchiefs, and half a dozen parasolseagerlywaved on board the steamboat responded to this salute as she went on herway, leaving behind her a few broad undulations on the still and glassysurface of the sea.There were other vessels, each with its smokycap, coming in from everypart of the horizon towards the short white jetty, which swallowed themup, one after another, like a mouth. And the fishing barks and lightercraft with broad sails and slender masts, stealingacross the sky in towof inconspicuous tugs, were coming in, faster and slower, towards thedevouring ogre, who from time to time seemed to have had a surfeit, andspewed out to the open sea another fleet of steamers,brigs, schooners,and three-masted vessels with their tangled mass of rigging. Thehurrying steamships flew off to the right and left over the smooth bosomof the ocean, while sailing vessels, cast off by the pilot-tugswhichhad hauled them out, lay motionless, dressing themselves from themain-mast to the fore-tops in canvas, white or brown, and ruddy in thesetting sun.Mme. Roland, with her eyes half-shut, murmured: âGoodheavens, howbeautiful the sea is!âAnd Mme. Rosemilly replied with a long sigh, which, however, had nosadness in it:âYes, but it is sometimes very cruel, all the same.âRoland exclaimed:âLook, there isthe Normandie just going in. A big ship, isn't she?âThen he described the coast opposite, far, far away, on the other sideof the mouth of the Seine--that mouth extended over twenty kilometres,said he. He pointedout Villerville, Trouville, Houlgate, Luc,Arromanches, the little river of Caen, and the rocks of Calvados whichmake the coast unsafe as far as Cherbourg. Then he enlarged on thequestion of the sand-banks in the Seine,which shift at every tide sothat even the pilots of Quilleboeuf are at fault if they do not surveythe channel every day. He bid them notice how the town of Havre dividedUpper from Lower Normandy. In Lower Normandythe shore sloped downto the sea in pasture-lands, fields, and meadows. The coast of UpperNormandy, on the contrary, was steep, a high cliff, ravined, cleft andtowering, forming an immense white rampart all the wayto Dunkirk,while in each hollow a village or a port lay hidden: Etretat, Fecamp,Saint-Valery, Treport, Dieppe, and the rest.The two women did not listen. Torpid with comfort and impressed by thesight of the oceancovered with vessels rushing to and fro like wildbeasts about their den, they sat speechless, somewhat awed by thesoothing and gorgeous sunset. Roland alone talked on without end; hewas one of those whom nothing


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                     INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM                                 STORYBY:                               GEORGE LUCAS                               SCREENPLAY BY:                               WILLARDHUYCK                                    AND                                GLORIA KATZ        TM* & (c) Lucasfilm Ltd., 1984                                --------------       FADEIN:1.     INT.  "THE DRAGON" NIGHTCLUB - NIGHT                            1.       A Chinese GONG SOUNDS and the glittering doors of an art Deco pa-       poda slide open to reveal a mammoth silverstairway down which       rows of beautiful women start descending   (BEGIN MAIN TITLES)       The lovely ladies are a mix of races and they sing a strange,       haunting melody -- one might think them a heavenlychoir, if it       weren't for their sexy, clinging lame gowns.2.     INT.  CLUB ENTRANCE                                             2.       From the ethereal beauties, we cut to a street urchin's dirty       face: SHORTROUND is a ten-year-old Chinese kis wearing a beat-       up American baseball cap.       Sneaking into the club, Short Round weaves past the fancy gowns       and silk suits, heading toward the music in the mainballroom.3.     INT.  THE BALLROOM                                              3.       Short Round enters and stares across the smoky nightclub.  On the       stage, he sees a giant paper-mache dragon laying curledaround       the pagoda.       Now, the dragon's eyes light up, its nostrils exhale smoke and       its enormous jaws open.  Out of the dragon's mouth walks the star       of the stage show:       WILLIE SCOTT, a dreamybeauty singing a sultry solo white the or-       chestra wails the accompaniment.       But Short Round's not here to ogle crooning dames.  He surveys       the rich Chinese, American and European revelers.  Jewelsflash       and champagne flows.  Short Round finally spots a table of       somber-looking Chinese men in suits.       Short Round chews gum and stares at the men.  Then he turns to       go.  WU HAN, a waiter with ascar across his cheek, watches Short       Round leave.4.     INT.  CLUB ENTRANCE                                            4.       As Short Round hurries toward the exit, he bumps into a man in a       tuxedo enteringthe club.  Short Round looks up at the man, but       we don't see his face.       Then Short Round is grabbed by the scruff of his neck and a door-       man hustles him out the door, Short Round yelling insults allthe       way.       A maitre d' apologizes to the man in the tuxedo and two hat-check       girls smile at him familiarly as he continues into the ballroom.       We notice something incongruous:  the man in the tuxedo iswear-       ing work boots caked with mud.5.     INT.  THE BALLROOM                                             5.       The man in the tuxedo stops to watch Willie Scott singing sexily       on the stage.  Then he looksaround and sees the table of somber       Chinese men that Short Round spotted earlier.       As the man in the tuxedo walks toward the table, he removes a       cigarette from a silver case.  He arrives at the table justas       the chorus and orchestra reach a crescendo --       And on the stage, a glistening, muscular slave swings a huge ham-       mer toward an enormous brass gong --       The man in the tuxedo leans to receive alight from a cigarette-       girl and, as the GONG BOOMS, the match flares to reveal his face       for the first time:       It's INDIANA JONES.  Elegant in a tuxedo -- dressed to kill.  The       TITLES END and over this alegend appears on the screen:                                SHANGHAI - 1935       At the table, the four Chinese man in suits stare coldly at Indi-       ana.                                   LAO                       Dr.Jones.                                   INDIANA                       Lao She.                                   LAO                       Nee chin lie how ma?       Lao's men laugh and assume that Indy doesn't understand hisjoke.                                   INDIANA                       Wah hung how, nee nah?  Wah hwey                       hung jing chee jah loo nee kao                       soo wah shu shu.       LAO SHE looks angry and hismen's smiles fade.                                   LAO                       You never told me you spoke my                       language, Dr. Jones.                                   INDIANA                       I don't like toshow off.       Indiana takes a seat across the table from Shanghai's notorious       crime-lord.  Lao is fifty, wealthy enough to now display some       fat, but still muscular from his fight to the top of thegarbage       heap.                                   LAO                       For this special occasion, I                       ordered champagne and caviar.       Indiana looks at the pile of caviar on the plate in front ofhim       -- and stubs his cigarette out in it.  The cigarette sizzles and       Lao's smiles dies with it.       There's applause as Wille Scott finishes her song.  At the       table, Lao stares at Indiana with a strangeintensity.                                   LAO                       So, it is true, Dr. Jones?  you                       found Nurhachi?                                   INDIANA                       Sure, I found him.  Thenlast                       night I had a little trouble.                       Somebody tried to slit my throat.       Indiana looks across the table at Lao's son, CHEN, who resembles       a bulldog and snarls like onenow.                                   INDIANA (Cont'd)                       It was dark, but I think one of                       your sons tried to get Nurhachi                       without paying for him.       Indy stares pointedly at Chen'srecently bandaged hand.  Chen       mutters and stands angrily -- Lao barks a command in Chinese and       Chen sits down again.                                   LAO                       You have insulted myson.                                   INDIANA                       Next time I'll cut off more than                       his finger.                                   LAO                       Dr. Jones -- I want Nurhachi.       Lao pullsa wad of cash out of his pocket and puts it on the       table.  Indiana glances at it.                                   INDIANA                       As I recall the deal was consid-                       erably more.       Now apretty hand slips onto Lao's shoulder and he looks up to       see Willie Scott.  Lao kisses her hand.  Willie is unaware of the       explosive mood at the table and she smiles flirtaciously atIndi-       ana.                                   WILLIE                                   (to Lao)                       Aren't you going to introduce                       us?                                   LAO                       This isWillie Scott.                             (watching Indy)                       And this is Indiana Jones, the                       famous archaeologist.       Willie sits down between Lao and Indy.  She takes out a small       mirror to checkher make-up.                                   LAO (Cont'd)                       Dr. Jones found Nurhachi for me                       and is about to deliver him --                       now.       Lao nods across the table and Indy sees KAOKAN, Lao's second       son, open his coat and remove a silver-plated pistol.  Indiana       looks worried.  Willie doesn't notice as she fixes her make-up       and coyly teasesIndiana.                                   WILLIE                       Well -- I thought archaeologists                       were always funny little men                       searching for their mummies--                                  (yelping)                       Aaahhh!       She looks down terrified at the knife Indy is poking against her       ribs.                                   WILLE (Cont'd)                       I was only kidding, can'tyou                       take a joke -- ?                                  (to Lao)                       Lao, he's got a knife!                                   INDIANA                       Put the gun away, sonny.       Kao Kan glances at hisfather.  Lao finally nods to his son and       he slips the pistol back into his pocket.                                   INDIANA                       Now I suggest you pay me what you                       promised -- or yourgirlfriend                       here is going to be squealing a                       new tune.       The ritzy patrons at the tables nearby are unaware of the tawdry       drama quietly unfolding at this table.       Willie eyes the bladeand whimpers.  She looks imploringly at Lao       and he slowly reaches into his pocket.  He puts ten gold coins       next to the cash on the table.       Indy leans forward to look at the gold coins -- so intently that       hefails to notice Kao Kan spilling some powder into Indy's cham-       pagne glass!                                   INDIANA                       Try again Lao -- the deal was                       more.       The knife pokes Willieand she whimpers again.  Lao reaches into       another pocket and brings out a folded piece of rice paper -- he       opens it and a large diamond and ruby spill out onto the table.                                   INDIANA(Cont'd)                       Bingo...you see, Lao, with a                       but of persuasion, even you can                       be an honest fellow.       Indy smiles and jabs the knife into the middle of the table.       Then he liftshis champagne glass in a toast to Lao -- who       watches expectantly as Indiana moves the glass toward his lips --       Suddenly Willie stands angrily, jostling Indy's arm so that he       doesn't drink hischampagne.                                   WILLIE                       Look at this!  He put a hole                       in my dress from Paris!       Lao sees Indy put his champagne glass down and he snarls at Wil-       lie--                                   LAO                       Sit down!       Willie quickly obeys.  Lao forces a smile at Indy and lifts his       glass to seal the deal --                                   LAO (Cont'd)                       Toyour health, Dr. Jones.       Lao sips hs champagne and watches hopefully as Indy picks up his       glass and this time Indy does drink the champagne. Then he       reaches for the cash --       But Chen grins and puts asilver snuff bottle next to the cash,       gold and jewels -- he tips the little bottle over and some white       powder spills out of it --                                   INDIANA                       What'sthat?                                   LAO                       A bonus, Dr. Jones.  That is                       poison.  You just drank the                       rest of it.       Indiana examines his champagne glass and sees a residueat the       bottom of it.  He swallows and feels sick, wondering it it's fear       or the poison already taking effect.                                   LAO (Cont'd)                       There is an antidote forthis                       poison.  You give me Nurhachi --                       I give you the antidote.       Indiana is sweating.  Willie looks at him and sees Indy's hand       shaking.                                   LAO(Cont'd)                       The poison works fast, Dr. Jones.                       Where is Nurhachi?       Indiana finally reaches into his pocket.  Next to the cash, gold,       jewels and poison, Indiana sets down a beautiful


ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Stone Face, by Nathaniel HawthorneThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it awayorre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.orgTitle: The Great Stone Face       And Other Tales Of The White MountainsAuthor: NathanielHawthorneRelease Date: February 25, 2006 [EBook #1916]Language: English*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT STONE FACE ***Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and DavidWidgerTHE GREAT STONE FACE AND OTHER TALES OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINSBy Nathaniel Hawthorne1882CONTENTS     Introduction     The Great Stone Face     The Ambitious Guest     The GreatCarbuncle     Sketches From MemoryINTRODUCTIONTHE first three numbers in this collection are tales of the White Hillsin New Hampshire. The passages from Sketches from Memory show thatHawthorne had visitedthe mountains in one of his occasional ramblesfrom home, but there are no entries in his Note Books which giveaccounts of such a visit. There is, however, among these notesthe following interesting paragraph, writtenin 1840 and clearlyforeshadowing The Great Stone Face:'The semblance of a human face to be formed on the side of a mountain,or in the fracture of a small stone, by a lusus naturae [freak ofnature]. The face is anobject of curiosity for years or centuries, andby and by a boy is born whose features gradually assume the aspect ofthat portrait. At some critical juncture the resemblance is found to beperfect. A prophecy may beconnected.'It is not impossible that this conceit occurred to Hawthorne before hehad himself seen the Old Man of the Mountain, or the Profile, in theFranconia Notch which is generally associated in the minds ofreaderswith The Great Stone Face.In The Ambitious Guest he has made use of the incident still told totravellers through the Notch, of the destruction of the Willey familyin August, 1826. The house occupied by thefamily was on the slope ofa mountain, and after a long drought there was a terrible tempest whichnot only raised the river to a great height but loosened the surface ofthe mountain so that a great landslide took place.The house was inthe track of the slide, and the family rushed out of doors. Had theyremained within they would have been safe, for a ledge above the houseparted the avalanche so that it was diverted into two pathsand sweptpast the house on either side. Mr. and Mrs. Willey, their five children,and two hired men were crushed under the weight of earth, rocks, andtrees.In the Sketches from Memory Hawthorne gives an intimationof the talewhich he might write and did afterward write of The Great Carbuncle. Thepaper is interesting as showing what were the actual experiences out ofwhich he formed his imaginative stories.THE GREAT STONEFACE and Other Tales Of The White MountainsTHE GREAT STONE FACEOne afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boysat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face.Theyhad but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen,though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.And what was the Great Stone Face? Embosomed amongst a family oflofty mountains, therewas a valley so spacious that it contained manythousand inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt in log-huts, withthe black forest all around them, on the steep and difficult hillsides.Others had their homes incomfortable farm-houses, and cultivated therich soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. Others,again, were congregated into populous villages, where some wild,highland rivulet, tumbling down from itsbirthplace in the uppermountain region, had been caught and tamed by human cunning, andcompelled to turn the machinery of cotton-factories. The inhabitants ofthis valley, in short, were numerous, and of manymodes of life. But allof them, grown people and children, had a kind of familiarity with theGreat Stone Face, although some possessed the gift of distinguishingthis grand natural phenomenon more perfectly than manyof theirneighbors.The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature in her mood of majestieplayfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by someimmense rocks, which had been thrown together in sucha position as,when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features ofthe human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous giant, or a Titan,had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice. There wasthe broadarch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height; the nose, with its longbridge; and the vast lips, which, if they could have spoken, would haverolled their thunder accents from one end of the valley to theother.True it is, that if the spectator approached too near, he lost theoutline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only a heap ofponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another.Retracing hissteps, however, the wondrous features would again be seen;and the farther he withdrew from them, the more like a human face, withall its original divinity intact, did they appear; until, as it grew dimin the distance,with the clouds and glorified vapor of the mountainsclustering about it, the Great Stone Face seemed positively to be alive.It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood withthe Great Stone Facebefore their eyes, for all the features were noble,and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glowof a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affections, andhad room for more. It wasan education only to look at it. According tothe belief of many people, the valley owed much of its fertility to thisbenign aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminating theclouds, and infusing its tendernessinto the sunshine.As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at theircottage-door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. Thechild's name was Ernest.'Mother,' said he, while the Titanicvisage miled on him, 'I wish thatit could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must needsbe pleasant. If I were to See a man with such a face, I should love himdearly.' 'If an old prophecy should come to pass,'answered his mother,'we may see a man, some time for other, with exactly such a face asthat.' 'What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?' eagerly inquiredErnest. 'Pray tell me all about it!'So his mother told him astory that her own mother had told to her, whenshe herself was younger than little Ernest; a story, not of things thatwere past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so veryold, that even the Indians, whoformerly inhabited this valley, hadheard it from their forefathers, to whom, as they affirmed, it had beenmurmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among thetree-tops. The purport was, that, atsome future day, a child shouldbe born hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and noblestpersonage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bearan exact resemblance to the GreatStone Face. Not a few old-fashionedpeople, and young ones likewise, in the ardor of their hopes, stillcherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But others, who hadseen more of the world, had watched and waitedtill they were weary, andhad beheld no man with such a face, nor any man that proved to be muchgreater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing butan idle tale. At all events, the great man of theprophecy had not yetappeared.'O mother, dear mother!' cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his head,'I do hope that I shall live to see him!'His mother was an affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that itwaswisest not to discourage the generous hopes of her little boy. Soshe only said to him, 'Perhaps you may.'And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It wasalways in his mind, whenever he looked uponthe Great Stone Face.He spent his childhood in the log-cottage where he was born, and wasdutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assistingher much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart.In thismanner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a mild,quiet, unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the fields, butwith more intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen in manyladswho have been taught at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher,save only that the Great Stone Face became one to him. When the toilof the day was over, he would gaze at it for hours, until he begantoimagine that those vast features recognized him, and gave him a smile ofkindness and encouragement, responsive to his own look of veneration.We must not take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake,althoughthe Face may have looked no more kindly at Ernest than at all theworld besides. But the secret was that the boy's tender and confidingsimplicity discerned what other people could not see; and thus thelove,which was meant for all, became his peculiar portion.About this time there went a rumor throughout the valley, that the greatman, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance tothe Great StoneFace, had appeared at last. It seems that, many yearsbefore, a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at adistant seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he hadset up as a shopkeeper. Hisname but I could never learn whether it washis real one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and successin life--was Gathergold.Being shrewd and active, and endowed by Providence with thatinscrutablefaculty which develops itself in what the world calls luck, he became anexceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole fleet of bulky-bottomedships. All the countries of the globe appeared to join hands forthemere purpose of adding heap after heap to the mountainous accumulationof this one man's wealth. The cold regions of the north, almost withinthe gloom and shadow of the Arctic Circle, sent him their tribute intheshape of furs; hot Africa sifted for him the golden sands of her rivers,and gathered up the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of theforests; the east came bringing him the rich shawls, and spices, andteas, and theeffulgence of diamonds, and the gleaming purity of largepearls. The ocean, not to be behindhand with the earth, yielded up hermighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make aprofit on it. Be theoriginal commodity what it might, it was goldwithin his grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas, in the fable,that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grewyellow, and was changed at onceinto sterling metal, or, which suitedhim still better, into piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold hadbecome so very rich that it would have taken him a hundred years onlyto count his wealth, he bethought himself of hisnative valley, andresolved to go back thither, and end his days where he was born. Withthis purpose in view, he sent a skilful architect to build him such apalace as should be fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in.As Ihave said above, it had already been rumored in the valley thatMr. Gathergold had turned out to be the prophetic personage so long andvainly looked for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniablesimilitude ofthe Great Stone Face. People were the more ready tobelieve that this must needs be the fact, when they beheld the splendidedifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on the site of his father'sold weather-beatenfarmhouse. The exterior was of marble, so dazzlinglywhite that it seemed as though the whole structure might melt away inthe sunshine, like those humbler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in hisyoung play-days, before hisfingers were gifted with the touch oftransmutation, had been accustomed to build of snow. It had a richlyornamented portico supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a loftydoor, studded with silver knobs, and madeof a kind of variegated woodthat had been brought from beyond the sea. The windows, from the floorto the ceiling of each stately apartment, were composed, respectivelyof but one enormous pane of glass, sotransparently pure that it wassaid to be a finer medium than even the vacant atmosphere. Hardlyanybody had been permitted to see the interior of this palace; but itwas reported, and with good semblance of truth, tobe far more gorgeousthan the outside, insomuch that whatever was iron or brass in otherhouses was silver or gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold's bedchamber,especially, made such a glittering appearance that noordinary man wouldhave been able to close his eyes there. But, on the other hand, Mr.Gathergold was now so inured to wealth, that perhaps he could not haveclosed his eyes unless where the gleam of it was certain tofind its waybeneath his eyelids.In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, withmagnificent furniture; then, a whole troop of black and white servants,the haringers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in hisown majestic person, wasexpected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest, meanwhile, had beendeeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the noble man, the man ofprophecy, after so many ages of delay, was atlength to be made manifestto his native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousandways in which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transformhimself into an angel of beneficence, and assumea control over humanaffairs as wide and benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face.Full of faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that what the people saidwas true, and that now he was to behold the living likeness ofthosewondrous features on the mountainside. While the boy was still gazingup the valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the Great Stone Facereturned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheelswasheard, approaching swiftly along the winding road.'Here he comes!' cried a group of people who were assembled to witnessthe arrival. 'Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!'A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashedround the turn of the road.Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomyof the old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand hadtransmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes,puckered aboutwith innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made stillthinner by pressing them forcibly together.'The very image or the Great Stone Face!' shouted the people. 'Sureenough, the old prophecyis true; and here we have the great man come,at last!'And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe thathere was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there chancedto be an oldbeggar woman and two little beggar-children, stragglersfrom some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, heldout their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteouslybeseeching charity. A yellowclaw the very same that had dawed togetherso much wealth--poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt somecopper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seemsto have been Gathergold,he might just as suitably have been nicknamedScattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and evidentlywith as much good faith as ever, the people bellowed 'He is the veryimage of the Great Stone Face!'But Ernest turned sadly from thewrinkled shrewdness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley,where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last sunbeams, he couldstill distinguish those glorious features which hadimpressed themselvesinto his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did the benign lips seemto say?'He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!'The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grownto be ayoung man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitantsof the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, savethat, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apartandgaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea ofthe matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as Ernestwas industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for thesakeof indulging this idle habit. They knew not that the Great StoneFace had become a teacher to him, and that the sentiment which wasexpressed in it would enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it withwider and deepersympathies than other hearts. They knew not that thencewould come a better wisdom than could be learned from books, and abetter life than could be moulded on the defaced example of other humanlives. Neither didErnest know that the thoughts and affections whichcame to him so naturally, in the fields and at the fireside, andwherever he communed with himself, were of a higher tone than thosewhich all men shared with him. Asimple soul--simple as when his motherfirst taught him the old prophecy--he beheld the marvellous featuresbeaming adown the valley, and still wondered that their humancounterpart was so long in making hisappearance.By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddestpart of the matter was, that his wealth, which was the body and spiritof his existence, had disappeared before his death, leavingnothing ofhim but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled, yellow skin.Since the melting away of his gold, it had been very generally concededthat there was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixttheignoble features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon themountainside. So the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime,and quietly consigned him to forgetfulness after his decease. Once inawhile, it is true, his memory was brought up in connection with themagnificent palace which he had built, and which had long ago beenturned into a hotel for the accommodation of strangers, multitudes ofwhom came,every summer, to visit that famous natural curiosity, theGreat Stone Face. Thus, Mr. Gathergold being discredited and thrown intothe shade, the man of prophecy was yet to come.It so happened that a native-born sonof the valley, many years before,had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard fighting,had now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called inhistory, he was known in camps and on thebattlefield under the nicknameof Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being now infirm withage and wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military life, and of theroll of the drum and the clangor of thetrumpet, that had so long beenringing in his ears, had lately signified a purpose of returning to hisnative valley, hoping to find repose where he remembered to have leftit. The inhabitants, his old neighbors and theirgrown-up children, wereresolved to welcome the renowned warrior with a salute of cannon and apublic dinner; and all the more enthusiastically, it being affirmedthat now, at last, the likeness of the Great Stone Facehad actuallyappeared. An aid-de-camp of Old Blood-and-Thunder, travelling throughthe valley, was said to have been struck with the resemblance. Moreoverthe schoolmates and early acquaintances of the general wereready totestify, on oath, that, to the best of their recollection, the aforesaidgeneral had been exceedingly like the majestic image, even when a boy,only that the idea had never occurred to them at that period.Great,therefore, was the excitement throughout the valley; and many people,who had never once thought of glancing at the Great Stone Face for yearsbefore, now spent their time in gazing at it, for the sake ofknowingexactly how General Blood-and-Thunder looked.On the day of the great festival, Ernest, with all the other people ofthe valley, left their work, and proceeded to the spot where the sylvanbanquet was prepared.As he approached, the loud voice of the Rev. Dr.Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things setbefore them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honorthey were assembled. The tableswere arranged in a cleared space of thewoods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista openedeastward, and afforded a distant view of the Great Stone Face. Over thegeneral's chair, which was a relicfrom the home of Washington, therewas an arch of verdant boughs, with the laurel profusely intermixed,and surmounted by his country's banner, beneath which he had won hisvictories. Our friend Ernest raised himselfon his tiptoes, in hopesto get a glimpse of the celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowdabout the tables anxious to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catchany word that might fall from the general in reply;and a volunteercompany, doing duty as a guard, pricked ruthlessly with their bayonetsat any particularly quiet person among the throng. So Ernest, being ofan unobtrusive character, was thrust quite into the


ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortune of the Rougons, by Emile ZolaThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away orre-useit under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.orgTitle: The Fortune of the RougonsAuthor: Emile ZolaEditor: Ernest Alfred VizetellyRelease Date: April 22, 2006[EBook #5135]Last Updated: September 5, 2016Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: UTF-8*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS ***Produced by Dagny; JohnBickers; David WidgerTHE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONSBy Emile ZolaEdited With Introduction By Ernest Alfred VizetellyINTRODUCTIONâThe Fortune of the Rougonsâ is the initial volume of theRougon-Macquartseries. Though it was by no means M. Zolaâs first essayin fiction, it was undoubtedly his first great bid for genuine literaryfame, and the foundation of what must necessarily be regarded as hislife-work. The idea ofwriting the ânatural and social history of afamily under the Second Empire,â extending to a score of volumes, wasdoubtless suggested to M. Zola by Balzacâs immortal âComedie Humaine.â He wastwenty-eight years of age when this idea first occurred to him;he was fifty-three when he at last sent the manuscript of his concludingvolume, âDr. Pascal,â to the press. He had spent five-and-twenty yearsinworking out his scheme, persevering with it doggedly and stubbornly,whatever rebuffs he might encounter, whatever jeers and whatever insultsmight be directed against him by the ignorant, the prejudiced, andthehypocritical. Truth was on the march and nothing could stay it; even as,at the present hour, its march, if slow, none the less continues athwartanother and a different crisis of the illustrious novelistâs career.Itwas in the early summer of 1869 that M. Zola first began the actualwriting of âThe Fortune of the Rougons.â It was only in the followingyear, however, that the serial publication of the work commenced inthecolumns of âLe Siecle,â the Republican journal of most influencein Paris in those days of the Second Empire. The Franco-German warinterrupted this issue of the story, and publication in book form didnot takeplace until the latter half of 1871, a time when both the warand the Commune had left Paris exhausted, supine, with little or nointerest in anything. No more unfavourable moment for the issue of anambitious work offiction could have been found. Some two or threeyears went by, as I well remember, before anything like a revival ofliterature and of public interest in literature took place. Thus, M.Zola launched his gigantic schemeunder auspices which would have mademany another man recoil. âThe Fortune of the Rougons,â and two or threesubsequent volumes of his series, attracted but a moderate degreeof attention, and it was onlyon the morrow of the publication ofâLâAssommoirâ that he awoke, like Byron, to find himself famous.As previously mentioned, the Rougon-Macquart series forms twentyvolumes. The last of these, âDr.Pascal,â appeared in 1893. Sincethen M. Zola has written âLourdes,â âRome,â and âParis.â Critics haverepeated _ad nauseam_ that these last works constitute a new departureon M.Zolaâs part, and, so far as they formed a new series, thisis true. But the suggestion that he has in any way repented of theRougon-Macquart novels is ridiculous. As he has often told me of recentyears, it is, as far aspossible, his plan to subordinate his style andmethods to his subject. To have written a book like âRome,â so largelydevoted to the ambitions of the Papal See, in the same way as he hadwritten books dealingwith the drunkenness or other vices of Paris,would have been the climax of absurdity.Yet the publication of âRome,â was the signal for a general outcry onthe part of English and American reviewers thatZolaism, as typified bythe Rougon-Macquart series, was altogether a thing of the past. To mythinking this is a profound error. M. Zola has always remained faithfulto himself. The only difference that I perceive betweenhis latestwork, âParis,â and certain Rougon-Macquart volumes, is that with time,experience and assiduity, his genius has expanded and ripened, and thatthe hesitation, the groping for truth, so to say, whichmay be found insome of his earlier writings, has disappeared.At the time when âThe Fortune of the Rougonsâ was first published, nonebut the author himself can have imagined that the foundation-stone ofoneof the great literary monuments of the century had just been laid.From the âstoryâ point of view the book is one of M. Zolaâs very best,although its construction--particularly as regards the long interludeofthe idyll of Miette and Silvere--is far from being perfect. Such a workwhen first issued might well bring its author a measure of popularity,but it could hardly confer fame. Nowadays, however, looking backward,andbearing in mind that one here has the genius of M. Zolaâs lifework,âThe Fortune of the Rougonsâ becomes a book of exceptional interestand importance. This has been so well understood by French readersthatduring the last six or seven years the annual sales of the work haveincreased threefold. Where, over a course of twenty years, 1,000 copieswere sold, 2,500 and 3,000 are sold to-day. How many livingEnglishnovelists can say the same of their early essays in fiction, issued morethan a quarter of a century ago?I may here mention that at the last date to which I have authenticfigures, that is, Midsummer 1897 (prior, ofcourse, to what is calledâLâAffaire Dreyfusâ), there had been sold of the entire Rougon-Macquartseries (which had begun in 1871) 1,421,000 copies. These were of theordinary Charpentier editions of theFrench originals. By adding theretoseveral _editions de luxe_ and the widely-circulated popular illustratededitions of certain volumes, the total amounts roundly to 2,100,000.âRome,â âLourdes,ââParis,â and all M. Zolaâs other works, apart fromthe âRougon-Macquartâ series, together with the translations into adozen different languages--English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch,Danish,Portuguese, Bohemian, Hungarian, and others--are not includedin the above figures. Otherwise the latter might well be doubled. Noris account taken of the many serial issues which have brought M. Zolaâsviews tothe knowledge of the masses of all Europe.It is, of course, the celebrity attaching to certain of M. Zolaâsliterary efforts that has stimulated the demand for his other writings.Among those which are well worthy ofbeing read for their own sakes, Iwould assign a prominent place to the present volume. Much of the storyelement in it is admirable, and, further, it shows M. Zola as agenuine satirist and humorist. The Rougonsâyellow drawing-room andits habitues, and many of the scenes between Pierre Rougon and his wifeFelicite, are worthy of the pen of Douglas Jerrold. The whole account,indeed, of the town of Plassans, its customs and itsnotabilities, issatire of the most effective kind, because it is satire true to life,and never degenerates into mere caricature.It is a rather curious coincidence that, at the time when M. Zola wasthus portraying the life ofProvence, his great contemporary, bosomfriend, and rival for literary fame, the late Alphonse Daudet, shouldhave been producing, under the title of âThe Provencal Don Quixote,â that unrivalled presentment ofthe foibles of the French Southerner,with everyone nowadays knows as âTartarin of Tarascon.â It is possiblethat M. Zola, while writing his book, may have read the instalments ofâLe Don QuichotteProvencalâ published in the Paris âFigaro,â and it maybe that this perusal imparted that fillip to his pen to which we owethe many amusing particulars that he gives us of the town of Plassans.Plassans, I maymention, is really the Provencal Aix, which M. Zolaâsfather provided with water by means of a canal still bearing his name.M. Zola himself, though born in Paris, spent the greater part of hischildhood there.Tarascon, as is well known, never forgave AlphonseDaudet for his âTartarinâ; and in a like way M. Zola, who doubtlesscounts more enemies than any other literary man of the period, has nonebitterer than theworthy citizens of Aix. They cannot forget or forgivethe rascally Rougon-Macquarts.The name Rougon-Macquart has to me always suggested that splendid andamusing type of the cynical rogue, Robert Macaire. But, ofcourse, bothRougon and Macquart are genuine French names and not inventions. Indeed,several years ago I came by chance upon them both, in an old French deedwhich I was examining at the Bibliotheque Nationalein Paris. Ithere found mention of a Rougon family and a Macquart family dwellingvirtually side by side in the same village. This, however, was inChampagne, not in Provence. Both families farmed vineyards for aoncefamous abbey in the vicinity of Epernay, early in the seventeenthcentury. To me, personally, this trivial discovery meant a great deal.It somehow aroused my interest in M. Zola and his works. Of the latter Ihadthen only glanced through two or three volumes. With M. Zola himselfI was absolutely unacquainted. However, I took the liberty to inform himof my little discovery; and afterwards I read all the books that hehadpublished. Now, as it is fairly well known, I have given the greaterpart of my time, for several years past, to the task of familiarisingEnglish readers with his writings. An old deed, a chance glance,followed by thegreat friendship of my life and years of patient labour.If I mention this matter, it is solely with the object of endorsing thetruth of the saying that the most insignificant incidents frequentlyinfluence and even shape ourcareers.But I must come back to âThe Fortune of the Rougons.â It has, as I havesaid, its satirical and humorous side; but it also contains a strongelement of pathos. The idyll of Miette and Silvere is a verytouchingone, and quite in accord with the conditions of life prevailing inProvence at the period M. Zola selects for his narrative. Miette isa frank child of nature; Silvere, her lover, in certain respectsforeshadows, aquarter of a century in advance, the Abbe Pierre Fromontof âLourdes,â âRome,â and âParis.â The environment differs, of course,but germs of the same nature may readily be detected in bothcharacters.As for the other personages of M. Zolaâs book--on the one hand, AuntDide, Pierre Rougon, his wife, Felicite, and their sons Eugene, Aristideand Pascal, and, on the other, Macquart, his daughter GervaiseofâLâAssommoir,â and his son Jean of âLa Terreâ and âLa Debacle,â togetherwith the members of the Mouret branch of the ravenous, neurotic, duplexfamily--these are analysed or sketchedin a way which renders theirsubsequent careers, as related in other volumes of the series,thoroughly consistent with their origin and their up-bringing. I ventureto asset that, although it is possible to read individualvolumes ofthe Rougon-Macquart series while neglecting others, nobody can reallyunderstand any one of these books unless he makes himself acquaintedwith the alpha and the omega of the edifice, that is, âTheFortune ofthe Rougonsâ and âDr. Pascal.âWith regard to the present English translation, it is based on one madefor my father several years ago. But to convey M. Zolaâs meaning moreaccurately I havefound it necessary to alter, on an average, at leastone sentence out of every three. Thus, though I only claim to edit thevolume, it is, to all intents and purposes, quite a new English versionof M. Zolaâs work.E. A. V.MERTON, SURREY: August, 1898.AUTHORâS PREFACEI wish to explain how a family, a small group of human beings, conductsitself in a given social system after blossoming forth and giving birthto ten or twentymembers, who, though they may appear, at the firstglance, profoundly dissimilar one from the other, are, as analysisdemonstrates, most closely linked together from the point of view ofaffinity. Heredity, like gravity,has its laws.By resolving the duplex question of temperament and environment, I shallendeavour to discover and follow the thread of connection which leadsmathematically from one man to another. And when I havepossession ofevery thread, and hold a complete social group in my hands, I shallshow this group at work, participating in an historical period; I shalldepict it in action, with all its varied energies, and I shall analyseboththe will power of each member, and the general tendency of thewhole.The great characteristic of the Rougon-Macquarts, the group or familywhich I propose to study, is their ravenous appetite, the greatoutburst of ourage which rushes upon enjoyment. Physiologically theRougon-Macquarts represent the slow succession of accidents pertainingto the nerves or the blood, which befall a race after the first organiclesion, and, according toenvironment, determine in each individualmember of the race those feelings, desires and passions--briefly, allthe natural and instinctive manifestations peculiar to humanity--whoseoutcome assumes the conventionalname of virtue or vice. Historicallythe Rougon-Macquarts proceed from the masses, radiate throughout thewhole of contemporary society, and ascend to all sorts of positions bythe force of that impulsion of essentiallymodern origin, which sets thelower classes marching through the social system. And thus the dramas oftheir individual lives recount the story of the Second Empire, from theambuscade of the Coup dâEtat to thetreachery of Sedan.For three years I had been collecting the necessary documents for thislong work, and the present volume was even written, when the fall of theBonapartes, which I needed artistically, and with, as ifby fate, Iever found at the end of the drama, without daring to hope that itwould prove so near at hand, suddenly occurred and furnished me withthe terrible but necessary denouement for my work. My scheme is,atthis date, completed; the circle in which my characters will revolveis perfected; and my work becomes a picture of a departed reign, of astrange period of human madness and shame.This work, which will compriseseveral episodes, is therefore, inmy mind, the natural and social history of a family under the SecondEmpire. And the first episode, here called âThe Fortune of the Rougons,â should scientifically be entitledâThe Origin.âEMILE ZOLA PARIS, July 1, 1871.THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONSCHAPTER IOn quitting Plassans by the Rome Gate, on the southern side of the town,you will find, on the right side of the road toNice, and a little waypast the first suburban houses, a plot of land locally known as the AireSaint-Mittre.This Aire Saint-Mittre is of oblong shape and on a level with thefootpath of the adjacent road, from which it isseparated by a strip oftrodden grass. A narrow blind alley fringed with a row of hovels bordersit on the right; while on the left, and at the further end, it is closedin by bits of wall overgrown with moss, above which canbe seen thetop branches of the mulberry-trees of the Jas-Meiffren--an extensiveproperty with an entrance lower down the road. Enclosed upon threesides, the Aire Saint-Mittre leads nowhere, and is only crossedbypeople out for a stroll.In former times it was a cemetery under the patronage of Saint-Mittre, agreatly honoured Provencal saint; and in 1851 the old people of Plassanscould still remember having seen the wall of thecemetery standing,although the place itself had been closed for years. The soil had beenso glutted with corpses that it had been found necessary to open a newburial-ground at the other end of town. Then the oldabandoned cemeteryhad been gradually purified by the dark thick-set vegetation which hadsprouted over it every spring. The rich soil, in which the gravediggerscould no longer delve without turning up some humanremains, waspossessed of wondrous fertility. The tall weeds overtopped the wallsafter the May rains and the June sunshine so as to be visible from thehigh road; while inside, the place presented the appearance of adeep,dark green sea studded with large blossoms of singular brilliancy.Beneath oneâs feet amidst the close-set stalks one could feel that thedamp soil reeked and bubbled with sap.Among the curiosities of the placeat that time were some largepear-trees, with twisted and knotty boughs; but none of the housewivesof Plassans cared to pluck the large fruit which grew upon them. Indeed,the townspeople spoke of this fruit withgrimaces of disgust. No suchdelicacy, however, restrained the suburban urchins, who assembled inbands at twilight and climbed the walls to steal the pears, even beforethey were ripe.The trees and the weeds with theirvigorous growth had rapidlyassimilated all the decomposing matter in the old cemetery ofSaint-Mittre; the malaria rising from the human remains interredthere had been greedily absorbed by the flowers and the fruit;so thateventually the only odour one could detect in passing by was the strongperfume of wild gillyflowers. This had merely been a question of a fewsummers.At last the townspeople determined to utilise this commonproperty,which had long served no purpose. The walls bordering the roadway andthe blind alley were pulled down; the weeds and the pear-trees uprooted;the sepulchral remains were removed; the ground was dugdeep, and suchbones as the earth was willing to surrender were heaped up in acorner. For nearly a month the youngsters, who lamented the loss ofthe pear-trees, played at bowls with the skulls; and one nightsomepractical jokers even suspended femurs and tibias to all thebell-handles of the town. This scandal, which is still remembered atPlassans, did not cease until the authorities decided to have the bonesshot into a hole whichhad been dug for the purpose in the new cemetery.All work, however, is usually carried out with discreet dilatorinessin country towns, and so during an entire week the inhabitants saw asolitary cart removing thesehuman remains as if they had been mererubbish. The vehicle had to cross Plassans from end to end, and owing tothe bad condition of the roads fragments of bones and handfuls of richmould were scattered at everyjolt. There was not the briefest religiousceremony, nothing but slow and brutish cartage. Never before had a townfelt so disgusted.For several years the old cemetery remained an object of terror.Although it adjoinedthe main thoroughfare and was open to all comers,it was left quite deserted, a prey to fresh vegetable growth. The localauthorities, who had doubtless counted on selling it and seeinghouses built upon it, were evidentlyunable to find a purchaser. Therecollection of the heaps of bones and the cart persistently joltingthrough the streets may have made people recoil from the spot; orperhaps the indifference that was shown was due tothe indolence, therepugnance to pulling down and setting up again, which is characteristicof country people. At all events the authorities still retainedpossession of the ground, and at last forgot their desire to disposeofit. They did not even erect a fence round it, but left it open to allcomers. Then, as time rolled on, people gradually grew accustomed tothis barren spot; they would sit on the grass at the edges, walk about,or gather ingroups. When the grass had been worn away and thetrodden soil had become grey and hard, the old cemetery resembled abadly-levelled public square. As if the more effectually to efface thememory of all objectionableassociations, the inhabitants slowly changedthe very appellation of the place, retaining but the name of the saint,which was likewise applied to the blind alley dipping down at one cornerof the field. Thus there was theAire Saint-Mittre and the ImpasseSaint-Mittre.All this dates, however, from some considerable time back. For morethan thirty years now the Aire Saint-Mittre has presented a differentappearance. One day thetownspeople, far too inert and indifferent toderive any advantage from it, let it, for a trifling consideration,to some suburban wheelwrights, who turned it into a wood-yard. At thepresent day it is still littered with hugepieces of timber thirty orforty feet long, lying here and there in piles, and looking like loftyoverturned columns. These piles of timber, disposed at intervals fromone end of the yard to the other, are a continual source ofdelightto the local urchins. In some places the ground is covered with fallenwood, forming a kind of uneven flooring over which it is impossible towalk, unless one balance oneâs self with marvellous dexterity. Troopsofchildren amuse themselves with this exercise all day long. You will seethem jumping over the big beams, walking in Indian file along the narrowends, or else crawling astride them; various games which