The Village Rector

XII

THE SOUL OF FORESTS

Veronique wrote to Mon­sieur Gros­setete on the mor­row. A few days lat­er she re­ceived from Limo­ges three sad­dle-​hors­es sent by her old friend. Mon­sieur Bon­net found at Veronique's re­quest, a young man, son of the post­mas­ter, who was de­light­ed to serve Veronique and earn good wages. This young fel­low, small but ac­tive, with a round face, black eyes and hair, and named Mau­rice Cham­pi­on, pleased Veronique very much and was im­me­di­ate­ly in­duct­ed in­to his of­fice, which was that of tak­ing care of the hors­es and ac­com­pa­ny­ing his mis­tress on her ex­cur­sions.

The head-​forester of Mon­teg­nac was a for­mer cav­al­ry-​sergeant in the Roy­al guard, born at Limo­ges, whom the Duc de Navar­reins had sent to his es­tate at Mon­teg­nac to study its ca­pa­bil­ities and val­ue, in or­der that he might de­rive some prof­it from it. Jerome Col­orat found noth­ing but waste land ut­ter­ly bar­ren, woods un­avail­able for want of trans­porta­tion, a ru­ined chateau, and enor­mous out­lays re­quired to re­store the house and gar­dens. Alarmed, above all, by the beds of tor­rents strewn with gran­ite rocks which seamed the for­est, this hon­est but un­in­tel­li­gent agent was the re­al cause of the sale of the prop­er­ty.

“Col­orat,” said Madame Graslin to her forester, for whom she had sent, “I shall prob­ably ride out ev­ery morn­ing, be­gin­ning with to-​mor­row. You know all the dif­fer­ent parts of the land that be­longed orig­inal­ly to this es­tate and those which Mon­sieur Graslin added to it: I wish you to go with me and point them out; for I in­tend to vis­it ev­ery part of the prop­er­ty my­self.”

The fam­ily with­in the chateau saw with joy the change that now ap­peared in Veronique's be­hav­ior. With­out be­ing told to do so, Aline got out her mis­tress's rid­ing-​habit and put it in good or­der for use. The next day Madame Sauvi­at felt un­speak­able re­lief when her daugh­ter left her room dressed to ride out.

Guid­ed by the forester and Cham­pi­on, who found their way by rec­ol­lec­tion, for the paths were scarce­ly marked on these un­fre­quent­ed moun­tains, Madame Graslin start­ed on the first day for the sum­mits, in­tend­ing to ex­plore those on­ly, so as to un­der­stand the wa­ter­shed and fa­mil­iar­ize her­self with the lay of the ravines, the nat­ural path of the tor­rents when they tore down the slopes. She wished to mea­sure the task be­fore her,--to study the land and the wa­ter-​ways, and find for her­self the es­sen­tial points of the en­ter­prise which the rec­tor had sug­gest­ed to her. She fol­lowed Col­orat, who rode in ad­vance; Cham­pi­on was a few steps be­hind her.

So long as they were mak­ing their way through parts that were dense with trees, go­ing up and down un­du­la­tions of ground ly­ing near to each oth­er and very char­ac­ter­is­tic of the moun­tains of France, Veronique was lost in con­tem­pla­tion of the mar­vels of the for­est. First came the ven­er­able cen­ten­ni­al trees, which amazed her till she grew ac­cus­tomed to them; next, the full-​grown younger trees reach­ing to their nat­ural height; then, in some more open spot, a soli­tary pine-​tree of enor­mous height; or--but this was rare--one of those flow­ing shrubs, dwarf else­where, but here at­tain­ing to gi­gan­tic de­vel­op­ment, and of­ten as old as the soil it­self. She saw, with a sen­sa­tion quite un­speak­able, a cloud rolling along the face of the bare rocks. She no­ticed the white fur­rows made down the moun­tain sides by the melt­ing snows, which looked at a dis­tance like scars and gash­es. Pass­ing through a gorge stripped of veg­eta­tion, she nev­er­the­less ad­mired, in the cleft flanks of the rocky slope, aged chest­nuts as erect as the Alpine fir-​trees.

The ra­pid­ity with which she ad­vanced left her no time to take in all the var­ied scene, the vast mov­ing sands, the quag­mires boast­ing a few scat­tered trees, fall­en gran­ite boul­ders, over­hang­ing rocks, shad­ed val­leys, broad open spaces with moss and heather still in bloom (though some was dried), ut­ter soli­tudes over­grown with ju­niper and ca­per-​bush­es; some­times up­lands with short grass, small spaces en­riched by an ooz­ing spring,--in short, much sad­ness, many splen­dors, things sweet, things strong, and all the sin­gu­lar as­pects of moun­tain­ous Na­ture in the heart of France.

As she watched these many pic­tures, var­ied in form but all in­spired with the same thought, the aw­ful sad­ness of this Na­ture, so wild, so ru­ined, aban­doned, fruit­less, bar­ren, filled her soul and an­swered to her se­cret feel­ings. And when, through an open­ing among the trees, she caught a glimpse of the plain be­low her, when she crossed some arid ravine over grav­el and stones, where a few stunt­ed bush­es alone could grow, the spir­it of this aus­tere Na­ture came to her, sug­gest­ing ob­ser­va­tions new to her mind, de­rived from the many sig­ni­fi­ca­tions of this var­ied scene.

There is no spot in a for­est which does not have its sig­nif­icance; not a glade, not a thick­et but has its anal­ogy with the labyrinth of hu­man thought. Who is there among those whose minds are cul­ti­vat­ed or whose hearts are wound­ed who can walk alone in a for­est and the for­est not speak to him? In­sen­si­bly a voice lifts it­self, con­sol­ing or ter­ri­ble, but of­ten­er con­sol­ing than ter­ri­fy­ing. If we seek the caus­es of the sen­sa­tion--grave, sim­ple, sweet, mys­te­ri­ous--that grasps us there, per­haps we shall find it in the sub­lime and art­less spec­ta­cle of all these cre­ations obey­ing their des­tiny and im­mutably sub­mis­sive. Soon­er or lat­er the over­whelm­ing sense of the per­ma­nence of Na­ture fills our hearts and stirs them deeply, and we end by be­ing con­scious of God. So it was with Veronique; in the si­lence of those sum­mits, from the odor of the woods, the seren­ity of the air, she gath­ered--as she said that evening to Mon­sieur Bon­net--the cer­tain­ty of God's mer­cy. She saw the pos­si­bil­ity of an or­der of deeds high­er than any to which her as­pi­ra­tions had ev­er reached. She felt a sort of hap­pi­ness with­in her; it was long, in­deed since she had known such a sense of peace. Did she owe that feel­ing to the re­sem­blance she found be­tween that bar­ren land­scape and the arid, ex­haust­ed re­gions of her soul? Had she seen those trou­bles of na­ture with a sort of joy, think­ing that Na­ture was pun­ished though it had not sinned? At any rate, she was pow­er­ful­ly af­fect­ed; Col­orat and Cham­pi­on, fol­low­ing her at a lit­tle dis­tance, thought her trans­fig­ured.

At a cer­tain sport Veronique was struck with the stern harsh as­pect of the steep and rocky beds of the dried-​up tor­rents. She found her­self long­ing to hear the sound of wa­ter splash­ing through those scorched ravines.

“The need to love!” she mur­mured.

Ashamed of the words, which seemed to come to her like a voice, she pushed her horse bold­ly to­ward the first peak of the Cor­reze, where, in spite of the forester's ad­vice, she in­sist­ed on go­ing. Telling her at­ten­dants to wait for her she went on alone to the sum­mit, which is called the Roche-​Vive, and stayed there for some time, study­ing the sur­round­ing coun­try. Af­ter hear­ing the se­cret voice of the many cre­ations ask­ing to live she now re­ceived with­in her the touch, the in­spi­ra­tion, which de­ter­mined her to put in­to her work that won­der­ful per­se­ver­ance dis­played by Na­ture, of which she had her­self al­ready giv­en many proofs.

She fas­tened her horse to a tree and seat­ed her­self on a large rock, let­ting her eyes rove over the broad ex­panse of bar­ren plain, where Na­ture seemed a step-​moth­er,--feel­ing in her heart the same stir­rings of ma­ter­nal love with which at times she gazed up­on her in­fant. Pre­pared by this train of emo­tion, these half in­vol­un­tary med­ita­tions (which, to use her own fine ex­pres­sion, win­nowed her heart), to re­ceive the sub­lime in­struc­tion of­fered by the scene be­fore her, she awoke from her lethar­gy.

“I un­der­stood then,” she said af­ter­wards to the rec­tor, “that our souls must be ploughed and cul­ti­vat­ed like the soil it­self.”

The vast ex­panse be­fore her was light­ed by a pale Novem­ber sun. Al­ready a few gray clouds chased by a chilly wind were hur­ry­ing from the west. It was then three o'clock. Veronique had tak­en more than four hours to reach the sum­mit, but, like all oth­ers who are har­rowed by an in­ward mis­ery, she paid no heed to ex­ter­nal cir­cum­stances. At this mo­ment her be­ing was ac­tu­al­ly grow­ing and mag­ni­fy­ing with the sub­lime im­pe­tus of Na­ture it­self.

“Do not stay here any longer, madame,” said a man, whose voice made her quiver, “or you will soon be un­able to re­turn; you are six miles from any dwelling, and the for­est is im­pass­able at night. But that is not your great­est dan­ger. Be­fore long the cold on this sum­mit will be­come in­tense; the rea­son of this is un­known, but it has caused the death of many per­sons.”

Madame Graslin saw be­fore her a man's face, al­most black with sun­burn, in which shone eyes that were like two tongues of flame. On ei­ther side of this face hung a mass of brown hair, and be­low it was a fan-​shaped beard. The man was rais­ing re­spect­ful­ly one of those enor­mous broad-​brimmed hats which are worn by the peas­antry of cen­tral France, and in so do­ing dis­played a bald but splen­did fore­head such as we some­times see in way­side beg­gars. Veronique did not feel the slight­est fear; the sit­ua­tion was one in which all the less­er con­sid­er­ations that make a wom­an timid had ceased.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“My home is near by,” he an­swered.

“What can you do in such a desert?” she said.

“I live.”

“But how? what means of liv­ing are there?”

“I earn a lit­tle some­thing by watch­ing that part of the for­est,” he an­swered, point­ing to the oth­er side of the sum­mit from the one that over­looked Mon­teg­nac. Madame Graslin then saw the muz­zle of a gun and al­so a game-​bag. If she had had any fears this would have put an end to them.

“Then you are a keep­er?” she said.

“No, madame; in or­der to be a keep­er we must take a cer­tain oath; and to take an oath we must have civic rights.”

“Who are you, then?”

“I am Farrabesche,” he said, with deep hu­mil­ity, low­er­ing his eyes to the ground.

Madame Graslin, to whom the name told noth­ing, looked at the man and no­ticed in his face, the ex­pres­sion of which was now very gen­tle, the signs of un­der­ly­ing fe­roc­ity; ir­reg­ular teeth gave to the mouth, the lips blood-​red, an iron­ical ex­pres­sion full of evil au­dac­ity; the dark and promi­nent cheek-​bones had some­thing an­imal about them. The man was of mid­dle height, with strong shoul­ders, a thick-​set neck, and the large hairy hands of vi­olent men ca­pa­ble of us­ing their strength in a bru­tal man­ner. His last words point­ed to some mys­tery, to which his bear­ing, the ex­pres­sion of his coun­te­nance, and his whole per­son, gave a sin­is­ter mean­ing.

“You must be in my ser­vice, then?” said Veronique in a gen­tle voice.

“Have I the hon­or of speak­ing to Madame Graslin?” asked Farrabesche.

“Yes, my friend,” she an­swered.

Farrabesche in­stant­ly dis­ap­peared, with the ra­pid­ity of a wild an­imal, af­ter cast­ing a glance at his mis­tress that was full of fear.