The Village Rector

XV

STO­RY OF A GAL­LEY-​SLAVE

The next day Farrabesche and his son came to the chateau with game. The keep­er al­so brought, for Fran­cis, a co­coanut cup, elab­orate­ly carved, a gen­uine work of art, rep­re­sent­ing a bat­tle. Madame Graslin was walk­ing at the time on the ter­race, in the di­rec­tion which over­looked Les Tascherons. She sat down on a bench, took the cup in her hand and looked earnest­ly at the deft piece of work. A few tears came in­to her eyes.

“You must have suf­fered very much,” she said to Farrabesche, af­ter a few mo­ments' si­lence.

“How could I help it, madame?” he replied; “for I was there with­out the hope of es­cape, which sup­ports the life of most con­victs.”

“An aw­ful life!” she said in a tone of hor­ror, invit­ing Farrabesche by word and ges­ture to say more.

Farrabesche took the con­vul­sive trem­bling and oth­er signs of emo­tion he saw in Madame Graslin for the pow­er­ful in­ter­est of com­pas­sion­ate cu­rios­ity in him­self.

Just then Madame Sauvi­at ap­peared, com­ing down a path as if she meant to join them; but Veronique drew out her hand­ker­chief and made a neg­ative sign; say­ing, with an as­per­ity she had nev­er be­fore shown to the old wom­an:--

“Leave me, leave me, moth­er.”

“Madame,” said Farrabesche, “for ten years I wore there (hold­ing out his leg) a chain fas­tened to a great iron ring which bound me to an­oth­er man. Dur­ing my time I had to live thus with three dif­fer­ent con­victs. I slept on a wood­en bench; I had to work ex­traor­di­nar­ily hard to earn a lit­tle mat­tress called a _ser­pentin_. Each dor­mi­to­ry con­tains eight hun­dred men. Each bed, called a _to­lard_, holds twen­ty-​four men, chained in cou­ples. Ev­ery night the chain of each cou­ple is passed round an­oth­er great chain which is called the _filet de ra­mas_. This chain holds all the cou­ples by the feet, and runs along the bot­tom of the _to­lard_. It took me over two years to get ac­cus­tomed to that iron clank­ing, which called out in­ces­sant­ly, 'Thou art a gal­ley-​slave!' If I slept an in­stant some vile com­pan­ion moved or quar­relled, re­mind­ing me of where I was. There is a ter­ri­ble ap­pren­tice­ship to make be­fore a man can learn how to sleep. I my­self could not sleep un­til I had come to the end of my strength and to ut­ter ex­haus­tion. When at last sleep came I had the nights in which to for­get. Oh! to _for­get_, madame, that was some­thing! Once there, a man must learn to sat­is­fy his needs, even in the small­est things, ac­cord­ing to the ways laid down by piti­less reg­ula­tions. Imag­ine, madame, the ef­fect such a life pro­duced on a lad like me, who had lived in the woods with the birds and the squir­rels! If I had not al­ready lived for six months with­in prison-​walls, I should, in spite of Mon­sieur Bon­net's grand words--for he, I can tru­ly say, is the fa­ther of my soul--I should, ah! I must have flung my­self in­to the sea at the mere sight of my com­pan­ions. Out-​doors I still could live; but in the build­ing, whether to sleep or to eat,--to eat out of buck­ets, and each buck­et filled for three cou­ples,--it was life no longer, it was death; the atro­cious faces and lan­guage of my com­pan­ions were al­ways in­suf­fer­able to me. Hap­pi­ly, from five o'clock in sum­mer, and from half-​past sev­en o'clock in win­ter we went, in spite of heat or cold and wind or rain, on 'fa­tigue,' that is, hard-​la­bor. Thus half this life was spent in the open air; and the air was sweet af­ter the close dor­mi­to­ry packed with eight hun­dred con­victs. And that air, too, is sea-​air! We could en­joy the breezes, we could be friends with the sun, we could watch the clouds as they passed above us, we could hope and pray for fine weath­er! As for me, I took an in­ter­est in my work--”

Farrabesche stopped; two heavy tears were rolling down his mis­tress's face.

“Oh! madame, I have on­ly told you the best side of that life,” he con­tin­ued, tak­ing the ex­pres­sion of her face as meant for him. “The ter­ri­ble pre­cau­tions tak­en by the gov­ern­ment, the con­stant spy­ing of the keep­ers, the black­smith's in­spec­tion of the chains ev­ery day, night and morn­ing, the coarse food, the hideous gar­ments which hu­mil­iate a man at all hours, the com­fort­less sleep, the hor­ri­ble rat­tling of eight hun­dred chains in that re­sound­ing hall, the prospect of be­ing shot or blown to pieces by can­non if ten of those vil­lains took a fan­cy to re­volt, all those dread­ful things are noth­ing, --noth­ing, I tell you; that is the bright side on­ly. There's an­oth­er side, madame, and a de­cent man, a bour­geois, would die of hor­ror in a week. A con­vict is forced to live with an­oth­er man; obliged to en­dure the com­pa­ny of five oth­er men at ev­ery meal, twen­ty-​three in his bed at night, and to hear their lan­guage! The great so­ci­ety of gal­ley-​slaves, madame, has its se­cret laws; dis­obey them and you are tor­tured; obey them, and you be­come a tor­tur­er. You must be ei­ther vic­tim or ex­ecu­tion­er. If they would kill you at once it would at least be the cure of life. But no, they are wis­er than that in do­ing evil. It is im­pos­si­ble to hold out against the ha­tred of these men; their pow­er is ab­so­lute over any pris­on­er who dis­pleas­es them, and they can make his life a tor­ment far worse than death. The man who re­pents and en­deav­ors to be­have well is their com­mon en­emy; above all, they sus­pect him of in­form­ing; and an in­former is put to death, of­ten on mere sus­pi­cion. Ev­ery hall and com­mu­ni­ty of eight hun­dred con­victs has its tri­bunal, in which are judged the crimes com­mit­ted against that so­ci­ety. Not to obey the us­ages is crim­inal, and a man is li­able to pun­ish­ment. For in­stance, ev­ery man must co-​op­er­ate in es­capes; ev­ery con­vict has his time as­signed him to es­cape, and all his fel­low-​con­victs must pro­tect and aid him. To re­veal what a com­rade is do­ing with a view to es­cape is crim­inal. I will not speak to you of the hor­ri­ble cus­toms and morals of the gal­leys. No man be­longs to him­self; the gov­ern­ment, in or­der to neu­tral­ize the at­tempts at re­volt or es­cape, takes pains to chain two con­trary na­tures and in­ter­ests to­geth­er; and this makes the tor­ture of the cou­pling un­en­durable; men are linked to­geth­er who hate or dis­trust each oth­er.”

“How was it with you?” asked Madame Graslin.

“Ah! there,” replied Farrabesche, “I had luck; I nev­er drew a lot to kill a con­vict; I nev­er had to vote the death of any one of them; I nev­er was pun­ished; no man took a dis­like to me; and I got on well with the three dif­fer­ent men I was chained to; they all feared me but liked me. One rea­son was, my name was known and fa­mous at the gal­leys be­fore I got there. A _chauf­feur_! they thought me one of those brig­ands. I have seen _chauff­ing_,” con­tin­ued Farrabesche af­ter a pause, in a low voice, “but I nev­er ei­ther did it my­self, or took any of the mon­ey ob­tained by it. I was a re­frac­to­ry, I evad­ed the con­scrip­tion, that was all. I helped my com­rades, I kept watch; I was sen­tinel and brought up the rear-​guard; but I nev­er shed any man's blood ex­cept in self-​de­fence. Ah! I told all to Mon­sieur Bon­net and my lawyer, and the judges knew well enough that I was no mur­der­er. But, all the same, I am a great crim­inal; noth­ing that I ev­er did was moral­ly right. How­ev­er, be­fore I got there, as I was say­ing, two of my com­rades told of me as a man able to do great things. At the gal­leys, madame, noth­ing is so valu­able as that rep­uta­tion, not even mon­ey. In that re­pub­lic of mis­ery mur­der is a pass­port to tran­quil­li­ty. I did noth­ing to de­stroy that opin­ion of me. I was sad, re­signed, and they mis­took the ap­pear­ance of it. My gloomy man­ner, my si­lence, passed for fe­roc­ity. All that world, con­victs, keep­ers, young and old, re­spect­ed me. I was treat­ed as first in my hall. No one in­ter­fered with my sleep; I was nev­er sus­pect­ed of in­form­ing; I be­haved hon­or­ably ac­cord­ing to their ideas; I nev­er re­fused to do ser­vice; I nev­er tes­ti­fied the slight­est re­pug­nance; I howled with the wolves out­side, I prayed to God with­in. My last com­pan­ion in chains was a sol­dier, twen­ty-​two years of age, who had com­mit­ted a theft and de­sert­ed in con­se­quence of it. We were chained to­geth­er for four years, and we were friends; wher­ev­er I may be I am cer­tain to meet him when his time is up. This poor dev­il, whose name is Guepin, is not a scoundrel, he is mere­ly heed­less; his pun­ish­ment may re­form him. If my com­rades had dis­cov­ered that re­li­gion led me to sub­mit to my tri­als,--that I meant, when my time was up, to live humbly in a cor­ner, let­ting no one know where I was, in­tend­ing to for­get their hor­ri­ble com­mu­ni­ty and nev­er to cross the path of any of them,--they would prob­ably have driv­en me mad.”

“Then,” said Madame Graslin, “if a poor young man, a ten­der soul, car­ried away by pas­sion, hav­ing com­mit­ted a mur­der, was spared from death and sent to the gal­leys--”

“Oh! madame,” said Farrabesche, in­ter­rupt­ing her, “there is no spar­ing in that. The sen­tence may be com­mut­ed to twen­ty years at the gal­leys, but for a de­cent young man, that is aw­ful! I could not speak to you of the life that awaits him there; a thou­sand times bet­ter die. Yes, to die up­on the scaf­fold is hap­pi­ness in com­par­ison.”

“I dared not think it,” mur­mured Madame Graslin.

She had turned as white as wax. To hide her face she laid her fore­head on the balustrade, and kept it there sev­er­al min­utes. Farrabesche did not know whether he ought to go or re­main.

Madame Graslin raised her head at last, looked at Farrabesche with an al­most ma­jes­tic air, and said, to his amaze­ment, in a voice that stirred his heart:--

“Thank you, my friend. But,” she added, af­ter a pause, “where did you find courage to live and suf­fer?”

“Ah! madame, Mon­sieur Bon­net put a trea­sure with­in my soul! and for that I love him bet­ter than all else on earth.”

“Bet­ter than Cather­ine?” said Madame Graslin, smil­ing with a sort of bit­ter­ness.

“Al­most as well, madame.”

“How did he do it?”

“Madame, the words and the voice of that man con­quered me. Cather­ine brought him to that hole in the ground I showed you on the com­mon; he had come fear­less­ly alone. He was, he said, the new rec­tor of Mon­teg­nac; I was his parish­ioner, he loved me; he knew I was on­ly mis­guid­ed, not lost; he did not in­tend to be­tray me, but to save me; in short, he said many such things that stirred my soul to its depths. That man, madame, com­mands you to do right with as much force as those who tell you to do wrong. It was he who told me, poor dear man, that Cather­ine was a moth­er, and that I was doom­ing two be­ings to shame and de­ser­tion. 'Well,' I said to him, 'they are like me; I have no fu­ture.' He an­swered that I had a fu­ture, two bad fu­tures, be­fore me --one in an­oth­er world, one in this world--if I per­sist­ed in not chang­ing my way of life. In this world, I should die on the scaf­fold. If I were cap­tured my de­fence would be im­pos­si­ble. On the con­trary, if I took ad­van­tage of the le­nien­cy of the new gov­ern­ment to­ward all crimes trace­able to the con­scrip­tion, if I de­liv­ered my­self up, he be­lieved he could save my life; he would en­gage a good lawyer, who would get me off with ten years at the gal­leys. Then Mon­sieur Bon­net talked to me of the oth­er life. Cather­ine wept like the Mag­dalen--See, madame,” said Farrabesche, hold­ing out his right arm, “her face was in that hand, and I felt it wet with tears. She im­plored me to live. Mon­sieur Bon­net promised to se­cure me, when I had served my sen­tence, a peace­ful life here with my child, and to pro­tect me against af­front. He cat­echised me as he would a lit­tle child. Af­ter three such vis­its at night he made me as sup­ple as a glove. Would you like to know how, madame?”

Farrabesche and Madame Graslin looked at each oth­er, not ex­plain­ing to them­selves their mu­tu­al cu­rios­ity.

“Well,” re­sumed the poor lib­er­at­ed con­vict, “when he left me the first time, and Cather­ine had gone with him to show the way, I was left alone. I then felt with­in my soul a fresh­ness, a calm­ness, a sweet­ness, I had nev­er known since child­hood. It was like the hap­pi­ness my poor Cather­ine had giv­en me. The love of this dear man had come to _seek me_; that, and his thought for me, for my fu­ture, stirred my soul to its depths; it changed me. A light broke forth in my be­ing. As long as he was there, speak­ing to me, I re­sist­ed. That's not sur­pris­ing; he was a priest, and we ban­dits don't eat of their bread. But when I no longer heard his foot­steps nor Cather­ine's, oh! I was--as he told me two days lat­er--en­light­ened by di­vine grace. God gave me thence­forth strength to bear all,--prison, sen­tence, irons, part­ing; even the life of the gal­leys. I be­lieved in his word as I do in the Gospel; I looked up­on my suf­fer­ings as a debt I was bound to pay. When I seemed to suf­fer too much, I looked across ten years and saw my home in the woods, my lit­tle Ben­jamin, my Cather­ine. He kept his word, that good Mon­sieur Bon­net. But one thing was lack­ing. When at last I was re­leased, Cather­ine was not at the gate of the gal­leys; she was not on the com­mon. No doubt she has died of grief. That is why I am al­ways sad. Now, thanks to you, I shall have use­ful work to do; I can em­ploy both body and soul,--and my boy, too, for whom I live.”

“I be­gin to un­der­stand how it is that the rec­tor has changed the char­ac­ter of this whole com­mu­ni­ty,” said Madame Graslin.

“Noth­ing can re­sist him,” said Farrabesche.

“Yes, yes, I know it!” replied Veronique, hasti­ly, mak­ing a ges­ture of farewell to her keep­er.

Farrabesche with­drew. Veronique re­mained alone on the ter­race for a good part of the day, walk­ing up and down in spite of a fine rain which fell till evening. When her face was thus con­vulsed, nei­ther her moth­er nor Aline dared to in­ter­rupt her. She did not no­tice in the dusk that her moth­er was talk­ing in the sa­lon to Mon­sieur Bon­net; the old wom­an, anx­ious to put an end to this fresh at­tack of dread­ful de­pres­sion, sent lit­tle Fran­cis to fetch her. The child took his moth­er's hand and led her in. When she saw the rec­tor she gave a start of sur­prise in which there seemed to be some fear. Mon­sieur Bon­net took her back to the ter­race, say­ing:--

“Well, madame, what were you talk­ing about with Farrabesche?”

In or­der not to speak false­ly, Veronique evad­ed a re­ply; she ques­tioned Mon­sieur Bon­net.

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

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

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

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

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

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