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He had walked about seeking work for over a month and had left his native town, Ville-Avary, in La Manche, because he could find nothing to do and would no longer deprive his family of the bread they needed themselves, when he was the strongest of them all.
His two sisters earned but little as charwomen.
He went and inquired at the town hall, and the mayor’s secretary told him that he would find work at the Labor Agency, and so he started, well provided with papers and certificates, and carrying another pair of shoes, a pair of trousers and a shirt in a blue handkerchief at the end of his stick.
And he had walked almost without stopping, day and night, along interminable roads, in sun and rain, without ever reaching that mysterious country where workmen find work.
At first he had the fixed idea that he must only work as a carpenter, but at every carpenter’s shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on account of work being so slack, and, finding himself at the end of his resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come across on the road.
And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman, stonecutter;
he split wood, lopped the branches of trees, dug wells, mixed mortar, tied up fagots, tended goats on a mountain, and all for a few pence, for he only obtained two or three days’ work occasionally by offering himself at a shamefully low price, in order to tempt the avarice of employers and peasants.
And now for a week he had found nothing, and had no money left, and nothing to eat but a piece of bread, thanks to the charity of some women from whom he had begged at house doors on the road.
It was getting dark, and Jacques Randel, jaded, his legs failing him, his stomach empty, and with despair in his heart, was walking barefoot on the grass by the side of the road, for he was taking care of his last pair of shoes, as the other pair had already ceased to exist for a long time.
It was a Saturday, toward the end of autumn.
The heavy gray clouds were being driven rapidly through the sky by the gusts of wind which whistled among the trees, and one felt that it would rain soon.
The country was deserted at that hour on the eve of Sunday.
Here and there in the fields there rose up stacks of wheat straw, like huge yellow mushrooms, and the fields looked bare, as they had already been sown for the next year.
Randel was hungry, with the hunger of some wild animal, such a hunger as drives wolves to attack men.
Worn out and weakened with fatigue, he took longer strides, so as not to take so many steps, and with heavy head, the blood throbbing in his temples, with red eyes and dry mouth, he grasped his stick tightly in his hand, with a longing to strike the first passerby who might be going home to supper.
He looked at the sides of the road, imagining he saw potatoes dug up and lying on the ground before his eyes;
if he had found any he would have gathered some dead wood, made a fire in the ditch and have had a capital supper off the warm, round vegetables with which he would first of all have warmed his cold hands.
But it was too late in the year, and he would have to gnaw a raw beetroot which he might pick up in a field as he had done the day before.
For the last two days he had talked to himself as he quickened his steps under the influence of his thoughts.
He had never thought much hitherto, as he had given all his mind, all his simple faculties to his mechanical work.
But now fatigue and this desperate search for work which he could not get, refusals and rebuffs, nights spent in the open air lying on the grass, long fasting, the contempt which he knew people with a settled abode felt for a vagabond, and that question which he was continually asked, “Why do you not remain at home?
” distress at not being able to use his strong arms which he felt so full of vigor, the recollection of the relations he had left at home and who also had not a penny, filled him by degrees with rage, which had been accumulating every day, every hour, every minute, and which now escaped his lips in spite of himself in short, growling sentences.
As he stumbled over the stones which tripped his bare feet, he grumbled: “How wretched!
how miserable!
A set of hogs—to let a man die of hunger—a carpenter—a set of hogs—not two sous—not two sous—and now it is raining—a set of hogs!”
He was indignant at the injustice of fate, and cast the blame on men, on all men, because nature, that great, blind mother, is unjust, cruel and perfidious, and he repeated through his clenched teeth:
“A set of hogs” as he looked at the thin gray smoke which rose from the roofs, for it was the dinner hour.
And, without considering that there is another injustice which is human, and which is called robbery and violence, he felt inclined to go into one of those houses to murder the inhabitants and to sit down to table in their stead.
He said to himself: “I have no right to live now, as they are letting me die of hunger, and yet I only ask for work—a set of hogs!
” And the pain in his limbs, the gnawing in his heart rose to his head like terrible intoxication, and gave rise to this simple thought in his brain:
“I have the right to live because I breathe and because the air is the common property of everybody.
So nobody has the right to leave me without bread!”
A fine, thick, icy cold rain was coming down, and he stopped and murmured: “Oh, misery!
Another month of walking before I get home.
” He was indeed returning home then, for he saw that he should more easily find work in his native town, where he was known—and he did not mind what he did—than on the highroads, where everybody suspected him.
As the carpentering business was not prosperous, he would turn day laborer, be a mason’s hodman, a ditcher, break stones on the road.
If he only earned a franc a day, that would at any rate buy him something to eat.
He tied the remains of his last pocket handkerchief round his neck to prevent the cold rain from running down his back and chest, but he soon found that it was penetrating the thin material of which his clothes were made, and he glanced about him with the agonized look of a man who does not know where to hide his body and to rest his head, and has no place of shelter in the whole world.
Night came on and wrapped the country in obscurity, and in the distance, in a meadow, he saw a dark spot on the grass;
it was a cow, and so he got over the ditch by the roadside and went up to her without exactly knowing what he was doing.
When he got close to her she raised her great head to him, and he thought: “If I only had a jug I could get a little milk.
” He looked at the cow and the cow looked at him and then, suddenly giving her a kick in the side, he said: “Get up!”
The animal got up slowly, letting her heavy udders bang down.
Then the man lay down on his back between the animal’s legs and drank for a long time, squeezing her warm, swollen teats, which tasted of the cowstall, with both hands, and he drank as long as she gave any milk.
But the icy rain began to fall more heavily, and he saw no place of shelter on the whole of that bare plain.
He was cold, and he looked at a light which was shining among the trees in the window of a house.
The cow had lain down again heavily, and he sat down by her side and stroked her head, grateful for the nourishment she had given him.
The animal’s strong, thick breath, which came out of her nostrils like two jets of steam in the evening air, blew on the workman’s face, and he said:
“You are not cold inside there!
” He put his hands on her chest and under her stomach to find some warmth there, and then the idea struck him that he might pass the night beside that large, warm animal.
So he found a comfortable place and laid his head on her side, and then, as he was worn out with fatigue, fell asleep immediately.
He woke up, however, several times, with his back or his stomach half frozen, according as he put one or the other against the animal’s flank.
Then he turned over to warm and dry that part of his body which had remained exposed to the night air, and soon went soundly to sleep again.
The crowing of a cock woke him; the day was breaking, it was no longer raining, and the sky was bright.
The cow was resting with her muzzle on the ground, and he stooped down, resting on his hands, to kiss those wide, moist nostrils, and said:
“Good-by, my beauty, until next time.
You are a nice animal. Good-by.
” Then he put on his shoes and went off, and for two hours walked straight before him, always following the same road, and then he felt so tired that he sat down on the grass.
It was broad daylight by that time, and the church bells were ringing;
men in blue blouses, women in white caps, some on foot, some in carts, began to pass along the road, going to the neighboring villages to spend Sunday with friends or relations.
A stout peasant came in sight, driving before him a score of frightened, bleating sheep, with the help of an active dog.
Randel got up, and raising his cap, said:
“You do not happen to have any work for a man who is dying of hunger?
” But the other, giving an angry look at the vagabond, replied:
“I have no work for fellows whom I meet on the road.”
And the carpenter went back and sat down by the side of the ditch again.
He waited there for a long time, watching the country people pass and looking for a kind, compassionate face before he renewed his request, and finally selected a man in an overcoat, whose stomach was adorned with a gold chain.
“I have been looking for work,” he said, “for the last two months and cannot find any, and I have not a sou in my pocket.
” But the would-be gentleman replied:
“You should have read the notice which is stuck up at the entrance to the village:
‘Begging is prohibited within the boundaries of this parish.’ Let me tell you that I am the mayor, and if you do not get out of here pretty quickly I shall have you arrested.”
Randel, who was getting angry, replied:
“Have me arrested if you like; I should prefer it, for, at any rate, I should not die of hunger.
” And he went back and sat down by the side of his ditch again, and in about a quarter of an hour two gendarmes appeared on the road.
They were walking slowly side by side, glittering in the sun with their shining hats, their yellow accoutrements and their metal buttons, as if to frighten evildoers, and to put them to flight at a distance.
He knew that they were coming after him, but he did not move, for he was seized with a sudden desire to defy them, to be arrested by them, and to have his revenge later.
They came on without appearing to have seen him, walking heavily, with military step, and balancing themselves as if they were doing the goose step;
and then, suddenly, as they passed him, appearing to have noticed him, they stopped and looked at him angrily and threateningly, and the brigadier came up to him and asked:
“What are you doing here?” “I am resting, ” the man replied calmly.
“Where do you come from?
” “If I had to tell you all the places I have been to it would take me more than an hour.
” “Where are you going to?
” “To Ville-Avary.” “Where is that?
” “In La Manche.” “Is that where you belong?
” “It is.” “Why did you leave it?
” “To look for work.”
The brigadier turned to his gendarme and said in the angry voice of a man who is exasperated at last by an oft-repeated trick:
“They all say that, these scamps.
I know all about it.” And then he continued:
“Have you any papers?” “Yes, I have some.” “Give them to me.”
Randel took his papers out of his pocket, his certificates, those poor, worn-out, dirty papers which were falling to pieces, and gave them to the soldier, who spelled them through, hemming and hawing, and then, having seen that they were all in order, he gave them back to Randel with the dissatisfied look of a man whom some one cleverer than himself has tricked.
After a few moments’ further reflection, he asked him:
“Have you any money on you?
” “No.” “None whatever?
” “None.” “Not even a sou?
” “Not even a son!” “How do you live then?” “On what people give me.
” “Then you beg?” And Randel answered resolutely:
“Yes, when I can.”
Then the gendarme said: “I have caught you on the highroad in the act of vagabondage and begging, without any resources or trade, and so I command you to come with me.
” The carpenter got up and said: “Wherever you please.
” And, placing himself between the two soldiers, even before he had received the order to do so, he added:
“Well, lock me up; that will at any rate put a roof over my head when it rains.”
And they set off toward the village, the red tiles of which could be seen through the leafless trees, a quarter of a league off.
Service was about to begin when they went through the village.
The square was full of people, who immediately formed two lines to see the criminal pass.
He was being followed by a crowd of excited children.
Male and female peasants looked at the prisoner between the two gendarmes, with hatred in their eyes and a longing to throw stones at him, to tear his skin with their nails, to trample him under their feet.
They asked each other whether he had committed murder or robbery.
The butcher, who was an ex-‘spahi’, declared that he was a deserter.
The tobacconist thought that he recognized him as the man who had that very morning passed a bad half-franc piece off on him, and the ironmonger declared that he was the murderer of Widow Malet, whom the police had been looking for for six months.
In the municipal court, into which his custodians took him, Randel saw the mayor again, sitting on the magisterial bench, with the schoolmaster by his side.
“Aha! aha!” the magistrate exclaimed, “so here you are again, my fine fellow.
I told you I should have you locked up. Well, brigadier, what is he charged with?”
“He is a vagabond without house or home, Monsieur le Maire, without any resources or money, so he says, who was arrested in the act of begging, but he is provided with good testimonials, and his papers are all in order.”
“Show me his papers,” the mayor said. He took them, read them, reread, returned them and then said:
“Search him.
” So they searched him, but found nothing, and the mayor seemed perplexed, and asked the workman:
“What were you doing on the road this morning?
” “I was looking for work.
” “Work?
On the highroad?” “How do you expect me to find any if I hide in the woods?”
They looked at each other with the hatred of two wild beasts which belong to different hostile species, and the magistrate continued:
“I am going to have you set at liberty, but do not be brought up before me again.
” To which the carpenter replied:
“I would rather you locked me up;
I have had enough running about the country.
” But the magistrate replied severely:
“be silent.
” And then he said to the two gendarmes:
“You will conduct this man two hundred yards from the village and let him continue his journey.”
“At any rate, give me something to eat, ” the workman said, but the other grew indignant:
“Have we nothing to do but to feed you?
Ah! ah! ah!
that is rather too much!” But Randel went on firmly:
“If you let me nearly die of hunger again, you will force me to commit a crime, and then, so much the worse for you other fat fellows.”
The mayor had risen and he repeated:
“Take him away immediately or I shall end by getting angry.”
The two gendarmes thereupon seized the carpenter by the arms and dragged him out.
He allowed them to do it without resistance, passed through the village again and found himself on the highroad once more;
and when the men had accompanied him two hundred yards beyond the village, the brigadier said:
“Now off with you and do not let me catch you about here again, for if I do, you will know it.”
Randel went off without replying or knowing where he was going.
He walked on for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, so stupefied that he no longer thought of anything.
But suddenly, as he was passing a small house, where the window was half open, the smell of the soup and boiled meat stopped him suddenly, and hunger, fierce, devouring, maddening hunger, seized him and almost drove him against the walls of the house like a wild beast.
He said aloud in a grumbling voice:
“In Heaven’s name! they must give me some this time!
” And he began to knock at the door vigorously with his stick, and as no one came he knocked louder and called out:
“Hey! hey!
you people in there, open the door!” And then, as nothing stirred, he went up to the window and pushed it wider open with his hand, and the close warm air of the kitchen, full of the smell of hot soup, meat and cabbage, escaped into the cold outer air, and with a bound the carpenter was in the house.
Two places were set at the table, and no doubt the proprietors of the house, on going to church, had left their dinner on the fire, their nice Sunday boiled beef and vegetable soup, while there was a loaf of new bread on the chimney-piece, between two bottles which seemed full.
Randel seized the bread first of all and broke it with as much violence as if he were strangling a man, and then he began to eat voraciously, swallowing great mouthfuls quickly.
But almost immediately the smell of the meat attracted him to the fireplace, and, having taken off the lid of the saucepan, he plunged a fork into it and brought out a large piece of beef tied with a string.
Then he took more cabbage, carrots and onions until his plate was full, and, having put it on the table, he sat down before it, cut the meat into four pieces, and dined as if he had been at home.
When he had eaten nearly all the meat, besides a quantity of vegetables, he felt thirsty and took one of the bottles off the mantelpiece.
Scarcely had he poured the liquor into his glass when he saw it was brandy.
So much the better;
it was warming and would instill some fire into his veins, and that would be all right, after being so cold; and he drank some.
He certainly enjoyed it, for he had grown unaccustomed to it, and he poured himself out another glassful, which he drank at two gulps.
And then almost immediately he felt quite merry and light-hearted from the effects of the alcohol, just as if some great happiness filled his heart.
He continued to eat, but more slowly, and dipping his bread into the soup.
His skin had become burning, and especially his forehead, where the veins were throbbing.
But suddenly the church bells began to ring.
Mass was over, and instinct rather than fear, the instinct of prudence, which guides all beings and makes them clear-sighted in danger, made the carpenter get up.
He put the remains of the loaf into one pocket and the brandy bottle into the other, and he furtively went to the window and looked out into the road.
It was still deserted, so he jumped out and set off walking again, but instead of following the highroad he ran across the fields toward a wood he saw a little way off.
He felt alert, strong, light-hearted, glad of what he had done, and so nimble that he sprang over the enclosure of the fields at a single bound, and as soon as he was under the trees he took the bottle out of his pocket again and began to drink once more, swallowing it down as he walked, and then his ideas began to get confused, his eyes grew dim, and his legs as elastic as springs, and he started singing the old popular song:
“Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
To pick the sweet, wild strawberries.”
He was now walking on thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels as he used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault, got up and began over again.
And between each time he began to sing again:
“Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
To pick the sweet, wild strawberries.”
Suddenly he found himself above a deep road, and in the road he saw a tall girl, a servant, who was returning to the village with two pails of milk.
He watched, stooping down, and with his eyes as bright as those of a dog who scents a quail, but she saw him raised her head and said:
“Was that you singing like that?” He did not reply, however, but jumped down into the road, although it was a fall of at least six feet and when she saw him suddenly standing in front of her, she exclaimed:
“Oh! dear, how you frightened me!”
But he did not hear her, for he was drunk, he was mad, excited by another requirement which was more imperative than hunger, more feverish than alcohol;
by the irresistible fury of the man who has been deprived of everything for two months, and who is drunk;
who is young, ardent and inflamed by all the appetites which nature has implanted in the vigorous flesh of men.
The girl started back from him, frightened at his face, his eyes, his half-open mouth, his outstretched hands, but he seized her by the shoulders, and without a word, threw her down in the road.
She let her two pails fall, and they rolled over noisily, and all the milk was spilt, and then she screamed lustily, but it was of no avail in that lonely spot.
When she got up the thought of her overturned pails suddenly filled her with fury, and, taking off one of her wooden sabots, she threw it at the man to break his head if he did not pay her for her milk.
But he, mistaking the reason of this sudden violent attack, somewhat sobered, and frightened at what he had done, ran off as fast as he could, while she threw stones at him, some of which hit him in the back.
He ran for a long time, very long, until he felt more tired than he had ever been before.
His legs were so weak that they could scarcely carry him;
all his ideas were confused, he lost recollection of everything and could no longer think about anything, and so he sat down at the foot of a tree, and in five minutes was fast asleep.
He was soon awakened, however, by a rough shake, and, on opening his eyes, he saw two cocked hats of shiny leather bending over him, and the two gendarmes of the morning, who were holding him and binding his arms.
“I knew I should catch you again, ” said the brigadier jeeringly.
But Randel got up without replying.
The two men shook him, quite ready to ill treat him if he made a movement, for he was their prey now.
He had become a jailbird, caught by those hunters of criminals who would not let him go again.
“Now, start!” the brigadier said, and they set off.
It was late afternoon, and the autumn twilight was setting in over the land, and in half an hour they reached the village, where every door was open, for the people had heard what had happened.
Peasants and peasant women and girls, excited with anger, as if every man had been robbed and every woman attacked, wished to see the wretch brought back, so that they might overwhelm him with abuse.
They hooted him from the first house in the village until they reached the Hotel de Ville, where the mayor was waiting for him to be himself avenged on this vagabond, and as soon as he saw him approaching he cried:
“Ah! my fine fellow! here we are!
” And he rubbed his hands, more pleased than he usually was, and continued:
“I said so. I said so, the moment I saw him in the road.”
And then with increased satisfaction:
“Oh, you blackguard! Oh, you dirty blackguard!
You will get your twenty years, my fine fellow!”
