C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
A Simple Story
By Jacques Jasmin (1798–1864)
N
How I was born, and what my youth befell.
Had barely two more years on earth to stay,
When in a dingy and a dim retreat,
An old rat-palace in a narrow street,
Behind a door, Shrove Tuesday morn,
Just as the day flung its black nightcap by,
Of mother lame, and humpbacked sire, was born
A boy,—and it was I.
With joy; but when I woke,
Being but a tailor’s son, it was no wonder
Not even a cracker spoke.
Only a certain charivarian band
Before our neighbor’s door had ta’en its stand,
Whereby my little virgin ears were torn
With dreadful din of kettle and of horn,
Which only served to echo wide the drone
Of forty couplets of my father’s own….
We can but paint what we have felt, they say:
Why, then must feeling have begun for me
At seven years old; for then myself I see,
With paper cap on head and horn in hand,
Following my father in the village band.
Was I not happy while the horns were blowing?
Or better still, when we by chance were going,
A score or more, as we were wont to, whiles,
To gather fagots on the river isles?
Bare heads, bare feet, our luncheon carrying,
Just as the noontide bells began to ring,
We would set forth. Ah, that was glee!
Singing ‘The Lamb thou gavest me!’
I’m merry at the very memory!…
One simple word would strike me mute full often,
And I would hark, as to a viol string,
And knew not why I felt my heart so soften:
And that was school,—a pleasant word enow;
But when my mother at her spinning-wheel
Would pause and look on me with pitying brow,
And breathe it to my grandsire, I would feel
A sudden sorrow as I eyed the twain,—
A mystery, a long whole moment’s pain.
I liked to fill a little pouch I had,
At the great fairs, with whatso I could glean,
And then to bid my mother look within;
And if my purse but showed her I had won
A few poor coins, a sou for service done,
Sighing, “Ah, my poor little one,” she said,
“This comes in time;” and then my spirit bled.
Yet laughter soon came back, and I
Was giddier than before, a very butterfly….
No more my footstool; for there chanced a thing
So strange, so sorrowful, so harrowing,
That long, long afterwards it made me weep.
So early rent from happy little eyes?
I mind one Monday,—’twas my tenth birthday,—
The other boys had throned me king, in play,
When I was smitten by a sorry sight:
Two cartmen bore some aged helpless wight,
In an old willow chair, along the way.
I watched them as they near and nearer drew;
And what saw I? Dear God, could it be true?
’Twas my own grandsire, and our household all
Following. I saw but him. With sudden yearning,
I sprang and kissed him. He, my kiss returning,
For the first time some piteous tears let fall.
“Where wilt thou go? and why wilt thou forsake
Us little ones who love thee?” was my cry.
“Dear, they are taking me,” my grandsire spake,
“Unto the almshouse, where the Jasmins die.”
Kissed me once more, closed his blue eyes, passed on.
Far through the trees we followed them, be sure.
In five more days the word came he was gone.
For me sad wisdom woke that Monday morn:
Then knew I first that we were very poor….
And, if not fair, the likeness shall be true….
Now saw I why our race, from sire to son,
For many lives, had never died at home;
But time for crutches having come,
The almshouse claimed its own.
I saw why one brisk woman every morn
Paused, pail in hand, my grandame’s threshold by:
She brought her—not yet old, though thus forlorn—
The bread of charity.
And ah, that wallet! by two cords uphung,
Wherein my hands for broken bread went straying,—
Grandsire had borne it round the farms among,
A morsel from his ancient comrades praying.
Poor grandsire! When I kept him company,
The softest bit was evermore for me!
I played no more at leap-frog in the street,
But sat and dreamed about the seasons gone.
And if chance things my sudden laughter won,—
Flag, soldier, hoop, or kite,—it died away
Like the pale sunbeam of a weeping day….
Crying, “Come, Jacques, to school!” Stupid, I stood and gazed.
“To school! What then? are we grown rich?” I cried amazed.
“Nay, nay, poor little one! Thou wilt not have to pay!
Thy cousin gives it thee, and I am blessed this day.”
Mumbling my lesson in the alphabet.
I had a goodly memory; or so they used to say.
Thanks to this pious dame, therefore,
’Twixt smiles and tears it came to pass
That I could read in six months more;
In six months more could say the mass;
In six months more I might aspire
To tantum ergo and the choir;
In six months more, still paying nothing,
I passed the sacred college gate;
In six months more, with wrath and loathing
They thrust me forth. Ah, luckless fate!
Upon the term’s last week, and my theme won the same.
(A cassock ’twas, and verily
As autumn heather old and dry.)
Nathless, when mother dear upon Shrove Monday came,
My cheeks fired when we kissed; along my veins the blood
Racing in little blobs did seem.
More darns were in the cassock, well I understood,
Than errors in my theme;
But glad at heart was I, and the gladder for her glee.
What love was in her touch! What looks she gave her son!
“Thank God, thou learnest well!” said she;
“For this is why, my little one,
Each Tuesday comes a loaf, and so rude the winter blows,
It is welcome, as He knows.”
And when she turned away, content was in her eyes.
So I pondered on my frock, and my sire, who presently
Should come and take my measure. It happened otherwise.
The marplot de’il himself had sworn
It should not be, so it would seem,
Nor holy gown by me be worn.
Drove me across, and bade me stop
Under a ladder slight and tall,
Where a pretty peasant maiden, roosted against the wall,
Was dressing pouter pigeons, there atop.
Slid a tremor through my veins, and across my dreary day
There flashed a sudden vision on my sight
Of a life all velvet, so to say:
I was fain to mount a bit, till I discerned
A pair of comely legs, a pair of snowy feet,
And all my silly heart within me burned.
One tell-tale sigh I gave, and my damsel veered, alas!—
Then huddled up with piteous cries;
The ladder snapped before my eyes.
She fell!—escape for me none was!
And there we twain lay sprawling upon the court-yard floor,
I under and she o’er!…
What step is this upon the stair? Who fumbles at the bars?
Alackaday! Who opes the door?
The dread superior himself! And he my pardon bore!
The mother sees, in stark despair,
The onslaught of the monster wild
Who will devour her darling child;
And, fury in her look, nor heeding life the least,
With piercing cry, “My boy!” leaps on the savage beast;
Who, wondering and withstood,
Seemeth to quench the burning of his cruel thirst for blood,
And the baby is released:
Just so the reverend canon, with madness in his eye,
Sprang on my wretched self, and “My sweetmeats!” was his cry;
And the nobler lion’s part, alas, was not for me!
For the jar was empty half and the bottom plain to see!
Thou’rt past forgiveness now! Dream not of such a thing!”
And the old canon, summoning
His forces, shook my ladder well.
Then with a quaking heart I turned me to descend,
Still by one handle holding tight
The fatal jar, which dropped outright
And shattered, and so came the end!
An outcast in the street, in the merry carnival,
As black as any Moor, with all
The sweetmeat stains upon my face!
My woes, meseemed, were just begun.
“Ho for the masque!” a gamin cried;
Full desperately did I run,
But a mob of howling urchins thronged me on every side.
Raised at my heels a cloud of dust,
And roared, “The masque is full of must!”
As on the wind’s own pinions borne
I fled, and gained our cot forlorn,
And in among my household burst,
Starved, dripping, dead with rage and thirst.
And while we kissed I told them all, whereon a silence fell.
Seeing bean-porridge on the fire,
I said I would my hunger quell.
Wherefore then did they make as though they heard not me,
Standing death-still? At last arose my mother dear,
Most anxiously, most tenderly.
“Why are we tarrying?” said she,
“No more will come. Our all is here.”
Sorely the mystery made me quake,—
“What wast thou waiting, mother mild?”
I trembled, for I guessed. And she, “The loaf, my child!”
So I had ta’en their bread away! O squalor and distress!
Accursed sweetmeats! Naughty feet!
I am base indeed! O silence full of bitterness!
Gentles, who pitying weep for every woe ye meet,
My anguish ye may guess!
Gone was my hunger now, but in my aching heart
I seemed to feel a cruel smart,
A stab as of a brand, fire-new and keen,
Rending the scabbard it is shut within.
While she, as in a dream, gazed on her own left hand;
Then put her Sunday kerchief by,
And rose and spake right cheerily,
And left us for a while; and when she came once more,
Beneath her arm a little loaf she bore.
And to the table turned. Ah, well!
They laughed, but I was full of thought,
And evermore my wandering eyes my mother sought.
Sorry was I, and mute, for a doubt that me possessed,
And drowned the noisy clamor of the rest.
But what I longed to see perpetually withdrew
And shyly hid from view,
Until at last, soup being done,
My gentle mother made a move
As she would cut the loaf, signing the cross above.
Then stole I one swift look the dear left hand upon,
And ah, it was too true!—the wedding-ring was gone!…
Swept onward by the human stream that toward the palace bore,
Unthinkingly the way I trod,
And followed eager hundreds o’er
The threshold of an open door.
Good Heaven! where was I? What might mean
The lifting of that linen screen?
O lovely, lovely vision! O country strange and fair!
How they sing in yon bright world! and how sweetly talk they too!
Can ears attend the music rare,
Or eyes embrace the dazzling view?
“Why, yon is Cinderella!” I shouted in my maze.
“Silence!” quoth he who sat by me.
“Why, then? Where are we, sir? What is this whereon we gaze?”
“Thou idiot! This is the Comedy!”
Full oft at school had heard the same;
And fast the fevered pulses flew
In my low room the dark night through.
“O fatherland of poesy! O paradise of love!
Thou art a dream to me no more! Thy mighty spell I prove.
And thee, sweet Cinderella, my guardian I make,
And to-morrow I turn player for thy sake!”
Of my master, who awoke me. How like a leaf I shook!
“Where wast thou yesternight? Answer me, ne’er-do-weel!
And wherefore home at midnight steal?”
“O sir, how glorious was the play!”
“The play, indeed! ’Tis very true what people say:
Thou art stark crazy, wretched boy,
To make so vile an uproar through all the livelong night!
To sing and spout, and rest of sober souls destroy.
Thou who hast worn a cassock, nor blushest for thy plight!
Thou’lt come to grief, I warn thee so!
Quit shop, mayhap, and turn thyself a player low!”
“Ay, master dear, that would I be!”
“What, what? Hear I aright?” said he.
“Art blind? and dost not know the gate
That leadeth to the almshouse straight?”
At this terrific word, the heart in me went down
As though a club had fallen thereon;
And Cinderella fled her throne in my light head.
The pang I straightway did forget;
And yet, meseems, yon awful threat
Made softer evermore my attic bed.