MAL DE VIVRE
A poet, Laurent Laurini by name, was sick unto death with the illness, called weariness of life. It is a terrible malady, and those who have fallen prey to it are unable to look upon men, animals, and things without frightful suffering. Great scruples poison his heart.
The poet went away from the town where he dwelled. He sought out the fields to gaze at the trees and the corn and the waters, to listen to the quails that sing like fountains and to the falling of the weavers' looms and the hum of the telegraph wires. These things and these sounds saddened him.
The gentlest thoughts were bitterness to him. And when he picked a little flower in order to escape his terrible malady, he wept because he had plucked it.
He entered a village on an evening sweet with the perfume of pears. It was a beautiful village like those he had often described in his books. There was a town square, a church, a cemetery, gardens, a smithy, and a dark inn. Blue smoke rose from it, and within was the sheen of glasses. There was also a stream which wound in and out under the wild nut-trees.
The poet with his sick heart sat down mournfully on a stone. He was thinking of the torment he was enduring, of his old mother crying because of his absence, of the women who had deceived him, and he had homesickness for the time of his first communion.
"My heart," he thought, "my sad heart cannot change."
Suddenly he saw a young peasant-girl near by gathering her geese under the stars. She said to him:
"Why do you weep?"
He answered:
"My soul was hurt in falling upon the earth. I cannot be cured because my heart is too heavy."
"Will you have mine?" she said. "It is light. I will take yours and carry it easily. Am I not accustomed to burdens?"
He gave her his heart and took hers. Immediately they smiled at each other and hand in hand they followed the pathway.
The geese went in front of them like bits of the moon.
* * * * *
She said to him:
"I know that you are wise, and that I cannot know what you know. But I know that I love you. You are from elsewhere, and you must have been born in a wonderful cradle like that I once saw in a cart. It belonged to rich people. Your mother must speak beautifully. I love you. You must have loved women with very white faces, and I must seem ugly and black to you. I was not born in a wonderful cradle. I was born in the wheat of the fields at harvest time. They have told me this, and also that my mother and I and a little lamb to which a ewe had given birth on that same day were carried home on an ass. Rich people have horses."
He said to her:
"I know that you are simple, and that I cannot be like you. But I know that I love you. You are from here, and you must have been rocked in a basket placed on a black chair like that which I have seen in a picture. I love you. Your mother must spin linen. You must have danced under the trees with strong handsome laughing boys. I must seem sick and sad to you. I was not born in the fields at harvest time. We were born in a beautiful room, I and a little twin sister who died at birth. My mother was sick. Poor people are strong."
Then they embraced more closely on the bed where they lay together.
She said to him:
"I have your heart."
He said to her:
"I have your heart."
* * * * *
They had a sweet little boy.
And the poet, feeling that the illness which had so weighed upon him had fled, said to his wife:
"My mother does not know what has become of me. My heart is wrung with that thought. Let me go to the town, my beloved, and tell her that I am happy and that I have a son."
She smiled at him, knowing that his heart was hers, and said:
"Go."
And he went back by the way he had come.
He was soon at the gates of the town in front of a magnificent residence. There was laughter and chatter within for they were giving a feast, one to which the poor were not invited. The poet recognized the house, as that of an old friend of his, a rich and celebrated artist. He stopped to listen to the conversation before the latticed gate of the park through which fountains and statues could be seen. He recognized the voice of a woman. She was beautiful, and once had broken his boyish heart. She was saying:
"Do you remember the great poet, Laurent Laurini?…They say he has made a mésalliance, and has married a cowherd…."
* * * * *
Tears rose to his eyes, and he continued his way through the streets of the town until he came to the house where he was born. The paving-stones replied softly to the words of his tired steps. He pushed open his door and entered. And his old dog, faithful and gentle as ever, ran limpingly to meet him; it barked with joy, and licked his hand. He saw that since his departure the poor beast had had some sort of stroke or paralysis, for time and trouble afflict the bodies of animals as well.
Laurent Laurini mounted the stairs, keeping close to the bannisters, and he was deeply moved, when he saw the old cat turn around, arch her back, raise her tail, and rub against the steps. On the landing the clock struck, as if in gratitude.
He entered her room gently. He saw his mother on her knees praying.
She was saying:
"Dear God, I pray unto Thee, that my son may still be among the living. Oh my God, he has suffered much…Where is he? Forgive me for this that I have given him birth. Forgive him for this that he is causing me to die."
Then he knelt down beside her, laying his young lips on her poor gray hair, and said:
"Come with me. I am healed. I know a land where there are trees and corn and waters, where quails sing, where the looms of the weavers fall, where the telegraph wires hum, where a poor woman dwells who holds my heart, and where your grandson is playing."