Romance of the Rabbit

by Francis Jammes

OF THINGS*

*Some of the instances here are purely imaginary. I invented them so that I might more deeply penetrate into the heart of these things.

I enter a great square of stirring shadow. Here close beside a red and black candle a man is driving nails into a shoe. Two children stretch their hands toward the hearth. A blackbird sleeps in its wicker cage. Water is boiling in the smoky earthenware pot from which rises a disagreeable soupy smell which mingles with that of tanner's bark and leather. A crouching dog gazes fixedly into the coals.

There is such an air of gentle peace about these souls and these obscure things that I do not ask whether they have any reason for being other than this very peace, nor whether I read a special charm into their humility.

The God of the poor watches over them, the simple God in whom I believe. It is He who makes an ear of grain grow from a seed; it is He who separates water from earth, earth from air, air from fire, fire from night; it is He who blows the breath of life into the body; it is He who fashions the leaves one by one. We do not know how this is done, but we have faith in it as in the work of a perfect workman.

I contemplate without desiring to understand, and thus God reveals Himself to me. In the house of this cobbler my eyes open as simply as those of his dog. Then I see, I see in truth that which few can see—the essence of things, as, for example, the devotion of the smoky flame without which the hammer of the workman could not be a bread-winner.

Most of the time we regard things in a heedless fashion. But they are like us, sorrowful or happy. When I notice a diseased ear of wheat among healthy ears, and see the livid stain on its grains I have a quick intuitive understanding of the suffering of this particular thing. Within myself I feel the pain of those plant-cells; I realize their agony in growing in this infected spot without crushing one another. I am filled with a desire to tear up my handkerchief, and bandage this ear of wheat. But I feel that there is no remedy for a single ear of wheat, and that humanly it would be an act of folly to attempt this cure. Such things are not done, yet no one pays any special attention if I take care of a bird or a grasshopper. Nevertheless I am certain that these grains suffer, because I feel their suffering.

A beautiful rose on the other hand imparts to me its joy in life. One feels that it is perfectly happy swaying on its stem, for does not everybody say simply, "It is a pity to cut it," and thus affirm and preserve the happiness of this flower?

* * * * *

I recall very distinctly the time when it was first revealed to me that things suffered. It happened when I was three years old. In my native hamlet a little boy, while playing, fell on a piece of broken glass, and died of the wound.

A few days later I went to the child's home. His mother was crying in the kitchen. On the mantelpiece stood a poor little toy. I recall perfectly that it was a small tin or leaden horse, attached to a little tin barrel on wheels.

His mother said to me: "That is my poor little Louis's wagon. He is dead. Would you like to have it?"

Then a flood of tenderness filled my heart. I felt that this thing had lost its friend, its master, and that it was suffering. I accepted the plaything, and overcome with pity I sobbed as I carried it home. I recall very well that I was too young to realize either the death of the little boy or the sorrow of his mother. I pitied only that leaden animal which seemed heart-broken to me as it stood on the mantelpiece forever idle and bereaved of the master it loved. I remember all this as if it had happened yesterday, and I am sure that I had no desire to possess this toy for my own amusement. This is absolutely true, for when I came home, with my eyes full of tears, I confided the little horse and barrel to my mother. She has forgotten the whole incident.

The belief that things are endowed with life exists among children, animals, and simple people.

I have seen children attribute the characteristics of a living being to a piece of rough wood or to a stone. They brought it handfuls of grass, and were absolutely sure that the wood or stone had eaten it when, as a matter of fact, I had carried it off without their noticing it.

Animals do not differentiate the quality of an action. I have seen cats scratch at something too hot for them for a long time. In this act on the part of the animal there is an idea of fighting something which can yield or perhaps die.

I think it is only an education, born of false vanity, that has robbed man of such beliefs. I myself see no essential difference between the thought of a child who gives food to a piece of wood and the meaning of some of the libations in primitive religions. Do we not attribute to trees an attachment to us stronger than life itself when we believe that one planted on the birthday of a child that sickens and dies will wither and dry up at the same time?

I have known things in pain. I have known some which are dead. The sad clothes of our departed wear out quickly. They are often impregnated with the same disease as those who wore them. They are one with them.

I have often considered objects which were wasting away. Their disintegration is identical with our own. They have their decay, their ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses. A piece of furniture gnawed by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of a violin suddenly out of tune, such are the ills which move me.

When we become attached to things why do we believe that love is in us alone, and afterwards regard it as something external to us? Who can prove that things are incapable of affection, or who can demonstrate their unconsciousness? Was not that sculptor right who was buried holding in his hand a lump of the same clay that had obeyed his dream? Did it not have the devotion of a faithful servant; did it not have a quality which we should admire all the more, because it had the virtue of devoting itself in silence, without selfish interest, and with the passiveness of faith?

Is there not something sublime and radiant in the thing that acts toward man, even as man acts toward God? Does the poet know any more what impulse he obeys, than does the clay? From the moment when they have both proved their inspiration, I believe equally in their consciousness, and I love both with the same love.

The sadness which disengages from things that have fallen into disuse is infinite. In the attic of this house whose inhabitants I did not know, a little girl's dress and her doll lie desolate. And here is an iron-pointed staff which once bit into the earth of the green hills, and a sunbonnet now barely visible in the dim light from the garret-window. They have been abandoned since many years, and I am wholly certain that they would be happy again to enjoy, the one the freshness of the moss, and the other the summer sky.

Things tenderly cared for show their gratitude to us, and are ever ready to offer us their soul when once we have refreshed it. They are like those roses of the desert which expand infinitely when a little water brings back to their memory the azure of lost wells.

In my modest drawing-room there is a child's chair. My father played with it during his passage from Guadeloupe to France when he was seven years old. He remembered distinctly that he sat on it in the ship's saloon, and looked at pictures which the captain lent him. The island wood of which it was made must have been stout for it withstood the games of a little boy. The piece of furniture had drifted into my home, and slept there almost forgotten. Its soul too had been asleep for many long years, because the child who had cherished it was no more, and no other children had come to perch upon it like birds.

But recently the house was made merry by my little niece who was just seven. On my work-table she had found an old book with plates of flowers. When I entered the room I found her sitting on the little chair in the lamplight, looking at the charming pictures, just as once a long time ago her grandfather had done. And I was deeply touched. And I said to myself that this little girl alone had been able to make live again the soul of the chair, and that the gentle soul of the chair had bewitched the candor of the child. There was between her and this object a mysterious affinity. The one could not help but go to the other, and it could be awakened by her alone.

Things are gentle. They never do harm voluntarily. They are the sisters of the spirits. They protect us, and we let our thoughts rest upon them. Our thoughts need them for resting-places as perfumes need the flowers.

The prisoner, whom no human soul can any longer console, must feel tenderly toward his pallet and his earthen jug. When everything has been refused him by his fellows his obscure bed gives him sleep and his jug quenches his thirst. And even if it separates him from all the world without, the very barrenness of his walls stands between him and his executioners. The child who has been punished loves the pillow on which he cries; for when every one of an evening has hurt and scolded him, he finds consolation in the soul of the silent down. It is like a friend who remains silent in order to calm a friend.

But it is not only out of the silence of things that is born their sympathy for us. They have secret harmonies. Sometimes they weep in the forest which René fills with his tempestuous soul; and sometimes they sing on the lake where another poet dreams.

* * * * *

There are hours and seasons when certain of these accords are most to the fore, when one hears best the thousand voices of things. Two or three times in my life I have been present at the awakening of this mysterious world. At the end of August toward midnight, when the day has been hot, an indistinct murmur rises about the kneeling villages. It is neither the sound of rivers, nor of springs, nor of the wind, nor of animals cropping the grass, nor of cattle rubbing their chains against the cribs, nor of uneasy watchdogs, nor of birds, nor of the falling of the looms of the weavers. The chords are as sweet to the ear, as the glow of dawn is sweet to the eye. There is stirring a boundless and peaceful world in which the blades of grass lean toward one another till morning, and the dew rustles imperceptibly, and the seeds at each moment's beat raise the whole surface of the plain. It is the soul alone which can apprehend these other souls, this flower-dust joy of the corollas, these calls, and these silences that create the divine Unknown. It is as if one were suddenly transported to a strange country where one is enchanted by langorous words, even though one does not understand very clearly their meaning.

Nevertheless I penetrate more deeply into the meaning whispered by these things than into that hidden in an idiom with which I am unfamiliar. I feel that I understand and that it would not require a very great effort to translate the thought of these obscure souls, and to note in a concrete fashion some of their manifestations. Perhaps poetry sometimes actually does this. It has happened that mentally I have answered this indistinct murmur, just as I have succeeded by my silence in answering distinctly a sweetheart's questions.

But this language of things is not wholly auditory. It is made up of other symbols also, which are faintly traced on our souls. The impression is still too faint, but, perhaps, it will be stronger when we are better prepared to receive God.

It is objects which have been my consolation in the grievous events of my life. At such moments some thing will catch my eye particularly. I who know not how to make my soul bow before men have prostrated it before things. A radiance emanates from them which may be outside the memories that I attach to them, and it is like a thrill of love. I have felt them. I feel them now living around me. They are part of my obscure realm. I feel a responsibility toward them like that of an elder brother. At this instant while I am writing I feel the souls of these divine sisters leaning upon me with love and trust. This chair, this chest of drawers, this pen exist as I do. They touch me, and I feel prostrated before them. I have their faith … I have their faith, which is beyond all systems, beyond all explanations, beyond all intelligence. They give me a conviction such as no genius could give me. Every system is vain, every explanation erroneous, the moment I feel living in my heart the knowledge of these souls.

When I entered this cobbler's home I knew at once that I was welcome. Without a word I sat down before the hearth near the children and the dog and I opened my soul to the thousand shadowy voices of things.

In this communion the falling of a half charred twig, the grating of the poker with which the fire was stirred, the blow of the hammer, the flickering of the candle, the creak of the dog's collar, the round bulging spot of blackness which was the sleeping blackbird, the singing of the cover of the pot, all combined to form a sacred language easier for me to understand than the speech of most men. These noises and these colors are only the gestures and expressions of objects, just as the voice or the glance are among our means of expression and gesture.

I felt that a brotherhood united me to these humble things, and I knew it was childish to classify the kingdoms of nature when there is but one kingdom of God.

* * * * *

Can we say that things never exhibit to us manifestations of their sympathy? The tool grows rusty when it no longer serves the hand of the workman, even as the workman when he abandons the tool.

I knew an old smith. He was gay in the time of his strength, and the sky entered his dark smithy through the radiant noondays. The joyous anvil answered the hammer. And the hammer was the heart of the anvil beating with the heart of the craftsman. When night fell the smithy was lighted by its single light, the glance of the eyes of the burning coal which flamed under the leather bellows. A divine love united the soul of this man to the soul of these things. And when on the Lord's days the smith retired into pious contemplation, the forge which had been cleaned the night before prayed also in silence.

The smith was my friend. At his dim threshold I often questioned him, and the whole smithy always answered me. The sparks laughed in the coal, and syllables of metal fashioned a mysterious and profound language which moved me like the words of duty. And I experienced there almost the same feelings as in the home of the humble cobbler.

One day the smith fell ill. His breath grew short, and I noticed that now when he pulled the chain of the bellows, formerly so powerful, it also gasped and gradually caught the sickness of its master. The man's heart beat with sudden jumps, and I heard plainly that the hammer struck the iron irregularly as he brandished it above the anvil. And in the same degree as the light in the eyes of the man faded, the flame of the hearth grew dim. In the evenings it wavered more and more, and there were long intervals when the light vanished on the walls and ceiling.

One day while at work the man felt his extremities turn to ice. In the evening he died. I entered the smithy. It was cold as a body deprived of life. One small ember glowed alone under the chimney, humble and watching, like the praying women that I found later beside the death-bed.

Three months later I went into the abandoned workshop to help evaluate his small amount of property. Everything was damp and black as in a vault. The leather of the bellows was filled with holes where it had rotted. When we tried to pull the chain it came loose from the wood. And the simple people who were making the appraisal with me declared:

"This forge and these hammers are worn out. They ended their life with the master."

Then I was moved, because I understood the mysterious meaning of these words.