In and out of Three Normandy Inns

by Anna Bowman Dodd

Again the mellow laugh broke forth. He stopped again to puff and blow a little, from his toil up the steep steps. Then all at once, as the rough music of his clicking sabots and the playful taps of his cane ceased, the laugh on his mobile lips melted into seriousness. He lifted his cane, pointing to the cemetery just above us, and to the gravestones looking down over the hillsides between a network of roses.

"We are old, madame—we are old, but, alas! we never die! It is difficult to people, that cemetery. There are only sixty of us in the parish, and we die—we die hard. For example, here is my old servant"—and he covered a grave with a sweep of his cane—for we were leisurely sauntering through the little cemetery now. The grave to which he pointed was a garden; heliotrope, myosotis, hare-bells and mignonette had made of the mound a bed of perfume—"see how quietly she lies—and yet what a restless soul the flowers cover! She, too, died hard. It took her years to make up her mind; finally le bon Dieu had to decide it for her, when she was eighty-four. She complained to the last—she was poor, she was in my way, she was blind. 'Eh bien, tu n'as pas besoin de me faire les beaux yeux, toi'—I used to say to her. Ah, the good soul that she was!" and the dark eye glistened with moisture. A moment later the curé was blowing vigorously the note of his grief, in trumpet-tones, through the organ that only a Frenchman can render an effective adjunct to moments of emotion.

"You see, mes enfants, I am like that—I weep over my friends—when they are gone! But see," he added quickly, recovering himself—"see, over yonder there is my predecessor's grave. He lies well, hein?—comfortable, too—looking his old church in the face and the sun on his old bones all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will have company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a friend." The humorous smile was again curving his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were beginning to quiver. "When my friend and I lie there, we shall be a little crowded, perhaps. I said to him, when he proposed it, proposed to lie there with us, 'but we shall be crunching each other's bones!' 'No,' he replied, 'only falling into each other's arms!' So it was settled. He comes over from Havre, every now and then, to talk our tombstones over; we drink a glass of wine together, and take a pipe and talk about our future—in eternity! Ah, how gay we are! It is so good to be friends with God!"

The voice deepened into seriousness. He went on in a quieter key:

"But why am I always preaching and talking about death and eternity to two such ladies—two such children? Ah—I know, I am really old—I only deceive myself into pretending I'm young. You will do the same, both of you, some day. But come and see my good works. You know everyone has his little corner of conceit—I have mine. I like to do good, and then to boast of it. You shall see—you shall see."

He was hurrying us along the narrow paths now, past the little company of grave-stones, graves that were bearing their barbaric burdens of mortuary wreaths, of beaded crosses, and the motley assemblage, common to all French graveyards, of hideous shrines encasing tin saints and madonnas in plaster.

Above the sunken graves and the tin effigies of the martyrs behind the church, arose a fair and glittering marble tomb. It was strangely out of keeping with the meagre and paltry surroundings of the peasant grave-stones. As we approached the tomb it grew in imposingness. It was a circular mortuary chapel, with carved pediment and iron-wrought gateway.

"It's fine, hein, and beautiful, hein? It is the Duke's!" The curé, it was easy to see, considered the chapel in the light of a personal possession. He stood before it, bare-headed, with a new earnestness on his mobile face. "It is the Duke's. Yes, the Duke's. I saved his soul, blessed be God! and he—he rebuilds my cellars for me: See"—and he pointed to the fine new base of stone, freshly cemented, on which the church rested—"see, I save his soul, and he preserves my buildings for me. It's a fair deal, isn't it? How does it come about, that he is converted? Ah, you see, although I am a man without science, without knowledge, devoid of pretensions and learning, the good God sometimes makes use of such humble instruments to work His will. It came about in the usual way. The Duke came here carrying his religion lightly, as one may say, not thinking of his soul. I—I dine with him. We talk, we argue; he does, that is—I only preach from my Bible. And behold! one day he is converted. He is devout. And from gratitude, he repairs my crumbling old stones. And now see how solid, how strong is my church cellar!"

Again the fountain of his irrepressible merriment bubbled forth. For all the gayety, however, the severe line deepened as one grew to know the face better; the line in profile running from the nose into the firm upper lip and into the still more resolute chin, matched the impress of authority marked on the noble brow. It was the face of one who might have infinite charity and indulgence for a sin, and yet would make no compromise with it.

We had resumed our walk. It led us at last into the interior of the little church. The gloom and silence within, after the dazzling brilliancy of the noon-day sun and the noisy insect hum, invested the narrow nave and dim altar with an added charm. The old priest knelt for the briefest instant in reverence to the altar. When he turned there was surprise as well as a gentle reproach in the changeable eyes.