“It is all very well!” he cried, “but you would laugh on the other side of your mouths if you were in my shoes; I suppose I must go and get my storeroom ready for these guests! Locusts! How revolting! And mice! It is enough to drive one crazy!”
I tried to persuade him that he could easily get the better of his parishioners and advised him to try some strong counter exorcism, but nothing could console him.
“I am lost!” he cried, wringing his hands. “Picq is terribly clever and sharp; the Lord alone knows what will come of it. I shall have to give in. To think how happy and comfortable I was just a minute ago! Ah! my dear friends, it is all up with me. Run, Louisa; run, and tell them to stop; say I am coming as fast as I can. Beasts that they are! Just let them wait till the next time they are dying and send for me! Well, the will of the Lord be done; it is not the first time I have had to knuckle down.”
“Where are you going, old man?” we said.
“I am off on a crusade against locusts, of course!” he cried.
IV
THE IDLER
A Day in Spring.
Fair April, daughter of spring, the pink and white apricot blossoms are like your slender breasts, and your sweet eyes shed soft sunshine over my garden. Ah! what a lovely day lies before me! And how good to stretch my old arms and shake off the stiffness of the night. I have been working hard for the last two weeks to make up for lost time, and we three, my two apprentices and I, have made the shavings fly under our planes, but unfortunately we rather lack customers; there are few to buy, and fewer still to pay for what they order; now purses are lean and empty, but red blood still runs in our arms, good soil is in our fields, and we reign over both.
Since early morning the voice of the working city has risen up to Heaven, “Our Father, give us our daily bread,” but meanwhile, like sensible folks, we are kneading it ourselves.... You can hear the clatter of the millwheel, the wheeze of the forge bellows, and the hammers beating on the anvil; horses stamp and splash through the ford, carts bump along the road, whips crack, wooden shoes go pitter-patter; the butcher swings his chopper, the cobbler sings as he hammers in his nails,—and above is the blue spring sky, the white clouds flying before the light fresh breeze, and the genial sun warming everything. My youth revives, coming from far on swift wings to build her swallow’s nest in my old heart once more, where she is more than ever welcome after her long absence, dearer even than in those first sweet days.
Just at this moment I hear the harsh grind of the weather-cock on the roof, or is it my old woman screaming something or other at me? I turn a deaf ear, but deuce take the sound, it has scared away my lovely youth.... She—I mean my wife—comes down in a rage as usual.