“Florimond,” said my daughter Martine gravely, “we were all like that at home, always jolly and ready for a good story. You ought not to complain of that sort of disposition, for it is much to your advantage, and it is lucky for you that the idea that I could deceive you at any moment is so amusing to me that I don’t care to do it. Now don’t put on that gloomy air; you know the proverb, ‘No need to cry out before you are hurt.’”
VII
THE PLAGUE
We have recently had reason to feel the full truth of the old saying: “Evil comes on a swift horse, but is slow of foot to leave us.” This time we had hardly any warning, for on Monday of last week we heard of the first case of the plague at St. Fargeau, and the evil seed sprang up so rapidly that by the end of the week there were ten more cases and yesterday it broke out here in our neighborhood at Coulanges-la-Vineuse. You can imagine what a clatter there was in our duck-pond, and how the boldest took to their heels! Most of the women and children were packed off to Montenoison to be out of danger; leaving an unwonted calm behind them, at least in my household; it’s an ill wind that blows no one good!
Florimond went in charge of the female detachment, on the pretext that he could not leave Martine, as she was near her confinement, but he was kept in countenance by many another gentleman, who, when his carriage was at the door, thought it was a good time to go and see how the crops were getting on at a distance. We who stayed behind put a good face on it, and had no end of fun out of the people who were frightened, and their precautions. The Provost stationed guards at the town gates, and on the road to Auxerre, with strict orders to turn back any tramps or beggars who might attempt to enter, and even the well-to-do, whose purses at least were perfectly healthy, had to be examined by our three physicians, Messrs. Etienne Loyseau, Martin Frotier, and Philibert des Veaux, all fortified against the plague by means of masks, spectacles, and long false noses filled with unguents. Everybody laughed so much at them that Frotier could bear it no longer, and tore off his nose, declaring that he for his part had no faith in such nonsense; all the same, poor old chap, he died of it, but so did Loyseau also, who kept his nose on, and shared a bed with him. The only survivor of the three was des Veaux, who was better advised than his colleagues, and abandoned his post instead of his precautions. But I have got ahead of my story and must go back and begin again at the beginning. We all whistled loudly to keep our courage up, declaring that our tanneries would keep off the pestilence, as it is well known that there is nothing so healthy as the smell of leather. The last visitation we had had of the plague was about the year 1580 (I remember it well, for I was nearly fourteen years old); she poked her nose then over our threshold, but came no farther, to the astonishment of all our neighbors, particularly those of Châtel-Censoir, who were so disgusted with their patron, St. Potentian, who had not taken good care of them, that they turned him out, and tried seven others in succession, until in despair they fell back on a female of the same name, St. Potentiana. We told this, and lots of other old stories, with shouts of laughter; and to show that we were above such silly superstitions, and had no faith in the Provost’s regulations either, we went boldly down to the Chastelot gate and talked across the moat with all the vagrants assembled there. Some of us even slipped out between the angels who stood guard before our paradise,—(they did not take themselves seriously either), and shared a bottle with some of these outcasts in a nearby tavern. Need I say that I was one of the number? for naturally I could not bear the thought that the others should go swaggering, drinking and talking, and I not of the party. I met a friend out there, a farmer from Mailly-le-Château, and we had a drink together. He was a jolly old bird with a round red face fairly shining with health and good cheer, and he was even more boastful about the plague than I was, pooh-poohing the whole thing and declaring that it was all an invention of the doctors and that people died of fear, and not of the pestilence; said he, “I’ll tell you the best remedy I know for it, and I won’t charge you anything either!”
“Be sure and warm your feet;
Be careful what you eat;
Be shy of woman’s charm,
And you are safe from harm.”
We sat there with our heads together for an hour or more; he had a trick of poking you in the ribs, or slapping you on the back or the leg, which I did not notice much at the time, but you may believe I thought of it afterwards, when the next morning one of my apprentices told me that old farmer Grattepain was dead! It made the cold shivers go down my back, and in my heart I gave myself up for lost, but I went back to the shop and fussed about a little, though I was hardly conscious of what I was about, and kept saying to myself, “You have done for yourself now, you old idiot.” Still, in our part of the world we don’t waste time over what we ought to have done the day before yesterday, we just take hold and do what we can at the present moment; so I resolved to keep the enemy at bay as long as I was able, telling myself that I still had a good fighting chance. The idea of consulting a doctor occurred to me (going to St. Cosmo’s shop, as we call it), but in spite of the trouble I was in, I had enough self-control not to do it, for, as I said to myself, doctors really know no more than we do, they will only take my fee, and send me to the pest-house, and there I shall catch the plague and no mistake; no, so long as I have my wits about me, I will ask help of no man; dying is, after all, a lonely business, and as the saying goes, “In spite of every drug and leech, we live until Death’s door we reach.”
All this time, in spite of my bravado, I began to have queer feelings in my stomach, in my head, and all over my body; I cannot get over it when I think of the delicious dish of mutton and beans, dressed with wine sauce, which I actually refused at dinner time. I could not swallow a mouthful; thought I, “This is final; if my appetite is gone, I must be done for.” I had to decide quickly on what was best to do; as I knew very well that if I died in my house the Councilors would burn it down on the pretext that it was infected. Just think of being mean and stupid enough to burn a new house for such a reason as that! But sooner than that should happen I would rather go out and die on my own dunghill. So, without losing a minute, I put on the worst old clothes I could find, made a bundle of a few books which I tied up with a chunk of bread and a candle, and told the apprentice to take a good holiday; then I locked the door of my house behind me, collected a few of my best books, and set off for a little place I had outside the town on the road to Beaumont, where I had built a little sort of shed or hut where I kept all sorts of rubbish, garden tools, a straw mattress, and a broken chair or two, “if they burn that,” thinks I, “there will be no great harm done!”