as he still dreamed of the things which he had most admired, his thought, his remembrance, his will, descended into his fingers, where—without his knowing how—they communicated to the clay that mysterious principle of life which the wisest man is unable to define. the humble works of jean the potter had marvellous graces. in such a curve, in such a tint, he put some memory of youth, or of an opening blossom, or the very color of the weather, and of joy or sorrow.
in his hours of repose he walked with his eyes fixed upon the ground, studying the variations in the color of the soil on the cliffs, on the plains, on the sides of the hills.
and the wish came to him to model a unique vase, a marvellous vase, in which should live through all eternity something of all the fragile beauties which his eyes had gazed upon; something even of all the brief joys which his heart had known, and even a little of his divine sorrows of hope, regret and love.
he was then in the full strength and vigor of manhood.
yet, that he might the better meditate upon his desire he forsook the well-paid work, which, it is true, had allowed him to lay aside a little hoard. no longer, as of old, his wheel turned from morning until night. he permitted other potters to manufacture raspberry pots by the thousand. the merchants forgot the way to jean’s field.
the young girls still came there for pleasure, because of the cold water, the roses, and the raspberries; but the ill-cultivated raspberries perished, the rose-vines ran wild, climbed to the tops of the high walls, and offered their dusty blossoms to the travellers on the road.
the water in the well alone remained the same, cold and plenteous, and that sufficed to draw about jean eternal youth and eternal gaiety.
only youth had grown mocking for jean. for him gaiety had now become scoffing.
“ah, master jean! does not your furnace burn any more? your wheel, master jean, does it scarcely ever turn? when shall we see your amazing pot which will be as beautiful as everything which is beautiful, blooming like the rose, beaded like the raspberry, and speaking—if we must believe what you say about it—like our lips?”
now jean is ageing; jean is old. he sits upon his stone seat beside the well, under the lace-like shade of the olive tree, in front of his empty field, all the soil of which is good clay but which no longer produces either raspberries or roses.
jean said formerly: “there are three things: roses, raspberries, lips.”
all the three have forsaken him.
the lips of the young girls, and even those of the children, have become scoffing.
“ah, father jean! do you live like the grasshoppers? nobody ever sees you eat, father jean! father jean lives on cold water. the man who grows old becomes a child again!
“what will you put into your beautiful vase, if you ever make it, silly old fellow? it will not hold even a drop of water from your well. go and paint the hen-coops and make water-jugs!”
jean silently shakes his head, and only replies to all these railleries by a kindly smile.
he is good to animals, and he shares his dry bread with the poor.
it is true that he eats scarcely anything, but he does not suffer in consequence. he is very thin, but his flesh is all the more sound and wholesome. under the arch of his eyebrows his old eyes, heedful of the world, continue to sparkle with the clearness of the spring which reflects the light.
