the end of the year
december 30th, p.m.
i was in bed, and hardly recovered from the delirious fever which had kept me for so long between life and death. my weakened brain was making efforts to recover its activity; my thoughts, like rays of light struggling through the clouds, were still confused and imperfect; at times i felt a return of the dizziness which made a chaos of all my ideas, and i floated, so to speak, between alternate fits of mental wandering and consciousness.
sometimes everything seemed plain to me, like the prospect which, from the top of some high mountain, opens before us in clear weather. we distinguish water, woods, villages, cattle, even the cottage perched on the edge of the ravine; then suddenly there comes a gust of wind laden with mist, and all is confused and indistinct.
thus, yielding to the oscillations of a half-recovered reason, i allowed my mind to follow its various impulses without troubling myself to separate the real from the imaginary; i glided softly from one to the other, and my dreams and waking thoughts succeeded closely upon one another.
now, while my mind is wandering in this unsettled state, see, underneath the clock which measures the hours with its loud ticking, a female figure appears before me!
at first sight i saw enough to satisfy me that she was not a daughter of eve. in her eye was the last flash of an expiring star, and her face had the pallor of an heroic death-struggle. she was dressed in a drapery of a thousand changing colors of the brightest and the most sombre hues, and held a withered garland in her hand.
after having contemplated her for some moments, i asked her name, and what brought her into my attic. her eyes, which were following the movements of the clock, turned toward me, and she replied:
“you see in me the year which is just drawing to its end; i come to receive your thanks and your farewell.”
i raised myself on my elbow in surprise, which soon gave place to bitter resentment.
“ah! you want thanks,” cried i; “but first let me know what for?
“when i welcomed your coming, i was still young and vigorous: you have taken from me each day some little of my strength, and you have ended by inflicting an illness upon me; already, thanks to you, my blood is less warm, my muscles less firm, and my feet less agile than before! you have planted the germs of infirmity in my bosom; there, where the summer flowers of life were growing, you have wickedly sown the nettles of old age!
“and, as if it were not enough to weaken my body, you have also diminished the powers of my soul; you have extinguished her enthusiasm; she is become more sluggish and more timid. formerly her eyes took in the whole of mankind in their generous survey; but you have made her nearsighted, and now she hardly sees beyond herself! that is what you have done for my spiritual being: then as to my outward existence, see to what grief, neglect, and misery you have reduced it! for the many days that the fever has kept me chained to this bed, who has taken care of this home in which i placed all my joy? shall i not find my closets empty, my bookcase, stripped, all my poor treasures lost through negligence or dishonesty? where are the plants i cultivated, the birds i fed? all are gone! my attic is despoiled, silent and solitary! as it is only for the last few moments that i have returned to a consciousness of what surrounds me, i am even ignorant who has nursed me during my long illness! doubtless some hireling, who will leave when all my means of recompense are exhausted! and what will my masters, for whom i am bound to work, have said to my absence? at this time of the year, when business is most pressing, can they have done without me, will they even have tried to do so? perhaps i am already superseded in the humble situation by which i earned my daily bread! and it is thou-thou alone, wicked daughter of time — who hast brought all these misfortunes upon me: strength, health, comfort, work — thou hast taken all from me. i have only received outrage and loss from thee, and yet thou darest to claim my gratitude!”
“ah! die then, since thy day is come; but die despised and cursed; and may i write on thy tomb the epitaph the arabian poet inscribed upon that of a king:
“‘rejoice, thou passer-by: he whom we have buried here cannot live again.’”
i was wakened by a hand taking mine; and opening my eyes, i recognized the doctor.
after having felt my pulse, he nodded his head, sat down at the foot of the bed, and looked at me, rubbing his nose with his snuffbox. i have since learned that this was a sign of satisfaction with the doctor.
“well! so we wanted old snub-nose to carry us off?” said m. lambert, in his half-joking, half-scolding way. “what the deuce of a hurry we were in! it was necessary to hold you back with both arms at least!”
“then you had given me up, doctor?” asked i, rather alarmed.
“not at all,” replied the old physician. “we can’t give up what we have not got; and i make it a rule never to have any hope. we are but instruments in the hands of providence, and each of us should say, with ambroise pare: ‘i tend him, god cures him!"’
“may he be blessed then, as well as you,” cried i; “and may my health come back with the new year!”
m. lambert shrugged his shoulders.
“begin by asking yourself for it,” resumed he, bluntly. “god has given it you, and it is your own sense, and not chance, that must keep it for you. one would think, to hear people talk, that sickness comes upon us like the rain or the sunshine, without one having a word to say in the matter. before we complain of being ill we should prove that we deserve to be well.”
i was about to smile, but the doctor looked angry.
“ah! you think that i am joking,” resumed he, raising his voice; “but tell me, then, which of us gives his health the same attention that he gives to his business? do you economize your strength as you economize your money? do you avoid excess and imprudence in the one case with the same care as extravagance or foolish speculations in the other? do you keep as regular accounts of your mode of living as you do of your income? do you consider every evening what has been wholesome or unwholesome for you, with the same care that you bring to the examination of your expenditure? you may smile; but have you not brought this illness on yourself by a thousand indiscretions?”
i began to protest against this, and asked him to point out these indiscretions. the old doctor spread out his fingers, and began to reckon upon them one by one.
“primo,” cried he, “want of exercise. you live here like a mouse in a cheese, without air, motion, or change. consequently, the blood circulates badly, the fluids thicken, the muscles, being inactive, do not claim their share of nutrition, the stomach flags, and the brain grows weary.
“secundo. irregular food. caprice is your cook; your stomach a slave who must accept what you give it, but who presently takes a sullen revenge, like all slaves.
“tertio. sitting up late. instead of using the night for sleep, you spend it in reading; your bedstead is a bookcase, your pillows a desk! at the time when the wearied brain asks for rest, you lead it through these nocturnal orgies, and you are surprised to find it the worse for them the next day.
“quarto. luxurious habits. shut up in your attic, you insensibly surround yourself with a thousand effeminate indulgences. you must have list for your door, a blind for your window, a carpet for your feet, an easy-chair stuffed with wool for your back, your fire lit at the first sign of cold, and a shade to your lamp; and thanks to all these precautions, the least draught makes you catch cold, common chairs give you no rest, and you must wear spectacles to support the light of day. you have thought you were acquiring comforts, and you have only contracted infirmities.
“quinto”
“ah! enough, enough, doctor!” cried i. “pray, do not carry your examination farther; do not attach a sense of remorse to each of my pleasures.”
the old doctor rubbed his nose with his snuffbox.
“you see,” said he, more gently, and rising at the same time, “you would escape from the truth. you shrink from inquiry — a proof that you are guilty. ‘habemus confitentem reum’! but at least, my friend, do not go on laying the blame on time, like an old woman.”
thereupon he again felt my pulse, and took his leave, declaring that his function was at an end, and that the rest depended upon myself.
when the doctor was gone, i set about reflecting upon what he had said.
although his words were too sweeping, they were not the less true in the main. how often we accuse chance of an illness, the origin of which we should seek in ourselves! perhaps it would have been wiser to let him finish the examination he had begun.
but is there not another of more importance — that which concerns the health of the soul? am i so sure of having neglected no means of preserving that during the year which is now ending? have i, as one of god’s soldiers upon earth, kept my courage and my arms efficient? shall i be ready for the great review of souls which must pass before him who is in the dark valley of jehoshaphat?
darest thou examine thyself, o my soul! and see how often thou hast erred?
first, thou hast erred through pride! for i have not duly valued the lowly. i have drunk too deeply of the intoxicating wines of genius, and have found no relish in pure water. i have disdained those words which had no other beauty than their sincerity; i have ceased to love men solely because they are men — i have loved them for their endowments; i have contracted the world within the narrow compass of a pantheon, and my sympathy has been awakened by admiration only. the vulgar crowd, which i ought to have followed with a friendly eye because it is composed of my brothers in hope or grief, i have let pass by with as much indifference as if it were a flock of sheep. i am indignant with him who rolls in riches and despises the man poor in worldly wealth; and yet, vain of my trifling knowledge, i despise him who is poor in mind — i scorn the poverty of intellect as others do that of dress; i take credit for a gift which i did not bestow on myself, and turn the favor of fortune into a weapon with which to attack others.
ah! if, in the worst days of revolutions, ignorance has revolted and raised a cry of hatred against genius, the fault is not alone in the envious malice of ignorance, but comes in part, too, from the contemptuous pride of knowledge.
alas! i have too completely forgotten the fable of the two sons of the magician of bagdad.
one of them, struck by an irrevocable decree of destiny, was born blind, while the other enjoyed all the delights of sight. the latter, proud of his own advantages, laughed at his brother’s blindness, and disdained him as a companion. one morning the blind boy wished to go out with him.
“to what purpose,” said he, “since the gods have put nothing in common between us? for me creation is a stage, where a thousand charming scenes and wonderful actors appear in succession; for you it is only an obscure abyss, at the bottom of which you hear the confused murmur of an invisible world. continue then alone in your darkness, and leave the pleasures of light to those upon whom the day-star shines.”
with these words he went away, and his brother, left alone, began to cry bitterly. his father, who heard him, immediately ran to him, and tried to console him by promising to give him whatever he desired.
“can you give me sight?” asked the child.
“fate does not permit it,” said the magician.
“then,” cried the blind boy, eagerly, “i ask you to put out the sun!”
who knows whether my pride has not provoked the same wish on the part of some one of my brothers who does not see?
but how much oftener have i erred through levity and want of thought! how many resolutions have i taken at random! how many judgments have i pronounced for the sake of a witticism! how many mischiefs have i not done without any sense of my responsibility! the greater part of men harm one another for the sake of doing something. we laugh at the honor of one, and compromise the reputation of another, like an idle man who saunters along a hedgerow, breaking the young branches and destroying the most beautiful flowers.
and, nevertheless, it is by this very thoughtlessness that the fame of some men is created. it rises gradually, like one of those mysterious mounds in barbarous countries, to which a stone is added by every passerby; each one brings something at random, and adds it as he passes, without being able himself to see whether he is raising a pedestal or a gibbet. who will dare look behind him, to see his rash judgments held up there to view?
some time ago i was walking along the edge of the green mound on which the montmartre telegraph stands. below me, along one of the zigzag paths which wind up the hill, a man and a girl were coming up, and arrested my attention. the man wore a shaggy coat, which gave him some resemblance to a wild beast; and he held a thick stick in his hand, with which he described various strange figures in the air. he spoke very loud, and in a voice which seemed to me convulsed with passion. he raised his eyes every now and then with an expression of savage harshness, and it appeared to me that he was reproaching and threatening the girl, and that she was listening to him with a submissiveness which touched my heart. two or three times she ventured a few words, doubtless in the attempt to justify herself; but the man in the greatcoat began again immediately with his loud and angry voice, his savage looks, and his threatening evolutions in the air. i followed him with my eyes, vainly endeavoring to catch a word as he passed, until he disappeared behind the hill.
i had evidently just seen one of those domestic tyrants whose sullen tempers are excited by the patience of their victims, and who, though they have the power to become the beneficent gods of a family, choose rather to be their tormentors.
i cursed the unknown savage in my heart, and i felt indignant that these crimes against the sacred peace of home could not be punished as they deserve, when i heard his voice approaching nearer. he had turned the path, and soon appeared before me at the top of the slope.
the first glance, and his first words, explained everything to me: in place of what i had taken for the furious tones and terrible looks of an angry man, and the attitude of a frightened victim, i had before me only an honest citizen, who squinted and stuttered, but who was explaining the management of silkworms to his attentive daughter.
i turned homeward, smiling at my mistake; but before i reached my faubourg i saw a crowd running, i heard calls for help, and every finger pointed in the same direction to a distant column of flame. a manufactory had taken fire, and everybody was rushing forward to assist in extinguishing it.
i hesitated. night was coming on; i felt tired; a favorite book was awaiting me; i thought there would be no want of help, and i went on my way.
just before i had erred from want of consideration; now it was from selfishness and cowardice.
but what! have i not on a thousand other occasions forgotten the duties which bind us to our fellowmen? is this the first time i have avoided paying society what i owe it? have i not always behaved to my companions with injustice, and like the lion? have i not claimed successively every share? if any one is so ill-advised as to ask me to return some little portion, i get provoked, i am angry, i try to escape from it by every means. how many times, when i have perceived a beggar sitting huddled up at the end of the street, have i not gone out of my way, for fear that compassion would impoverish me by forcing me to be charitable! how often have i doubted the misfortunes of others, that i might with justice harden my heart against them.
with what satisfaction have i sometimes verified the vices of the poor man, in order to show that his misery is the punishment he deserves!
oh! let us not go farther — let us not go farther! i interrupted the doctor’s examination, but how much sadder is this one! we pity the diseases of the body; we shudder at those of the soul.
i was happily disturbed in my reverie by my neighbor, the old soldier.
now i think of it, i seem always to have seen, during my fever, the figure of this good old man, sometimes leaning against my bed, and sometimes sitting at his table, surrounded by his sheets of pasteboard.
he has just come in with his glue-pot, his quire of green paper, and his great scissors. i called him by his name; he uttered a joyful exclamation, and came near me.
“well! so the bullet is found again!” cried he, taking my two hands into the maimed one which was left him; “it has not been without trouble, i can tell you; the campaign has been long enough to win two clasps in. i have seen no few fellows with the fever batter windmills during my hospital days: at leipsic, i had a neighbor who fancied a chimney was on fire in his stomach, and who was always calling for the fire-engines; but the third day it all went out of itself. but with you it has lasted twenty-eight days — as long as one of the little corporal’s campaigns.”
“i am not mistaken then; you were near me?”
“well! i had only to cross the passage. this left hand has not made you a bad nurse for want of the right; but, bah! you did not know what hand gave you drink, and it did not prevent that beggar of a fever from being drowned — for all the world like poniatowski in the elster.”
the old soldier began to laugh, and i, feeling too much affected to speak, pressed his hand against my breast. he saw my emotion, and hastened to put an end to it.
“by-the-bye, you know that from to-day you have a right to draw your rations again,” resumed he gayly; “four meals, like the german meinherrs — nothing more! the doctor is your house steward.”
“we must find the cook, too,” replied i, with a smile.
“she is found,” said the veteran.
“who is she?”
“genevieve.”
“the fruit-woman?”
“while i am talking she is cooking for you, neighbor; and do not fear her sparing either butter or trouble. as long as life and death were fighting for you, the honest woman passed her time in going up and down stairs to learn which way the battle went. and, stay, i am sure this is she.”
in fact we heard steps in the passage, and he went to open the door.
“oh, well!” continued he, “it is mother millot, our portress, another of your good friends, neighbor, and whose poultices i recommend to you. come in, mother millot — come in; we are quite bonny boys this morning, and ready to step a minuet if we had our dancing-shoes.”
the portress came in, quite delighted. she brought my linen, washed and mended by herself, with a little bottle of spanish wine, the gift of her sailor son, and kept for great occasions. i would have thanked her, but the good woman imposed silence upon me, under the pretext that the doctor had forbidden me to speak. i saw her arrange everything in my drawers, the neat appearance of which struck me; an attentive hand had evidently been there, and day by day put straight the unavoidable disorder consequent on sickness.
as she finished, genevieve arrived with my dinner; she was followed by mother denis, the milk-woman over the way, who had learned, at the same time, the danger i had been in, and that i was now beginning to be convalescent. the good savoyard brought me a new-laid egg, which she herself wished to see me eat.
it was necessary to relate minutely all my illness to her. at every detail she uttered loud exclamations; then, when the portress warned her to be less noisy, she excused herself in a whisper. they made a circle around me to see me eat my dinner; each mouthful i took was accompanied by their expressions of satisfaction and thankfulness. never had the king of france, when he dined in public, excited such admiration among the spectators.
as they were taking the dinner away, my colleague, the old cashier, entered in his turn.
i could not prevent my heart beating as i recognized him. how would the heads of the firm look upon my absence, and what did he come to tell me?
i waited with inexpressible anxiety for him to speak; but he sat down by me, took my hand, and began rejoicing over my recovery, without saying a word about our masters. i could not endure this uncertainty any longer.
“and the messieurs durmer,” asked i, hesitatingly, “how have they taken — the interruption to my work?”
“there has been no interruption,” replied the old clerk, quietly.
“what do you mean?”
“each one in the office took a share of your duty; all has gone on as usual, and the messieurs durmer have perceived no difference.”
this was too much. after so many instances of affection, this filled up the measure. i could not restrain my tears.
thus the few services i had been able to do for others had been acknowledged by them a hundredfold! i had sown a little seed, and every grain had fallen on good ground, and brought forth a whole sheaf. ah! this completes the lesson the doctor gave me. if it is true that the diseases, whether of the mind or body, are the fruit of our follies and our vices, sympathy and affection are also the rewards of our having done our duty. every one of us, with god’s help, and within the narrow limits of human capability, himself makes his own disposition, character, and permanent condition.
everybody is gone; the old soldier has brought me back my flowers and my birds, and they are my only companions. the setting sun reddens my half-closed curtains with its last rays. my brain is clear, and my heart lighter. a thin mist floats before my eyes, and i feel myself in that happy state which precedes a refreshing sleep.
yonder, opposite the bed, the pale goddess in her drapery of a thousand changing colors, and with her withered garland, again appears before me; but this time i hold out my hand to her with a grateful smile.
“adieu, beloved year! whom i but now unjustly accused. that which i have suffered must not be laid to thee; for thou wast but a tract through which god had marked out my road — a ground where i had reaped the harvest i had sown. i will love thee, thou wayside shelter, for those hours of happiness thou hast seen me enjoy; i will love thee even for the suffering thou hast seen me endure. neither happiness nor suffering came from thee; but thou hast been the scene for them. descend again then, in peace, into eternity, and be blest, thou who hast left me experience in the place of youth, sweet memories instead of past time, and gratitude as payment for good offices.”
