Yet Neither Had A Crust
That Night To Rub His Gums With.
Whatever Devil it is, however, that tempts men to repose - and for my
part I believe him to be rather an Aeon than a Devil:
That is, a
good-natured fellow working on his own account neither good nor
ill - whatever being it is, it certainly suits one's mood, for I never
yet knew a man determined to be lazy that had not ample opportunity
afforded him, though he were poorer than the cure of Maigre, who
formed a syndicate to sell at a scutcheon a gross such souls as were
too insignificant to sell singly. A man can always find a chance for
doing nothing as amply and with as ecstatic a satisfaction as the
world allows, and so to me (whether it was there before I cannot tell,
and if it came miraculously, so much the more amusing) appeared this
thicket. It was to the left of the road; a stream ran through it in a
little ravine; the undergrowth was thick beneath its birches, and just
beyond, on the plain that bordered it, were reapers reaping in a
field. I went into it contentedly and slept till evening my third
sleep; then, refreshed by the cool wind that went before the twilight,
I rose and took the road again, but I knew I could not go far.
I was now past my fortieth mile, and though the heat had gone, yet my
dead slumber had raised a thousand evils. I had stiffened to lameness,
and had fallen into the mood when a man desires companionship and the
talk of travellers rather than the open plain. But (unless I went
backward, which was out of the question) there was nowhere to rest in
for a long time to come. The next considerable village was Thayon,
which is called 'Thayon of the Vosges', because one is nearing the big
hills, and thither therefore I crawled mile after mile.
But my heart sank. First my foot limped, and then my left knee
oppressed me with a sudden pain. I attempted to relieve it by leaning
on my right leg, and so discovered a singular new law in medicine
which I will propose to the scientists. For when those excellent men
have done investigating the twirligigs of the brain to find out where
the soul is, let them consider this much more practical matter, that
you cannot relieve the pain in one limb without driving it into some
other; and so I exchanged twinges in the left knee for a horrible
great pain in the right. I sat down on a bridge, and wondered; I saw
before me hundreds upon hundreds of miles, painful and exhausted, and
I asked heaven if this was necessary to a pilgrimage. (But, as you
shall hear, a pilgrimage is not wholly subject to material laws, for
when I came to Epinal next day I went into a shop which, whatever it
was to the profane, appeared to me as a chemist's shop, where I bought
a bottle of some stuff called 'balm', and rubbing myself with it was
instantly cured.)
Then I looked down from the bridge across the plain, and saw, a long
way off beyond the railway, the very ugly factory village of Thayon,
and reached it at last, not without noticing that the people were
standing branches of trees before their doors, and the little children
noisily helping to tread the stems firmly into the earth. They told me
it was for the coming of Corpus Christi, and so proved to me that
religion, which is as old as these valleys, would last out their
inhabiting men. Even here, in a place made by a great laundry, a
modern industrial row of tenements, all the world was putting out
green branches to welcome the Procession and the Sacrament and the
Priest. Comforted by this evident refutation of the sad nonsense I had
read in Cities from the pen of intellectuals - nonsense I had known to
be nonsense, but that had none the less tarnished my mind - I happily
entered the inn, ate and drank, praised God, and lay down to sleep in
a great bed. I mingled with my prayers a firm intention of doing the
ordinary things, and not attempting impossibilities, such as marching
by night, nor following out any other vanities of this world. Then,
having cast away all theories of how a pilgrimage should be conducted,
and broken five or six vows, I slept steadily till the middle of the
morning. I had covered fifty miles in twenty-five hours, and if you
imagine this to be but two miles an hour, you must have a very
mathematical mind, and know little of the realities of living. I woke
and threw my shutters open to the bright morning and the masterful
sun, took my coffee, and set out once more towards Epinal, the
stronghold a few miles away - delighted to see that my shadow was so
short and the road so hot to the feet and eyes. For I said, 'This at
least proves that I am doing like all the world, and walking during
the day.' It was but a couple of hours to the great garrison. In a
little time I passed a battery. Then a captain went by on a horse,
with his orderly behind him. Where the deep lock stands by the
roadside - the only suggestion of coolness - I first heard the bugles;
then I came into the long street and determined to explore Epinal, and
to cast aside all haste and folly.
There are many wonderful things in Epinal. As, for instance, that it
was evidently once, like Paris and Melun and a dozen other strongholds
of the Gauls, an island city. For the rivers of France are full of
long, habitable islands, and these were once the rallying-places of
clans. Then there are the forts which are placed on high hills round
the town and make it even stronger than Toul; for Epinal stands just
where the hills begin to be very high.
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