The Martian: A Novel

M. Laferté always wore his blouse – except in the evening, and then he wore a brown woollen vareuse, or jersey; unless there were guests, when he wore his Sunday morning best. He nearly always spoke like a peasant, although he was really a decently educated man – or should have been.

His old mother, who was of good family and eighty years of age, lived in a quite humble cottage in a small street in La Tremblaye, with two little peasant girls to wait on her; and the La Tremblayes, with whom M. Laferté was not on speaking terms, were always coming into the village to see her and bring her fruit and flowers and game. She was a most accomplished old lady, and an excellent musician, and had known Monsieur de Lafayette.

We breakfasted with her when we alighted from the diligence at six in the morning; and she took such a fancy to Barty that her own grandson was almost forgotten. He sang to her, and she sang to him, and showed him autograph letters of Lafayette, and a lock of her hair when she was seventeen, and old‐fashioned miniatures of her father and mother, Monsieur and Madame de something I've quite forgotten.

M. Laferté kept a pack of bassets (a kind of bow‐legged beagle), and went shooting with them every day in the forest, wet or dry; sometimes we three boys with him. He lent us guns – an old single‐barrelled flint‐lock cavalry musket or carbine fell to my share; and I knew happiness such as I had never known yet.

Barty was evidently not meant for a sportsman. On a very warm August morning, as he and I squatted "à l'affût" at the end of a long straight ditch outside a thicket which the bassets were hunting, we saw a hare running full tilt at us along the ditch, and we both fired together. The hare shrieked, and turned a big somersault and fell on its back and kicked convulsively – its legs still galloping – and its face and neck were covered with blood; and, to my astonishment, Barty became quite hysterical with grief at what we had done. It's the only time I ever saw him cry.

"Caïn! Caïn! qu'as‐tu fait de ton frère?" he shrieked again and again, in a high voice, like a small child's – like the hare's.

I calmed him down and promised I wouldn't tell, and he recovered himself and bagged the game – but he never came out shooting with us again! So I inherited his gun, which was double‐barrelled.

Barty's accomplishments soon became the principal recreation of the Laferté ladies; and even M. Laferté himself would start for the forest an hour or two later or come back an hour sooner to make Barty go through his bag of tricks. He would have an arm‐chair brought out on the lawn after breakfast and light his short black pipe and settle the programme himself.

First, "le saut périlleux" – the somersault backwards – over and over again, at intervals of two or three minutes, so as to give himself time for thought and chuckles, while he smoked his pipe in silent stodgy jubilation.

Then, two or three songs – they would be stopped, if M. Laferté didn't like them, after the first verse, and another one started instead; and if it pleased him, it was encored two or three times.

Then, pen and ink and paper were brought, and a small table and a kitchen chair, and Barty had to draw caricatures, of which M. Laferté chose the subject.

"Maintenant, fais‐moi le profil de mon vieil ami M. Bonzig, que j' n' connais pas, que j' n'ai jamais vu, mais q' j'aime beaucoup." (Now do me the side face of my old friend M. Bonzig, whom I don't know, but am very fond of.)

And so on for twenty minutes.

Then Barty had to be blindfolded and twisted round and round, and point out the north – when he felt up to it.

Then a pause for reflection.

Then: "Dis‐moi qué'q' chose en anglais."

"How do you do very well hey diddle‐diddle Chichester church in Chichester church‐yard!" says Barty.

"Qué'q' çà veut dire?"

"Il s'agit d'une église et d'un cimetière!" says Barty – rather sadly, with a wink at me.

"C'est pas gai! Qué vilaine langue, hein? J' suis joliment content que j' sais pas I'anglais, moi!" (It's not lively! What a beastly language, eh? I'm precious glad I don't know English.)

Then: "Démontre‐moi un problème de géométrie."

Barty would then do a simple problem out of Legendre (the French Euclid), and M. Laferté would look on with deep interest and admiration, but evidently no comprehension whatever. Then he would take the pen himself, and draw a shapeless figure, with A's and B's and C's and D's stuck all over it in impossible places, and quite at hazard, and say:

"Démontre‐moi que A + B est plus grand que C + D." It was mere idiotic nonsense, and he didn't know better!

But Barty would manage to demonstrate it all the same, and M. Laferté would sigh deeply, and exclaim, "C'est joliment beau, la géométrie!"

Then: "Danse!"

And Barty danced "la Paladine," and did Scotch reels and Irish jigs and break‐downs of his own invention, amidst roars of laughter from all the family.

Finally the gentlemen of the party went down to the river for a swim – and old Laferté would sit on the bank and smoke his brûle‐gueule, and throw carefully selected stones for Barty to dive after – and feel he'd scored off Barty when the proper stone wasn't found, and roar in his triumph. After which he would go and pick the finest peach he could find, and peel it with his pocket‐knife very neatly, and when Barty was dressed, present it to him with a kindly look in both eyes at once.

"Mange‐moi ça – ça t' fera du bien!"

Then, suddenly: "Pourquoi q' tu n'aimes pas la chasse? t'as pas peur, j'espère!" (Why don't you like shooting? you're not afraid, I hope!)

"'Sais pas,'" said Josselin; "don't like killing things, I suppose.'"

So Barty became quite indispensable to the happiness and comfort of Père Polyphème, as he called him, as well as of his amiable family.

On the 1st of September there was a grand breakfast in honor of the partridges (not in the kitchen this time), and many guests were invited; and Barty had to sing and talk and play the fool all through breakfast; and got very tipsy, and had to be put to bed for the rest of the day. It was no fault of his, and Madame Lafertó declared that "ces messieurs" ought to be ashamed of themselves, and watched over Barty like a mother. He has often declared he was never quite the same after that debauch – and couldn't feel the north for a month.

The house was soon full of guests, and Barty and I slept in M. Laferté's bedroom – his wife in a room adjoining.

Every morning old Polyphemus would wake us up by roaring out:

"Hé! ma femme!"

"Voilà, voilà, mon ami!" from the next room.

"Viens vite panser mon cautère!"

And in came Madame L. in her dressing‐gown, and dressed a blister he wore on his big arm.

Then: "Café!"

And coffee came, and he drank it in bed.

Then: "Pipe!"

And his pipe was brought and filled, and he lit it.

Then: "Josselin!"

"Oui, M'sieur Laferté."

"Tire moi une gamme."

"Dorémifasollasido – Dosilasolfamirédo!" sang Josselin, up and down, in beautiful tune, with his fresh bird‐like soprano.

"Ah! q' ça fait du bien!" says M. L.; then a pause, and puffs of smoke and grunts and sighs of satisfaction.

"Josselin?"

"Oui, M'sieur Laferté!"

"'La brune Thérèse!'"

And Josselin would sing about the dark‐haired Thérèsa – three verses.

"Tu as changé la fin du second couplet – tu as dit 'des comtesses' au lieu de dire 'des duchesses' – recommence!" (You changed the end of the second verse – you said "countesses" instead of "duchesses" – begin again.)

And Barty would re‐sing it, as desired, and bring in the duchesses.

"Maintenant, 'Colin, disait Lisette!'"

And Barty would sing that charming little song, most charmingly:

"'Colin,' disait Lisette,'Je voudrais passer l'eau!Mais je suis trop pauvrettePour payer le bateau!''Entrez, entrez, ma belle!Entrez, entrez toujours!Et vogue la nacelleQui porte mes amours!"

And old L. would smoke and listen with an air of heavenly beatitude almost pathetic.

"Elle était bien gentille, Lisette – n'est‐ce pas, petiot? – recommence!" (She was very nice, Lisette; wasn't she, sonny? – being again!)

"Now both get up and wash and go to breakfast. Come here, Josselin – you see this little silver dagger" (producing it from under his pillow). "It's rather pointy, but not at all dangerous. My mother gave it me when I was just your age – to cut books with; it's for you. Allons, file! [cut along] no thanks! – but look here – are you coming with us à la chasse to‐day?"

"Non, M. Laferté!"

"Pourquoi? – t'as pas peur, j'espère!"

"Sais pas. J' n'aime pas les choses mortes – ça saigne – et ça n' sent pas bon – ça m'fait mal au cœur." (Don't know. I'm not fond of dead things. They bleed – and they don't smell nice – it makes me sick.)

And two or three times a day would Barty receive some costly token of this queer old giant's affection, till he got quite unhappy about it. He feared he was despoiling the House of Laferté of all its treasures in silver and gold; but he soothed his troubled conscience later on by giving them all away to favorite boys and masters at Brossard's – especially M. Bonzig, who had taken charge of his white mouse (and her family, now quite grown up – children and grandchildren and all) when Mlle. Marceline went for her fortnight's holiday. Indeed, he had made a beautiful cage for them out of wood and wire, with little pasteboard mangers (which they nibbled away).

Well, the men of the party and young Laferté and I would go off with the dogs and keepers into the forest – and Barty would pick filberts and fruit with Jeanne and Marie, and eat them with bread‐and‐butter and jam and cernaux (unripe walnuts mixed with salt and water and verjuice – quite the nicest thing in the world). Then he would find his way into the heart of the forest, which he loved – and where he had scraped up a warm friendship with some charcoal‐burners, whose huts were near an old yellow‐watered pond, very brackish and stagnant and deep, and full of leeches and water‐spiders. It was in the densest part of the forest, where the trees were so tall and leafy that the sun never fell on it, even at noon. The charcoal‐burners told him that in '93 a young de la Tremblaye was taken there at sunset to be hanged on a giant oak‐tree – but he talked so agreeably and was so pleasant all round that they relented, and sent for bread and wine and cider and made a night of it, and didn't hang him till dawn next day; after which they tied a stone to his ankles and dropped him into the pond, which was called "the pond of the respite" ever since; and his young wife, Claire Élisabeth, drowned herself there the week after, and their bones lie at the bottom to this very day.

And, ghastly to relate, the ringleader in this horrible tragedy was a beautiful young woman, a daughter of the people, it seems – one Séraphine Doucet, whom the young viscount had betrayed before marriage – le droit du seigneur! – and but for whom he would have been let off after that festive night. Ten or fifteen years later, smitten with incurable remorse, she hanged herself on the very branch of the very tree where they had strung up her noble lover; and still walks round the pond at night, wringing her hands and wailing. It's a sad story – let us hope it isn't true.

Barty Josselin evidently had this pond in his mind when he wrote in "Âmes en peine":

Sous la berge hantéeL'eau morne croupit —Sous la sombre futaieLe renard glapit,Et le cerf‐dix‐cors brame, et les daims viennent boire à l'Étang du Répit."Lâchez‐moi, Loupgaroux!"Que sinistre est la mareQuand tombe la nuit;La chouette s'effare —Le blaireau s'enfuit!L'on y sent que les morts se réveillent – qu'une ombre sans nom vous poursuit."Lâchez‐moi, Loup‐garoux!"

Forêt! forêt! what a magic there is in that little French dissyllable! Morne forêt! Is it the lost "s," and the heavy "^" that makes up for it, which lend such a mysterious and gloomy fascination?

Forest! that sounds rather tame – almost cheerful! If we want a forest dream we have to go so far back for it, and dream of Robin Hood and his merrie men! and even then Epping forces itself into our dream – and even Chingford, where there was never a were‐wolf within the memory of man. Give us at least the virgin forest, in some far Guyana or Brazil – or even the forest primeval —

"… where the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,Bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,Stand like druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,Stand like harpers hoar" —

that we may dream of scalp‐hunting Mingoes, and grizzly‐bears, and moose, and buffalo, and the beloved Bas‐de‐cuir with that magic rifle of his, that so seldom missed its mark and never got out of repair.

"Prom'nons nous dans les boisPendant que le loup n'y est pas…"

That's the first song I ever heard. Céline used to sing it, my nurse – who was very lovely, though she had a cast in her eye and wore a black cap, and cotton in her ears, and was pitted with the smallpox. It was in Burgundy, which was rich in forests, with plenty of wolves in them, and wild‐boars too – and that was only a hundred years ago, when that I was a little tiny boy. It's just an old nursery rhyme to lull children to sleep with, or set them dancing – pas aut' chose – but there's a deal of Old France in it!

There I go again – digressing as usual and quoting poetry and trying to be literary and all that! C'est plus fort que moi…

One beautiful evening after dinner we went, the whole lot of us, fishing for crayfish in the meadows beyond the home farm.

As we set about waiting for the crayfish to assemble round the bits of dead frog that served for bait and were tied to the wire scales (which were left in the water), a procession of cows came past us from the farm. One of them had a wound in her flank – a large tumor.

"It's the bull who did that," said Marie. "Il est très méchant!"

Presently the bull appeared, following the herd in sulky dignity. We all got up and crossed the stream on a narrow plank – all but Josselin, who remained sitting on a camp‐stool.

"Josselin! Josselin! venez donc! il est très mauvais, le taureau!"

Barty didn't move.

The bull came by; and suddenly, seeing him, walked straight to within a yard of him – and stared at him for five minutes at least, lashing its tail. Barty didn't stir. Our hearts were in our mouths!

Then the big brindled brute turned quietly round with a friendly snort and went after the cows – and Barty got up and made it a courtly farewell salute, saying, "Bon voyage – au plaisir!"

After which he joined the rest of us across the stream, and came in for a good scolding and much passionate admiration from the ladies, and huggings and tears of relief from Madame Laferté.

"I knew well he wouldn't be afraid!" said M. Laferté; "they are all like that, those English – le sang‐froid du diable! nom d'un Vellington! It is we who were afraid – we are not so brave as the little Josselin! plucky little Josselin! But why did you not come with us? Temerity is not valor, Josselin!"

"Because I wanted to show off [faire le fanfaron]!" said Barty, with extreme simplicity.

"Ah, diable! Anyhow, it was brave of you to sit still when he came and looked at you in the white of the eyes! it was just the right thing to do; ces Anglais! je n'en reviens pas! à quatorze ans! hein, ma femme?"

"Pardi!" said Barty, "I was in such a blue funk [j'avais une venette si bleue] that I couldn't have moved a finger to save my life!"

At this, old Polyphemus went into a Homeric peal of laughter.

"Ces Anglais! what originals – they tell you the real truth at any cost [ils vous disent la vraie vérité, coûte que coûte]!" and his affection for Barty seemed to increase, if possible, from that evening.

Now this was Barty all over – all through life. He always gave himself away with a liberality quite uncalled for – so he ought to have some allowances made for that reckless and impulsive indiscretion which caused him to be so popular in general society, but got him into so many awkward scrapes in after‐life, and made him such mean enemies, and gave his friends so much anxiety and distress.

(And here I think it right to apologize for so much translating of such a well‐known language as French; I feel quite like another Ollendorf – who must have been a German, by‐the‐way – but M. Laferté's grammar and accent would sometimes have puzzled Ollendorf himself!)

Towards the close of September, M. Laferté took it into his head to make a tour of provincial visits en famille. He had never done such a thing before, and I really believe it was all to show off Barty to his friends and relations.

It was the happiest time I ever had, and shines out by itself in that already so unforgettably delightful vacation.

We went in a large charabancs drawn by two stout horses, starting at six in the morning, and driving right through the Forest of la Tremblaye; and just ahead of us, to show us the way, M. Laferté driving himself in an old cabriolet, with Josselin (from whom he refused to be parted) by his side, singing or talking, according to order, or cracking jokes; we could hear the big laugh of Polyphemus!

We travelled very leisurely; I forget whether we ever changed horses or not – but we got over a good deal of ground. We put up at the country houses of friends and relations of the Lafertés; and visited old historical castles and mediæval ruins – Châteaudun and others – and fished in beautiful pellucid tributaries of the Loire – shot over "des chiens anglais" – danced half the night with charming people – wandered in lovely parks and woods, and beautiful old formal gardens with fishponds, terraces, statues, marble fountains; charmilles, pelouses, quinconces; and all the flowers and all the fruits of France! And the sun shone every day and all day long – and in one's dreams all night.

And the peasants in that happy country of the Loire spoke the most beautiful French, and had the most beautiful manners in the world. They're famous for it.

It all seems like a fairy tale.

If being made much of, and petted and patted and admired and wondered at, make up the sum of human bliss, Barty came in for as full a share of felicity during that festive week as should last an ordinary mortal for a twelvemonth. Figaro quà, Figaro là, from morning till night in three departments of France!

But he didn't seem to care very much about it all; he would have been far happier singing and tumbling and romancing away to his charbonniers by the pond in the Forest of la Tremblaye. He declared he was never quite himself unless he could feel the north for at least an hour or two every day, and all night long in his sleep – and that he should never feel the north again – that it was gone forever; that he had drunk it all away at that fatal breakfast – and it made him lonely to wake up in the middle of the night and not know which way he lay! "dépaysé," as he called it – "désorienté – perdu!"

And laughing, he would add, "Ayez pitié d'un pauvre orphelin!"

Then back to Le Gué des Aulnes. And one evening, after a good supper at Grandmaman Laferté's, the diligence de Paris came jingling and rumbling through the main street of La Tremblaye, flashing right and left its two big lamps, red and blue. And we three boys, after the most grateful and affectionate farewells, packed ourselves into the coupé, which had been retained for us, and rumbled back to Paris through the night.

There was quite a crowd to see us off. Not only Lafertés, but others – all sorts and conditions of men, women, and children – and among them three or four of Barty's charcoal‐burning friends; one of whom, an old man with magnificent black eyes and an immense beard, that would have been white if he hadn't been a charcoal‐burner, kissed Barty on both cheeks, and gave him a huge bag full of some kind of forest berry that is good to eat; also a young cuckoo (which Barty restored to liberty an hour later); also a dormouse and a large green lizard; also, in a little pasteboard box, a gigantic pale green caterpillar four inches long and thicker than your thumb, with a row of shiny blue stars in relief all along each side of its back – the most beautiful thing of the kind you ever saw.

"Pioche bien ta géométrie, mon bon petit Josselin! c'est la plus belle science au monde, crois‐moi!" said M. Laferté to Barty, and gave him the hug of a grizzly‐bear; and to me he gave a terrific hand‐squeeze, and a beautiful double‐barrelled gun by Lefaucheux, for which I felt too supremely grateful to find suitable thanks. I have it now, but I have long given up killing things with it.

I had grown immensely fond of this colossal old "bourru bienfaisant," as he was called in La Tremblaye, and believe that all his moroseness and brutality were put on, to hide one of the warmest, simplest, and tenderest hearts in the world.

Before dawn Barty woke up with such a start that he woke me:

"Enfin! ça y est! quelle chance!" he exclaimed.

"Quoi, quoi, quoi?" said I, quacking like a duck.

"Le nord – c'est revenu – it's just ahead of us – a little to the left!"

We were nearing Paris.

And thus ended the proudest and happiest time I ever had in my life. Indeed I almost had an adventure on my own account —une bonne fortune, as it was called at Brossard's by boys hardly older than myself. I did not brag of it, however, when I got back to school.

It was at "Les Laiteries," or "Les Poteries," or "Les Crucheries," or some such place, the charming abode of Monsieur et Madame Pélisson – only their name wasn't Pélisson, or anything like it. At dinner I sat next to a Miss – , who was very tall and wore blond side ringlets. I think she must have been the English governess.

We talked very much together, in English; and after dinner we walked in the garden together by starlight arm in arm, and she was so kind and genial to me in English that I felt quite chivalrous and romantic, and ready to do doughty deeds for her sake.

Then, at M. Pélisson's request, all the company assembled in a group for evening prayer, under a spreading chestnut‐tree on the lawn: the prayer sounded very much like the morning or evening prayer at Brossard's, except that the Almighty was addressed as "toi" instead of "vous"; it began:

"Notre Père qui es aux cieux – toi dont le regard scrutateur pénètre jusque dans les replis les plus profonds de nos cœurs" – and ended, "Ainsi soit‐il!"

The night was very dark, and I stood close to Miss – , who stood as it seemed with her hands somewhere behind her back. I was so grateful to her for having talked to me so nicely, and so fond of her for being English, that the impulse seized me to steal my hand into hers – and her hand met mine with a gentle squeeze which I returned; but soon the pressure of her hand increased, and by the time M. le Curé had got to "au nom du Père" the pressure of her hand had become an agony – a thing to make one shriek!

"Ainsi soit‐il!" said M. le Curé, and the little group broke up, and Miss – walked quietly indoors with her arm around Madame Pélisson's waist, and without even wishing me good‐night – and my hand was being squeezed worse than ever.

"Ah ha! Lequel de nous deux est volé, petit coquin?" hissed an angry male voice in my ear – (which of us two is sold, you little rascal?).

And I found my hand in that of Monsieur Pélisson, whose name was something else – and I couldn't make it out, nor why he was so angry. It has dawned upon me since that each of us took the other's hand by mistake for that of the English governess!

All this is beastly and cynical and French, and I apologize for it – but it's true.

October!

It was a black Monday for me when school began again after that ideal vacation. The skies they were ashen and sober, and the leaves they were crisped and sere. But anyhow I was still en quatrième, and Barty was in it too – and we sat next to each other in "L'étude des grands."

There was only one étude now; only half the boys came back, and the pavillon des petits was shut up, study, class‐rooms, dormitories, and all – except that two masters slept there still.

Eight or ten small boys were put in a small school-room in the same house as ours, and had a small dormitory to themselves, with M. Bonzig to superintend them.

I made up my mind that I would no longer be a cancre and a crétin, but work hard and do my little best, so that I might keep up with Barty and pass into the troisième with him, and then into Rhétorique (seconde), and then into Philosophie (première) – that we might do our humanities and take our degree together – our "Bachot," which is short for Baccalauréat‐ès‐lettres. Most especially did I love Monsieur Durosier's class of French Literature – for which Mérovée always rang the bell himself.