The Devils Pool | Page 5

and especial gifts. To tell the
truth, this chant is only a recitative, broken off and taken up at pleasure.
Its irregular form and its intonations that violate all the rules of musical
art make it impossible to describe.
But it is none the less a noble song, and so appropriate is it to the nature
of the work it accompanies, to the gait of the oxen, to the peace of the
fields, and to the simplicity of the men who sing it, that no genius
unfamiliar with the tillage of the earth, and no man except an
accomplished laborer of our part of the country, could repeat it. At the
season of the year when there is no work or stir afoot except that of the
plowman, this strong, sweet refrain rises like the voice of the breeze, to

which the key it is sung in gives it some resemblance. Each phrase ends
with a long trill, the final note of which is held with incredible strength
of breath, and rises a quarter of a tone, sharping systematically. It is
barbaric, but possesses an unspeakable charm, and anybody, once
accustomed to hear it, cannot conceive of another song taking its place
at the same hour and in the same place, without striking a discord.
So it was that I had before my eyes a picture the reverse of that of
Holbein, although the scene was similar. Instead of a wretched old man,
a young and active one; instead of a team of weary and emaciated
horses, four yoke of robust and fiery oxen; instead of death, a beautiful
child; instead of despair and destruction, energy and the possibility of
happiness.
Then the old French verse, "À la sueur de ton vis-aige," etc., and
Virgil's "O fortunatos... agricolas," returned to my mind, and seeing this
lovely child and his father, under such poetic conditions, and with so
much grace and strength, accomplish a task full of such grand and
solemn suggestions, I was conscious of deep pity and involuntary
respect. Happy the peasant of the fields! Yes, and so too should I be in
his place, if my arm and voice could be endowed with sudden strength,
and I could help to make Nature fruitful, and sing of her gifts, without
ceasing to see with my eyes or understand with my brain harmonious
colors and sounds, delicate shades and graceful outlines; in short, the
mysterious beauty of all things. And above all, if my heart continued to
beat in concert with the divine sentiment that presided over the
immortal sublimity of creation.
But, alas! this man has never understood the mystery of beauty; this
child will never understand it. God forbid that I should not think them
superior to the animals which are subject to them, or that they have not
moments of rapturous insight that soothe their toil and lull their cares to
sleep. I see the seal of the Lord upon their noble brows, for they were
born to inherit the earth far more truly than those who have bought and
paid for it. The proof that they feel this is that they cannot be exiled
with impunity, that they love the soil they have watered with their tears,
and that the true peasant dies of homesickness under the arms of a

soldier far from his native field. But he lacks some of my enjoyments,
those pure delights which should be his by right, as a workman in that
immense temple which the sky only is vast enough to embrace. He
lacks the consciousness of his sentiment. Those who condemned him to
slavery from his mother's womb, being unable to rob him of his vague
dreams, took away from him the power of reflection.
Yet, imperfect being that he is, sentenced to eternal childhood, he is
nobler than the man in whom knowledge has stifled feeling. Do not set
yourselves above him, you who believe yourselves invested with a
lawful and inalienable right to rule over him, for your terrible mistake
shows that your brain has destroyed your heart, and that you are the
blindest and most incomplete of men! I love the simplicity of his soul
more than the false lights of yours; and if I had to narrate the story of
his life, the pleasure I should take in bringing out the tender and
touching side of it would be greater than your merit in painting the
degradation and contempt into which he is cast by your social code.
I knew the young man and the beautiful child; I knew their history, for
they had a history. Everybody has his own, and could make the
romance of his life interesting, if he could but understand it. Although
but a peasant and a laborer, Germain had always been aware