Анатоль Франс
Our Children: Scenes from the Country and the Town
ROGER’S STABLE
It’s a great care to keep up a stable. The horse is a delicate animal and requires a thousand attentions. If you don’t believe me ask Roger.
Just now he is grooming his beautiful chestnut, who would be the pearl of wooden horses, the flower of the Black Forest steeds, if he had not lost half his tail in battle. It’s a matter of some moment with Roger to know if wooden horses’ tails grow in again.
Again having made believe groom his horses, Roger gives them some imaginary oats, for it is an understood thing that the little wooden animals on which small boys ride through the land of dreams are always fed in this way.
Behold Roger starting out for his ride. He has mounted his horse. Even though the poor beast has no more ears, and all his mane looks like an old broken comb, Roger loves him. Why?
JUST NOW HE IS GROOMING HIS BEAUTIFUL CHESTNUT, WHO WOULD BE THE PEARL OF WOODEN HORSES, THE FLOWER OF THE BLACK FOREST STUD, IF HE HAD NOT LOST HALF HIS TAIL IN BATTLE.
Printed in France
It would be hard to say. This red horse was a present from a poor man, and maybe there is some secret grace in the gifts of the poor. Remember our Lord who blessed the widow’s mite.
Roger is gone. He is quite far away. The flowers on the carpet already seem to him like flowers in tropical, distant countries. A pleasant journey, little Roger! May your hobby horse conduct you safely through the world. May you never have a hobby more dangerous. Little or great we all ride. Who has not his hobby?
Men’s hobbies ride like mad through all the ways of life; one makes a bid for glory, another for pleasure; many of them jump from high places and break their rider’s necks. I hope when you are grown up, little Roger, you will bestride two hobby horses that will keep you always in the right path: one lively, the other quiet; both beautiful – courage and kindness.
COURAGE
Louisa and Frederick have gone to school along the village street. The sun is shining and the two children sing. They sing like the nightingale because their hearts are gay. They sing an old song that their grandmothers sang when they were little girls and which one day their children’s children will sing, for songs are frail immortals which fly from lip to lip throughout the ages. The lips that sing them lose their color and are silent one after the other, but the songs are always on the wing. There are songs that come down to us from a time when all the men were shepherds and all the women shepherdesses – which tell us of nothing but sheep and wolves.
Louisa and Frederick sing, their mouths round as flowers, and their song rises shrill and clear on the morning air. But suddenly the sound catches in Frederick’s wind pipe.
What power invisible has strangled the song in this schoolboy throat? It is fear. Each day inevitably, at the end of the village street, he meets the dog that belongs to the big butcher, and each day his heart shrivels and his legs grow weak at the sight. It is not the pig man’s dog ever attacks or menaces him. He just sits peaceably on the threshold of his master’s shop. But he is black, and his eyes are fixed and bloodshot, and sharp, white teeth show beneath his baboon jaws. He is terrifying. And then he sits there in the midst of all sorts of meat cut up for pies and hashes, and seems the more terrible on that account. Of course no one supposes he has been the cause of all this carnage, but he presides over it. He’s a fierce dog, the pig man’s. And so, as far away as Frederick can see him in the doorway, he picks up a big stone, following the example of men he has seen arm themselves in this way against surly dogs, and goes hugging the wall of the house across the street from the pig butcher’s closely.
THEY SING LIKE THE NIGHTINGALE BECAUSE THEIR HEARTS ARE GAY. THEY SING AN OLD SONG THAT THEIR GRANDMOTHERS SANG WHEN THEY WERE LITTLE GIRLS AND WHICH ONE DAY THEIR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN WILL SING, FOR SONGS ARE FRAIL IMMORTALS WHICH FLY FROM LIP TO LIP THROUGHOUT THE AGES.
Printed in France
This time he has followed this practice, but Louisa mocks at him.
She has taken none of these violent precautions, against which people always arm themselves more violently still. No, she doesn’t even speak to him, but keeps on singing, only changing her tone in such a mocking way that Frederick grows red to his ears. Then there is great travail in his little head. He understands that he must fear fear as much as danger. And he is afraid to be afraid.
And so, when school is out, and he sees the pig man’s dog again, he stalks by that astonished animal proudly.
History adds that he looked at Louisa out of the corner of his eye to see if she were looking. It must be admitted that with no ladies or young maidens in the world men might be less brave.