George Sand - George Sand - The Collected Works (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 11)

It is the time for unusual and mysterious noises in the country. The migrating cranes fly southward at such a height that the eye can hardly distinguish them in broad daylight. At night, you can only hear them; and their hoarse, complaining voices, lost among the clouds, seem like the salutation and the farewell of souls in torment, striving to find the road to heaven and compelled by an irresistible fatality to hover about the abodes of men, not far from earth; for these migratory birds exhibit strange uncertainty and mysterious anxiety in their aerial wanderings. It sometimes happens that they lose the wind, when fitful breezes struggle for the mastery or succeed one another in the upper regions. Thereupon, when one of those reverses happens during the day, we see the leader of the line soar at random through the air, then turn sharply about, fly back, and take his place at the rear of the triangular phalanx, while a skilful manoeuvre on the part of his companions soon brings them into line behind him. Often, after vain efforts, the exhausted leader abandons the command of the caravan; another comes forward, takes his turn at the task, and gives place to a third, who finds the current and leads the host forward in triumph. But what shrieks, what reproaches, what remonstrances, what fierce maledictions or anxious questions are exchanged by those winged pilgrims in an unfamiliar tongue!

In the resonant darkness you hear the dismal uproar circling above the houses sometimes for a long while; and as you can see nothing, you feel, in spite of yourself, a sort of dread and a sympathetic uneasiness until the sobbing flock has passed out of hearing in space.

There are other sounds that are peculiar to that time of year, and are heard principally in the orchards. The fruit is not yet gathered, and a thousand unaccustomed snappings and crackings make the trees resemble animate beings. A branch creaks as it bends under a weight that has suddenly reached the last stage of development; or an apple detaches itself and falls at your feet with a dull thud on the damp ground. Then you hear a creature whom you cannot see, brushing against the branches and bushes as he runs away; it is the peasant's dog, the restless, inquisitive prowler, impudent and cowardly as well, who insinuates himself everywhere, never sleeps, is always hunting for nobody knows what, watches you from his hiding-place in the bushes and runs away at the noise made by a falling apple, thinking that you are throwing a stone at him.

On such nights as those—gray, cloudy nights—the hemp-beater narrates his strange adventures with will-o'-the-wisps and white hares, souls in torment and witches transformed into wolves, the witches' dance at the cross-roads and prophetic night-owls in the grave-yard. I remember passing the early hours of the night thus around the moving flails, whose pitiless blow, interrupting the beater's tale at the most exciting point, caused a cold shiver to run through our veins. Often, too, the goodman went on talking as he worked; and four or five words would be lost: awful words, of course, which we dared not ask him to repeat, and the omission of which imparted a more awe-inspiring mystery to the mysteries, sufficiently harrowing before, of his narrative. In vain did the servants warn us that it was very late to remain out-of-doors, and that the hour for slumber had long since struck for us; they themselves were dying with longing to hear more. And with what terror did we afterward walk through the hamlet on our homeward way! how deep the church porch seemed, and how dense and black the shadow of the old trees! As for the grave-yard, that we did not see; we closed our eyes as we passed it.

But the hemp-beater does not devote himself exclusively to frightening his hearers any more than the sacristan does; he likes to make them laugh, he is jocose and sentimental at need, when love and marriage are to be sung; he it is who collects and retains in his memory the most ancient ballads and transmits them to posterity. He it is, therefore, who, at wedding-festivals, is entrusted with the character which we are to see him enact at the presentation of the livrées to little Marie.

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When everybody was assembled in the house, the doors and windows were closed and fastened with the greatest care; they even barricaded the loop-hole in the attic; they placed boards, trestles, stumps, and tables across all the issues as if they were preparing to sustain a siege; and there was the solemn silence of suspense in that fortified interior until they heard in the distance singing and laughing, and the notes of the rustic instruments. It was the bridegroom's contingent, Germain at the head, accompanied by his stoutest comrades, by his relations, friends, and servants and the grave-digger,—a substantial, joyous procession.

But, as they approached the house, they slackened their pace, took counsel together, and became silent. The maidens, shut up in the house, had arranged little cracks at the windows, through which they watched them march up and form in battle-array. A fine, cold rain was falling, and added to the interest of the occasion, while a huge fire was crackling on the hearth inside. Marie would have liked to abridge the inevitable tedious length of this formal siege; she did not like to see her lover catching cold, but she had no voice in the council under the circumstances, and, indeed, she was expected to join, ostensibly, in the mischievous cruelty of her companions.

When the two camps were thus confronted, a discharge of fire-arms without created great excitement among all the dogs in the neighborhood. Those of the household rushed to the door barking vociferously, thinking that a real attack was in progress, and the small children, whom their mothers tried in vain to reassure, began to tremble and cry. The whole scene was so well played that a stranger might well have been deceived by it and have considered the advisability of preparing to defend himself against a band of brigands.

Thereupon, the grave-digger, the bridegroom's bard and orator, took his place in front of the door, and, in a lugubrious voice, began the following dialogue with the hemp-beater, who was stationed at the small round window above the same door:

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Alas! my good people, my dear parishioners, for the love of God open the door.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

Who are you, pray, and why do you presume to call us your dear parishioners? We do not know you.

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We are honest folk in sore distress. Be not afraid of us, my friends! receive us hospitably. The rain freezes as it falls, our poor feet are frozen, and we have come such a long distance that our shoes are split.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

If your shoes are split, you can look on the ground; you will surely find osier withes to make arcelets [little strips of iron in the shape of bows, with which shoes (wooden) were mended].

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Osier arcelets are not very strong. You are making sport of us, good people, and you would do better to open the door to us. We can see the gleam of a noble blaze within your house; doubtless the spit is in place, and your hearts and your stomachs are rejoicing together. Open, then, to poor pilgrims, who will die at your door if you do not have mercy on them.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

Aha! you are pilgrims? you did not tell us that. From what pilgrimage are you returning, by your leave?

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We will tell you that when you have opened the door, for we come from so far away that you would not believe it.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

Open the door to you? indeed! we should not dare trust you. Let us see: are you from Saint-Sylvain de Pouligny?

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We have been to Saint-Sylvain de Pouligny, but we have been farther than that.