THE FIRST DEATH.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7874, 27 May 1891, Page 2

THE FIRST DEATH.

Translated from the French o/E. 0.

Waggentr.

La Farlede was a Uttle village of four or five hundred inhabitants between Amiens and Abbeville. Sad in autumn, gay in spring-time, clean, silent, stretched along a wide road, its houses low. with roofs black and pointed, surrounded by swampy meadows and crowned by a forest of oa&s, It was a counterpart of all the other villages of Picardy. Yes, it was a counterpart, even to the'coquettish chateau, its walls of red brick, its window-casings of white stone, that is always part and parcel of a Picardian landscape, and that stands a thousand metres, more or less, from the outskirts of those tiny provincial hamlets. La Farlede, at the moment this story opeus, was in a hubbub of excitement, for a cemetery, their own individual buryingground, had been achieved at last. The Municipal Council, which had so long hoarded the funds drawn from the taxpayers for the purpose, had finally seen fit to purchase an ancient Held, to wail it in, and to consecrate it to the well-merited repose ot the people of the country; " and on and after November 1, 18—," co the announcement read, "the cemetery now definitely enclosed would be ready for the receptiou of its guests." Naturally enough, everyone gossipped and jested with his neighbour on the subject of the " elect" who would point out the road to his compatriots, but the hubhub Increased to a positive riot when simultaneously with the conclusion of the ceremonies that made of the ancient field a " Gottsajcer," handbills appeared ou all the walls, including the Maire's, to the following effect:

"Whereas, being sound of mind and sound of body, 1 hereby declare that in order to soothe and sweeten the last moments of him or of her who will be the first to inaugurate the new cemetery, I have placed in the hands of the Maire of La Farlede the sum of teu thousand franca, to be delivered to tho family of the first inhabitant who departs for another aud perhaps a better .world, on and after this the first day of opening, Novem berl. 18—.

" In witaeas whereof, signed and sealed by myself, " Jean Bixomiweux. " ■ Iα othfr words, the proprietor, of the ch&teau already described, formerly a Bohemian of the artetters of the Boulevard Clincby, and enriched by the decease of an aunt who, at the final moment, had consented to accord him her forgiveness fox the profession he had chosen, and to leave him the inheritor of a goodly estate. In the days of his youth an incorrigible joker, he etill at times, as in the matter of this handbill, indulged in the same propensity. The statement of the placard WAS true, however, and in the twinkling of an eye the news was all over the village. •Groups of people congregated before the "bills to read for themselves, while others, more incredulous, ran to the Maire to ask for confirmation of the same. , " The fact is exactly as given," he responded, promptly ; " there is no mistake about it. The money is in my hand, and will so remain," &c, &c. The announcement thus officially vouched for, every one joyously returned to his. home to begin at once the calculation of his chances—to take stock, as it were, of thpae belonging to him, and to estimate their average longevity, it goes without saying that those of the inhabit tanta fortunate enough to have sick or very fcged relatives were filled with triumph, thaugb, of course, they triumphed secretly and in silence, whilst the others— > those whose families were sound and, healthy-r-were forced to comfort themselves with the forlorn hope of an accident, an unexpected seizure, or insidious draughts of air. , ~. m ,J ''Such and such a ones, taking-off, they recalled, "had been extremely sudden; So-and-so's trifling illness fatal; unlooked for deaths w«re always occur* ring," anid. those thousand tantalizing pistoles danced a sarabond in their dreams, when they fell asleep. As tor the Maire, poor man, life had become a burden to him because of the hourly deputations and avalanohe of queries to which he was forced to listen. . "Must they be of the village," they be-) sought him anxiously, "or was it sum\ cient to be a member of the parish? Did ohildrea count, or relatives by marriage, or those whom death might take by. violence?"—queries that plainly betrayed; the villagers' auguiah of mind and hugely! amused the don ator.

1$ is day, as you know, that' people glVe up the ghost in villages, 'and* , a whole week passed by after the opening of the ceremony without an event of toe kind occurring. Still the brains of the people continued to be over-excited, and' every one, from baker to b.utcaer, frqoa; curate to hasbandman, laid off work frpin time to time to measure with hie eye, or calculate mentally, the additional gouts of farming ground purchasable wita-the money—only fche cafes -were busier than! ever.

By the end of the week the story of the; handbills had become an, old one, bat by no means a less" absorbing one, though the villagers no longer lowered their eyes or voices when-discussing the matter, and openly footed opthe chances. The family of a certain La Poireaux, by commoa coaeent, had settled it that they were to be the fortunate inheritors, for had they not among them, thi» family La. Poireaux, an old wreck frdm Trafalgar, living by force of habit alone—a wheezy, yellow, dried-up old mammy, whom' twice a day they carried to the door to bask in the sunshine and srhose demisehadlong been expected.' "Bat sometimes these aged opes live! for ever," objected a malicious listener, j "and this ooe shows qp mare, si«rn§ of dying than he has done for six months past." "All the same," added another, "it is; the family Ea Porreaux whom the Maire has his eye upon." Nevertheless, despite the anguish of de-' sire that had seized upon all in the race for this money, La Earleda possessed no assassin. It was true that the ailing and:' very aged had become a centre of interest* to every one in the family, for they would' be able if-accommodating to leave behind them a snug little sum, yet no one dreamed of accelerating their departure. In the households of the less happily placed the interest was equally absorbing —a harsh cough, a laboured breathing bringing the ear upon the alert in .an instaqt. Coughs and diffiqultj btpathlnga were harbingers of inflammation of the lungs, and inflammation of the longs, as every one knew, took its victim quickly. If another had, had a red face or an indigestion they awaited apoplexy, and a chiid who had been an invalid frdms birth, and began to recover from the moment of the proclamation, was cat off with a shilling in the will of an indignant aint, whose heir it had previously been. ; The entire village at the expiration of this same week was pale and emaciated. Even those who had scoffed the loudest ac, this waiting for dead men's shoes no longer slept tranquilly ; drunkards drank twice as much as they had drunk before ; • the avaricious curbed in secret; while•' tne slckj on the contrary, the only ones who objected to this fashion of ringing the hell, seemed to vie with each other in' the , haste , of their recovery. ■ I "**» the morning ?f the 10th o< November.

however, a bell, or rather a knell, did rlnn out, instead of the morning Angelus, and the peoDlo, falline over each other in the ' darkness, and railing at fate, precipitated themselves towards the church to learn who bad won. Alas, arrived there, breathleas and panting, it .wm only to find that the beadle (as usual), fuQ aa a thrush, more dazed than ever from brooding noon the promises of the placard, and thinking of nothing but death, had rung without reason. Truly it was time this business should end, or they would all be as mad as the beadle.

Ah, well, there lived at this time In La Farlede a poor and unfortunate peasant, married, the father of two little helpless babies, and with whom nothing bad ever succeeded. Though scarcely past his fortieth year, he had run through every country of the world, to return at laet, vanquished, to his native village. He was a good fellow, gentle, affectionate, dreamy, and Inoffensive, but he was unable to gain a living for himself or family in a country where the struggle with the earth was bard and endless. His slender frame took badly to the labour of the fields, and he possessed no other resources. Misery and want encompassed the household, and each evening before the smoking cinders the wife cried in uadressing the children, and he, tortured and cowed by a sense of weakness and failure, writhed in secret.

The placard of the painter Bltumlneux had made upon him, as upon the rest of them, a deep impression. Nay, more than that, it had given him an idea. What if he ehould be the ona to leave ten thousand francs to his wretched family? It would lift them above want for ever; they would be able with the money to purchase at Abbeville, perhaps, a haberdashery— perhaps a more pretentious shop. Hla wife was intelligent, industrious—she would surely prosper at the business. He saw them already, these deprived ones, secure of the necessities Tie had been unable to give them, the boy later on I employed in a bank, the girl married to a ! commissaire. That evening he embraced them and held them upon his breast longer than usual, murmuring as he watched them laid upon their scanty straw. "I will do it—l mast do It; It ia my duty!" The idea that had come to him with the reading of the placard, and born of misery and shame, was suicide. For him It was the rehabilitation of all his disastrous enterprises, the atonement tor the sorrow that he brought upon his family. But, oh, the agony of parting from these beings so tenderly loved, whose welfare and happiness he could secure at last, but secure only by one means I He went out to walk for a while in the embrowned fields, the yellowed forest, but the rustling of the dead leaves that his foot pushed aside sounded to him like the rustlino; ot a shroud ; sobs burst from hla aneuishod breast as he regarded the wide heavens, the valley full of shadows, and the little village that held his all. For a long time he hesitated. Perhaps chance would deliver him —perhaps it would not be necessary to take bis life in order that they might live, that they might have fire upon the darkened hearthstone, and bread in the empty cupboard. Long ago he had assured himself by talking with a neighbour, who had questioned the Maire,' that suicides would count in this funereal play. Of course he must kill bimbelf—to wait longer was to permit the chance that as yet was his to be grasped by another. He took his gun, climbed the hillside that overlooked the village, and fixed his eye upon the dilapidated roof that did not even shtlter his wife and little ones.

The next morning, when they found his body—a wood-cutter passing through the forest had seen it, and spread the news— the crowd 9 cursed it, and threw stones at the corpse of the poor hero. The women sought to spit in- his face; while the Town Council itself waited upon M Bitumiueux to demand of him that the money nuould not be paid to the family of such a trickster.

The painter responded by adding ten thousand more to the first ten thousand, and charging himself for ever after with the care of the widow aud her ohildren.

"It was my fault," he told himself, deeply moved by the tragedy— ,, my fault and but for mc the', thing would never have happeiie'd." ' •- 3 v - The maire alone and the gendarmes, wbomitbad been necessary-, to call upon before the I>ody of the martyt could be raid in the ground, followed it to its last rest-ing-place, and that same day "the old "wreck from Trafalgar " and two beside him passed to their last account. 1 The memory of the suicide is still cursed throughout the whpie .of Picardy, and upon his tomb one reads'the inscription (cut there by a cunning but sacrilegious hand during the darkness of the night after the interment): t

The Ditch oztThbThisv.